Weekend | dual personalities

October 19, 2015

“The outermost suburbs of the Truth”*

by chuckofish

I didn’t do a whole lot this weekend. I went to a few estate sales and I puttered around the house. I walked around my neighborhood. It is the perfect weather for that.

I watched Furious 7 (2015) with Vin Diesel et al.

It was ridiculous but highly entertaining. Indeed, the movie deserves an Oscar for special effects, because I certainly could not tell you where the real Paul Walker began and ended. Those Weta Digital people are pretty amazing.

I didn’t go to church but stayed home and re-read Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner, the third in his trilogy of memoir. It was the first book I ever read by Buechner and I was sold for life. But I guess he is not for everyone. When I first discovered him over twenty years ago, I recommended him to everyone I knew. One friend read The Sacred Journey (the first book of memoir) and thought he was a whiner. That is the last way I would describe him, but to each his own.

“The passage from Genesis points to a mystery greater still. It says that we came from farther away than space and longer ago than time. It says that evolution and genetics and environment explain a lot about us but they don’t explain all about us or even the most important thing about us. It says that though we live in the world, we can never really be at home in the world. It says in short not only that we were created by God but also that we were created in God’s image and likeness. We have something of God within us the way we have something of the stars.”

Buechner is the Man as far as I’m concerned.

And now it’s Monday again. Tra la la.

*Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner

3 Comments

July 12, 2015

“I hate a man that talks rude. I won’t tolerate it.”*

by chuckofish

It was hot and humid here this weekend–normal for flyover country–but we managed to get out and about nevertheless.

I went to an estate sale and visited my favorite “antique” mall. I didn’t find anything except a copy of the “Charleston Receipts” cookbook by the Junior League of Charleston, 1950. Can’t wait to try some Huguenot Torte! I also received a package from Furbish–a gift to myself to remind me of my lovely time in Florida.

On Sunday the OM accompanied me to the Missouri History Museum

where we viewed the “A Walk in 1875 St. Louis” exhibit.

I enjoyed it, although it was a bit cartoon-y, as many (if not most) museum exhibits seem to be these days. They cater to what they imagine the public will enjoy/understand. All very well and good, but we were in and out of there in half an hour. We stopped at the gift shop to buy a cool map of St. Louis in the good old days and then headed over to one of my favorite restaurants, Cafe Osage, in the Central West End.

My phone battery was about to give out, so I couldn’t take a picture of my yummo “breakfast wrap”, but you can take my word for it, it was delish. The OM had never been there, and although he thought the neighborhood was sketch-tastic, he enjoyed his lunch. He felt like such a hipster.

I continued to read Lonesome Dove and am far past the point where I am already depressed that the book will end and I will have to say goodbye to Call and McCrae. I have mentioned before that they are both favorite fictional characters of mine, right up there with Philip Marlowe and Holden Caulfield. But the thing is, there are so many great characters in this book: from Wilbarger, the cattleman and Yale graduate, to the wild girl Janey and all the cowboys. I will miss them all. Now that’s a great book.

I remember trying to get my mother to read it back in 1987 and she didn’t. Go now, and read it!

Happy Monday!

*Captain Call, Lonesome Dove

2 Comments

July 10, 2015

Stir it up

by chuckofish

O God our Father, let us find grace in thy sight so as to have grace to serve thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear; and further grace not to receive thy grace in vain, nor to neglect it and fall from it, but to stir it up and grow in it, and to persevere in it unto the end of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Lancelot Andrewes

We have had rain, rain and more rain this week. June was the rainiest on record. I am not complaining, but I hope we see some sunshine this weekend. Here are some paintings by Oscar Edmund Berninghaus (2 October 1874 – 27 April 1952), who was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, to help us imagine some drier, warmer air.

He is best known for his paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico and the American Southwest.

And furthermore, Oscar Berninghaus, you will recall, was born in in St. Louis, Missouri. His father ran a lithography business, which stimulated an interest in watercolor painting in Oscar. Reading about Berninghaus, I found out that at sixteen he quit school and took a job with Compton and Sons, a local lithography company.

This made me remember that I had heard about a fantastic new exhibit titled “A Walk in 1875 St. Louis” at the Missouri History Museum. One of the most amazing maps of a city ever created was Compton & Dry’s “Pictorial St. Louis,” drawn in 1875 and published in 1876.

plate 77

Using this incredibly detailed cartographic masterpiece as its backdrop, the Missouri History Museum developed a 6,000 square-foot exhibition that explores the collective life of 1875 St. Louis through photographs, artifacts, news, writings and first hand accounts of the day.

