dual personalities

Tag: Weekend

May 23, 2022

“Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight, robed in the blooming garb of spring”*

by chuckofish

Well, on last Thursday night we had quite a thunderstorm, which actually was a EF0 tornado two blocks away. I’m not kidding. I was standing in the front door watching when the straight line wind came through (80 mph!) but it didn’t seem like a really big deal or anything.

But I guess it was.

(photo from KSDK.com)

On Saturday morning the OM and I went to my friend Nicki’s memorial service which had been postponed since January. We had to drive there in a thunderous gulley-washer, arriving, like everyone else, rather wet and bedraggled from the hike from our car. (This church–with the largest Episcopal congregation in the diocese–has no parking lot and you have to find parking spots on a residential street the best you can–zut alors!)

As you know, I have always loved the Episcopal Burial Office, Rite I, especially the procession–

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.

For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself.
For if we live, we live unto the Lord.
and if we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;
even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.

The semi-professional choir (wearing masks) sang it, however, as they did the psalms, and so it seemed like a theater production. This is how they like it at this church. So be it.

We skipped the reception at the St. Louis Country Club and came home so we could go to the high school graduation party of our neighbor across the street. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for this cute boy because he reminds me of DN. He is going to Montana State so he can hike and fish and ski. I said, you know you have to go to class too, right? He chuckled. But really. Why do people go to college nowadays? Anyway, it was a lot of socializing for one day. I watched the PGA tournament thereafter.

On Sunday it was good to be back in our own church alongside the wee babes. We had brunch afterwards and then they all went home and the weekend wound down.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

Hymn #642

P.S. This was cool about a unique Cardinals-Giants baseball game played last week. “We tend to think of life as a game to be won rather than a game to be enjoyed. We feel the pressure to determine the outcome. But what if we already know the outcome? We no longer need to worry about whether we will win or lose because those of us who are in Christ have both lost and won. Because he died and now lives, we have also died with him, and we will live with him (2 Tim 2:11). So if that’s the case, what do we have to lose?”

I am glad to see that Paul Zahl is back with his recommendations for TCM films to watch in June. “The Hoodlum Priest is the kind of movie that was popular and successful when it came out, but the critical “establishment” would like it to stay in a memory hole forever. Please don’t let that happen. Stay up and watch The Hoodlum Priest on June the 11th!”

Have a good week!

*Hymn #170, Munster Gesangbuch, 1677

6 Comments
May 16, 2022

Postcards from the weekend

by chuckofish

As anticipated, our long weekend visit from daughter #2 and Katie was super fun. It was so sad to see them off at the airport on Sunday and then to wave goodbye to daughter #1 as she headed back to mid-MO. Sigh. But we did a lot of of our favorite things…

Ted Drewes! Yummy!

The traditional extra large Diet Cokes from the Mac’s drive-through…

Walking through Laumeier Sculpture Park…

Cooling off with the cousins…

Bringing out the Cozy Coupe…

Going to Grant’s Farm…

We also enjoyed some quiet time…

All in all, truly a most wonderful visit for which we are most grateful! I’m also grateful that everyone got home safe and sound to their respective abodes. Today I will spend the day recovering and cleaning up!

7 Comments
May 2, 2022

Gracious God, my heart renew, make my spirit right and true…

by chuckofish

…cast me not away from thee, let thy Spirit dwell in me…*

It was a quiet weekend…except for an earthquake on Friday evening!

The OM and I were watching the news when we thought we heard two loud booms and the house shook for a second. We thought it might be a) an earthquake, b) an explosion or c) a bad car crash. Daughter #1 texted a little while later that she had received a ‘push alert’ about an earthquake in Valley Park.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. Selah.

–Psalm 46: 2-3

What next? Do we dare ask?

I cajoled the OM into accompanying me on Saturday to an open house held at the 1816 log house in Affton, MO, which will be disassembled and moved to the Thomas Sappington House Historic Site in Crestwood.

This is a great example of a small local group working tirelessly to preserve a small piece of history. They are still raising money so that the two Sappington cousins’ houses built in the early 1800s – Thomas’ brick house, now a museum, and Joseph’s log house (above)–can be preserved together. (The log cabin is currently located in a residential area, surrounded by small homes, and has been lived in by private owners all these years.)

There are lots of people who could just write a big check and make this happen but historic preservation is not high on most people’s priority lists these days. C’est la vie. It will happen, one small donation at a time.

