birthdays | dual personalities

June 5, 2023

It is hotter than the devil’s hootchie-cootchie out here

by chuckofish

Yes, it is full-on summer here in flyover country–hot and humid–and you better not walk barefoot on your asphalt driveway, that’s for sure. Heavy sigh. Well, we had a nice long spring and it was great while it lasted.

We kept a low profile this weekend, but Katie turned three in style back in Maryland.

She celebrated appropriately. (She is wearing her favorite vintage nightie, which my mother made for daughter #1/Aunt Mary about 36 years ago.)

Aunt Mary made her a tote bag with Pete the Cat fabric she found at Joann’s!

She immediately filled it up with books–a girl after our own hearts. Love the matching bow!

And, of course, there was cake!

I stayed after church on Sunday to go to a meeting for VBS volunteers–because, yes, I am once again doing my part, even after I said never again last year. This year I am on my own with 14 4th/5th graders! Am I crazy? Yes, yes I am. I will never be able to remember their names, much less keep track of them. I am praying for a teenage helper to step up to the plate.

I got a new t-shirt, since I threw mine away last year thinking I would never need it again. Well, I have a week to psych myself up for this. Please pray for me.

Enjoy your Monday!

4 Comments

May 31, 2023

I contain multitudes

by chuckofish

It is the last day of May and the Christmas Cactus is blooming again!

It is also Walt Whitman’s birthday! We will toast him and all the birthdays we have celebrated in May.

We do not all contain multitudes. Some people, I am told, do not even have/are incapable of having an inner monologue. (This is science.) I toast those who do.

In other news, in reading through the Bible, I have found several references to bears, which I found interesting. I was unaware that there even were bears in the Ancient Middle East. But I guess there were. Here is an interesting article about a difficult passage. Why did God send bears to attack a group of boys?

And here is John Piper on fighting the fears of old age, which, believe me, I am fighting. He never pulls any punches:

Your outward sufficiency is getting smaller, right? You are weakening. Your body is weakening, your eyes are weakening, your ears are weakening, your memory is weakening, and everything is wasting away. That’s what it means in this age to die. We all will die if Jesus doesn’t come, to which we say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

But I believe the promise of 2 Corinthians 9:8 is that every good work that you are expected to do by God, you will have the resources to do it — the mental resources, the physical resources, the affectional resources, the financial resources. If you don’t have the resources to do it, he doesn’t expect you to do it.”

Well, take time to smell the flowers today, consider the cosmos, talk to the “Listener up there!” and have a snack.

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May 24, 2023

Watching the river flow

by chuckofish

Today we toast Bob Dylan on his 82nd birthday! Huzzah!

Recently, when I awaken in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, I have been re-reading Chronicles, Volume I by BD. He is one of the best-read guys you could know. He never wasted his free time in his youth, but read whatever was available on the bookshelves of whoever’s apartment he was crashing in. And he remembered what he read.

I read the biography of Thaddeus Stevens, the radical Republican. He lived in the early part of the 1800s and was quite a character. He’s from Gettysburg and he’s got a clubfoot like Byron. He grew up poor, made a fortune and from then on championed the weak and any other group who wasn’t able to fight equally. Stevens had a grim sense of humor, a sharp tongue and a white-hot hatred for the bloated aristocrats of his day. He wanted to confiscate the land of the slaveholding elite, once referred to a colleague on the floor of the chamber as “slinking in his own slime.” …He got right in there, called his enemies a “feeble band of lowly reptiles who shun the light and who lurked in their own dens.” Stevens was hard to forget. He made a big impression on me, was inspiring. Him and Teddy Roosevelt, maybe the strongest U.S. president ever. I read about Teddy, too. He was a cattle rancher and a crime buster, had to be restrained from declaring war on California–had a big run in with J.P. Morgan, a deity figure who owned most of the United States at the time. Roosevelt backed him down and threatened to throw him in jail.

Good stuff. So read some history, some poetry, and listen to some BD today: pick a good one.

Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet 
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul

4 Comments

May 17, 2023

Mid-week movies

by chuckofish

We have had a lot of rain in the past few days. And, not surprisingly, there has been flooding near here…

(Photo of the Cedar Creek Lodge Apartments parking lot in South County courtesy of Fox2)

Anyway, May is a month for birthdays and today we toast Dennis Hopper (1936-2010), who had quite a career in Hollywood as a supporting actor in many films. He was also known as a notoriously difficult actor and his career nearly ended early on because of his reputation. Had it not been for John Wayne hiring him to appear in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Hopper acknowledged years later, it would have ended.

During the filming of True Grit (1969)–released the same year as Easy Rider–he got to know the Duke quite well. Perhaps this explains in part how he became a Republican in later years, having given up drugs and Rock ‘n Roll.

It is also the birthday of Bob Saget (1956-2022) who died last year under somewhat mysterious circumstances in a hotel. It turns out he fell and hit his head and died in his sleep. He never made any noteworthy movies, but he was the “raddest, baddest dad a kid ever had” on Full House (1987-1995). He was no Ward Cleaver, but he was pretty rad.

Yesterday was the birthday of actors Henry Fonda (1905-1982) and Harry Carey, Jr. (1920-2012) both of whom made quite a few movies with John Ford, any of which would be worth watching tonight. Harry is also the OM’s doppelgänger.

And lest we forget, today is also the 80th anniversary of the Dam Buster raids in WWII in 1943. It might be time to watch The Dam Busters (1955) again.

So we have quite a few toasts to make and lots of good movie options to consider watching. Thanks be to God.

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April 26, 2023

Just another Wednesday–more things of minor consequence

by chuckofish

Today we toast Kevin James and Channing Tatum on their birthdays!

