dual personalities

Tag: family

October 30, 2012

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

Well, the sky is blue, blue, blue in our flyover state.

I feel almost guilty with all the talk about Sandy, and both daughters # 1 and #2 now living on the east coast. They are both hunkering down with the essentials.

Photo from daughter #1’s blog

We’re hoping for the best.

Here is an appropriate prayer from the 1789 U.S. Book of Common Prayer:

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech thee, of thy great goodness, to restrain those immoderate rains, wherewith, for our sins, thou hast afflicted us. And we pray thee to send us such seasonable weather, that the earth may, in due time, yield her increase for our use and benefit. And give us grace, that we may learn by thy punishments to amend our lives, and for thy clemency to give thee thanks and praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Not surprisingly the Episcopal Church, when revising the BCP in 1976, left out this prayer. How the editors must have cringed at the idea of God punishing us! In fact, there is now no prayer for restraining immoderate weather, only a prayer For Rain. Here it is:

O God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised to all those who seek thy kingdom and its righteousness all things necessary to sustain their life: Send us, we entreat thee, in this time of need, such moderate rain and showers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth, to our comfort and to they honor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

All very well and good, but what shall we pray today? Anne Lamott once wrote: “’Help’ is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn’t matter how you pray–with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors.” (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith) And here’s a good word from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The wise man in the storm prays to God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear.”

Anyway, keep praying.

9 Comments
October 24, 2012

My little gypsy sweetheart(s)

by chuckofish

Today’s fond look backward at Halloween costumes of yore: the re-cycled witch costume worn for the umpteenth time on daughter #2 and the first appearance of the “Gypsy” costume on daughter #1 circa 1996.

Daughter #1 does not look too happy to be channeling Lucille Ball! I am the Queen of the Gypsies! Gyp-gyp-gyp-gyp-gyp-gypsies! I ride along in my Gypsy caravan in the finest Gypsy band in the land. There are no kings in the Gypsies.

Now here is daughter #2 (pre-orthodontia) a few years later in the Gypsy costume.

Gyp-gyp-gyp-gyp-gyp-gypsies! You know what they mean when they shake their tambourine and I’m their Gypsy Queen!

P.S. Those dangling purple (wooden) earrings worn by both gypsies were worn by our conservative mother for real in the mod 1960s.

And here’s a bonus! Chico Marx plays “Gypsy Love Song” in Cocoanuts (1929)!

10 Comments
October 23, 2012

Who would you choose?

by chuckofish

If you read a variety of blogs, you have certainly come across more than one of those posts where the writer asks the question: Who would you choose if you could have lunch with anyone? Usually they go on to tell you how they would love to get together with Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana, Thomas Jefferson, Mother Theresa, Steven Spielberg and so on. Blah, blah, blah, boring celebrities. And, yes, I include Thomas Jefferson in that company. He would probably choose to have lunch with Marilyn Monroe.

Not that I’m judging anyone for their choices. Everyone is free to choose whom they want to choose. This is America after all! Come on.

Anyway, I’m sure you can guess who I would choose. Just in the last few days I’ve talked about Bob Dylan and Hilary Mantel and Marty Stuart–all would be charming companions at a meal. And you know how I feel about Frederick Buechner and Raymond Chandler. A conversation with them–to die for! As for movie stars, we’d need a big table to accommodate all my favorites.

But if we’re really talking about conversation, let’s invite:


Thomas Cranmer. He wrote the book.


General Sherman. He had Grant’s back.


U.S. Grant. He epitomized humility and courage. He had Lincoln’s back. And he was a really good writer.


Dorothy Rabinowitz. She tells it like it is in the WSJ.


T.E. Lawrence. He would be awesome, but we’d need someone to come along with us who could make him feel comfortable and draw him out of his shell–like Mrs. George Bernard Shaw.


Mary Prowers Hough, my great-great grandmother and the classiest lady to ever set foot in Colorado. I’d have a million questions for her.


J.D. Salinger. We could talk about Jesus over a glass of ginger ale in the kitchen.


Eudora Welty. We’d talk about stories and the art of writing them. I think I would like to invite


Shirley Jackson to come along too. The three of us would get along famously.


Saint Timothy. He received letters from Saint Paul containing personal advice which I take very personally: God did not give you a spirit of timidity!

Well, I’m sure I’ve left out some obvious choices. Who would you want to share a meal with? Alexander? Sargon the Great? Thomas Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell? Johnny Depp?

12 Comments
October 16, 2012

What memo?

by chuckofish

Clearly the boy did not get the memo about the guys wearing their soccer or basketball uniform as a Halloween costume in the seventh grade. No, someone forgot to give him the message. He’s the nerd on the left dressed as a bag of leaves. (Not that you were really a nerd. No way. They were the nerds!)

Oh, well. C’est la vie, right?

