Friends | dual personalities

January 13, 2014

Weekend update: Another chance to disapprove, Another brilliant zinger, Another reason not to move, Another vodka stinger*

by chuckofish

Mostly this weekend was a time for catching up. I had no social plans beyond a birthday lunch with my girlfriends and church on Sunday. We had a baptism and it was good to renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness with my brethren. At the end of the service we sang the interminably long but deeply wonderful “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”. Verse 6 always brings tears to my eyes:

Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

On the literary front, I finished In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, which daughter #2 had encouraged me to read. I enjoyed it, but it was the kind of book where you are always aware that you are reading “literary” fiction. Not really my cup of tea. Great literature does not hit you over the head with its worthiness. Furthermore, I have to say that while some of the characters are engaging, they are also anarchists/terrorists. So again, how can you really care what happens to them? In point of fact, I didn’t.

I watched two movies–one was a really good one: Oscar and Lucinda (1997), an Australian movie directed by Gillian Armstrong and based on the Booker Award-winning novel by Peter Carey. Boy, I really liked it.

Ralph Fiennes plays an Anglican priest in the mid-18th century who is an obsessive gambler. His reasons for gambling are pure and his Pascalian argument for his legitimate use of it as a Christian, completely righteous. He meets Cate Blanchett, who is a compulsive gambler, on the ship going to Melbourne and they become friends. Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport a glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads “to the events that will change both their lives forever.”

I was so impressed with Ralph Fiennes who plays the innocent and devout minister without the least bit of irony or judgement. He is totally believable and likable. Cate Blanchett is as always intelligent and precise and believable. Both are so good as kindred spirits. Plus there are lots of fine actors in smaller roles. The production is beautiful. The music is by Thomas Newman.

Just a great movie! I will have to read the book now.

I also watched Company (2011)–a filmed version of the Broadway show which won the Tony for Best Musical back in 1971.

I was talking to someone at work awhile back and I said I hadn’t ever seen Company and the next thing I knew he had brought it in for me. He said I’d like it. Well, I finally got around to watching it and I did not like it. Stephen Sondheim’s negative take on marriage and relationships (and women in general) is very cynical and “sophisticated”.

Puff puff. But there is not one likable/relatable character in the bunch. The main character, played by one of my least favorite actors–Neil Patrick Harris–is a jerk. Poor Mr. Sondheim. I feel that he was writing from experience.

On the home front, I took down our outside Christmas lights. It was 60-degrees yesterday so it seemed like the smart thing to do. I was impressed with what a good job the boy did putting them up. I guess he isn’t an Eagle Scout for nothin’!

Golden Globe update: FYI June Squibb is from Vandalia, Illinois. You go, Flyover Girl!

And I thought Diane Keaton was lovely.

* “Ladies Who Lunch” by Stephen Sondheim

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December 27, 2013

Holiday moments

by chuckofish

Young folk

More young folk

Some old guys

Using the good dishes

Cool socks

Awesome t-shirts for English majors

Presents for pretty girls

Dance party!

The kiddos

Quelle week! Quelle year! Have a good weekend!

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December 9, 2013

‘Tis the season or “Look Doris, someday you’re going to find that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn’t work. And when you do, don’t overlook those lovely intangibles. You’ll discover those are the only things that are worthwhile.”*

by chuckofish

Regular readers of this blog know that the dual personalities are not particularly social animals. We like to stay home, but ’tis the season, as they say, and lately I have been very busy. And please note: This was all happening during a period of snow/snowy mix/sleet.

The other night I went to our church ornament party which is a fund-raiser for Outreach. This ladies-only event is always a “hilarious” good time where 40 or so church ladies of various ages choose a wrapped ornament and then hope it won’t get stolen by the next person in that favorite holiday tradition: the Dirty Santa game. Who invented this? Thanks a lot.

The associate rector clowns around.

Well, I had to fight for it, but I got the ornament I wanted!

Saturday morning I ran over to church where the Christmas cookie sale/used book sale was underway and bought a bagful of books. Yay!

Later that morning my three best church girlfriends piled into Carla’s SUV for a trip to our flyover state’s first capital, the quaint town of St. Charles.

