tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44523660571489634992024-03-04T21:55:43.631-08:00The Crimson RamblerCrimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.comBlogger587125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-17994573935643260592019-01-24T07:03:00.000-08:002019-01-24T07:03:01.436-08:00Emerging from the mist...<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Like the well-remembered Grendel’s mother—make that “Grandmother”—to confront (yet again) the Four Horsemen of the (domestic) Apocalypse. Pictured above. This morning, I think, they personify “Dirty, Dark, Dilapidated, and Deferred.” The secret here is to set limited goals, <i>limited</i> goals, for the day ahead. About four tasks—putting together a cleaning kit I can carry from room to room; running amok from front door to back door with one or more vacuum cleaners (NOT simultaneously, picturesque though that might be. Also loud); three quart-jar salads for lunches through the remainder of the week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">One foray into the community to bank and library and pharmacy—and any other energy that appears, undesignated, goes into correspondence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">OK, here we go — let’er rip!</span></div>
Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-13506061265689636182017-09-05T16:43:00.001-07:002017-09-05T16:43:48.022-07:00Things avian, and related<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was an amazingly good summer in many many way -- lots of travel -- lots of contact with friends and family -- and even measurable progress on a few projects here at Tether's End. (Not enough, mind you, but that's one of those Eternal Verities, I believe).<br />
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The first expedition involved Thing #2, aged FOUR AND A HALF as she was happy to inform the people we met. In defiance of smoke and flame (presumably) and more smoke, we headed across the Rockies toward favourite spa-place nestled on the edge of the Columbia Trench. A big birdly feature of that blessed vale is the OSPREY, as pictured above. Thing #2 established rapport with ospreys ("osprey-ers" in her take on the world) on our trip last summer, and was delighted to see more of the same on this trip. <br />
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A highlight for Doting Grandma was watching her observe an osprey family in and around their nest atop a pole just on the edge of a children's playground... and she took the opportunity to deliver a lecture to the other children (total strangers) on what those noises were, and what those birds were, and what they were doing, and why. Accurate and voluble ornithology...<br />
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And as we traveled upstream and downstream along the course of the big river -- we were lucky to see clearly either two kingfishers, or one kingfisher twice...<br />
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Swimming in various hot pools, Thing also registered the presence and activities of SWALLOWS, various, a family that hadn't really made an impression on her until now. Much excitement.<br />
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During another side trip at a higher elevation in the National Parks...there on the path was a CLARK'S NUTCRACKER. Much joy.<br />
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As a kind of culmination we dropped into a pleasant giftshop in search of mementos for our stay-at-home family...there were numbers of bird-ish <i>objets d'art</i>, recognized and exclaimed over, and explained in terms of our experience of them to the somewhat startled proprietor... As the recital of what we had seen, and what we hadn't seen (yet) unfolded, the shopkeeper presented Thing with a wonderful gift... the National Geographic full-color, double-sided, fold-out, plasticized chart of "Birds of the Rocky Mountains." AND declined to be paid for it... so much handier than a BOOK, although Thing is pretty adept with Peterson's Field Guide, at that. She continues to pore over her bird chart and recall what we saw. And didn't see, yet. "But NEXT summer, Grandma..."<br />
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Another day, I'll tell you how Thing went whitewater rafting on the Kicking Horse River. Yes.Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-20488078957569886052017-09-04T07:54:00.001-07:002017-09-04T07:54:41.165-07:00RECALLED TO LIFEGOOD MORNING ALL!!<br />
After a very long silence due to equipment failure...and missing my blog very much indeed -- I'M BAAACK...<br />
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And enjoying pretty much Earthly Bliss...a lovely new iPad which I'm just getting acquainted with...a statutory holiday...a tidy house (well, barring a few Fisher-Price antiquities left in the wake of Things #1 and #4, who were here for supper with their Mom last night)...a fridge full of sumptuous leftovers (see above)...sun shining... and an all day TV marathon of my favourite programming--HIGHWAY THROUGH HELL. And the unequaled Al, assisted by the unequaled Gord, is putting a four-fold snatch block into play in response to the G**awful mess at the bottom of the very long off road slope...<br />
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With, of course, the most beautiful scenery anywhere as a backdrop to all the DRAMA.<br />
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And the airbrakes on the object of the exercise are locked (of course: a prominent feature of a Fallen World is locked-up airbrakes) ... in short, "Earth hath not anything to show more fair."<br />
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It's good to be back. More, later.Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-75971083592227566772016-01-20T14:32:00.000-08:002016-01-20T14:32:30.387-08:00January.... random thoughts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Back at the Library. I love it, also the Librarians...and home-time is a lot more productive WITHOUT access to the Internet, go figure out THAT little phenomenon if you will.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Had a fine morning at in-town parish, contributing to our collective ministry as a distribution depot for the city Food Bank. My role (barring emergencies) is to encourage the volunteers (who are brilliant) and do a little outreach by firing up ecclesiastical charcoal and sage (wild picked, I believe) to offer "smudge" to our visitors, come to pick up their groceries.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That was particularly joyful this morning as we had a large number of clients for whom "smudge" was part of their culture'n'customs. Nobody seems to mind that a European-settler-type-person is fanning the smoke with a feather. And we have mutually affirming conversations, if only about our aches and pains (or our grandchildren).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having a very interesting time with grandchildren this winter. In the fall I embarked upon the "extended play" version of the Ignatian spiritual exercises -- some days it's toilsome, but I'm glad I did, finding it all very stimulating.