On Sunday we met up with the boy and the wee twins at church per usual and then headed home afterwards for some brunch and driveway sittin’. (It was perfect weather for driveway sittin’ but I have no pictures of us just sittin’…)

Waitin’ for brunch with my old Tyrolean village…
Practising that nice PGA swing
We hauled out the old shopping cart–always a fave

And we always have fun looking for the hidden animals in the yard…

…and seeing what’s about to bloom…Iris buds!

I was struck in church by the thought of how blessed I was to be sitting between my husband and my grown son. This, after decades of being the “Widow Compton” at my old Episcopal Church, is not a small thing. (One old lady even thought I had married the actual widower with whom I generally shared a pew!) But the menfolk in my family like the new church–and no wonder–it is full of men! (I like it for that reason too.) Discuss among yourselves.

I watched the Horse Soldiers (1959) in honor of Ulysses Grant and Bing Russell and thoroughly enjoyed it.

It is such a great movie. I don’t understand why it is so often considered to be one of John Ford’s lesser films. The stars are great together and the supporting cast is without parallel in my opinion. It was filmed on location in Mississippi and so has an authenticity a lot of Civil War dramas lack. (Compare the plantation Greenbriar in this movie to Tara.) Ford himself tended to dismiss the film, in large part I think because a stuntman was killed while filming. This greatly upset him and he ended filming the movie abruptly and returned to California.

Matthew Brady takes a picture.

Nevertheless, it is one of my favorites.

It is supposed to rain on and off again all week, but oh well. I’ll find something to do.

*The Psalter, 1912

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April 28, 2022

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down*

by chuckofish

The temperature has fluctuated mightily of late, but I went ahead and planted geraniums in the pots on my front porch (before Mother’s Day!) and I think they’ll be okay.

I have had a quiet week compared to last week and my weekend will be likewise sedate. No impending social events beyond the usual Sunday family get-together. I will use some of the time to catch up on the Errol Flynn movies I DVR’d over the month of April when he was the TCM Star of the Month. Many of these movies I have not seen since I watched “Errol Flynn Theater” on Sunday afternoons during my childhood. Some of the ones I have watched are better than I remembered.

I liked Desperate Journey (1942) which follows the crew of a downed British bomber as they escape from their Nazi captors with Top Secret intelligence. The desperate journey they make to get out of Germany alive is exciting and full of derring-do. The cast of Warner Brothers A-teamers is excellent and includes Ronald Reagan in a scene-stealing part.

I also liked Objective, Burma! (1945) which is a gritty WWII adventure about a platoon of special ops who parachute into the remote Burmese jungle to destroy a strategic Japanese radar station, but find that getting back out isn’t easy.

The Master of Ballantrae (1953) is an entertaining swashbuckler loosely based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Filmed in technicolor in England and Scotland, it exhibits high production values and its stars, Errol Flynn and Roger Livesey, look great in their costumes and seem to be enjoying themselves.

No, it’s not Captain Blood, but it’s not bad.

As I have noted before, our mother was a huge fan of Errol Flynn and it really bothered her that he ruined his career and his looks with his lifestyle and heavy drinking. (He died at age 50 in 1959.) She basically wrote off all his movies after the mid-1940s. She had a point, but I would argue that some of his later movies are not that bad and, really, compared to a lot of actors, he looked good right up to the end. It’s just that he started out so great. Sigh.

EF playing his hero John Barrymore in Too Much, Too Soon (1958)

I liked this post about how people, as they age, just want to remain useful and bear fruit. The author even quotes from Psalm 92 which I also did last week.

I love reading about guys like this.

I also liked this post about Elon Musk buying Twitter (although the writer uses ‘pretty’ as a modifier way too much.) “Lest we forget, it seems that Elon Musk got it in his head—at least in part—to purchase Twitter when Twitter gave a temporary suspension to the Babylon Bee.”

I love it. Never underestimate the Bee.

*Ecclesiastes 1: 5

6 Comments
March 28, 2022

Blessed assurance

by chuckofish

The sun came out, but it was windy and cold here in flyover country this weekend. March is still roaring like a lion! We are awaiting the lamb…

God is good and I look for and find small pleasures in his name*.

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

—Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

Daughter #1 and I had fun hanging out and singing along to Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. On Saturday we buzzed around, shopping for fabric and children’s clothes and perusing an estate sale. We went out to lunch. We gabbed away in the Florida room and enjoyed happy hour at home. On Sunday she got up early and drove downtown to have breakfast with a college friend before church. I went to my adult education class at church and then the OM, boy, daughter #3 et al met up at the 11 o’clock service. The seven of us almost take up an entire pew!) The wee twins were again super well-behaved, keeping their natural depravity in check during the hour and a half long service. I was super impressed.

After church we went home and ate bagels and jelly beans and, although it was chilly, played outside for awhile.

