dual personalities

Category: Weekend

December 10, 2019

Go tell it on the mountain

by chuckofish

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Oh, weekends in December! There is always so much to do. I wrapped a boatload of presents and went to the “Holiday Sale” at my church. I bought some used books. (I had donated three cartons of books, so I came out on top of that equation.)

The OM and I bought our Christmas tree at the neighborhood Optimists’ lot. We found one right away and bundled it home where it is waiting in the garage to be set up and decorated at a later date.

We also went to see They Shall Not Grow Old (2018), a documentary film about WWI directed by Peter Jackson. My DP wrote about the documentary last year when she saw it. It was an impressive film, no doubt about it, but I have to say, after ten minutes I was thinking, “Why did I want to see this movie?” I stayed for the whole thing, but it was an extremely unpleasant experience. Trench warfare, bad. I get it. There are a lot of good things to say about this movie, but reading about it would have been enough for me. We came home and watched The Commancheros (1961) which made me feel much better.

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I went to the 8:00 service at church again and came home and finished A Serpent’s Tooth by Craig Johnson, a Longmire novel I had been re-reading. Speaking of books, I also read Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry last week. I admire McMurtry a lot, but this book, written in 1975, did not really grab me. I think it was supposed to be funny and I was not really amused. I read half and then skipped to the end. The movie you will recall, was a huge hit back in 1983. It won five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay. You can’t say that about many movies! I had never actually seen it, so we watched it on Amazon Prime this weekend.

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Shirley MacLaine was very good, but I was not that impressed with Debra Winger, who I was not surprised to read was high on cocaine the whole time. It is a “funny” movie that turns tragic and then everyone cries and feels better. Standard stuff. Movies like this were a dime a dozen in the 1930s and 40s.

By the time the wee babes came over for dinner on Sunday night the OM and I were kind of exhausted. They ran circles around us as usual. Lottie wanted to have a dance party and was disappointed that daughter #1 was not there to spin the records. C’est la vie, Lottie; this indeed is life.

Last night we went to the Lutheran Church where the wee babes go to pre-school to see their Christmas program, which consisted of the 2-5 year old munchkins singing a few Christmas carols. It was chaos, but adorable. There was no way to take any pictures, because all we could really see was other grandparents holding up cell phones to record the occasion. This would have bothered me back in the day with my own children, but now I just go with the flow.IMG_4749.JPG

Here is a picture the boy took of them practicing last week. (They were a lot more dressed up last night.) Those 2-year olds in the front really have no clue! (Especially that wee laddie who is not even facing in the right direction.)

Go tell who on what mountain? Hang in there–only two weeks ’til Christmas!

3 Comments
November 22, 2019

“Lose your life and you will save it.”

by chuckofish

Today is the feast day of Clive Staples Lewis in the Episcopal Church. That’s C.S. Lewis, Christian apologist and spiritual writer, who died on November 22, 1963.

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“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Here’s an article about CSL to refresh your memory. It may be time to revisit Narnia.

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Well, here we are and it is almost Thanksgiving! This weekend I will be getting my act together and the house ready for the big day next week, which won’t be such a big event this year. Still, there will be a turkey and all the fixins…How do you do Thanksgiving? Garden & Gun readers answered that question here.

Our mother served a distinctly New England version of the Thanksgiving feast (which was her mother’s version), and for years after she died, I replicated it, squash and all. Over the years, however, we changed the menu and simplified it to suit our tastes. I don’t think she’d mind. I hope she would approve of our cheesy potato casserole and green beans. She would be pleased that we use her china and set a nice table.

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This past week I watched several Errol Flynn movies, prompted by the boy’s recommendation to watch Against All Flags (1952) which is on Amazon Prime.

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He was right–it is good entertainment and Errol, although along in years (he was 43!) has not yet gone around the bend.

Encouraged by this, I attempted to watch The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) which I had DVR’d. Despite the fact that Errol was in his prime, the movie for me was unwatchable, due to Bette Davis and her over-acting. Good lord, she was too much. I gave up after half an hour. Screen Shot 2019-11-21 at 12.38.24 PM

Battered but unbowed, I started The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) a few nights later. Flynn was 39 at this point and, although the movie is derivative of every other swashbuckler he made, down to the shot of him riding across a stream with Alan Hale at night followed by a posse of angry Englishmen, with the moonlight coming through the trees, he is still in surprisingly good form and very engaging. I enjoyed the movie a lot.

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So if you are looking for something to watch this weekend, try an Errol Flynn movie.  They don’t make profiles like his anymore.

Have a good weekend. Take it easy. Eat some pancakes.

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November 19, 2019

“Teach me some melodious sonnet”*

by chuckofish

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Lottie is sure styling in her fall ensemble complete with jean jacket…

Another lovely fall weekend has flown by. There are a lot of leaves on the ground now, but even more are still on the trees. We will be raking/vacuuming leaves ’til Christmas around here.

Over the weekend the OM and I hung my latest eBay purchase, about which I am very pleased. I like to peruse eBay, but I have found that most things are overpriced compared to what you can find at estate sales and at auction houses. Nevertheless, I continue to search, because I enjoy it and because sometimes something worthwhile turns up.

Recently I found a mirror with églomisé reverse painted panel, purported to be a Bucks County “Federal mirror with historic history. Originally owned by Ulysses S. Grant’s Great Aunt & Uncle, Benjamin Hough and Hannah (Simpson) Hough.” The seller had all the genealogical info. 

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The mirror even has a brass plate dated August 24, 1791, the day Benjamin and Hannah married.

Well, hold the phone, Hannah is our great-great-great-great grandmother!

The price was too high so I put the mirror on my watch list and waited. Soon the seller made me an offer which I thought was reasonable and I bought it! We had a nice email exchange; she was happy to see it return to its family. She packed it well and it came to me unscathed.

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Well, I am pretty excited to have this piece of Hough family decorative art back in my family!

The boy and the wee babes came over for spaghetti Sunday night (daughter #3 had work to do on her side-hustle/Etsy shop).  The wee laddie was in a bad mood when he arrived (he had not been allowed to bring his steam shovel) and he proceeded to act badly, which finally landed him for the first time in Mamu’s Time Out. He got over it.

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This was not his time out chair! He was just keeping those micro cars from Lottie…

The babes are getting to be such little people with distinct personalities now that they are approaching three years of age! They really are nutballs.

IMG_4177 3.jpegWell, here’s a great old hymn for Tuesday. We sing it in the Episcopal Church but with an organ accompaniment. However, I do like this rendition.

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is a hymn written by the 18th century pastor and hymnnodist Robert Robinson in 1757, but some things never get old.

Have a great week!

 

5 Comments
November 15, 2019

What’s playing at the Roxy?*

by chuckofish

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Oh boy. It’s Friday.

It’s been an exciting week in Missouri. We had a snow day and a meteorite fell to earth.

In the Episcopal Church we celebrated the lesser feast day of Charles Simeon (1759–1836) who was an English evangelical clergyman. This article by John Piper is interesting.

We all need help here. We are surrounded by, and are part of, a society of emotionally fragile quitters. The spirit of the age is too much in us. We need to spend time with the kind of people whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). So I want to hold up for us the faith and patient endurance of Charles Simeon for our inspiration and imitation.

And Disney gave us fair warning…Screen Shot 2019-11-14 at 2.59.05 PM.png

Thanks, Disney.

And FYI today is America Recycles Day (ARD)! It is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. My mother was a recycler. It just seemed logical to her. And her puritan soul did not like waste. I would have to agree. As you know, I buy a lot of recycled items–they’re called antiques! (Vintage is okay too…)

My weekend will be a quiet one and that is okay with me. I will catch up with my reading…

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…do some “desk work” and putter around…

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The usual.

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How about you?

*Guys and Dolls

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November 12, 2019

Mish mosh*

by chuckofish

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We had our first snow of the season yesterday and, in fact, I had to call off afternoon classes and send everyone home early.  It is always a bit weird, though, when it snows and most of the leaves are still on the trees. The temperature dropped 40 degrees from what it had been over the sunny weekend.

Daughter #1 came into town on Friday because she was part of the big Veterans Day doings at the Soldiers Memorial downtown on Saturday.

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Members of the Scottish-American Military Society

I liked what Chris Pratt wrote about his older brother, a vet, on his Instagram:

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And this great picture of the Queen with her poppies. She remembers.

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scottmeachamwood @Instagram

I had my last chemo treatment on Friday and it was a surprisingly emotional experience to ring that bell and say goodbye to all those nice people who work in the Cancer Center at Missouri Baptist Hospital.

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Well, on to the next phase.

Over the weekend I re-read Delano Ames’ Corpse Diplomatique which I thoroughly enjoyed. Jane and Dagobert Brown are very diverting amateur sleuths and Jane is always saying things like:

I glanced at him witheringly and risked no comment. But Henry did not wither readily.

And we watched The Ten Commandments (1956). It is hard to beat Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner together in a movie.

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Be still my heart.

This movie holds up remarkably well and the pre-CG special effects–the parting of the Red Sea in particular–are impressive. I will also note that Yul Brynner was also in the King and I and Anastasia in 1956. Seriously–wow–quelle year.

The wee babes came over Sunday night for dinner, but no one took any pictures!