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the meantime I continue to visit The Granddaughters on two evenings of each week, putting the elder GD units to bed in their respective households. One particular evening the eldest of all, "Thing #1," had had an especially trying end-of-day, and without any premeditation on my part we got into a conversation about "TIRED," how we both were, in fact, and how CRANKY that made us...and I heard myself saying, "Why don't we take all your cranky, and all Grandma's cranky, and mash them together in a ball" (suiting the action to the word)"and on the way home tonight I'll roll down my car window and throw them out to bounce away into the dark???" and Thing #1 entered into the spirit of the thing immediately, and said, "And a HUGE TRUCK will come along and SQUSH them away." </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So we did that....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And at our next session, I just asked, "Is there anything you'd like Grandma to throw away for you tonight?" "Yes, all my Whining, and my Not Good Listening, and my Fighting..."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And halfway home I thought, "great suffering cats...I think that was the Ignatian Examen...almost-four-year-old version..."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So it's become a ritual, and a happy one. We've expanded it, to include recollection of the happy parts of the day, also rolled up and left under the pillow for recall in the morning...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And here is a reference... http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/reviews/view/15997</span></span><br />
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<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-70900091296796461592016-01-10T13:09:00.001-08:002016-01-10T13:09:46.691-08:00On the baptism of the Lord, and so forth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Had a good time this morning discussing the lectionary readings as reassurances for those "afraid of the water"... and talking about cultural images of "Jesus standing in line" and taking everybody by surprise.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A beautiful drive both ways. Weather has warmed up spectacularly overnight but temperature was still below freezing on the way 'out' this morning. So everything on both sides of the highway was delightfully frosted over. I am accustomed to the lovely "apple-blossom" aspect of mountain-ash trees, leafless, with the berry clusters covered in snow. But this morning was the first time I recall seeing willows with their vivid early-spring stems likewise veiled in white -- the resultant colours were like saltwater taffy...implausibly beautiful.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some raptors to be seen, along the way -- a nice change from the all-prevalent corvids...only two bison quite a long way from the road as I was coming through the nat'l park...and a couple of ponies kicking up snow at each other in a paddock.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has grown warm enough as the afternoon comes on to make the road surface mucky -- I need to refill my windshield washer before I quit work for the day. And it would be prudent to clear my walks while it's nice and mild also.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some cooking-projects await my arrival at home...and I'm down to about the last 100 pieces of the 1500-piece monster jigsaw I've been assembling this week. A good, quiet, scaled-down kind of an evening. Happy sigh. "Savouring the graces," as they say.</span></span><br />
<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-40075072523936779142016-01-09T10:28:00.002-08:002016-01-09T10:28:52.077-08:00Winter fauna<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Do 'fauna' include birds? I suppose they must. In any event there was a fine vocal magpie in the backyard grove this morning declaiming in Anglo-Saxon: "Hwaet! Hwaet! Hwaet!" I didn't have time to stop and explain "Hwaet" was going on, unfortunately.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have had pictures and reports of a number of unusual birds in the area this winter -- a yellow-shafted flicker, and more spectacularly, a gyrfalcon... There is a Christmastide bird-census, but I've never yet taken part. (They don't use the long form, I understand.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Guest once more of the blessed library...and grateful for it. Time to fly away and free up this terminal for some other happy soul.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Happy "Baptism of the Lord," tomorrow, everybody. Remember, your cue is, "Jesus stands in line." All else follows from that. You have been told.</span></span><br />
<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-76447474174459166312016-01-08T13:38:00.000-08:002016-01-08T13:38:18.995-08:00Sliding into the New Year, or Slouching toward Bethlehem, or possibly just Slip-sliding Away.<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Back in the blessed Library again, poised between handing in the books/DVDs that are due, taking out replacements -- in the meantime, getting caught up on inter-web-doings.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pondering the tensions around the theological idea of Special Providences. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's an uncomfortable idea from my theological POV -- I kind of second Sydney Smith's scorn for special-providence-watchers, "The Lord found me a job, the Lord found my keys, the Lord kept my cake from falling in the oven..." Our man Sydney seems to have felt that the Lord might well step into history in order to adjust matters at the <i>imperial </i>level, I think--but it would be unseemly to imagine divine intervention in the mundane minutiae of our daily lives: a short route to self-delusion and egomanias, various.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So now I am wrestling with the Ignatian aim of "seeing God in all things" ... and I know the good saint did not mean "seeing God in all things that turn out to suit my convenience and my preconceptions" ... but there is still some discomfort swirling around that aim. I mean, I can grasp that it would be a grace, to "see God in all things," but in so doing I'd just as soon not behave like (what I conceive of as) a complete idiot.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And if it's not utterly blasphemous to say so, I have to wonder whether the Almighty has not undertaken to <i>tease</i> me with phenomena (illustrating his perceptibility in all things) that severely challenge my notions of divine decorum. More often, it seems, I am confronted by divine, well, CORN.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Case in point. I am zipping along a nearby highway, through a pleasingly wintry landscape, and pondering very lightly on some questions regarding the Holy Spirit, when I am passed by an entirely solid, concrete, actual, tangible tractor-trailer unit (or an eighteen-wheeler, if that's your vocab), bearing in large unmistakable lettering this label...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> "PARACLETE TRANSPORT."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trying now to identify the form of prayer that can begin, "Oh, come ON...." </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-24682226089708812032016-01-07T16:32:00.004-08:002016-01-07T16:32:38.814-08:00The New Year (for the time being)<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am a guest of the local public library at this point as my modem and my laptop are not on speaking terms at home.