dual personalities

While my dear DP was having a meaningful experience in the Holy Land, I’ve been breathing dust and eating glutinous microwave dinners. The kitchen remodel has been going on for almost a month. Progress has been glacially slow, and there have been a few hiccups, but we’re getting there. We have a new window, a new range hood (new stove yet to arrive), painted walls, most of the floor, and the bare bones of the cupboards. What is taking so long, you ask? I wish I knew. It’s a tiny kitchen, after all.

While they were waiting for the paint to dry in the kitchen, they got working on the mudroom, which now looks like this:

The walls are actually cream and not yellow. It’s just the lighting at night that makes it look that way. Note the temporary 2 x 4 railing as well.

At least we can still use the back entry. My chief worry at this point — aside from the ever-rising cost — is whether the work will be done before son #3 arrives with his cat. Every room in my house is full of pots and pans, small appliances, and fragile antiques that I’m attempting to keep out of harm’s way — a situation that is hardly conducive to welcoming visitors, especially feline ones.

Alas, the house is in such disarray that I cannot put up any Christmas decorations. How does one get into the Christmas spirit under such conditions? Consider what Sigrid Undset wrote:

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans–and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused–and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”

Here’s another good passage — this one from Henry Van Dyke — to remind us about what Christmas really means:

“Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children; to remember the weaknesses and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and to ask yourself if you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open? Are you willing to do these things for a day? Then you are ready to keep Christmas!”

There. Now I feel better. I may not be able to decorate inside the house but I can still celebrate Christmas in my heart and in my actions. And who knows? Maybe the workers will have a burst of energy and be done with the kitchen by the end of next week. Stranger things have happened…

Finally, did you know that  Mark Knopfler and Gregory Alan Isakov  have new CDs, that you can follow Amor Towles on Instagram (he’s got some interesting photos), and that you can keep up with son #2’s reporting at the Idaho Mountain Express? Now that’s some Christmas cheer!

Yes, I am back from the Holy Land in one piece! The OM did not burn the house down and he was actually waiting for me inside the airport when I arrived.

I do want to thank wonderful daughters # 1 and 2 and DN (!) for writing fabulous blogposts while I was gone. They were great to read from the other side of the world.

I have much to tell, but today I wanted to acknowledge the passing of old 41, President George Herbert Walker Bush.

He was my kind of guy, a good and decent man who served others as a child of God. He was a devoted family man and churchman (Episcopalian.) There aren’t many like him around any more I’m afraid. I enjoyed watching his memorial service at the Washington Cathedral when I came home from the airport on Wednesday morning after a grueling trip home.

I love the story that his good friend James Baker told about the day he died. When Baker arrived in his room, President Bush said, “Hey, Bake, where’re we going today?” And Baker said, “We’re going to heaven.” and George said, “Good, that’s where I want to go.”

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

Into paradise may the angels lead thee; and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.

*Matthew 25:23

Greetings from Daughter #2, with one more guest post before we hand the blogging reins back to the dual personalities!

I had an exciting weekend that revolved around chancing upon, hauling, cleaning, reassembling, and arranging an old secretary that I rescued from a friend who moved to Washington state. I had agreed to drive my friend (and her husband, baby, cat, and luggage!) to the airport for the final step in their cross-country move, and when I arrived, I saw her secretary lying sadly at the curb. I was so surprised, because I knew it was a family “heirloom” and I had honestly been coveting it for years. So when she said they simply didn’t have a place for it, the wheels started turning. Could I rescue it?!

Apparently it is very normal to leave things outside in this neighborhood like so

Unfortunately, it was drizzly and DN was not in the mood for an impromptu furniture adventure following a long work day. Fortunately, I was borrowing my MIL’s Honda Pilot and, armed with a pep talk from my sister, decided to tackle the task on my own. After the airport trip, I returned to the curb and figured out how to disassemble the secretary so I could load it in to the car–with the help of a kind passerby!

Everyone needs a friend with a truck

It took two full days of rearranging (with ample & necessary help from DN!) to fit this large piece into our cozy apartment, but I am thoroughly happy with the results. It is honestly amazing what Swiffers and Pledge can accomplish. I have always wanted a secretary desk, and now I have one — and a piece of my friend’s old home, to boot!