It was their Christmas Walk weekend so it was very crowded despite the bitter temperatures.

Santa arrived and there were Victorian carol singers. Chestnuts were roasting on an open fire. There was even a band.

Most of the “quaint” shops are full of dreadful tourist-y merchandise, but there are some nice stores and I picked up a few things. It was a lot of fun, although super crowded.

Then we were off to our 3rd annual overnight at Monette’s Cabin, a charming bed ‘n breakfast nestled in the rolling hills of our picturesque flyover state. Last year it was 71-degrees when we arrived. This year it was 21-degrees! But we saw a lovely sunset.

We came prepared with lots of treats.

Between the four of us rocket scientists we could not figure out how to get the DVD player to work, so we could not watch the Christmas movies I had thoughtfully packed, but oh well. We talked the night away and when we were all gabbed out we came back home on Sunday.

Then I talked my old man into going with me to our friendly Optimists tree lot to buy our two Christmas trees (in the snow). Now they are defrosting and I will tackle them later this week. Phew.

How was your weekend?

*Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

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December 3, 2013

“…Do you think she’s talented, deeply and importantly talented?”

by chuckofish

Daughter #2 breezed into town last Tuesday and we had a wonderful time together. We shopped “small” in Kirkwood. We tried a trendy new restaurant in a converted gas station in a hipster south STL neighborhood. The food was amazing.

We caught up with her old buddy who came over for dinner. (Daughter #2 cooked.)

Edwina works for Anheuser-Busch–have Bud will travel.

We over-ate at the boy’s house with his in-laws on Thanksgiving and then watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles together. This picture really says it all.

We watched one of our favorite movies together. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Perfect.

And then it was time for her to return to Maryland.

Will I ever learn to take these farewells in stride? I doubt it.

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November 25, 2013

How shall we love thee, holy hidden being?*

by chuckofish

I bought these perfectly delightful Turkey cookies after church on Sunday from the Youth Group who was fundraising for some worthy cause. Aren’t they special?

In other news, I was surprised to see that we now have cushions in our pews. Last week we did not.

Taken with my iPhone, excuse me.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and so does our rector.

We had our leaves blown and vacuumed on Friday. I’m sure my husband is very thankful that he did not have to do it. The yard looks great, although the leaves continue to fall.

Most of the weekend was spent puttering around the old manse, readying it for daughter #2’s arrival on Tuesday.

While cleaning off my desk, I was reminded that on this day four years ago one of my dearest friends died suddenly. We were supposed to have lunch that day but she canceled in the morning because she wasn’t feeling well. Later in the day she went to the hospital. We exchanged a few emails. I was shocked to find out the next day that she had died that night at home in her sleep.

Irene was two years ahead of me in school from kindergarten through high school. We weren’t friends until later when we were both active in the same church. She was a successful realtor when she heeded the call and took off for divinity school in Virginia. She was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church and served in a variety of places. Her last assignment was to my Grace Church. At the time we had an interim who, to be honest, tried our Christian souls. We on the vestry tried very conscientiously to work with him, but then at a vestry meeting, he announced he was leaving (the next day) and that the Bishop had appointed Irene to step in. I was happy to speak up and say I had known her practically all my life and that she was a wonderful person and that we should be thrilled to have her. Everyone breathed a sigh of collective relief. (Several people actually told me that afterwards.)

And Irene truly was a blessing to our church, healing many wounds and reassuring us that we really were okay and not the bad Episcopalians the other guy had inferred we were on a regular basis. For the next 18 months, she guided us through the search process for a new rector who started in June of 2009. She died in November at age 55.

The lesson here is that you just don’t know when anyone might suddenly be removed from your life. So tell everyone you care about that you love them on a regular basis. The last time I met with Irene for coffee I said, “I love you, Irene” when we parted, and I am glad I did. Now every day when I drive by Starbucks on Lindbergh Road, I think of Irene.

* Hymn 573 by Laurence Housman (1865–1959)

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October 9, 2013

Happy Leif Erikson* Day!

by chuckofish

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them: the same became mighty men, who were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)

Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer who is regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

In 1929 the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill to make October 9 “Leif Erikson Day” in the state. That date was not chosen to commemorate any event in the life of the explorer, but rather, it marked the first organized immigration from Norway to the United States. The ship carrying these first immigrants arrived in New York Harbor on October 9, 1825. In 1964 the United States Congress authorized and requested the president to proclaim October 9 of each year as “Leif Erikson Day”.