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I have 11 minutes and 45 seconds left on this free terminal to "howdy" with my BlogPals.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Happy New Year, all. I am easing into the 187th version of a Really Workable Daily Schedule for my semi-retired self ("semi-retired; and the rest, Just Plain Tired). Trying to juggle my commitments to: the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, his own self; Italian grammar and conversation practice at the "Advanced" level; the steady improvement and rehabilitation of the decor at Tether's End; a reasonable set of blood pressure readings; a marked decrease in personal avoirdupois; 10,000 steps a day; 1/2 hour's actual exercise a day; and of course the nurture and entertainment of Things #1 through #4 (granddaughters under the age of 4, for those who've just tuned in). Also a journal; also the reading of a great many journals of the other sort...and one way or another the poor old threadbare blog tends to get shunted down to the bottom of the list, somewhere around cleaning the cat-box and/or purging my precious hoard of Useful Jars to Put Things In.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Also happening at the moment: re-reading all of Jane Austen (just finished <i>Mansfield Park</i>); catching up via DVD's on a number of movies, recent and other (tonight, <i>Hope Springs</i>); knitting a large woolly blanket for Things #4 who was 3 months old on Christmas Eve; answering the Christmas mail; doing a little aimless sketching from time to time...and no doubt other delights which do not come to mind at the moment.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh yes -- a degree of responsibility for the care and management of two parishes approximately 60 miles apart -- Sunday services in one (plus the occasional meeting), and a vaguely pastoral presence in the other (while the Rector is on leave). So there is about 150-180 miles of driving at a minimum, per week. Most of it is out in the hinterland, lightly snow-covered, and, given the restrained palette currently operative, breathtakingly beautiful. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are well. The Things thrive and prosper and increase in wisdom and stature daily. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, for the moment, That Is All. </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-42994001426557949692015-11-06T18:22:00.000-08:002015-11-06T18:22:08.561-08:00some gentle domesticity for a change...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Well again. I managed to accomplish two projects in my kitchen today -- first I stemmed, seeded, and halved about a half-dozen small jalapenos for the freezer. Double rubber-gloves, with talcum, so it appears I got the gloves on and off without transferring any pepper juice to my skin. Not sure whether it was aerosolized pepper juice or flying talcum that made me cough, though. Never mind, that chore's out of the way. I cut the peppers in half lengthways and then later on I can pull out a chunk and mince it up fiercely while it's still frozen and relatively helpless...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Second job was a bit more complex; all "free gratis," I had come by some lovely fresh local dark red beets, about golf ball sized or a wee bit larger, as pictured above. So I Harvard'ed them, just now, in memory of a Great Treat of my childhood. The recipe (from the ancient Purity Flour cookbook)(that's the Canadiana part) calls for a double-boiler, which I haven't had for years, but I do have a serviceable steel bowl which fits tightly in my largest Paderno steel saucepan, and that did just fine. I had enough beets for a small "non-Harvard" serving as part of my supper...the rest went into the recipe which claims to create 6 or 8 servings. I'll bag single servings in Ziploc bags and freeze them. Along with the sugar, vinegar, and flour in the sauce, instant minced onion was called for. I used onion powder instead -- and looking for it in the cupboard, I found my jar of granulated lime zest, so the beets got a shot of that as well. Doesn't seem to have done any harm!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The noon meal was DINNER, today -- and supper will be a sequence of small veggie nibbles. I find I sleep better that way...and I am going to bed very early and then waking up between 2 and 5...This morning I sat up and finished <i>The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society</i> before breakfast...having picked it up for practically nothing in a thrift shop some time back; a very satisfying read, indeed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So I don't believe there is anything in the fridge at this point requiring urgent processing -- a comfortable feeling. I'll assemble some salads-in-jars for the weekend; then perhaps I can turn my flagging attention to something else.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The sermon is done. LOVE-love-love the RCL readings for this Sunday...so the sermon is a revision of one I preached -- at least six years ago, maybe nine! I was content with it then, and I'm content with it now (and I have a 'new' congregation, praise be--"fresh ears! fresh ears!"). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Snow threatening...glad to have winter tires already installed. The 'new' congregation is 120 km away -- 75 miles as near as makes no difference -- with the likelihood of "black ice" here and there, it behooves me to leave betimes, between 7:30 and 8 a.m. for the 10 am service. Coffee in my big mug, a couple of muffins and some fruit for a rolling breakfast. And I'll be driving into the sunrise; need to sit up Very Tall behind the visor for a few miles anyway. </span></span></div>
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Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-33807525683807967182015-11-05T17:49:00.000-08:002015-11-05T17:49:11.734-08:00On matters military...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Well, there has been a good deal of jabber on the intar-webs and other media this week about the new Cabinet Ministers who were sworn in yesterday in Ottawa, and a lot of THAT has been swirling around something only semi-accurately labelled "diversity." In practice, diversity appears to mean something like "different, but the kind of different we approve of, double-plus-good."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Case in point, the "diversity" of the new Minister of National Defense. He is a Sikh -- a Lt.-Colonel in the Canadian Forces -- a decorated veteran of three separate tours of duty in Afghanistan, and a former detective officer in the Vancouver Police Department. His photo in combat gear is posted above.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It isn't "diversity" that I applaud here. Because he's not diverse, and neither am I. What gives me great joy (other than just plain flat-out "purty," happy sigh) -- is "alterity." Here is a person who is "other," not at all like me*. And I think I am better off because that is so.