The glass pieces in the doors need replacing, but that will be easy enough to accomplish at some point

The lesson is this: when a piece needs rescuing, go for it, even if it seems inconvenient or like things won’t quite fit. You’ll find a way! My friend had said that none of the consignment or antique stores in the area would take the secretary because it isn’t mid-century modern, the only style that sells these days. Oh dear. Sometimes the best deal is the one that’s out of fashion, I suppose!

Daughter #1 here for another post before my dear mother returns from her sojourn to the Holy Land. The pics on the Grace Church Facebook page and the few minutes a day she can text have truly tided me over. Continue to keep the pilgrims in your prayers as their journey comes to an end on Wednesday.

It’s Advent! My favorite of the Church Seasons. It is mysterious and full of dark imagery and anticipation. And reminders like this:

“Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” [Luke 21: 36]

I put my tree up this weekend. It’s a big one this year! Somehow, the Optimists and I managed to wedge into my little car. And I got on the stand all by myself. I am my own she-ro.

My brother and I went to see John Crist on Friday night. Mom was very jealous. We told John Crist that our mom wanted to be there but she was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was like “Oh really?!” I was too excited and smiled too big for the photo and have serious John Candy face.

I planned those shirts for the Dry T-Shirt Contest before I knew my brother had gotten the fancy VIP tickets for us. St. Louis did not have a high rate of participation and I felt a little silly. Oh well. The show was lots of fun and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

And for you heathens who don’t know John Crist, my favorite video can be viewed here.

Happy Monday!

*Jeremiah 33:14

Despite my mid-week movie choice failure, I kept looking for something good to watch. Persistence paid off and last night I discovered The Last Kingdom, the BBC production based on a Bernard Cornwell series about Alfred the Great and the Danes. It has been around for a while, but I had avoided watching it because I thought it looked like just another Vikings sword fest. You know what I mean — axes, tattoos and man-buns.

But it turns out that it has a good script and interesting characters; King Alfred is very smart

and Ian Hart (Johnny Shell-shock in The Englishman Who Went up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain) plays his priest, which is recommendation enough to watch.

The hero of the saga is both likeable and believable, even if his clothes are hairy and his hair in a semi-bun.

In any case, it has made me want to read up on Alfred, a thoughtful Christian king in a tight spot during a very brutal period of history, who somehow found the time to make astute observations:

“For in prosperity a man is often puffed up with pride, whereas tribulations chasten and humble him through suffering and sorrow. In the midst of prosperity the mind is elated, and in prosperity a man forgets himself; in hardship he is forced to reflect on himself, even though he be unwilling. In prosperity a man often destroys the good he has done; amidst difficulties he often repairs what he long since did in the way of wickedness.”

I make no claims as to The Last Kingdom’s accuracy, but it is certainly easy to watch. Why not give it a try this weekend?

Finally a shout out to my nieces and DN who have done a magnificent job pitching in while my sister, the chief poster and driving force behind this blog, is in the Holy Land. I can’t thank them enough. They were also very tactful not to mention it when I posted a short rant about a stupid movie instead of wishing their brother happy birthday or letting one of them do it. Since I rarely know the date, let alone the day of the week, I did not realize my mistake until late it was too late. Einstein said that time is an illusion, so let’s pretend that it’s still Wednesday. Happy Birthday, dear nephew! You’re the best!

Sunday, December 2nd is my other nephew’s birthday! We’re all wishing Foster well as he celebrates halfway around the world in Turkey, where he is teaching history at the Bogazici University. Enjoy your day, Foster!!

*Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom

At some point during our courtship, Daughter #2 and I dropped into one of Dupont Circle’s famous bookstores. We had just toured the Phillips Collection, and after strolling past Daughter #1’s former D.C. apartment—reminiscing about that great old apartment is mandatory for any trip to Dupont Circle—we decided to pop in at one of my favorites.