6 Comments
October 8, 2012

Embarrassing picture Moday

by chuckofish

Well, it’s that time of year again when the old Halloween pictures come out, much to the chagrin of some people. Here is a picture of daughter #1 (age 5) and the boy (not quite 3) in 1989. Daughter #1 is (yet again) a witch, wearing the costume my mother made for her a few years earlier. The boy is (of course) a super hero. He is happily wearing his sister’s leotard and tights and her old white snow boots, which he loved and wore frequently–and why not? They were the next best thing to cowboy boots. He is also wearing the Batman kerchief (as a cape) that he wore every day to school that year. Yes, the boy always displayed a unique personal style.

P.S. I also want to let you faithful readers know that the concert I went to on Friday night was possibly the best ever.

I have seen Dylan, Springsteen, Sting, Haggard, Knopfler, Lyle Lovett (several times), and Guster (to name a few), but Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives were awesome. It didn’t hurt that I was sitting in the fourth row of a smaller venue. But it was wonderful. Great musicians all, they were in fine voice and having fun. Priceless.

And earlier that evening the Cardinals beat the Braves!

10 Comments
September 28, 2012

Fat Baby Friday

by chuckofish

Here is a picture of our brother Chris when he was around 18 months old, judging from his diaper-enlarged pants and the fact that he is in Sedona, Arizona where our father taught at the Verde Valley School.

It was about 1952. Chris is holding his Kanga (and Roo) doll. He also had Winnie the Pooh and Piglet and Eeyeore.

I may have mentioned that our father was a big Winnie the Pooh fan and he enjoyed reading the stories aloud to us. I’m sure Chris enjoyed listening to the stories surrounded by his stuffed animals. Those were the golden years when for 5 years he was a happy only child.

Then sister #1 arrived.

Life was never the same. Oh well. C’est la vie.

12 Comments
September 24, 2012

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? I kept remembering where I was last weekend and what I was doing. (Last Saturday I was in Brooklyn having a bagel and coffee–you know how it goes.) Sigh. My response was to get busy.

I got my hair cut, went to an estate sale, checked out one of my favorite antique malls, caught up with my far-flung family members on the phone, scrubbed a shower, opened windows to let in the wonderful fresh air, went to Target, washed the kick plate on the refrigerator, changed sheets and did laundry, trimmed the ivy in front of the house, took a couple of walks, and finished the Anne Tyler book I was re-reading.

You get the idea. I find that the best thing for when you are sad or depressed is to clean and/or organize. Even if you don’t feel better afterward, you have a clean(er) house!

The Anne Tyler book, by the way, was Earthly Possessions, an early novel written in 1977, which is not (in my opinion) one of her best. But you know, any Anne Tyler book is much better than most, so I still enjoyed it. She always supplies a few golden nuggets. Here is one of them:

“Sometimes,” he said, “I believe we’re given the same lessons to learn, over and over, exactly the same experiences, till we get them right. Things keep circling past us.”

Maybe so. Food for thought anyway.

6 Comments
September 19, 2012

An anniversary and a toast to ourselves*

by chuckofish

Just about a year ago my sister (and dual personality) and I began this blog. The year skied by, and 341 posts later, I feel more connected than ever before to my far-flung siblings, children, niece, nephews, and friends. It has been wonderful to read their comments and those from complete strangers.

I admit, we mostly amuse ourselves, but occasionally we hear from the wide world. We have even received comments from Pigtown*Design’s own Meg Fairfax Fielding–a rock star in the blogging world.

So here’s to another year of books, movies, estate sale finds, family reminiscences, Episcopal Church marginalia, music, poetry, Frederick Buechner, Raymond Chandler, embarrassing picture Mondays, and fat baby Fridays! And a big shout-out to our 36 (!) followers–we appreciate you all!

*Traditionally the Royal Navy toasts to “ourselves” on Wednesdays.

7 Comments
September 18, 2012

I’ll take Manhattan

by chuckofish

Daughter #1 has already blogged about my visit and done a lovely job of hitting the high points of my trip to New York City.

What a pleasure to visit one’s grown-up daughter in her terra cognita!

We checked out the Upper West Side and visited ABC where I saw the rim and the set and the desk and all that mysterious stuff. Chris Cuomo smiled at me and David Muir waved.

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which I had not visited since 1978. Pretty impressive indeed. We walked through Central Park.

We went to Brooklyn…

and hit the Brooklyn Flea Market.

On Sunday morning we went to my daughter’s church, the awesome St. Bart’s on Park Avenue.

Afterwards we went to brunch with two of my daughter’s lovely college friends and my son’s best Best Man in the West Village. Then we walked to Washington Square and went to some only-in-New York stores, including The Strand which I loved and will return to some day with a list in hand. Oh yeah, and we saw Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone at the big ABC furniture store. They followed us around looking at hipster furniture, but we finally lost them in the linens department.

Every night after sitting outside for an evening cocktail we watched (in our nerdly fashion) Ghostbusters, You’ve Got Mail, and The World of Henry Orient–all New York-focused movies. We also watched Broadcast News for a little media-focused fun.

My feet will recover eventually, and I will long remember my wonderful visit with daughter #1 in NYC. And it wasn’t scary at all.

7 Comments
September 10, 2012

Embarrassing picture Monday

by chuckofish

Here is a picture of daughter #2 (on the right) with her friend Beth circa 1994. Even then she certainly knew how to accessorize, didn’t she?

4 Comments