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">["not at all like me BUT ON MY SIDE" to be precise.]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Now I admit I am a foolish-fond old woman, and I can't help remembering that whenever "Punjab" showed up, in the funny papers, Little Orphan Annie's fortunes took a turn for the better.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">One way and another, I feel more defended than I did last week. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Also, when he's not being a wild man in the Khyber Pass, he cleans up nicely.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-46690009989441092472015-11-04T08:05:00.003-08:002015-11-04T08:05:46.750-08:00of baking, and other things.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Working on what I guess is the NaBloPoMo 'thing' although not following any directions, just trying to get prose on the screen here every day before lunch, somehow.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Pause to deal with The Last Pan of oatmeal cookies (the pan that traditionally gets burnt to a crisp because the baker forgets to set the timer). These are the variant called "Aggression Cookies" -- rumour has it that the recipe comes from the American Mental Health Association -- as a way to work off rage for which one has no legal outlet, because the cookie ingredients (butter/marge, flour, oats, dark brown sugar, a little baking soda if you happen to remember, I usually don't) are mixed in something huge like a jam kettle, with one's bare hands, until they are as close to homogenous as their nature allows.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">They're delicious too -- basically, it's shortbread with oats in it -- and all that squshing around in the butter and oats is very very good for one's cuticles. So it's win/win!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And the last pan is now cooling.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've been on a kitchen-jag the last couple of days, almost finished -- the aim is pre-prepped fast meals so as to free up time during the week for other, non-culinary, pursuits ...and also the avoidance of WASTE.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Meditating overnight on the angers of little children and how best and most wisely to engage with them, as an adult (well, officially, an adult). All the little Things are pretty prompt in announcing to the cosmos when they're not pleased...but from time to time one or other of them gets "stuck" in that place. It seems to Grandma, here, that helpless rage is a form of misery, and should be dealt with promptly, just like bruises and blisters and bleeding. I can remember being SO angry as a child that I made myself ill... so I am cogitating on how as a Grandma I am going to handle these episodes. (I get some opportunity to practise, too!)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Any thoughts on this?</span></span><br />
<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-67468806562551624642015-11-03T10:07:00.000-08:002015-11-03T10:07:39.545-08:00the first of the snow...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a bit of a dark spot this morning -- not on my own account but on account of, on behalf of, people that I love. But venting and grumbling and gnashing and damning-and-blasting on their account will do them no good whatever and will waste energy I might possibly use to better purpose. So.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SNOW has definitely fallen this morning, and has lain around, for a while, some of it, on some surfaces. So everything is nice and soggy including eight aspen trees' worth of leaves in my back yard on the trajectory between the trunk of Harriet-the-Chariot, containing summer tires, and Tohu-bohu, the Shed of Total Disorder--where the tires ought to be. I see a soggy, muddy, chilly chore between now and lunchtime.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In and around that reality -- quite a lot of Italian grammar (less soggy), and a bowlful of beets to a) bag for the freezer OR b) Harvardize... and five pounds of ground beef to compose into cookworthy form (it's all in a lump, unfrozen, at this point)...and a recipe of sourdough/yogurt biscuits...and a PIE, God willing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A little time with next Sunday's readings would not come amiss either. I've had my hour with ("Just call me...") Lopez already, and it was a productive one.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Better push the laundry forward a bit also -- and iron the clean surplice, and the communion-kit linens (so I can return the latter to the parish I "borrowed" them from). The life of a circuit-rider is practically and ethically challenging!!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Going to have penne for lunch with mushroom-enhanced red-sauce on it -- and some salad.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Plenty to keep one from brooding unhealthily on Original Sin, anyhow. </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-89576323035902961612015-11-02T07:21:00.001-08:002015-11-02T07:22:57.540-08:00All those souls...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Working on some new disciplines here.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yesterday was a good'un -- two church services in two different communities with (highly different) potluck meals after each. My oath, those ladies can COOK. Wow. Anglican baptism with Eucharist in the morning, and preached; Taize singing, with no sermon, in the evening.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On the way home, before I reached the Big Highway -- here came the SNOW out of the north-west. It was an interesting 120-kilometer drive home, but NO difficulty, lots of traffic but nobody doing anything quixotic in my vicinity.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Meditating on saint-ness...and its misunderstandings. Things never yet quite adequately explained to my satisfaction. Not "holy celebrity." Not "co-dependent martyrdom." The term "personal holiness" gets bandied about more than is useful or comfortable, (or it used to) and I have never ever heard it defined or illustrated as anything other than -- basically -- inexperience, of a particularly sidling, bridling, eyes-rolled-upward sort. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Who was it, now, who said that the saint we most admire -- instinctively -- may be the greatest threat to our spiritual/moral wellbeing?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ah well. We sang <i>Sine Nomine</i> at least once, yesterday, all verses, although we could have had a bit more "WHOMP" -- (this is the hymn known in my household as "WHOMP For All the Saints" you understand).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So here's to the saints with some WHOMP in their natures.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The coffee's made, speaking of WHOMP, and this to-do list isn't going to do itself. Defend yourself, Monday!!! </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-45590331502104950432015-11-01T06:40:00.000-08:002015-11-01T06:40:04.300-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Celebrating "all them saints," this morning with the Giotto Madonna from Ognissanti in Florence (I see there is a splendid new book about the Umiliati as patrons of painters...) </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And here we go, trying this blogging bit, yet again. A timed exercise, this morning.