No, not Kramerbooks. Kramerbooks is a great independent bookstore. And they have a good café, where you can sit with your purchase in public. But are you reading? While I approve of book buying, of course, I am more a fan of book reading. At Kramerbooks, all the books are new, and they are perfect if you want to be seen reading. You get the feeling that the life of the books at Kramerbooks entails nothing more than a move from store shelf to home shelf. Indeed, there is an apocryphal story about former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee’s cynicism of D.C. book culture: he slipped his business card into the top dozen copies of a stack of the latest political tell-all—around page 200 or so—with his home phone number written on the back. He scrawled the following note: “Call me upon seeing this—$100.” No one did. An acquaintance of mine even recently held her wedding at Kramerbooks, and this fact couldn’t be more Kramerbooks if it tried.

Weddings #atKramers 👰🤵 Congratulations to the beautiful bookish Bride & Groom, Kelsey & Jerrod! #BookstoreWedding #DC pic.twitter.com/ITljmhnWb3

— Kramerbooks (@kramerbooks) October 19, 2018 

This looks like a lovely time, but notice those stacks of crisp hardbacks behind the groom. Will they ever be read? Daughter #2 and I are all in favor of book-themed weddings, as you know, but the books should be there to be read.

No, the bookstore that we stopped at was Second Story Books. Second Story Books is where Kramerbooks go after the grandchildren liberate them from the home shelf. It is an excellent used bookstore. Every morning Second Story Books trundles out a series of library reshelving carts that lure readers inside to their squirrely stacks.

On this occasion, I found a copy of an out-of-print paperback by one of my favorite authors, Henry Green. This Penguin edition features three of Green’s best novels: Loving, Living, and Party Going. (Yes, nearly all of Green’s titles are participles.) It’s a difficult copy to find affordably, so I snatched it up. I gave it to Daughter #2, who has not read a word of it to this day.

This lack is entirely my fault; I gave the gift incorrectly. I should have annotated that copy of Henry Green. One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was a copy of Moby-Dick with Daughter #2’s personal annotations.  You might argue that Moby-Dick recommends itself, but really, even the best reader wants occasional motivation. Slipped into the text at regular intervals, the personalized notes kept me reading into the wee hours. Only a handful of pages before uncovering another treasure!

I may annotate that Green this Christmas. Party Going (1939), my favorite novel of Green’s, would be an apt choice, since the coming December weeks are often themselves a season of party going. Yet Green’s novel is more specifically appropriate for its lack of a party: the novel takes place primarily in the hotel adjacent to a London railway station as a group of wealthy Bright Young People await a train to the continent for a summer holiday. They wait; tension grows; they wait some more. For Green, this is a metaphor for the political tension of the ineffectual 1930s. If we want to stretch it, perhaps the novel could also be a little metaphor for Advent. But then you would have to ignore Green’s contempt for his peer group as he directs his sinuous sentences against them:

Amabel’s flat had been decorated by the same people Max had his flat done by, her furniture was like his, his walls like hers, their chair coverings were alike and even their ash trays were the same. There were in London at this time more than one hundred rooms identical with these. Even what few books there were bore the same titles and these were dummies. But if one said here are two rooms alike in every way so their two owners must have similar tastes like twins, one stood no greater chance of being right than if one were to argue their two minds, their hearts even must beat as one when their books, even if they were only bindings, bore identical titles. … These people avoided any sort of trouble over what might bother them, such as doing up their rooms themselves, and by so doing they proclaimed their service to the kind of way they lived or rather to the kind of way they passed their time.

Ouch. Tell us what you really think, Henry. I guess the only thing worse than a book as status symbol is a binding symbolic of one’s vacuous inattention to even the trappings of culture. The thirties really were, in the words of W. H. Auden, a low dishonest decade.

All of this is to say: when you give a book, give also of yourself—consider annotating it, even if only a little. Your recipient is far more likely to read it.

DP #2 here for a Wednesday rant. Last night, having finished season 12 of NYPD Blue, I decided to search Netflix for something to watch. Although my sons had warned me that I would hate the film Hostiles, I decided to give it a try. I did not make it through the first scene, and now I’ll tell you why. I promise to be brief.