In case you were wondering, they did actually make a movie together. The Dilemma (2011) directed by Ron Howard is not a great movie, but you might want to give it a whirl. I am always in the mood for these two.

Today is also the anniversary of the day in 1865 when John Wilkes Booth was surrounded in a barn in Maryland and killed. And, hey, Mary Chapin Carpenter wrote a song about it.

Meanwhile Ida is crushing tummy time…

And here’s a poem: “Days” by Billy Collins–

Just another Wednesday–make it a good one.

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November 28, 2022

Come let us walk in the light of the Lord*

by chuckofish

Last week was exhausting and I will need a week to recover! But, of course, we had a wonderful time together doing all the things.

Watching the parades with Mimosas and cinnamon rolls…

Eating big meals…

…and throwing a swingin’ party on Friday complete with DN’s party punch and charcuterie board…

But we totally forgot to take any pictures!

After daughter #2, DN and Katie headed back east, we consoled ourselves with bingeing our favorite Christmas movies to start off the holidays…

And we put up the little tree…

After bringing up lots of Christmas stuff from the basement, daughter #1 left Sunday morning to pick up her new puppy…

…and we went to church with the boy and the wee twins. Afterwards we celebrated the boy’s birthday in our familiar style…

…with food (you don’t have to eat your veggies on your birthday!) and cake and presents…

And then I collapsed.

*Isaiah 2:5

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September 12, 2022

Lift up your heart, lift up your voice!*

by chuckofish

Well, how was your weekend?

We toasted the queen…

…whom I will miss especially because she always reminded me of my mother and now that connection is gone.

We toasted daughter #1 and celebrated her birthday yesterday…

And we toasted all those brave souls who died on September 11, 2001. Last year I included a video in a blogpost about a fine young man who died in one of the towers helping others and I encourage you to watch it again. Lest we forget.

Yes, there was a lot of toasting, but some events call for that. L’chaim! In the midst of life we are in death (BCP).

This reminder of the Budweiser ad that only aired once in honor of 9/11 is cool.

And I liked this article about taking up your cross daily. “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me,” Jesus says.

For when we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.
–G.K. Chesterton

What do you worship? Yourself? Science? Social Justice? It’s an important question.

*Charles Wesley, 1744

4 Comments

July 18, 2022

“He who regards the clouds will not reap”*

by chuckofish

I had a busy week. We even went out on a weeknight.

The OM got to use his office’s (air-conditioned) suite at the ballpark so he invited a group of friends and clients to watch the game. I had not been to a Cardinals game in many years, not since my flyover university used to sponsor nights at the ballpark. Also I lost interest in the redbirds when they fired Mike Matheny in 2018 (sigh). Anyway, it was fun to watch a game right on the third base line.

The little bud made a new best friend, who taught him how to yell, “You’re a bum!” to the manager. (Our manager is a bum, so it’s okay.) We had a 6-0 lead through seven innings and then lost the game because we have no relievers. C’est la vie.

After my busy week, all I wanted to do was chillax and watch the 150th Open at St. Andrew’s. I did get to see a little, but since I went to church on Sunday I missed the end. (Congrats to Cameron Smith who to me always has a disconcerting Nathan Bedford Forest vibe.)

We celebrated the OM’s birthday with a little party after church.

(The pictures of our birthday parties always look the same, don’t they?) Mr and Mrs Crypt Keeper–c’est la vie.

I’m impressed the OM blew out all the candles with one breath. (So was he.)

The French Silk pie was from Tippins and a big success. I made a tater tot casserole which was also a hit.

Here’s hoping this week will not be so busy and maybe it will cool off a little. It has been a hot summer, but that is par for the course and I am not complaining (as long as the electric grid holds out.)

And here’s a bonus picture of precious Katiebelle doing her chores:

*Ecclesiastes 11:4

3 Comments

July 12, 2022

“Whate’er we leave to God, God does/And blesses us.”*

by chuckofish

We are deep into summer here in flyover country. The Hibiscus is blooming!

This is always thrilling to me because this plant has grown from seeds harvested from a friend’s yard which I planted years ago. Yay Hibiscus!

Today we note the birthday of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).

Thoreau was an intriguing character, even to his contemporaries, but particularly to a whole generation of Americans who grew up in the 1950s and became hippies in the 1960s. I always think of Rockwell Gray, who was an adjunct professor of English at my university and who I knew and liked. He was a certain type of WASP, highly intelligent and very kind, who would have preferred to be Jewish or at least Irish so he could just relax and be a square peg. He loved Thoreau. Like so many others, he felt he was a kindred soul. And don’t we all, to some extent.

Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But I foresee, that, if my wants should be much increased, the labor required to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. (Life Without Principle)

*Henry David Thoreau, “Inspiration”

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May 10, 2022

Let’s face the music and dance

by chuckofish

Today we celebrate the birthday of Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987), American actor, dancer, singer, choreographer par excellence. Fred was born in Omaha, Nebraska where he started performing at age five. I always liked his movies from the 1930s the best–the ones with Ginger Rogers–but he was in some good movies later in a long and storied career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILxo-TUkzOQ

He wasn’t much to look at and his singing voice was a warbly soprano, but he could sure dance like nobody’s business. So let’s watch a Fred Astaire movie tonight. They’re always good for what ails you. Here’s a list.

And there’s this…I gather Fred was not amused…

This interview with Saint Paul on the subject of what is wrong with us is brilliant. Just to make things crystal clear.

This article about the late Sen. Orrin Hatch makes me like him even more.

This is hilarious.

Meanwhile, it finally stopped raining and we have been enjoying beautiful weather. It is also getting hot and we had to turn on the air-conditioning. Zut alors, it is May 10!