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I am still trying to find a schedule that will accomplish the things that MUST be done (and there are more than a few, even among "the retired") and leave as much time -- and energy -- and daylight! -- as possible for the WANT to be done...the reading and writing, the small creativities, the sociable moments.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'm not there yet! But partly in aid of that, and in reflection that I am now not just in the second half of my life but in the fourth quarter, in fact -- I've embarked upon the Ignatian Exercises ("in daily life" -- i.e., spread over 8 - 9 months instead of packed into a month).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It has been a long time since I undertook anything at even this modest level of discipline (an hour a day). It's frustrating, but it seems to be helpful. Good to be confronted again with the Principle and Foundation, for one thing.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Struggling with Ignatian "indifference" (easy come, easy go?). There was a moment's insight yesterday when I realized that "greed for" (books, let us say, for example, yes) followed up by "neglect of" does NOT, arithmetically, amount to "indifference." Or "detachment," if that word is more comfortable for you.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So at present I am doing some work "honorarily" at a parish in town, and doing Sunday duty, remunerated financially, at a parish out of town (with the same patron). This assignment involves about 90 minutes driving each way. It's eastward to work and westward home -- squinting into the sun, in other words. But before long it will be dark both ways, as I know, which will solve that problem definitively.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Yesterday afternoon I began a big cooking binge, with the aim of having meals in the fridge or freezer needing only to be warmed up at mealtimes for the rest of the week. We shall see. Still trying to adjust my grocery purchasing to the reality of ONE two-legged occupant and ONE (very small) four-legged occupant in this abode.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Hallowe'en last night was not overwhelming. I might have had a couple of dozen callers, most of them quite, quite young, and all of them very polite. Trick'or'treaters in this area are heavily parent-accompanied...usually by shadowy figures out on the sidewalk, calling, "What did you SAY?" to cue the "thank you." But one Mom appeared on my porch as the Seuss Cat, complete with goldfish in bowl, closely partnering her offspring as Thing Two, with a placard explaining that Thing One was felled by chicken-pox. All this drama! </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It was mild enough for light jackets, fortunately. And then just before eight o'clock a very light rain began, and that was that -- turned off the porch light, blew out the pumpkin-candles, and firmly returned the left-over sweets to the freezer. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And time's up.</span></span><br />
<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-68127232875251646682015-08-10T16:31:00.000-07:002015-08-10T16:31:39.861-07:00Of time, and routines...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have been cogitating (agitating the cogs) over what sort of schedule would best suit this semi-retired existence -- more and more truly retired all the time, I realize.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The problem has been that I can think of about eighteen different tasks or functions, each with a serious claim to be First Thing of the Morning. But how to rank them?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And the default resolution of that problem has been to stay in bed and ponder on the matter until either I fall asleep again or the external world intervenes in some fashion, usually less than altogether welcome.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">(And yes, those of you with full employment, and/or families, and/or partners and/or roommates, and/or walkable dogs, etc., I can hear your unsympathetic snortings from here, believe me, and I do not blame you.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">For a week now -- a whole week! -- I have had a Trial Schedule working -- and I'm still doing it, which is both unusual and promising. (I'm working on the general theory that as the day goes, so goes the life, and as the morning goes, so goes the day. You see there are indeed macro-considerations in play here.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">1. GET OUT OF BED.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">2. Take morning meds if any as appropriate.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">3. Take large mug of plain hot water downstairs</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">4. Ensconce self in library armchair with good light and resources at hand.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">5. MORNING PRAYER according to the (old) <i>Book of Common Prayer</i>, without Scripture readings other than the Psalms appointed in the simplest of the reading tables.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">5a. Pluck <i>Biblia Sacra</i> (the Vulgate, that is) off the shelf and have a go at the morning's Psalm or Psalms in Latin, just to shake up the synapses.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">5b. Note prayer concerns in handy notebook by my left shoulder. Then trot across the landing and hop onto the</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">6. ELLIPTICAL TRAINER!!! for a few more minutes/calories/metres-equivalent than the day before. Keep heart rate under 150, mostly, and do a sprinting thing in the last 30-40 seconds. Hop off (high side first!) and step into the laundry/furnace room to</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">7. SCOOP THE CAT'S BOX (loud cheers from the cat).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">8. Wash hands, contemplate what needs to be taken upstairs -- clean laundry, food from the pantry or the freezer or both...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And there I am ready for my shower and my coffee and my breakfast. And the rest of the day!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Serendipity -- my MP armchair is between the end of one old desk and the bookshelves. Earlier this week I became aware that just abaft of my right eyebrow, on the shelf with "Eliot, George" and "Eliot, T. S." there was also "Edwards, Jonathan." That's right -- "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Edwards (although I've always thought that vice-versa would have made a much more interesting sermon). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But where the book opened, when I took it down, was his "Resolutions". And I was stunned to see how often he re-made his resolution to "speak WELL of others," "speak FAIRLY of others": over, and over, and over. To resist the temptation to DETRACTION, that besetting besetter.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am working on that one, too. </span></span><br />
Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-49659466216562480202015-07-24T09:40:00.000-07:002015-07-24T09:40:31.814-07:00The Mysteries of ... Radicchio.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChOOTeaeyE_qWzZbjH4PKJlLm4KJ048hPTTgzPCQvLRAn6qPAkGJ_Uwr8L_qbqVSijMKXY6J7FNzNS6wyXoc9Xt4e9vUCvqW3_JC0_hrOlDVkFq3y-yTckFeZXph7Upva8ANlJS9q5nQ/s1600/radicchio.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChOOTeaeyE_qWzZbjH4PKJlLm4KJ048hPTTgzPCQvLRAn6qPAkGJ_Uwr8L_qbqVSijMKXY6J7FNzNS6wyXoc9Xt4e9vUCvqW3_JC0_hrOlDVkFq3y-yTckFeZXph7Upva8ANlJS9q5nQ/s1600/radicchio.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, I've just got a whole THANG going on here about radicchio, this week. Bear with me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost the first thing I learned, reading Jennifer McLagan's <i>Bitter</i> -- I'd seen Tweets, I'd heard her interviewed on the radio -- was that radicchio is like roses; it comes in a huge range of colours and forms and variegations. But if your food-distribution server is like ours, the kind you see probably looks like the little guys in the picture up top, there -- not as big as a red cabbage, tighter and tougher than a red lettuce. Maybe you know it well and like it, maybe not; whatever. In our corner of the cosmos, you can expect to pay about five (deflated, Canadian) dollars for a head of it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I have to step back a bit. In recent weeks I have been taking up space (= "filling the position") in an Honorary way (no filthy lucre changes hands, that is) at a parish I shall call Our Lady of the Lost and Found (with apologies to Diane Schoemperlen; whom, if you have not read, you should. But I digress). Up at OLLF, there, we are one of the weekly drop-off points for grocery hampers from the city food bank. Normally we see somewhere between ten and twenty recipients. The food comes in standard big cardboard boxes; the recipients re-pack it in their own shopping bags, or bags we provide. We then break down the boxes, with great flourishing of utility knives, and stack them for "next week's truck."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now if you've ever worked at or been served by a foodbank, you probably know that the array of comestibles provided is often... eclectic? So people are quite liable to receive food that they may not even recognize, let alone like, and their children after them. Like for instance those little narrow needle-pointed red Thai hot chili peppers? I mean, really? I suppose if a financially-struggling homesick person of Thai origin showed up at the depot, he or she would be enraptured. But most of the rest of us, well, no.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But last week, the Strange Thing <i>du jour</i> was -- drum roll -- RADICCHIO. Great big beautiful fresh unblemished heads of it. Now at OLLF in the hall where the food is sorted and packed, we also have a "give'n'take" table. You don't like Thai hot chilis, you put your package on the GT table. And you can take anything OFF that table that you DO like. There's a pretty good rate of flow-through; although we did have a challenging surplus of Thai hot chilis there for a while.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And last week, we had radicchio TO SPARE. So here's where it gets kind of sticky. I happened to be looking just as the first client strode up to the GT table and whacked down his head of radicchio. And I gasped. "But ... that's GOOD" -- I don't know whether I said it out loud or not. I wasn't assigning blame. I was just so sad to see somebody who needs food rejecting or relinquishing or refusing or abandoning good food ("I like it" = "it's good" right?) -- nutritious, EXPENSIVE good food mind you...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So then I had to do the analysis. People are allergic, sometimes. People have dietary restrictions, sometimes. People may not have proper food storage. People may not have the wherewithal to store OR cook food -- they're in shelters or they're in friends' homes or they're in single rooms or they're in cheap motels. People may not know what the heck it is that just showed up in the food hamper.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So i don't know what the answer is. Part of me wants to set up a hot plate and a stock pot at one end of the church hall, and hurl the rejected groceries into one almighty no-two-weeks-alike slumgullion, meantime crying out in the wilderness -- "Look, look, you can eat this, this is so good, just do this and this and you've got supper tonight and lunch tomorrow...."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then I go and pick up McLagan's book on hold at the Library, and she is rubbing my nose in it, for one delirious radicchio recipe after another comes tumbling from the pages. I've just taken the Radicchio Pie out of the oven. I'm working on repressing my gasps of distress on food bank days.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's got to be a solution... </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-59705176231498242112015-07-11T15:51:00.001-07:002015-07-11T15:51:32.783-07:00Grandmothering...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WZ1qnQqCa14cW6SStDt2sA52KK2YJadYRzeEFs5i0Wu6QM-1JYirQzpA8RGX3mApuPYqBJLZ7koqc4Ejodi8maKZu2frNlR3a1__tP3deaRon3u6DxEbDJG_f3WEHH6odsfgFtkj9Xk/s1600/goya+infanta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WZ1qnQqCa14cW6SStDt2sA52KK2YJadYRzeEFs5i0Wu6QM-1JYirQzpA8RGX3mApuPYqBJLZ7koqc4Ejodi8maKZu2frNlR3a1__tP3deaRon3u6DxEbDJG_f3WEHH6odsfgFtkj9Xk/s320/goya+infanta.jpg" width="193" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6b1yo9_OmTba3pbUju_OKA1gTFvzIHwUoJe5uRDJdRdI_PV4FH9ofku_aIFuJlRTGbcY1yPFM8-rlumnWTQcysOrVhRBdVg1_lQeKfIyyqbyVakx9c55hd5C1MyYdFScNUBbp0rmPx4/s1600/annie+Belle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6b1yo9_OmTba3pbUju_OKA1gTFvzIHwUoJe5uRDJdRdI_PV4FH9ofku_aIFuJlRTGbcY1yPFM8-rlumnWTQcysOrVhRBdVg1_lQeKfIyyqbyVakx9c55hd5C1MyYdFScNUBbp0rmPx4/s320/annie+Belle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Particularly, grandmothering the Infanta in the second picture. And what joy it is. She is getting so leggy and "grown-up" -- full of little linguistic and imaginative ploys of one kind and another, Grandma struggles to keep up. Such a blessing to be surrounded by her and her two cousins -- all these very different and utterly perfect young ladies!</span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-20759712626869602562015-07-04T19:20:00.000-07:002015-07-04T19:20:55.846-07:00"Another Saturday night..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWHzxvLyucwC6ybf7WDTkjY4PYht8tXTZkLLq9D-a__5fpphekoQxy8Z1sxDpX22l2Y3soqqJCCZHXAvirOsJyBbzwAu0ZwhlHxxBTAbsA6_wUJ3Tho5HVGrlJ8nGAh8EU55tNtegLDY/s1600/bread-clip-art-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWHzxvLyucwC6ybf7WDTkjY4PYht8tXTZkLLq9D-a__5fpphekoQxy8Z1sxDpX22l2Y3soqqJCCZHXAvirOsJyBbzwAu0ZwhlHxxBTAbsA6_wUJ3Tho5HVGrlJ8nGAh8EU55tNtegLDY/s320/bread-clip-art-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am baking, this evening. Not this bread, exactly (it's clip art bread off the Web)...but my "white" bread that also includes wheat germ and instant oatmeal and sometimes a little cracked wheat for TEXTURAL INTEREST. Didn't have any cracked wheat tonight, so it got bulgur instead (fingers crossed). It's now in the second rise -- I find the oven with the light on is just the ideal temperature to make bread rise (or to get yogurt yogu-ing), without heating up the whole house. Any more. Than it is.