Rapunzel!

As my mother always said, “Keep it simple,” and my friend Nicki said, “Lower your expectations.” Praise the Lord–everything will work out.

*Read this for more on this subject.

6 Comments
March 21, 2022

Morning by morning new mercies I see*

by chuckofish

Easter candy season has arrived and the bud was introduced to malted milk eggs…

Super Yummo

…and the Dedham bunnies have come out.

Lottie and the wee laddie deserved candy after church on Sunday because they sat quietly through the entire service, including the long sermon. (There was no children’s separate worship because of spring break.) Their dad said there was some “loud sighing” which he did not appreciate, but I was very impressed.

After church we had bagels again and then indulged in some fine driveway sitting while the twins frolicked.

Good times, simple pleasures. Go for a drive, eat some candy, blow some bubbles, dig in the dirt…read some poetry!

I like Robert Herrick’s poem from the 17th century. Some things don’t change.

P.S. The Babylon Bee has been on fire recently, but this headline made me LOL. The world is so crazy, what can you do but laugh?

7 Comments
March 14, 2022

Come ye before him and rejoice*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Mine was super cold and then super nice and sunny, so we covered the bases, weather-wise. On Saturday I got up early and went with my friend Becky and her sister to the Vintage Market Days in St. Charles, held at the giant St. Charles Convention Center. We had to stand outside in line in the bitter cold (16 degrees) for a good fifteen minutes, but it was worth it. We had fun perusing the aisles.

By the time we left it was very crowded. I bought a little cement rabbit for the yard.

I was worn out though, so when I got home I lay on the couch and watched three hours of PGA golf.

The boy and WRC jr. joined us at church on Sunday. (Lottie and her mother had a Mommy and Me day to mark the anniversary of the day Lottie came home from the NICU back in 2017…)

After church we ate bagels and then played outside. The wee laddie took the Raptor out for a spin…

…checked out the “moisture” in the grass…

(Nice plank)

…and blew some bubbles…

…in a nice sunny spot he chose for his chair. He (and I) are ready for some driveway sitting!

We missed the girls, but it was nice to have the boys all to ourselves. After they left to go work at the boy’s store, I gabbed on the phone with daughter #2 and heard all about her fun visit with daughter #1 who had moved on to her conference in D.C.

I watched some more PGA to round out the weekend and saw Shane Lowry hit a hole-in-one on the 17th hole which the day before had been giving everyone a super hard time because of insane headwinds. Crazy, man–made my day.

*All people that on earth do dwell,

sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;

him serve with fear, his praise forthtell,

come ye before him and rejoice.

Old One Hundredth
5 Comments
March 7, 2022

What then shall we say to these things?

by chuckofish

This weekend I stepped out of my comfort zone and ventured to an estate sale in a part of town that is terra incognita to me. Daughter #2 was in Jeff City so I had no trusty co-pilot…but I found the house without a problem. It was in Affton, a tiny house that would usually never tempt me, but the pictures on the estate sale website had led me to believe that it might be worthwhile because there were lots of Ehrman needlepoint pillows, finished, unfinished and unopened kits. A veritable treasure trove of the best kits from the U.K.! Even though I arrived within an hour of opening, a lot of the best pillows and all the kits were already gone. However, upon investigation, I soon discovered that the woman who had made all the pillows and sewed all the kits was not a very accomplished needlepointer. They were all trapezoidal, not square, and nothing had been blocked. Her stitching was terrible. What a shame!

I bought one that had not yet been made into a pillow in memory of the devoted needlepointer, but I am uncertain pretty sure it can’t be salvaged.

I also bought a good book…

…which happened to have the woman’s name in it. It sounded vaguely familiar and I was curious, so I googled her. It turns out she went to my old Episcopal church! Zut alors–the world is so small.

We had another great sermon in church on Sunday. It was on Romans 8:31-39, one of the greatest passages in scripture.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As usual, I cried during every hymn. All these tears made me think of what Frederick Buechner wrote about tears…

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.  They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next. 

–Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

Nevertheless, it is kind of embarrassing and I need to stop wearing mascara to church.

The boy and his wee family joined us at church and then came over for brunch. The sun wasn’t out, but it was warm enough to do a little exploring in the yard after our meal…

…and I put the wee babes to work picking up sticks after a very windy winter…

This is a game they enjoy. (Lottie made believe we were going to have a bonfire. Make-believe bonfires are the best.) I went out and bagged it up later.

How was your weekend?

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as now.

Elvina M. Hall, 1865
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January 24, 2022

Hey, baby. There ain’t no easy way out*

by chuckofish

Mood. Life just keeps getting weirder, right? But we try to persevere in our own small way. Chin chin.