Today I will remind you is the 359th anniversary of the day John Bunyan was arrested and taken into custody for preaching in a Puritan meeting house in England. He was convicted as a dissenter and spent 12 years in jail. While there, he began a book–The Pilgrim’s Progress.

“Mr. Worldly-Wiseman is not an ancient relic of the past. He is everywhere today, disguising his heresy and error by proclaiming the gospel of contentment and peace achieved by self-satisfaction and works. If he mentions Christ, it is not as the Savior who took our place, but as a good example of an exemplary life. Do we need a good example to rescue us, or do we need a Savior?”

No surprise that it is still in print and read all over the world. It’s a story that never gets old. My denomination is full of Worldly-Wisemen, that’s for sure.

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Stay warm and drive safely.

*Yiddish for a motley assortment of things

3 Comments
November 8, 2019

The checkered game of life

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) who was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with the Milton Bradley Company.

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The Checkered Game of Life, Bradley’s first big success, was originally created in 1860 and like many 19th-century games, such as The Mansion of Happiness by  S.B. Ives in 1843, it had a strong moral message. In 1960 the modern version, The Game of Life, was introduced. The Game of Life was updated several times through the years. In 1991 the ‘moral message’ contained in the game was players being rewarded for good behavior, such as recycling trash and helping the homeless. They were virtue-signaling even then!

I remember playing board games and card games with my siblings–

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Mille Bornes, French for a thousand milestones, referring to the distance markers on French roads, in particular–but I was never very good at games. There are too many rules to remember.

I remember playing riotous games of Hearts, and Categories was always a favorite of ours.

What games do you remember from your childhood?

So regarding a Friday movie pick…it might be time to watch Jumanji (1995) or Jumanji: Return to the Jungle (2017) in honor of old Milton Bradley.

Screen Shot 2019-11-07 at 2.25.28 PM.pngThis is how my mind works after all…

Of course, since yesterday was the anniversary of the day Steve McQueen died in 1980, we might want to go in that direction.

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(@john.wayne.fans Instagram)

Well, decisions, decisions…

Have a good weekend!

4 Comments
November 5, 2019

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

by chuckofish

We thank thee, O God, for the saints of all ages; for those who in times of darkness kept the lamp of faith burning; for the great souls who saw visions of larger truths and dared to declare them; for the multitude of quiet and gracious souls whose presence has purified and sanctified the world; and for those known and loved by us, who have passed from this earthly fellowship into the fuller life with thee. Accept this our thanksgiving through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer, to whom be praise and dominion for ever.

–Kendall Harmon, A prayer for All Saints Day

So Halloween and All Saints Day have come and gone and we are on the downward slide to the end of the year! Zut alors, the year has sped by.

We had a lovely weekend visit from daughter #2 all the way from Maryland. She went with me to my weekly chemo session…

Screen Shot 2019-11-04 at 4.30.56 PM.png…and we managed to do some of our favorite things as well. Daughter #1 joined us from mid-MO and we went to estate sales…

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…and went out to lunch. We frolicked with the wee babes…

IMG_3774.jpegIMG_3769.jpegWe watched Spy (2015), which we still think is hilarious,

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and a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie starring Jodie Sweetin which was part of the Countdown to Christmas. (Yikes.)

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Nothing better, am I right?

It was a good start to November which is a month when we like to consider how much we have to be thankful for, including these guys.

Enjoy your week!

6 Comments
October 29, 2019

“Hold the selfies, put the Gram away/ Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray”*

by chuckofish

 

IMG_4072.JPGOn Friday I received my copy of Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout in the mail. It was a quick read and I finished it in a day. It was a big disappointment. All of the reviews I have read have been raves, so I am in a distinct minority it seems.

Olive, Again is a sequel to Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, which I loved. I have liked most of her books and almost all of them are tied up in this one. Indeed, in a series of linked short stories, we find out what happens to all those Maine characters who have populated her books. What we find out, basically, is that they are all frightened and lonely people with no spiritual life. It is a bleak world where nothing has much meaning. At the end of the book, Olive writes (spoiler alert!), “I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.”

I could go on, but it is just kind of depressing, so why bother.

Anyway, despite reading this disappointing book, daughter # 1 and I got quite a lot done this weekend, tidying up the house for daughter #2’s visit this coming weekend. I even persuaded the OM to hang up a pair of new drapes in my office. I got them on Etsy.com and I think they look great.

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We also watched Ghostbusters (1984) which I thought held up very well and is kind of a classic at this point.

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The scene at the beginning in the New York Public Library…

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reminded us of Lottie…LOL!

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“No human being would stack books like this.”

Meanwhile, the boy had a fine time at the wedding in Rye, New York.

