dual personalities

Yesterday I was back at work full swing and it was one of those days that really tests the soul. Not that anything bad happened or that people were mean or anything like that. It was just non-stop dealing with stuff.

I thought of this quote by C.S. Lewis:

“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It does not change God. It changes me.”

“Toward Taos” by Eric Sloane

Know what I mean?

3 Comments

January 4, 2016

“It’s alright, Ma”*

by chuckofish

Well, the holidays are officially over.

It was a busy long weekend. First I took down the little tree.

Then the mantle.

Then I moved on to the big tree.

Soon all that was left was a pile of pine needles, some of which will still be around next year when we put up the next tree.

In between we celebrated the New Year with friends and had the boy and daughter #3 over for dinner on New Year’s Day. We watched 3 Godfathers (1947), my favorite movie about the three wisemen, with them.

I also watched Bridge of Spies (2015)–pretty average–and A Walk In the Woods (2015)–pretty disappointing. I was hoping it would cheer me up, but considering it is based on a book by Bill Bryson, it was remarkably devoid of humor. Furthermore, Robert Redford is way too old and tired looking to play Bill Bryson, who wrote the book when he was 47. Redford is 79 and, despite what he may think, he looks it. His boyishly cut, dyed red hair looks ridiculous. Nick Nolte looks every one of his 74 years and more. Indeed, he appears to be at death’s door and like he wouldn’t make it 100 yards on the Appalachian Trail in real life. Cleary their backpacks were filled with bubble wrap.

There was a lot of great scenery, which I appreciated, and the music featured songs by the band Lord Huron. (My dual personality gave me one of their CDs for Christmas and I had coincidentally been listening to it a lot over the weekend during my clean up efforts. BTW the CD is really good.) But, boy, it could have been so much better if it had been cast differently.

Anyway, I am now ready to face the new year at work today. The holidays were great fun, and I will miss my girls. But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.

*Bob Dylan. (Yes, I would have spelled it “all right”…)

5 Comments

January 2, 2016

Just because…

by chuckofish

I could use a little Channing Tatum today.

How about you?

3 Comments

January 1, 2016

“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”*

by chuckofish

What a way to start the new year! According to our local weather guru Dave Murray, The Great Flood of 2015 is a very big deal.

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Photo from FOX2 Facebook page

“During this event it has forced the closure of Interstate 70 in two locations, Interstate 44 in three locations, and Interstate 55 (at times overnight). This did not occur in the Great Flood of ’93, nor the December Flood of ’82…This flooding event is nothing less than historic and will serve as the new bench mark, the historic reference, for the Meramec River Basin, including the Bourbeuse.”

We who are high and dry take it all rather lightly, but I talked to a delivery guy at work who lives in House Springs who said he can’t even get home. That’s intense.

I am grateful that I can get home and that it is warm and dry there. All I have to do this weekend is take down my Christmas tree and box up all the decorations. This is not a small task, but it is not sand-bagging.

So a toast to and a prayer for all those who are fighting the flood and also for those newspeople who are in the field and in the studio reporting on the flood.

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910

*Brad Paisley

5 Comments

December 31, 2015

All the people said Amen*

by chuckofish

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. We are going to a party at our old neighbors’ house where everyone has permission to leave at 12:02 a.m. We will all be up way past our bedtimes.

We will ring out the old year and ring in the new: 2016 already? you say. I know.

I had some goals in 2015. I made some serious progress towards them. No, I didn’t reach them, but I’m okay with that.

That basement clean up/organization may never be finished exactly, but it’s in much better shape than it was. Perhaps I can light a fire under the OM and he will pick up where he stalled. Perhaps I will just start shredding…

Anyway, Happy New Year to y’all and good luck to all of us in flyover floodville. As we say here: “Turn around, don’t drown!”

*Matt Maher

4 Comments

December 30, 2015

Time to remember

by chuckofish

It’s that time of year when TCM puts together their memorial to all those movie people who died during the year. Here’s the 2015 video:

Now that you have watched the whole thing, I know you are wondering who James Best was.

I know I was.

Well, according to Wikipedia, he was an American actor–originally from Kentucky–who usually played the third cowpoke from the left in television westerns and films.

You also might remember him as Andy’s friend, Jim Lindsey on the The Andy Griffith Show. He had kind of an Everly Brother vibe, and–fun fact–the Every Brothers were James Best’s uncles.

Over a six-decade career, he is ~~sadly~~ best remembered as the hapless Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Well, now you know who James Best was. Rest easy.

3 Comments

December 29, 2015

The party’s over

by chuckofish

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

–Henry David Thoreau, Walden

5 Comments

December 28, 2015

Only Noah saw it coming

by chuckofish

Ugh. It has been raining for two solid days. Intense puddling.

And face masking.

Rainiest December on record. Rainiest year on record.

Daughter #1 is on her way back to NYC. Daughter #2 heads back tomorrow.

Onward and upward.

2 Comments

December 26, 2015

A Merry Christmas, indeed!

by chuckofish

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. All our travelers and last minute purchases arrived on cue, including nine Amazon packages delivered all together in one giant sack — just like Santa.

All my pictures are blurry. At first it was due to general sleepiness. We aren’t perky in the morning.

Then laughter set in.

I hit my steadiness peak around sherry time,

but did not manage to produce anything remotely in focus after that. Draw whatever conclusions you will, but we were actually quite civilized.

2 Comments

December 25, 2015

Pleased as man with us to dwell

by chuckofish

“The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary,” means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus, his “climbing down of God” is: Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary! Here is a human being, the Virgin Mary, and as he comes from God, Jesus comes also from this human being. Born of the Virgin Mary means a human origin for God. Jesus Christ is not only truly God, he is human like every one of us. He is human without limitation. He is not only similar to us, he is like us.”

–Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline

Merry Christmas!