My best friend in graduate school was a young woman whose father was a Lutheran minister and college professor at Augustana College. She was half Swedish and half Danish and a descendent of those 19th century immigrants who settled in the Midwest. She looked a lot like Loni Anderson. Many of my fellow (female) historians hated her because she was so gorgeous. (She was smart too.) I never held her looks against her.

She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and her parents drove down from Rock Island, Illinois to attend the festivities. They gave me a very Swedish-looking trivet which I have used ever since in all my kitchens. It reminds me of my friend and her Scandinavian parents every day.

Trevlig dag!

* Sometimes spelled Ericson; sometimes spelled Erickson. Zut alors! Someone please make up your mind!

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October 7, 2013

Weekend update

by chuckofish

On Saturday my friends and I embarked on an autumn adventure. We ventured down to the Historic Shaw Art Fair. The Art Fair itself is not historic, but the neighborhood is. The idea for the last 20 years has been to showcase the beautiful neighborhood by providing a “high-caliber cultural event”. We are always up for one of those.

Because Carla was driving, we found the bomb spot and parked right outside the Missouri Botanical Garden. Awesome.

It was overcast, but pleasant. There were reputedly 135 artists from across the country.

Plus “entertainment”.

It was fun, but I always feel bad about not buying something from all the well-meaning and earnest artists. I usually prefer my artwork to be vintage. C’est la vie. Afterwards we went to Jilly’s for lunch. I did not have a cupcake, but the non-dessert food was yummy.

When I got home I went over to my favorite Pumpkin Patch at the Methodist Church and picked out a couple of pumpkins.

I love pumpkins, don’t you?

Here is how my front porch “vignette” looks:

We planted some grass a few weeks ago and had part of a bale of hay left.

I know you’re impressed.

I was the second lector at church yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to read one of my favorite scripture passages from the second letter of Paul to Timothy. It includes my personal mantra:

For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but one of power and love and self-control. (RSV)

Of course, it was the NRSV so it read a little differently: for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

The KJV says: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

In this instance I like the RSV best. It is so much more personal, speaking to “you”, which seems like what Paul would have been doing in his letter to Timothy.

How was your weekend?

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September 27, 2013

Blast from the past: Mountain Day

by chuckofish

Yesterday was Mountain Day at my Alma Mater Smith College. Every year the President of the college announces Mountain Day without prior notice, and the student body heads to the mountains or a park when the bells are rung early in the morning signaling no classes. Students are supposed to enjoy the beautiful fall day out and about appreciating the foliage. It has been a Smith tradition since 1877.

Here is the sophomore me circa 1975 doing just that with some fellow nerds who took the call seriously. The cool kids were still in bed.

I am in the middle row on the left in the pink sweater.

We rode our bicycles out to Look Park with a picnic lunch. Of course we did.

And it really was wonderful.

Today I spoke to a fellow alum who is 15 years older than I, and she said that when the Mountain Day bells chimed she hopped on the train to New Haven. Well, she would.

In the spirit of Mountain Day, here are the lyrics to “The Mountains”, the Alma Mater of Williams College, which I hope is still sung lustily and with feeling by the gallant and the free.

The Mountains

O, proudly rise the monarchs of our mountain land,
With their kingly forest robes, to the sky,
Where Alma Mater dwelleth with her chosen band,
And the peaceful river floweth gently by.

CHORUS
The mountains! the mountains! we greet them with a song,
Whose echoes rebounding their woodland heights along,
Shall mingle with anthems that winds and fountains sing.
Till hill and valley gaily, gaily ring.

Beneath their peaceful shadows may old Williams stand,
Till suns and mountains nevermore shall be,
The glory and the honor of our mountain land,
And the dwelling of the gallant and the free.

