My Monday felt like the above…not that I actually got into a fight or anything. But it was a hectic one, complete with a funeral at 11:00 a.m. (the worst time possible) and a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis back at work in the afternoon. Throw in the usual A/V issues and that was my day.
Phew. But spring is here.
Life is good, as they say.
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
Did you have a nice weekend? The weather here in flyover country was blustery and cool, but the sun shone and it was good to be out and about.
On Saturday the OM and I drove to Washington, MO on the Missouri River to have a yummy lunch at the Blue Duck which is just down the street from this landmark:
We went to a few antique stores/mall on the way home. I found something for daughter #2’s birthday which is around the corner. All in all, a nice day-trip to another part of our scenic state.
On Sunday I had to go to church early for another confirmation mentor class with my 8th grade mentee.
Here are some of them down at the Cathedral for an overnight “Lock-in”–remember those?
Besides other stuff, it was the Sunday when they declared their intentions to be confirmed. Thankfully, mine filled out her little card. I would have felt like such a failure if she had decided not to conform and/or be confirmed! (The year-long course is called “confirm, not conform”–catchy, right?) Well, way to go, Brigid!
The boy and daughter #3 came over to dinner and he told us all about his new job, which he started last week. Daughter #1 is also starting a new job in a week, so we are all in a tizzy of anticipation over new beginnings.
In the middle of all this, the OM and I watched The Martian (2015) with Matt Damon, which was okay, but I have to admit I lost interest halfway through. It all seemed mighty far-fetched, not to mention overly long.
We also started watching a British TV show called The Detectorists, which I just love.
It stars Mackenzie Crook (who also wrote and directed it) and Toby Jones and a cast of wonderful English actors. IMDB describes it as a show about “the lives of two eccentric metal detectorists, who spend their days plodding along ploughed tracks and open fields, hoping to disturb the tedium by unearthing the fortune of a lifetime.” But this is erroneous. They are not looking for treasure. They are interested in making an important historical find. The difference is important. And they do not hate their lives. They have a hobby about which they are passionate. And as for plodding along ploughed tracks, the scenery is beautiful!
Anyway, I highly recommend you watch it (on Netflix). It is very funny and also sweet. And I think the message is that the real treasure in our lives are our family and friends.
And I like the theme song:
Sadly, there are only six episodes and season two is not on Netflix! Ugh.
Ronnie Corbett, the last surviving member of the brilliant British comic duo, the Two Ronnies (on TV 1971-1987), just passed away on March 31. If you are not acquainted with this pair, you should be.
Ronnie Corbett (left), Ronnie Barker (right)
Theirs is classic verbal humor — full of puns and misdirection. It is never vulgar or mean spirited. It’s quite old fashioned. I believe they invented the comic news skit which included stories like this:
The perfect crime was committed last night, when thieves broke into Scotland Yard and stole all the toilets. Police say they have absolutely nothing to go on.
And we’ve just heard that in the English Channel, a ship carrying red paint has collided with a ship carrying purple paint. It is believed that both crews have been marooned. And now, back to our regular programme.
In honor of Ronnie Corbett and the kind of humor he represented, I give you what is probably the Two Ronnies most famous skit. Watch it all and enjoy.
Here’s to old-fashioned humor!
Let’s get some chuckles this weekend — we deserve it.
*from the traditional end-of-show of the Two Ronnies: “And now, it’s goodnight from me” “And it’s goodnight from him.”
Move over Gerber baby, Avery Rose is here! And she’s adorable!
She arrived early in the morning on Monday. (Her mother and grandmother were not in church on Easter, so I knew something was up. Nothing gets by me.) Carla is not my first friend to become a grandma, but she is the first one who lives in town.
In honor of this occasion, my Friday movie pick is to watch a movie with a baby prominently featured. The pickings are amazingly slim.
There is this trio from the 1980s:
Three Men and a Baby (1987)
Look Who’s Talking (1989)
Baby Boom (1987)
All three are amusing and so 80’s that they are fun to watch.
Another movie with a very cute baby (although you have to wait ’til the very end of the movie to see it) is the classic musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
Of course the best movie with a baby as a main character/plot device is Three Godfathers (1948), so if you didn’t make it part of your Epiphany viewing, why not watch it tonight? I mean I ask you, what could be better than John Wayne and a baby?
Can you think of any other good baby movies?
Bonus: here is a clip with W.C. Fields, who was famously contemptuous of child performers, doing something that no one could get away with today:
I’m sure you’ve heard that Patty Duke has died. She was 69 and had lived one of those up-and-down Hollywood lives that have become stereotypical. She won an Academy Award as a teenager and three Emmys later in her career. And she starred in a sitcom.
Well, I was one of those kids who loved her TV show in the mid-1960s.
Don’t you love that font?
Her family on the show seemed very normal to me and like people I knew. Remember her annoying brother Ross (with the glasses)? She wore headbands.
Well, it just seems sad to bid her adieu, you know?
Earl Hamner, Jr. also died recently. He was the writer who created The Waltons back in 1971.
This was a show which I was too cool to watch as a teenager when it was first on, but which I enjoyed later in syndication, especially the first two seasons. It was a well done show.
This television show was based on a movie written by Hamner, Spencer’s Mountain (1963) which starred Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara as the parents of the same red-headed brood. I saw this movie as a child and was deeply effected by it, especially the part where a huge tree falls on the grandfather, breaking every bone in his body. That was a terrible scene for my small self. The movie, like the TV show, emphasized the importance of a good education and the lengths to which some people have gone to get one. This seems to be a plot that is no longer popular.
Anyway, I suppose this has reminded me once again that I am no longer a kid. Thankfully these guys are still around.
“Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” –Exodus 14:13
These words contain God’s command to the believer when he is reduced to great straits and brought into extraordinary difficulties. He cannot retreat; he cannot go forward; he is shut up on the right hand and on the left; what is he now to do? The Master’s word to him is, “Stand still.” It will be well for him if at such times he listens only to his Master’s word, for other and evil advisers come with their suggestions. Despair whispers, “Lie down and die; give it all up.” But God would have us put on a cheerful courage, and even in our worst times, rejoice in his love and faithfulness. Cowardice says, “Retreat; go back to the worldling’s way of action; you cannot play the Christian’s part, it is too difficult. Relinquish your principles.” But, however much Satan may urge this course upon you, you cannot follow it if you are a child of God. His divine fiat has bid thee go from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and neither death nor hell shall turn thee from thy course. What, if for a while thou art called to stand still, yet this is but to renew thy strength for some greater advance in due time. Precipitancy cries, “do something. Stir yourself; to stand still and wait, is sheer idleness.” We must be doing something at once–we must do it so we think–instead of looking to the Lord, who will not only do something but will do everything. Presumption boasts, “If the sea be before you, march into it and expect a miracle.” But Faith listens neither to Presumption, nor to Despair, nor to Cowardice, nor to Precipitancy, but it hears God say, “Stand still”, and immovable as a rock it stands. “Stand still;”–keep the posture of an upright man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice; and it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel, “Go forward.”
–Charles Haddon Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 – January 31, 1892) was a British Baptist minister, known as the “Prince of Preachers”
The painting is Pine forest in the Tyrol, Bertha Wegmann, Danish artist (1847 – 1926).
I just have to say that I get such a kick out of seeing these pictures of the Cardinals’ Skipper sent by my spy down in Jupiter.
The Cardinals have not exactly been burning it up in spring training, but I’m not worried. We’ll be awesome when the time comes.
The Cardinals regular season starts on April 4th with a game against the Pirates in Pittsburgh. The home opener in St. Louis is on April 11th with a game against the Brewers. Since there isn’t much else to be excited about, I think I’ll be excited about this.
Saturday was a beautiful spring day and so the OM and I ventured downtown to see the progress being made on the addition to the historic Field House.
Since we were in the same general vicinity, we stopped in at Ted Drewes. Duh.
We watched Ben Hur that evening and so were spiritually ready for Easter. The OM accompanied me to church (his biannual visit) and it was a lovely service complete with a brass quartet. I can remember the days when we were happy to have the first chair trumpet from Kirkwood High School on Easter Sunday, so this was a definite step up for us.
The boy and daughter #3 came over for Episcopal soufflé afterwards and I was happy to have our small family group together for a casual meal.
Indeed, the weekend was low-key and slow-paced, which was just fine with me.
I finished putting books on my new built-in bookshelves in the living room.
I have more books to move around, but this is work that makes me happy. So onward and upward!
It’s Monday: this is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
After a particularly draining work week left me with an inability to concentrate and a tendency to grumpiness, I spent yesterday puttering around the house and clearing out drawers. I threw away a lot of stuff, but I also rediscovered a few things, including this photo of my great-grandfather, Daniel H. Cameron, at work in Burlington, Vermont.
Here’s his business card — made back when they kept those things simple and modest (the actual card is quite small).
Lest you are unsure how I feel about great-grandfathers (and grandmothers too), I give you these insightful comments by John Beresford from his introduction to The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde, 1758-1781 (Oxford, 1924), a book my DH (who discovered the passage) happens to be reading.
I confess to an old-fashioned belief in the profound importance of great-grandfathers; but not in any snobbish sense. Whether a man’s great-grandfathers were Dukes or Dustmen is a matter of relatively minor interest; the interest consists in finding out what manner of men the great-grandfathers were, and to what extent their qualities have re-emerged in their descendants. I do not understand a certain modern school of thought which steadfastly ignores the past and, with child-like simplicity, believes it can instantly create something in art, literature, or politics which shall be completely new. It is an impossible theory, for the plain fact is that we cannot escape from the past, and progress consists but in a slow and gradual engrafting. Moreover, a disregard of great-grandfathers is peculiarly inopportune in an age when Science has demonstrated, even in Sweet Peas, the immense importance of pedigree.
Which of my ancestors’ qualities, I wonder, have re-emerged in my children, nieces and nephews? Food for thought.
Have a very Happy Easter and don’t leave your great-grandfathers out of your holiday contemplation.
“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child’s faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God. ”
―Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor
Easter is really early this year as you know, catching many of us semi-unawares. Where did Lent go? I have no excuses. But I “watched” for an hour last night in the darkened chapel as I do every year, keeping the vigil as the disciples did with our Lord in the garden. It is a meaningful exercise for me.
The OM went with me so I wouldn’t be alone. (He didn’t fall asleep, but he looked at his phone like a good disciple.)
Today is Good Friday.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, State College, PA
This has been a busy week at work and I have been distracted and inattentive to my spiritual routine. But the only path to the hope of Easter is through the struggle of Holy Week. We need to pay attention! Today I am hoping to leave work early and attend the Good Friday service at Noon. I frequently have good intentions of doing this, but then don’t. You know how that is.
Side note: daughter #2 was born on Easter Saturday and I remember sitting in the Good Friday service feeling weird and thinking something was going on. Sure enough, I went to the hospital that night and she was born the next morning.
Anyway, tonight we watch Ben Hur (1959) up to the intermission.
We’ll watch the rest, starting with the chariot race, on Saturday night. On Sunday we’ll have a quiet brunch with the boy and daughter # 3 after church. What do you have planned?
“And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him the only life?”
