Uncategorized | dual personalities

It’s a tradition in our family that on Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day as well), the children labor willingly and with joy in their hearts (!) at whatever task their parent chooses. This year Father decided to spend the afternoon doing yard work at our camp. Due to son #2’s work schedule, we had to do this yesterday instead of today, which turned out to be a good thing because it is pouring rain today.

The boys chopped and sawed

while their father mowed (and mowed and mowed)

and Till Eulenspiegel and I did a little gardening.

When we were all worn out we made our way home via our trusty local market where the boys fortified themselves with homemade beef jerky and we picked up meat for the barbeque.

Today we’re having the big meal (ham steaks and pineapple on the BBQ with au gratin potatoes and green beans) and tonight we’ll probably watch the new action movie that the boys have given their father (another tradition). What is your Father’s Day tradition?

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June 15, 2013

Perfect Pink Peonies

by chuckofish

Peonies are my new favorite cut flowers.

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “what about the ants?”

But I’ve discovered that if you cut when the bud is just starting to open, there are no ants!

So cheer up all (if you need cheering up) and remember what Keats wrote:

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies.

Find yourself some flowers to enjoy on this beautiful day! What are your favorites?

3 Comments

June 14, 2013

Happy Father’s Day

by chuckofish

“Then came the reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the wellbeing of his children! The fact of their being children implied their need of an all-powerful father: must there not then be such a father? Therewith the truth dawned upon him, that first of truths, which all his church-going and Bible-reading had hitherto failed to disclose, that, for life to be a good thing and worth living, a man must be the child of a perfect father, and know him. In his terrible perturbation about his children, he lifted up his heart—not to the Governor of the world; not to the God of Abraham or Moses; not in the least to the God of the Kirk; least of all to the God of the Shorter Catechism; but to the faithful creator and Father of David Barclay. The aching soul which none but a perfect father could have created capable of deploring its own fatherly imperfection, cried out to the father of fathers on behalf of his children, and as he cried, a peace came stealing over him such as he had never before felt.”

― George MacDonald, Heather and Snow

Happy Fathers Day to all you good fathers out there and grace to you, and peace, from God our Father.

6 Comments

June 13, 2013

The old rag and bone shop

by chuckofish

Photo of WBY by Lady Ottoline Morrell

In honor of William Butler Yeats’ birthday, here’s a poem for June 13.

“The Circus Animals’ Desertion” (1939)

I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

II
What can I do but enumerate old themes?
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride?

And then a counter truth filled out its play,
The Countess Cathleen was the name I gave it:
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy,
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love
And not those things that they were emblems of.

III
Those masterful images, because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse, of the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone
I must lie down where all ladders start
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

Enjoy the day! Clearly WBY knew how to party down.

4 Comments

June 12, 2013

Mid-week readjustment

by chuckofish

“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.

What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish–His purpose is the process itself.

–Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

*The above illustration is from GodBricks, “Blogging at the intersection between LEGO and religion”.

5 Comments

June 11, 2013

What’s in my bag?

by chuckofish

Over the past few weeks there have been a lot of blog posts out there attempting to answer that important question: What’s in your bag? This seems to be something that preoccupies a lot of women. Since a love of small leather goods runs in my family (my father was a big fan), I thought I would jump on the blog bandwagon and show you what’s in my purse!

This is my red Longchamp “Le Pliage” Medium Shoulder Tote. I also have the same tote in gunmetal gray and bright green. I am probably due for a new one right about now. Let me just say, it is the perfect purse. Plain, simple–and it holds just the right amount of stuff without getting too heavy. The shoulder straps are the right length and you can even sponge it off.

This is what fits inside.

My Orla Kiely zip wallet.

This cute Brooklyn zip pouch that daughter #1 gave me. It holds my checkbook and my small calendar and a couple of little blank books which daughter #2 gave me. You can never have too many of those you know.

My Vera Bradley eyeglass cases. Daughter #1 gave me the elephant one a long time ago. She also gave me the elephant shopping bag from J. Crew which folds up in a little envelope. I pull it out at the grocery store and say, “I have my own bag!” when they ask, “Plastic or paper?” You are impressed with my green-ness, I know.

A friend brought this cute zipper bag back from Mexico. It’s the perfect size for a cell phone.