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So now there is a little over an hour to accomplish something--else--before i have to go and attend to the final phase. Meantime the dishes are washing...sun still quite high in the sky (eight p.m.), children playing in the back yard next door...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been moving piles of work material around from one desk to another, upstairs and down...you would think with three desks, two full-sized Old Oaken Office type and one good-sized ladylike corner type, I would not have to resort to the eternal dining-room table in order to get anything REAL done, but that is often the case.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Getting a lot of reading done the last couple of weeks and I have confirmed what I suspected, that I CANNOT READ BOOKS IN BED. Magazines, all right. But not books. Luckily I have two good comfortable well-lit Reading Stations, one upstairs (that is, on the main floor) and one downstairs (for hot days).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And on the reading list, or heap, at present? Hermione Lee's biography of Penelope Fitzgerald. Cheryl (<i>Wild) </i>Strayed's collection of the <i>Best American Essays of</i> -- some recent year. Maeve Binchy's <i>Evening Class</i>. Rick Perlstein's <i>Nixonland.</i> Daniel Coleman's <i>In Bed with the Word.</i> Ted Bishop's <i>The Social Life of Ink.</i> Ethel Wilson's <i>Hetty Dorval</i> and <i>The Innocent Traveller</i>. Lisa Deam's <i>A World Transformed </i>(on the spirituality implicit in mediaeval maps). Miriam Toews' <i>A Complicated Kindness.</i> And Ann Patchett, <i>This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. </i>Oh yes -- a 1907 English translation (Everyman edition) of the <i>Essays</i> of Giuseppe Mazzini (yes, the "Risorgimento" Mazzini).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Should keep me out of the pool hall, don't you think??? Books, and bread.</span></span><br />
<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-11107770684786600942015-07-02T16:01:00.001-07:002015-07-02T16:01:37.604-07:00pressing on...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxsL3AGi5GWmh5wa_G0z9DO9Fz6SjXoWCjJB9kyBdTNDudPSabAvZTJCSo1rZMbqmdgp8czyOiwyaOZ-M2k_w3iokcmpF8wuD5VwubKART6vtMAqndAjZ5vyIXyIoe_3nWU2MvjVKG-AQ/s1600/NYE+fireworks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxsL3AGi5GWmh5wa_G0z9DO9Fz6SjXoWCjJB9kyBdTNDudPSabAvZTJCSo1rZMbqmdgp8czyOiwyaOZ-M2k_w3iokcmpF8wuD5VwubKART6vtMAqndAjZ5vyIXyIoe_3nWU2MvjVKG-AQ/s320/NYE+fireworks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">We've been fairly busy with the Fete Nationale this week -- falling on a Wednesday, which makes it more difficult to "faire le pont" -- of all the days of the week, obviously, Wednesday is the most difficult to inveigle into a WEEKEND of some description. Although the streets were pretty quiet at rush-time this morning; and school, of course, is out for the summer. Great hootlings of young children next door with a combination of sprinkler and trampoline (and dog).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I managed to find the Actual Canajun Flag, eh, and its flagpole, and hang it on the front of the house in a truly Rural Illinois manner. This is about the extent of my proactive patriotism at the moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I continue to "shop in the fridge" for the makings of my meals--too often in the past my practise has been to do a Monster Grocery-Shopping expedition, and then, exhausted, take myself out to eat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But last night was a very special treat -- dinner with good friends -- I took some salad, and brought some (less!) back, which has now all been eaten. And by way of an early supper, I converted some pollock-pretending-to-be-crab into a seafood salad suitable for sandwich filling. I have eaten the sandwich...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Planning to tiptoe away and be faintly creative for a bit, later this evening...exercise a bit -- but I did walk today, a few blocks downtown; went down to buy a most excellent book (because just borrowing it from the Library, which I've now done twice, did NOT suffice) -- "The Social Life of Ink" by Ted Bishop (published last year). And we have one, count it, ONE remaining independent bookstore (for new books) in the city, so rather than engage Amazon, I thought I'd go downtown. FATAL...just inside the front door, a large table arrayed with soft-cover Canadian fiction, some of it classic. And HALF PRICE. Going to spend some time this next week with MiriamToews and Ethel Wilson. None the worse for that.</span><br />
<br />Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-83636074159460486812015-06-29T06:23:00.002-07:002015-06-29T06:23:58.729-07:00All Monday, all day long<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">That picture has nothing to do with my day except that it may help at some point to remember there IS such a place and the Rambler HAS walked up and down those stairs, 'way back when.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A lengthy evening yesterday -- rushed out of here, rushed back again to collect the shopping bag full of CRACKERS, to the pharmacy to collect my prescription, at which point the comedy really got under weigh.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have come to a point where I appreciate -- and increasingly -- the presence of PHARMACISTS in my life...the consulting-pharm at my GP's clinic, the local pharm I consult when I need an immunization of some sort (immunizations are his passion, and he's very good at administering them), and a number, a gaggle, a constellation of pharms at the Major Retail Outlet where my prescriptions are on file. A varied and multicultural crew. I love them, I do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The last time I had a transaction, "Ahmed," which is not his name, bore a chart of medications in hand when he brought me my pills. "Time for your Medication Review," he told me, sternly. I fobbed him off on the excuse I had no time. "Next time, then," he said, fixing me with a steely eye. (You must picture my friend Ahmed as apparently ten years old with a vigorous but unconvincing fringe of beard after the manner of his people.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So last evening was, in fact, "next time." Evidently I had been Entered In The Computer....because the amiable underling found my little pack of pills and then, without relinquishing them, summoned the Indefatigable Ahmed. With his blessed chart. We had our Medication Review, by golly, no option was tendered -- and it was THOROUGH. He was brooking no resistance from Grammaw, last night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I find this totally endearing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Came home from the ordination -- long, and hot in the Cathedral, but not as crowded in the pews as I was dreading. I didn't vest, "Hey!" I said, "I'm retired, no way I am putting on all that extra clobber..." Nice music, good sermon. Lots and lots of people to say hello to afterward.