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There he is to the right of the bride

And now he is home again, home again, jiggety jig.

And now I am back to wondering what to read. Have a good week!

“I don’t myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins-not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance-you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that’s what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.”
― Willa Cather, The Professor’s House 

*Kanye West, “Closed on Sunday”

4 Comments
October 25, 2019

“Another fall, another turned page…”*

by chuckofish

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Less than a week of October left! Can you believe it?

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The fall goes by in such a rush…and then it is dark at 5:00 p.m. and it is winter. Sigh.

Daughter #1 had work to do in town so she is home for a long weekend. One of her meetings was at Anheuser Busch and she got to hang out with these guys…

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She’ll go with me to chemo today and on Saturday we’ll venture out to an estate sale or two and maybe…lunch! The boy is in New York for a wedding where he’ll get to wear a tux. I wish I could be there with him, but we do what we can do.

The wee babes have had a busy week at school and Lottie has worn a variety of hair bows.

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Teach us, O God, to trust your providence, ordered and sure; to accept your wisdom, unerring and true; and to rejoice in your love, unbounded and eternal; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

–Charles Simeon (1759-1836)

Paintings are (top down) by Nikolai Matveevich Pozdneev, Vincent Van Gogh, Winslow Homer, Norman Rockwell.

*Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

2 Comments
October 22, 2019

“Somebody’s comin’, Pa!”

by chuckofish

Well, for anyone who was wondering, the OM and I watched Shane (1953) the other night for our anniversary and we were reminded, once again, what a really great movie it is.

hqdefaultReaders of this blog know how much I love John Ford westerns, how I think some of them are truly works of art, and that John Wayne is my favorite actor of all time. However, Shane, directed by George Stevens and starring the unlikely Alan Ladd, is my favorite western and, probably in the last analysis, my favorite movie.

Based on a novel by Jack Schaefer, the screenplay is by the great A.B. Guthrie. Everything is not black-and-white in this story. The good guys (the homesteaders) are sometimes weak and whining. The bad guys (the ranchers) make some strong arguments and are understandably frustrated. Into this mess rides Shane, the reluctant gunslinger, who is hired by Joe Starrett to help on his homestead. Shane likes Starrett and wants to help him, but his presence shifts the balance, and the ranchers bring in their own equalizer, the gunfighter Wilson.

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Shane rallies the homesteaders; the inarticulate but stalwart Starrett says he’ll take care of things. (My son thinks Starrett is the real hero of the film–the hardworking father and husband who is willing to die so his family can have a better life.) But Shane, even though he has fallen in love with Starrett’s wife, can’t let his friend get himself killed, so he goes into town himself to take care of Wilson.

It is a simple story beautifully told with minimal dialogue. The characters are so authentic in their ill-fitting, wrinkled clothes and muddy boots. The children, especially Brandon de Wilde, are real in ways seldom caught on film.

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The pacing and balance of this film are near perfect with homey moments of family life on the frontier interspersed with moments of jangling violence. Indeed, the editing of this film is some of the best ever in film history. It is sharp and crisp and drives the action.Think of the barroom brawl where Starrett and Shane fight together against the cowboys with the timid homesteaders watching, and then later when they fight each other in the yard with the horses and cattle going nuts and Marian screaming and Joey wide-eyed. And yet nothing is overdone.

Prior to Shane, George Stevens was a good director, but here he rises to a whole other level. He never patronizes the homesteaders (or his audience) with any aw-shucks scenes. Their feelings are real and raw. The funeral scene is a good example: the quietly sobbing wife, the distracted children, the heartbroken dog, the harmonica-playing friend, and Starrett standing in for a minister, because they have no one else. And Stevens pulled a truly great performance out of B-team player Alan Ladd, who surprised everyone with his portrayal of the lonely gunfighter who tries to seize one last chance at a “normal” life, but sacrifices himself for the greater good. Ladd was not particularly good at expressing feelings (as I have mentioned before) and in Shane he is all about repressed feelings. It works.  All the actors in this movie are excellent and believable in their parts.

Shane won the Oscar for Best Color Cinematography (Loyal Griggs) and the award was well-deserved. How beautiful is this movie!

shaneWell, I guess I got a  little carried away, but I will stop here and just recommend that you watch this movie. I saw Woody Allen interviewed once where he was talking about Shane and how it is one of his favorite movies. He has probably seen it 100 times, he said, and no matter where he is, if the movie comes on tv, he will stop and watch the whole thing through.  I can relate. No matter how many times you see Shane, you see something new.

Anyway, the rest of my weekend was pretty quiet. The wee babes came over for dinner on Sunday night. They rearranged the furniture as usual.

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I can’t wait until they are old enough to watch Shane!

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