My needlepoint keychain which daughter #1 picked up when she interned at the TODAY show back in the day. Katie Couric got all sorts of freebies and this was one of them. The “I am an Episcopalian” medal is in case I am ever in a car wreck and someone wants to give me Last Rites. I remember reading how Eddie Rickenbacker was in a terrible plane crash and they brought a priest over to give him Last Rites and he yelled at him, all crushed and his eyeball hanging out, “I’m a damn Protestant! Get out!” Well, we just want to avoid any such confusion.

You may have observed a theme here, i.e. my daughters are always giving me nice things to put in my purse. Aren’t they wonderful? And the truth is, whenever I use one of these items throughout the day, I think of the lovely daughter who gave it to me.

I have a friend who used her mother’s old wallet for twenty years after she died. It was getting pretty beaten up as you can imagine, but she just couldn’t bring herself to part with it. Finally, she appeared with a new one and I asked her about it. She said she had been looking through some old things of her mothers and she found another wallet(!) which she then commenced to use. I know just how she feels. That is one of the reasons we are such good friends.

In conclusion: “Good order is the foundation of all things.”
–Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France)

9 Comments

June 10, 2013

Weekend update

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Well, Saturday was the Ethical Society Book Sale and, as usual, I had a good time sorting through the books, choosing $20 worth of hardbacks and paperbacks ranging from beach reading to classics. What is better than loading up with $1 and $2 books? Not much.

I also went to a couple of estate sales and found a few things, including a $4 pair of new-with-tags Lilly Pulitzer swimming trunks for my old man to wear in Florida.

Oh, the joy of the hunt and finding things you really weren’t looking for but that you really need!

The boy came over on Sunday and we cleaned up the garage. I mean really cleaned it up. We threw away a lot of stuff–old sports equipment, broken folding chairs, a shelf of muddy athletic shoes, umbrellas without handles, half-filled bags of gardening stuff, general detritus. It was glorious.

By the way, I seem to have missed Walt Whitman’s birthday on May 31, and for this I apologize.

Here is James Earl Jones reading from “Song of Myself”. Scroll down a bit and then take a few minutes to listen to it. You’ll be glad you did. Wonderful.

Have a good week! I am hoping for Quiet and Uneventful.

4 Comments

June 8, 2013

Not the “Glory Days”

by chuckofish

That end-of-the-school-year excitement is finally beginning to wind down, but it’s got a slightly different feel this year because our youngest is about to graduate from High School. We been to our last piano recital — he played this pretty music for his old mom (or so I like to think).

And we’ve attended our last high school concert.

That’s Tim playing the guitar in the center of the pic

[This picture is actually all-county Jazz Band, but you get the idea. ]

Don’t think I’m getting all teary-eyed, though. While I have always enjoyed watching my own kids perform in concert, I will not miss being subjected to ‘vocal jazz’ and terrible, off-key renditions of Michael Jackson songs while I sit in a stuffy, noisy auditorium waiting patiently (ahem) for the only 15 minutes I care about. Okay, I guess I’m terrible; the truth is out. I venture to add that no one in my family will ever feel nostalgic about High School — more like “goodbye and good riddance”. My kids seem to have survived the experience largely unscathed and at least that Bruce Springsteen song, “Glory Days” will never apply them!

Still, they do grow up fast, don’t they?

A windy day on Whiteface at Lake Placid, 1996

Don’t you just love the expression on his face? And look at those wrists! This is one proud mama.

6 Comments

June 7, 2013

Fat baby Friday

by chuckofish

It occurred to me that it has been quite awhile since we featured a (fat) baby on Friday. So here is a photo circa 1926 featuring our mother (the baby) and her older sister Susanne, who was around three at the time. They must have been in Chicago visiting their grandfather or in Michigan at his little house there.

Our baby appears to be focused on keeping her thumb in her mouth. Her grandfather has a good grip on her.

You’ve seen him before as a young and handsome, but reportedly sickly, young man traveling to Colorado for his health.

William H. Carnahan

But here he is as an old man. He lived well into his 80s in the 1940s. Imagine the change he saw in his lifetime–1861–1947! The Civil War to post-WWII. It truly boggles the mind.

Well, as we frequently say on this blog–time like an ever-rolling stream…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’s Friday! So let’s turn on the mini Chinese lantern lights, pour some wine and start the weekend!