I guess I’ll see if the OM would like to check it out this weekend. A museum, after all, is a good place to go on a rainy day.

This is how my mind works.

Have a good weekend!

7 Comments

June 1, 2015

A cup of blessing

by chuckofish

It was a rainy, overcast weekend–which is kind of nice sometimes. It gives one permission to slow down and read a book instead of trying to get a million things done. You know what I mean?

However, I did manage to do a few things anyway. I saw this weird bug on my garage.

Have you ever seen anything like him? He was big like a cicada, but didn’t look like our typical flyover cicadas. Zut alors!

I found this while going through a bunch of old books in my basement.

According to the sentiment written inside the cover, my mother gave it to me February 14, 1968. She was always trying to encourage me in my endeavors francaise, but it really was a lost cause.

Apres le petit dejeuner, il avait repete sa chanson pour bien la savoir par couer, et maintenant il se la chantait tres gentilment, sans se tromper. Cela donnait a peu pres ceci:

Tra-la-la, tra-la-lere!

Zim-boum-boum, ran-tan-plan!

Brrm-brrm-brrm, la-di-dere!

Pout-pout-pout, zim-pan-pan!

(Sorry, no accent marks!)

I’m afraid Winnie the Pooh loses something in translation!

I watched To Have and Have Not (1943) in honor of Howard Hawks’ birthday on Saturday. It was as good as a Hemingway novel adapted for the screen by William Faulkner can be. And by that I mean excellent. Which Hawks classic did you watch?

I also watched a really terrible movie: Rhinestone (1984) starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton. I had never seen it, and despite Dolly doing her best, it was pretty awful. Stallone was painfully bad.

It is amazing that Bob Clark, who had directed A Christmas Story the year before, ever worked again.

Sunday night I DVR’d Grantchester and watched The Cowboys (1972) which is the story of a cattle owner (John Wayne) who is forced to go on a cattle drive with only a bunch of underage cowboys to help.

The young boys in this movie are excellent. Indeed, the movie is excellent and well directed by Mark Rydell. And although the Duke (spoiler alert) dies at the hands of some lesser men in the movie, it ends well.

The highlight of my weekend was when my old friend Dick, who was in town from Atlanta for our special event at work this week, dropped by my office on Friday and brought me this:

A Mike Matheny autographed baseball! He asked Mike to sign it when he was in Jupiter for spring training. Wasn’t that thoughtful? It certainly made my day!

Have a good Monday!

*Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting–a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”

7 Comments

May 26, 2015

Long weekend: and then we were all in one place*

by chuckofish

Long weekends are the best, right? Especially if you have out-of-town guests.

My nephew Chris and his friend Nicole stopped overnight on their cross-country trip from upstate New York to the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.

The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner and a movie,

but I forgot to take a picture. It was fun, as you can imagine.

The weather, despite dire predictions to the contrary, was lovely and I spent a lot of time puttering around the yard and lounging in the Florida room with a good book.

In other news, let’s not forget that today is John Wayne’s birthday–so “slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s go! We’re burning daylight!”

Happy Tuesday and a 4-day week!

*”And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” (Acts 2:1 KJV)

4 Comments

April 27, 2015

“I know my own and my own know me.”*

by chuckofish

Sunday was Good Shepherd Sunday and so all the hymns and the lessons and the psalm (23) were about Christ, the Good Shepherd.

Window in the Home Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC

We even sang one of my favorite hymns from my childhood–“The King of Love My Shepherd Is” with the correct St. Columba tune–which was quite a treat for me.

Sunday was also a beautiful spring day and so I tried to get some work done in the yard–spreading mulch etc.–and I did accomplish a little before my knees started to warn me to take a break. I have learned that it is the better part of valor to quit while ahead, especially when there is more to do later in the day. Yes, I had an actual social event to go to later in the evening and also a “visitation” to attend at a local funeral home on the way.

Life with a capital “L”.

Speaking of Life, the birds who insisted on building a nest on top of the cage we built around the kitchen exhaust fan to keep them from building a nest inside the fan, have hatched their eggs and are now feeding the hatchlings.

Hello, nature.

Unstoppable.

Earlier in the weekend the boy dropped by to borrow the OM’s tuxedo so he could go to the CHS Prom with his HS teacher wife–as chaperones. He says he never got to take her to the Prom when they were teenagers, so they enjoy going every year now that they are old married folks.

