a quick update

up early this morning for a tryst with the ironing board...getting clothes suitcase-ready and ME-ready, trying to scry the weather in two cities, two provinces over three days, with about four different occasions at four different levels of formality (including one that needs the big ol' vestment bag, sigh).

Life somewhat intensified by the prospect of a second session of travel starting very soon after the return to Tether's End...what can I get accomplished in the interval, what HAS to be done before I go away (the second time, by car). For example, schedule exchange of all-weather tires for snow tires; I'd rather listen to them whine unnecessarily than find myself in the midst of the Great Flatness wishing I had them.

On the inter-tubes this morning to find out about Advance Polls for the municipal election...one more thing to schedule in for next weekend.

Taking the national Road Atlas with me on the plane this morning for some more detailed planning of when, where, how far, how many days. Also Bible (preaching next Sunday), also book (for review, due day after return).

Deciding NOT to take excellent dog book by Monks of New Skete (property of public library). I distrust my capacity to travel with a book that is someone else's property, and get it home again safely.

Much taken with the dog-training ethos of the New Skete community. Trying not to list the human beings I know who would be all the better for a "quick leash pop" from time to time.

Feeling a bit daunted by all that I DO NOT KNOW about the dogly realm, as I contemplate becoming a dog-person. I get the two basic principles, that most dogs who distress their owners a) haven't figured out who the boss is and b) haven't had enough exercise. I think I can do the "boss" part (snickering offstage from offspring etc). But two walks a day -- AND PLAY? Dogs need PLAY? They're not talking about cribbage, either, are they? Backgammon? Beggar-my-neighbour? Nah, didn't think so.

...it feels really, really, foolish, but I'm not at all sure I know how to play with a dog...

Back to the ironing board.

respite

We are getting another wee interval of sunshine and warmth today, after a severe frost last night -- ice on the windshield, ice on the grass and on the puddles at dawn this morning.

I had a cup of green tea last night at bedtime. Later I had some astonishing vivid although not unpleasant dreams. Temptation to assign cause and effect to that sequence, but I don't know.

As it was, got sufficient sleep, with one wakeful interval in which I sat up and read some more of the most recent TLS including a not-altogether-glowing review of Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind. "Pshaw," I say -- I like what she's saying and I enjoy the way she says it.

There is also a lengthy profile on Benedict XVI by Rupert Shortt, another writer I enjoy. I don't think it's altogether glowing either. But I'm saving if for later...thought I might doze off again midway through and I want to read it through at a sitting.

Interesting article on Jan Sibelius (review of a new biography) and the public status of the creative arts in Finland a hundred years ago.

What with one thing and another did not rise up with any exceptional alacrity this morning and getting out of the house became one of those "what can I safely omit doing" processes...finally decided that I must either eat my oatmeal a) in the bathtub (unwise) or b) in the car (doomed) or c) at my midmorning meeting. So I opted for c).

Then by way of the gas station and a fill-up, to the day's second meeting, good coffee and gingersnaps and good fraternization. Away again past the bank machine to check balances, to the discount bakery outlet, and home again in time to greet the piano tuner, who arrived shortly after the house-painter. They are friends but were not aware they were both engaged today in the upgrading of Tether's End. Joviality ensued.

Earlier in the week booked my brief trip to the Left Coast...trying to juggle family and friends and travel times...decided that I could take an awful lot of taxis for the cost of renting a car--so that's one less thing to worry about.

And the high energy moment of the week so far has been bundling registration material away to RevGalBlogPals Inc. for BE-4!!! Exhilarating!!!

Meantime there is earnest thumping and scraping outdoors, and earnest plinking and plunking indoors...happy sigh!

AAAAAHHHHHHHH

Sorry about the Little-Girl Scream, there, but the Rambler is en route to the post office to send off her registration for BE 4!!!!!!!

You may now resume your normal activities.

commentary on the statu in quo...

Found this, this week, in TLS in Hugo Williams' "Freelance" column.

The first half of your life you spend assembling loved objects for some imagined "This is it", but the "it" never arrives, because when you get there you feel more like getting rid of it. Is it because the old travel faster and have transferred their objects to memory, to lighten the load? Is it streamlining and simplification for a simpler age? Or could it be that we have started, in the gentlest way imaginable, to forget what these things were and what they once meant to us?

Books are the hardest things to get rid of because of their closedness and changeability. It isn't enough to hate a book for you to get rid of it: you might need it some time for that very reason.

That pretty well sums it up, I think...

An interesting weekend -- wisdom tooth got rowdy with me Saturday night, sleeplessness NOT a good foundation for preaching but church went well and the rush of preaching sidelined the face-ache and optical migraine and other petits maux pretty effectively.

M-the-Paint is here altering the colour--or rather, colours--of Tether's End, a happy end-of-summer project.

There will be SPORTS presently on television...ironing...and the book group meets this evening, we defy calendars.

Happy Labour Day all -- may you have the weather you need to do the things you want!