Happily, daughter #1 came home on Friday and we spent a nice weekend doing what I like to think of as normal things. We went to our new favorite place for happy hour and then came home and listened to music. The OM provided dinner. On Saturday we went to two estate sales and bought a few books and a couple of other do-dads. We went out to lunch. On Saturday night we watched the first part of The Ten Commandments (1956) which, between Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner and John Derek, features a lot of old fashioned male pulchritude.

As I’ve noted before, the film really holds up and we will watch the second half at a later date (we know how it ends.)

Sunday morning I made a tater tot casserole to serve for lunch after church. Then we all met up with the boy and his petite famille at church where we sang our Presbyterian hymns lustily and listened to a long sermon on Acts 20: 28-38 by the youth minister about being attentive to yourself (in respect to grace), to one another and to the Gospel. I am so happy to leave church feeling joyful and not annoyed as was previously always the the case. (The boy was annoyed because we sang Rock of Ages with the alternate tune, but this is a small price to pay for doctrinal satisfaction in my opinion.)

Lord, how delightful ’tis to see

A whole assembly worship thee!

At once they sing, at once they pray;

They hear of heaven, and learn the way.

With thoughts of Christ and things divine

Fill up this foolish heart of mine;

That, hoping pardon through his blood,

I may lie down, and wake with God.

(Isaac Watts)

After church we finally celebrated daughter #3’s birthday which was delayed from earlier in January because she was sick and then quarantined.

It had been almost a month since we had seen them! The wee laddie got a chance to drive the Raptor so he was a happy camper.

I suppose this may all sound extremely dull, but for me it was lovely and I am thankful. I am thankful that my husband went out in the cold and brought home a fast food dinner. I am thankful that my daughter spun records for me. I am even thankful that my grandson said he didn’t want to come over to my house after church because it is weird and ugly, but then he did and ate conversation hearts and a donut and was quite content. Life is weird and ugly, but there are also donuts.

Anyway, I am now a certified nerd because I actually understood these two Babylon Bee “stories” and they made me laugh out loud.

*Tom Petty

8 Comments
December 6, 2021

“Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled”

by chuckofish

The OM and I buzzed over to Jefferson City on Friday afternoon to see daughter #1 and partake of some small town Advent fun. We walked over to High Street which had been blocked off to traffic for some Christmas window display viewing. Everyone in town was there–just like in a Hallmark movie–without the romance! We then moseyed over to the Governor’s Mansion which was open for tours.

Then we walked home and watched…

The next day we drove to Boonville to tour the DAR Roslyn Heights house, built in 1895 in the Queen Anne style by Wilbur T. and Rhoda Stephens Johnson. It is currently the Missouri State Society Daughters of the American Revolution Headquarters and every December the different chapters decorate Christmas trees which are displayed throughout the house.

We stopped in New Franklin…

to view the DAR Santa Fe Trail Marker…

(…pink granite just like every building at my old flyover university.)

Then we headed over to Rocheport to have lunch at our favorite winery on the Missouri River.

That evening we strolled back to High Street to stake out space to watch the Jefferson City Christmas Parade. Once again, everyone in town was there.

It was an excellent parade with lots of high school bands and myriad floats and noisy trucks, but when the sun went down, it got much colder and we walked home. We watched another old favorite, The Muppet Christmas Carol (with Michael Caine!) which is a remarkably faithful re-telling of the Dickens story.

We got up early on Sunday morning so we could head back home and not miss church. I’m glad we made it because we heard an excellent sermon focusing on Luke 1: 26-38. Our senior pastor recommended we try starting each day with the prayer, “Behold I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to Your word.” This sounds like a good plan to me.

Also, there was a baptism and an impromptu singing of “Jesus Loves Me” by the congregation. Both Lottie and the wee Bud exclaimed, “I know that song!” and chimed in accordingly. After church we went to Panera because our cupboards at home were bare. While we waited for our food to be ready, I asked the twins what they had learned in Sunday School and Lottie, after a pause, replied, “Fruit…fruit of the spirit.” Her Dad asked, “And what are the fruits of the spirit?” To my surprise, she reeled off, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control!” We were impressed and she repeated this several times, each time ending with a drawn out seeelllfff-controoool.” (I figured out they learned a song about the fruits of the spirit.) Will wonders never cease?

Have fun this week! Watch a Christmas movie, visit a small town or an historic home decorated for Christmas, memorize the fruit of the spirit, and remember you don’t deserve any of this. It is all a gift–and knowing this is a pathway to joy.

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