The film opens in a bucolic setting, the farmstead where Wesley Quaid, his wife (Rosamund Pike), and children live. We see Rosamund teaching her daughters about adverbs while her husband is outside cutting wood.  Indians appear on horseback and the husband grabs his gun, warning his wife and kids to flee to the hills. Okay, it’s not original — I sigh and think of The Searchers — but thirty seconds into the movie I’m still on board. Then I give up in disgust, because, in what is perhaps the most unrealistic attack-reaction I’ve ever seen in a movie, the husband walks slowly toward the mounted Indians ineffectually shooting his rifle as they ride him down. Tragedy ensues.

Who wrote that script, a thirteen year old? Did someone think that a brave but inexperienced settler would do something so suicidally stupid?  Or did they just think it would look good? Well, life is too short to waste time on such historical perversions. I just thought I’d warn you. And the moral of the story? When your children warn you that you won’t like something, believe them!

I promise to be cheerier next time I post. It’s just that the gutted kitchen is threatening to overwhelm my otherwise sunny disposition. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Have a great mid-week, and make good Netflix choices!

Daughter #2 reporting from College Park, today!

Like Daughter #1, I spent some time getting in the Christmas spirit this weekend. I have been waiting dutifully for a couple of weeks now to get out my Christmas decorations and deck the halls, but I do believe in waiting until after Thanksgiving. With turkey day falling so early this year, we get a full month of cheer before Christmas day! I can’t complain.

Over many years of shopping for ornaments and decor on the day after Christmas, I’ve about reached capacity in my “cozy” one-bedroom apartment. Every year I think, “maybe next year we will have space for a full-size tree,” but here we are. Our little guy is pretty hilarious, tucked in a corner and dripping with ornaments!

Perhaps more comical is our TV-cum-mantle, which currently houses what DN is calling a “rodent choir.” I’m sorry, they aren’t ALL rodents, and the rodents themselves are adorable.

Hanging up twinkle lights, tucking red berries here and there, filling shelves with wintery figures and angels and the like — it’s all so lovely. All of my decorations remind me of my mother and sister, great gifters and shoppers and care package senders who have helped me grow my collection over the years. What could be better?

Perhaps a Christmas cocktail!

*Danny Kaye in “White Christmas”

Hello, readers. Daughter #1 here.

Last night I watched Miracle on 34th Street. I think it is the perfect holiday transition movie because it starts with Thanksgiving and ends at Christmas. I love this movie for many reasons–but especially because it opens with the parade–my favorite part about living in on the Upper West Side in New York City.

The Upper West Side is not the coolest neighborhood in Manhattan. No, the Lower East Side or SoHo or Greenwich Village claim that. And the Upper East Side had Gossip Girl to bring it into the modern lexicon.

But for one day a year, the UWS is it. The day before Thanksgiving, on 79th and 81st Streets, they inflate the balloons ahead of the parade. In 2012, when my sister (Daughter #2) came to visit me for Thanksgiving, we left ABC at midnight (when I got off work) and got a front row preview of the next day’s festivities.

I lived two blocks from the start of the parade. The next morning, we ventured out to see if we could get a spot on the parade route–and we managed to squeeze in right at 79th and Central Park West, where the parade begins. We could hear the announcer calling for each entry to ‘Go’ when it was their turn to march. When we returned home, we drank mimosas and watched the back half of the parade on TV as it made its way to Herald Square at 34th Street.

One year, I learned that a co-worker grew up in an apartment on Central Park West and that his parents host a parade-viewing party every year. You can bet that I befriended him in the hopes of an invite.

But, in all honestly, I prefer the parade down on the ground. I didn’t like fighting young children for window seats at the party (I kid, but not really). In later years, I had a friend whose father was an FBI agent and was able to flash his badge and get us in without having to be there hours in advance. We’d roll up at 8:30 and then amuse those around with our witty banter (or at least imagine that we did).

I’ve always loved parades. Now that I live in Missouri, I enjoy watching the local St. Louis parade (the Giant Schnucks cart is a must see). But the Macy’s Parade (even with all of the bad Broadway musical numbers and amazing array of C-List stars on the floats) will always have a place in my heart.

*Miracle on 34th Street.