–Written by Washington Gladden, class of 1859

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August 26, 2013

O blest communion, fellowship divine

by chuckofish

Daughter #2 went back east on Saturday, and after I dropped her off at the airport, I hurried back to Grace Church for a funeral. An 86-year old friend had died while we were in Wyoming and I wanted to pay my respects to him and to his lovely wife. (Also if I shed a few tears for daughter #2, no one would notice.)

As befitted the passing of a devout cradle Episcopalian, the service included KJV readings and the whole nine yards of communion–just the way I like it. There was a good crowd there to honor Brooke, a retired chemist with 30-something patents, including one to do with medical x-rays. He was also a devoted churchman–a dying breed I’m afraid. His three children all spoke movingly before the service about Brooke. I was impressed. But none of them seemed to know what to do during the service, which saddened me. Clearly none of his sons are devoted churchmen. Ah, well. So it goes.

Brooke once told me, after hearing the boy speak in church about his experience on the youth mission trip, that he thought my son was a “fine young man”. This meant a lot to me, and I can only hope that the boy will someday be as fine a man and churchman as Brooke was.

Speaking of Episcopalians, Ruby, our hostess in Wyoming, is the widow of a clergyman and the daughter-in-law of a bishop.

She took us to a service in the mountains at St. Alban’s Chapel which was officiated by the interim dean of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Laramie.

There were about 25 friendly souls and several dogs at the service.

An elderly chihuahua in a sweater who sat on a pew during the service.

Afterwards we all had a picnic at Lake Brooklyn nearby.

Daughter #2 made a friend.

Fortified with our healthy lunch, Ruby drove us around the Snowy Range 4-wheel drive trails in the Medicine Bow National Forest in her stick shift Subaru. We hiked some too, scrambling over rocks behind her.

Somehow we managed to keep up–not so easy for these flatlanders at 8200 ft.!

Ruby leaves our flyover state in May every year for her house in Wyoming and returns in late September when the weather turns cold. She is a hardy soul, hospitable, gracious and generous. This trip will go down in history as one of the best!

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August 5, 2013

Flyover road trip and weekend update

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? We had some (much-needed) rain on Friday night, but the rest of the weekend was lovely. Perfect, in fact, for a road trip–which I took with some friends over to Boonville to attend a wedding.

Yes, a destination wedding in Boonville, Missouri. And, yes, they spell it without an “e”. Don’t judge. The bride is from St. Louis and the groom hails from Steelville. No one seems to know why the wedding was in Boonville, but, hey, now I can say I’ve been there. Five hours in the car–well worth the effort.

Boonville is a town of about 8,000 in Cooper County on the Missouri River. Nothing much has happened there since a skirmish early in the Civil War when Union forces defeated a small and poorly equipped force of the Missouri State Guard in the first Battle of Boonville.

There are quite a few interesting buildings in town which are on the historic register, including the Thespian Hall, which is the oldest theater still in use west of the Alleghenies. Check out those brick columns!

The wedding took place in this lovely Episcopal Church.

I wish it had been held in the First Presbyterian Church in town, because–wow–I was dying to go inside this striking buff brick structure built in the Spanish Baroque style in 1903 with corner towers and a variety of classical motifs. What were those Boonville Presbyterians thinking?

As I have asserted before, the traditional Episcopal wedding service is hard to beat, but the organist played his instrument like a calliope and raced through the hymns. I’m not sure what the rush was–there wasn’t anything else going on in town. Perhaps he had a date at the local casino, but I digress…The bride was pretty and the groom smiled a lot, and that is always a good thing. (Don’t get me started on bridesmaids with tattoos.)

The reception was in the historic Hotel Frederick which had a nice vintage ambience.

The food was excellent as were the pear basil sipper cocktails, and there was cake.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, we continue to enjoy a cooler summer than we are used to. The flora continues to put forth bounty at a time when usually everything around here is burned up and nothing blooms but a few hardy roses. I really can’t believe this weather.

Carla’s lush front yard

I hung up some vintage curtains which I got on eBay in my laundry room and put two new shades in daughter #1/#2’s old bedroom with the help of my husband assisted by the boy.

The latter job took two weekends and the purchasing of a new tool. Things are never as simple as they look.

I am enjoying my current reading material.

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin is surprisingly well written and chock full of fascinating characters who are not of the cardboard variety. What are you reading this summer?

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