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then at home, and managed with an unwary foot to encounter a piece of impedimenta in crossing the darkened living-room...broke the nail, tore the cuticle and obviously popped a little vessel as well, everything impressively BLACK this morning. But ambulatory -- up early, took Monday Morning Bone Pill -- started LAUNDRY -- about to get clad and haul off to the dealership for car-service. Bus pass in hand so I can accomplish some bits of retail mayhem here and there before the car is ready.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Y'all take care. Or, "stammi bene," out there. Yes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-20006173071274216912015-06-28T16:04:00.001-07:002015-06-28T16:04:51.595-07:00One more Sunday (one more river to cross)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">After the sacred nap -- should have gone to the basement for it, it is uncomfortably hot in the house -- WITH my library book (Hermione Lee's bio of Penelope Fitzgerald) -- huzza, at last and however briefly I believe I have sorted out all the Knoxes. Including Evoe, who had nothing to do with olive oil. <i>Punch, </i>rather. Alas the book is too large for comfortable reading in bed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have that, and <i>Nixonland</i>, and various lighter things for this week's investigations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meantime: find clean shirt (black shirts in hot weather, NOT practical)... pick up prescription, collect student who needs transportation, don't forget crackers, and off to the ordination at the Cathedral. </span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-4809166202540258232015-06-27T19:18:00.000-07:002015-06-27T19:18:57.828-07:00The Kraken Wakes (or at least, turns over and groans)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A short post this evening, just to say I'm still alive; coming to the end of my third "time" with St. Curious, later this week, with no very concrete prospects for further work after June 30. Actually, I prefer the term "employment" (old joke).<br />
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For some time now I've defined my status as "semi-retired, and the rest Just Plain Tired"... and it's fairly close to the truth. So I've been divesting myself of activities -- including pleasant ones -- that take more energy than is at my disposal at present.<br />
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Ideally, I would just sit down in a quiet, well-lit, place, and read, and read, and read, and read.<br />
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Still trying to organize the life-support activities (cooking, washing, etc.) to make that a live possibility.<br />
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But I'm not there yet.<br />
Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-54903548044338385632015-01-03T06:29:00.003-08:002015-01-03T06:29:58.512-08:00Happy New Year, Happy Feast of Whoever It Is, oh, William Passavant? Nah, going with The Most Holy Name...<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As a discipline, hello, I'm back. We'll see what comes of this (and how long it might take).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What I have done today so far -- got up, made a mug of coffee, ran a bath, plugged in the car because I intend to drive out later and the temp is about -20 Celsius. Checked for the newspaper which hasn't been delivered. Also, made a list of what I want to GET TO today before I creep off to bed again at what will be, I hope, a decent hour.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am getting my hair done; I have to go to the Library, some out, some in. Also to the bank to check balances and recent transactions; also to the post office to mail the last, almost, of the Seasonal Greetings; also purchase, at various places, candles, fertilizer for house plants, silver polish, impermeable bins for storing staple groceries, rum (or brandy), milk, bread, button thread to mend a braided rug, small gravel (about 200 lb, I think) for my sidewalks. (GRUNDLING CRUNCHING SOUND ON SNOWY FRONT PORCH INDICATES ARRIVAL OF NEWSPAPER)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Upon returning home -- I need to parcel up half a dozen batches of family letters for various recipients (purging my files), cousins, friends, children of long-ago bridesmaids now deceased; I need to read a lot of material on fundraising, call a meeting of a committee, negotiate tasks and timetables with a parish volunteer, invite another parishioner to stand for office; write a dozen letters, some seasonal, some condolence; write in my journal; set a batch of yogurt, do something creative with sourdough, also with cranberries, assemble manicotti in some quantity; set up my prayer/Bible station, set up my health journal, prayer journal, reading journal; vacuum the main floor thoroughly; feed the cat, refresh the litter box. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I need to finish reading Martin Marty, <i>The Mystery of the Child</i> and make useful reading notes on it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Clear the dining room table (AGAIN), clear my desk, clear the end table next to the rocking-chair, purge the vegetable bins in the fridge</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Work through two or three chapters in my Italian textbook, doing all the exercises and writing out the paradigms.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Also blog.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And thus, the Retired Life.</span></span><br />
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But I have now blogged!Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-25658226401081813762014-11-06T09:59:00.001-08:002014-11-06T09:59:07.364-08:00A Thankful Thursday!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This morning, what fills my heart with joy and gladness is the promise of a plumber on the premises between one and three this afternoon, to deal with the bathtub tap, which is dripping -- no, running -- like Alph the sacred river, and running hot water, at that. Old-fashioned sink taps I know how to fix. Fancy-schmancy tub taps, not so much.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So hooray and thank you for plumbers, I say. </span></span><br />
Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452366057148963499.post-19034587291069058352014-11-03T11:53:00.002-08:002014-11-03T11:53:41.081-08:00Thankfulness some more....<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">If I were to list all the things for which I have been thankful in the last 48 hours I would probably be liable to vigilante justice or some other form of reprisal, so I will just say that today I am thankful for a little "blip" on the computer, courtesy of my public library local branch, to say that there is a Louise Penny mystery waiting for me on the "Hold" shelf.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Oh, and the smell of cookies in the house. Pumpkin cookies. With chocolate chips. And sunflower seeds.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I think I'll stop now. </span></span>Crimson Ramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13020190454645032359noreply@blogger.com2