Pretty darn cute.

Have a good Monday!

*John 10:14

6 Comments

October 10, 2014

Tout va bien: Friday edition

by chuckofish

Tonight I am serving Episcopal souffle to my good friends who are bringing the Holy Spirit salad, bread (for breaking) and Sweet Jesus! dessert. Since my friends are not really much for drinking, there will plenty of wine pour moi.

Tout va bien.

Here’s to a quiet weekend.

Go Cards!

2 Comments

September 29, 2014

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty uneventful. I watched a good movie (Laura–1943) and a bad movie (Noah–2014).

I did a lot of therapeutic throwing away of things–like old VHS tapes. I tried out the electric trimmer, which I have never used before. Seriously I don’t know why the OM hasn’t been spending all his free time using it. It is so fun. What a feeling of power. I think I could get into this.

Edward Scissorhand’s house and garden

I sat on the patio and looked at the trees.

There was a hawk up there on that low branch, but I wasn’t fast enough with the iphone.

and I drank the last beer of summer.

And I found this on Etsy:

It almost makes me want a cat so I can buy one!

And, by the way, the Cardinals ended the season in first place in the National League Central Division! Onward to L.A. on Friday and post-season stress syndrome.

Have a good week!

*Philippians 2:12 (from Sunday’s 2nd reading)

7 Comments

September 22, 2014

“Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.”*

by chuckofish

I spent a good deal of my weekend thinking about what I had been doing last weekend, but you know how that goes. Luckily we had a semi-surprise visit from our niece Ellen who was driving down to Houston from Detroit. She stopped in our flyover city to spend the night and it was, indeed, a treat to see her. The boy came over and had dinner with us.

Not fair to take a picture after a 10 hour drive, but oh well.

Ellen is a Ph.D student in geology at Penn State. She’s interning at some big oil company for the semester. She thinks nothing of camping on site in Utah all summer and then driving across country in her pickup truck. She is awesome.

We watched Ninotchka (1939).

After Ellen left bright and early on Saturday morning, I finished the Irish mystery I was reading–In the Woods by Tana French–and I went to some estate sales. I also worked in the yard. It was a glorious fall weekend and a treat to be outside. On Sunday I went to church where the OT reading was from Jonah–which is kind of a hilarious book if you haven’t read it lately–followed by some Philippians and a gospel message on self-righteousness. It all fit together really well. We were reminded that God is not fair, he is generous. The last will be first, and the first will be last. It was good to hear.

Also it was St. Matthew’s Day, so we had a big party–a picnic complete with bagpiper inside

and outside,

a bouncy house,

good food,

and a snow cone machine!

Good times! I’m not sure why we had a bagpiper, except that they always add a festive note–but it was cool.

Hope your weekend was good too. Have a great week!

(The photos of the picnic are from the Grace Church Facebook page.)

*Jonah 1:15

6 Comments

August 29, 2014

When the light is changing

by chuckofish

I deserved a treat, so I ordered Mary Chapin Carpenter’s 2010 CD The Age of Miracles.

I am one of her oldest fans (and I mean that both ways)–although we are contemporaries after all, so never mind. Anyway, she never disappoints. It is a very good album and there is one song which really spoke to me. Listen, fellow introverts, and enjoy!

And, oh boy, the weekend is upon us once again! The painting in my bathroom is finished (thank you, Gary!) and so my project is to put the room back together.

I will also be readying the house for daughter # 1 who arrives home in a week for a birthday visit. Lots to do–but all fun stuff.

Hope your weekend is full of fun stuff too!

P.S. Today is Joseph Cotton day on TCM–so nothing thrilling to report there. He was in some classic movies, including Citizen Kane and The Third Man, but I am not a big fan of his. With a few notable exceptions like Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943), he made a career of playing the second lead, the good guy who is kind of boring and makes the lead look sexy and dangerous in comparison. In that genre, TCM will be showing Duel in the Sun (1947) which, even though it stars a hot young Gregory Peck playing Cotton’s bad younger brother, is a pretty terrible movie. I liked it as a child though, mostly because of the ethereal Lillian Gish who plays the aging southern belle who had a thing a long time ago for her reckless creole cousin and so takes in his half-breed daughter, played by the terrible actress Jennifer Jones. Whenever Gish is in a scene, “Beautiful Dreamer” plays in the background and follows her around eerily. I’m sure I had no idea what was actually going on, i.e. rape, wreckage and ruin. King Vidor directed it all with a heavy hand, but it does have a rousing musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin.