Unbridled Domesticity...

I've never been much of a fan of "household hints" -- no time, or no trust, or both.  There are a number of Domestic Stratagems I learned from my mother or my mother-in-law, my aunts, a few girl friends...but not many.  That said, I seem to have amassed a huge collection of print-out Nifty Advice.

So it is disconcerting to find suddenly I'm developing a taste for these things.  Instance.  According to the expert instructions, I concocted a "Fruit Fly Trap."  One small glass of apple cider vinegar, three drops of dishwashing detergent, set it on the kitchen counter near where I prepare fruit and vegetables.  Son of a gun, this morning, if it wasn't full of little Drosophila Melanogaster corpses.  Well, not full, but more than a few.  Bless my soul.  It worked.  What next.

Well, actually, I think I know what next.  Somebody here is recommending that vodka be substituted for water in making pie-crust.  I have pie-crust mix (home-made); I have vodka.  It almost seems...MEANT TO BE.

Perhaps I've spent too much time and effort in pickling and canning, this month...culminating today in a session with my commere in which we made Barbara Kingsolver's triple-threat recipe.  First you make a tomato-based barbecue sauce, and jar up some--not all--of it, and process it in the canner.  Then you add peaches and sugar and what not to the residue, cook it down, jar (again) just some of the new mixture, and process it in turn.  And finally additional raisins and walnuts (and we thought up some additional seasonings) produce chutney -- in rather more than the manageable volumes indicated by the recipe.

All three products tasted different, were slightly differently hued...and MOST tasty.  So La Commere and I are wafting about this evening in an aura (or maybe MIASMA) of PICKLE and domestic accomplishment.

Enough to make anyone feel an affinity with Heloise.  Or something that starts with Hel-.  Like, perhaps, a Helgramite.  So there is a picture of a Helgramite at the head of this post.

Stay tuned for further "Helgramite's Helpful Household Hints."  Yes.

Oh while we waited for the jars, all 27 of them, to cool, we drank ginger tea and reformed the church, the entire church, root and branch, from top to bottom and from stem to gudgeon.  MOST satisfying.

Blessed are the dumfounded...

Just home after a very happy day with the Grandbaby of my Heart (so far, the ONLY Grandbaby, though that is due to change soon), and her parents...naptimes and playtimes and feedings and bath and bedtime, and in with that delightful lunch and supper, and much good conversation.

Grandbaby is in the process of shifting her schedule of eating and sleeping.  She is being gently encouraged to move to TWO substantial naps per day, away from three or more catnaps.  Homoeostasis  being still in effect, there is resistance to this benevolent request for change.  So what with that, and with being not quite six months old, and the natural challenges of the time of day between 5 pm and 7 pm (aka "Hell Hour"), Grandbaby was becoming a bit of a small BEAR by the time supper was over. 

She didn't want to jump in the Jolly Jumper, she didn't want to sit in her high-chair, she didn't want to lie on her play-mat.  There was fussery.  There were aggrieved noises.  There were small squawks of existential ennui (I presume).

So her Papa took her over to the piano, held her in the crook of one arm, and began to play Bach, mostly with one hand; sometimes he could manage the second hand for a bar or two.

First thing was she hushed TOTALLY and stopped wiggling and struggling.  Total concentration and stillness.

And then I looked at her face.  And with small regular tilts of her head, she was looking first up at the music on the music rack, and then down at the keyboard.  Then back at the music, then back at the keyboard, at her Papa's hands and what they were doing.  Back and forth, over and over, regular as a metronome.

As I said, not six months old until mid-month (and born five weeks early at that).

I have come home feeling more than somewhat staggered.  What on earth have we here???

Friday Five becomes Saturday Six!!!

I thought of this character last night also and then forgot again while I was wrestling with format, font, etc.

I really would have liked to be Jerusha ("Judy") Abbott in Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs -- self-portrait above.

NOT under any circumstances the Leslie Caron manifestation; but the girl who wrote the letters to her Mysterious Benefactor.  Oh yes.

ahhhhh.

The last couple of weeks have been a good time for the Rambler...it's a cliche, maybe, to talk about "healing," but I certainly do feel more able to function and with more energy than for quite some time.

The trip south of the Longest Undefended Border in the World (!) was a great source of joy.

I should backtrack here a little bit, perhaps. When I was first able to read, we spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who subscribed to a lot of American magazines (because that's what there WAS, children, is why). They were ideal reading for a curious child: "Life" with wonderful photographs, "Look," "Collier's," and of course "The Saturday Evening Post," with plenty of fiction in every issue, terrific cartoons, Norman Rockwell covers, and all.

I was aware that we lived in Canada, and that south of us there was another country called the United States -- we were close to the border, and now and then visited a great-aunt near Seattle. But most of my awareness came from American magazines. And over time I came to the deep conviction that although the bits around the edge might be a bit dodgy, if you got into the very middle part of the United States, you would find that THAT was where the "Good People" lived. It was a pretty untested assumption, but comforting nonetheless.

And then I grew up, or at least got older, and became more worldly-wise, and dismissed that youthful impression with derision.

But every now and then I get to travel into the "very middle part of the United States," and am forced to admit, every time, "By damn, I was right in the first place."

Setting aside for the moment the stellar hospitality of my hosts in the Cheesy Bit of the Very Middle Part -- folks, they even let me cut up the lefse for the ordination dinner, I was so honoured -- just the experience of travel ... from the efforts of all at Teeny Municipal Airport, ticket agents, security crew, jet-bridge attendants, flight attendants, who all but threw me bodily onto a flight for which I turned up so late it was embarrassing...to the total strangers I encountered on the people-movers in Enormous Hub of Air Travel...I was flabbergasted, people looked me in the eye and smiled and said "hello there!" Friends, it's downright Uncanadian Behaviour. But I think I like it.

More, another time.

since you asked me...

"was the Princess NICE?"

Yes, she was. The little girl she is greeting here has profound hearing challenges; she is one of an African family sponsored by Most Holy and Undivided.

of notebooks, and pens, and so forth...

As my family know only too well, I am a notebook addict. That is, "notebook" as in "journal" as in "diary" but not the kind with too little space per day and a non-brother-proof lock.

In fact for much of the last 25 years I have been unable to pass a stationery store without checking out what may be on offer in the shape of a nice journal.

And I'm fussy. No coil bindings, thank you; a sewn binding if possible. Paper with a surface that will accommodate a fountain-pen without getting all smudgy. Just the right spacing of lines, not too narrow, not too elementary-embarrassing wide. A nice but not too pictorial cover; black imitation morocco is ideal. Other colours if available. Between 150 and 200 pages, all firmly attached. and ideally about 6 inches by 9 inches, so that it can fit in the outside pocket of my travel-bag...no smaller really, and not too much larger.

IT SEEMS LITTLE ENOUGH TO ASK. There was a supplier in the former Czechoslovakia who got it exactly right ("Pragotrade" if you're interested). Seems to have disappeared. East Asian substitutes, not so satisfactory.

But in the last two weeks I have branched out,and purchased a new product from our Mega-Barn office supplies retailer. These notebooks are manufactured from sugarcane waste, apparently -- "bagasse" is the technical term.

And I am using one to write down EVERY COTTON-PICKING THING, in a DONE-DID list instead of a TO DO list. The effect on morale is...electric. I can see the top of my desk. There are no visible horrible pink phone slips. My vital signs are all happy and peaceful.

Even more gloriously, having scuttled all the horrible little bits of paper on my desk, I can find my PENS also! And ensure that they all have tops! and ink! (all the better to write in the Bagasse Notebook with)

So here I'll be, all skilled up and so forth, just in time to retire!

cabbages and kings...

A quick post before I head for home.

The Rummage is over for another six months. Very lucrative this year. Promising new volunteers, taking all sorts of initiative toward a more rational disposal of STUFF.

And all concerned went home today as full as Tige...we gave them an in-house-catered lunch at 1:30, short pasta (rotini) with a choice of home-made Bolognese sauce or home-augmented store-bought Alfredo with about six cheeses; spring-mix salad greens with balsamic vinaigrette; various bread; vanilla ice-cream and slightly intoxicated mixed berries to top.

We fed 40 people for under a hundred bucks, guys! I have to make notes about quantities to streamline the process next year, or next sale. As Jane Austen said: "They could not all talk [or work, or think, etc. etc.]; but they could all eat." One of her snarlier remarks, I love it.

Also was able to send home some little blue-lidded portions with various folks, to improve their diet for the next day or so.

I bought some Rummage (don't tell my kids). Quite a lot of mystery novels -- Michael Gilbert mostly, whom I never find secondhand because MG fans don't let go of their copies... a nice throw-blanket... some extra fondue forks... and, hurray!!! a 3-D jigsaw puzzle of St. Peter's in Rome.

Alas, tomorrow's sermon is still hanging fire. But what I want to say is something like: "Pay attention! Because the core of who we are and what we believe and what we are all about and what we have to say and what we have to do in this present world is right here this morning in these readings. This is the central stuff, you lot, and we need to take hold of it with both hands, and Not Let Go."

Wow, what terrific lections.

A story from my assistant, about last Sunday's children's talk. He asked them if they knew the word "YEARN" and what it meant. He said most of them looked quite blank, but one boy (about ten) looked very uncomfortable and said, "Well, it has two meanings." And then he explained, "One meaning is to want something very very much. And the other meaning is .... {in a whisper).... PEE."

Don't you love them.

Where to START...

Today has been approximately a day and a half already, and it ain't over yet.

Yesterday we received official notice that we are to welcome our Primate (think, Presiding Bishop) here at MH & U, to preach and preside at both services on Sunday, May 11th, the Feast of Pentecost (all day long!), Mother's Day in the civic calendar, and -- later in the afternoon -- the consecration of our new Bishop here in Prairie Diocese. (Which is why His Grace will be in town...it ain't just our beaux yeux, alas.)

Much joy, right? A signal honour for a parish. Hasn't happened here in living memory. May not happen again any time soon.

Signal for a collective pulling up of socks and pulling down of vests, shining of shoes, general dusting and buffing, the whole bit.

We shift now into a minor key. Sunday, May 11th, is also, according to our music calendar..."BAND Sunday," which happens once a month between September and June. On BAND Sunday, the music is handled by an aggregation of guitar-players, drummers, maraca-shakers, tambourine-specialists, and the repertoire....is restricted, shall we say. The prevailing style is something between C&W and "Sunday morning at the Folk Music Festival" with occasional infusions from the "Gather" book; or the oeuvre of Steve Bell; now and then something from our own Book of Common Praise, usually originating in the Southern Harmony or other nineteenth-century revival-ish list. Members of the BAND sing, according to the varying gifts that are in them. Meantime the two-manual Casavant pipe-organ stands silent, the seven-foot Yamaha grand, ditto, and the members of the chancel choir, for the most part, are absent altogether...

So. A primatial visit, and the BAND...

Also, possibly, a baptism (I'm incorrigible, you see).

Question. If we have all-the-musicians-we-have, at this very special service, can this be made to work, at all?

Music Director takes up the matter, tentatively, by email, with BAND leader. BAND leader takes umbrage, big time, and sends plangent, embittered email to the Rambler...complaining that he and his gang have been de-spi-sed and re-jec-ted, etc. etc. thereby staking a claim to the lower slopes of Mt. Hurt Feelings.

Brief Machiavellian conference between Music Director and the Rambler, just before previously scheduled face-to-face meeting between MD and BL.

Into which meeting the Rambler erupts, waving printout of BAND Leader's email, and planting her flag firmly on the summit of Mt. Hurt Feelings, emotes as follows: "How COULD you believe that we would do or even contemplate such a thing, first I was concerned and now I am furious, how long have you KNOWN us for pity's sake..." etc., collapse into armchair with wrist to brow.

They want DRAMA, then by the Lord Harry, I'll give them DRAMA till it comes out their noses (cf. quails, Numbers 11:20ff.)

And so the problem was sol-ved, and the organ and choir will make music until Communion, when the BAND will take over with Communion music, anthem, recessional hymn, and postlude.

Returning to her own office in understandable triumph from this confrontation, the Rambler trod heavily on one of her own mouse-traps....

Now all I have left to deal with is the expressed desire of the former Rector of MH&U who retired 25+ years ago (after 22 years in the parish), and has just celebrated the 70th anniversary of his ordination, to return to MH&U in order to be congratulated in person by the flock here. Most of whom, as he does NOT realize, weren't members of the congregation or indeed even BORN when he retired. Thereby not knowing him from Adam's off ox.

And his choice of occasion? Why, May 11th as ever was...

And meantime the building is taken over by film crew...rushing in and out and making strange thumpings and hammerings, as they transform the premises into a facsimile of Our Lady of Perpetual Whatever...no doubt to the outrage of the ancestral spirits, Protestants to a man (and a woman).


oh BTW we did Marriage Prep with eleven couples this weekend, and it ROCKED. A topic for another day!
and tomorrow is also a day.

Better now, thank you!

Thank you all for your helpful comments and STRENGTHENING affirmations after yesterday's deep gloom.

The sun is out again today...I spent a long time last night sitting up, reading -- trying to get ready for a retreat I am leading at the end of May...and beginning to feel quite excited about it.

And so far this morning I have four endorsements out of five for the re-wording of our recommendation to the Examining Chaplains. You know how they keep telling us to delegate? One of our committee members is an extremely adroit lawyer, and he just gathered up the fragments of our first attempt and wove them into something we could all sign in good faith without feeling that we'd been shafted -- or that we'd shafted our candidate.

And the dissenting committee member has sent me, spontaneously, marvelous promotional material announcing our Holy Week activities, full of positive ALLUREMENTS to come and take part in them. Her rhetoric in these doesn't make me wince at all!

I've just had a great long conversation with the stalwarts of our Fabric Committee about how to put together a long-range plan for the building, and how to get it approved and funded...it turned into a really good discussion...we reviewed a number of projects and eventually got to "tell us again what is the name of that box that we might get around to installing in the wall of the chancel to put the bread and wine into?" and when I explained it was an AUMBRY there was much fun and foolery about the distinction between "aumbry" and "hombre" -- "yep, that there's one bad aumbry, boys." Many of our older congregants are a lot closer to the protestant end of the Anglican spectrum than I am, by inclination. And this has now graciously become grounds for mutually understood teasing and "hoo-rawing"--which really is affectionate. So there was a lot of laughter. They are almost prepared to install an aumbry "just to please me" -- and so then I up the ante by expressing a tongue-in-cheek yearning for a pompous-glorious sanctuary lamp with rattly chains. Shrieks of mock dismay!

And best of all, I've had an e-conversation with T, who was recently being treated for postpartum psychosis, and for whom so many of the RevGals so kindly prayed. T sent me a doleful message saying she had lost her faith in God and in Jesus and in Holy Communion and so she has stopped taking communion and perhaps I would tell her she shouldn't come to church any more at all. She has a little boy by her first marriage, who is being prepared at his school for First Communion in the Roman Catholic church, and she's also dealing with his catechism-generated questions and observations. I kept trying to respond and not being able to do so, finally wrote a great long meandering reply late one night last week...and it seems, blessedly and graciously and thank you Lord, to have hit just the right note with her. We're going to have a visit, too.


So this is a good day (which, no doubt, the Lord hath made)!

I got the joy, joy, joy, joy....

...down in my heart!

"O Lord now lettest thou thy servant start her CAR, and her mouth shall show forth thy praise..."

and it's only twenty-eight below, folks! I shall have to remove some garments! Have already cast off the long johns! With a glad cry and a great burst of static electricity!

I was awake early, about 5:30, and did some serious thinking about transportation issues, and what I have to do over the next few days, and finally got "outside the box"...as in, "WHY do I not sally forth and...RENT A CAR with a working block heater?" And answer came there none. So at 7:30 I went out and whispered into the steering wheel, "Hey! Avis tries harder!" and after a minimum amount of ROWROWROWROWR, ignition!!!

Oh this makes everything over the next half-week SO MUCH EASIER.

Last evening a wedding couple came to see me. They had dropped in the week before,"just to see the church," just after I got back from lunch with my Old Guys Fixin' the Kitchen. And at that point I was (too) full of coffee, as I realized after I heard myself motor-mouthing at these kids about the church, and their wedding... but for some reason they were charmed, I guess, because back they came all fired up, and the groom hasn't been baptized but wants to be (Low Sunday, March 30), and probably his brother will want to be baptized as well. And they kept looking at me last night and saying "we are so excited about this." They had a 5:30 appointment and INSISTED on keeping it in spite of the barbaric weather and the fact that the boy had been working outdoors on frozen-up natural-gas installations all day...and at seven o'clock I finally, lovingly, threw them out. I think they'd have sat and beamed at me for another hour.

That is such balm on all the "gnawed" spots! Verily, verily, God is good.

I am putting in a half day today and then skedaddling for home. I have company for supper tonight; daughter, son-in-law, and former-parishioner-now-Lutheran-seminarian in one of those states with a vowel on each end. We are going to talk shop. Big time.