some gentle domesticity for a change...

 

 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...

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!

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 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society before breakfast...having picked it up for practically nothing in a thrift shop some time back; a very satisfying read, indeed.

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.

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!").  

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. 

 

the first of the snow...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!

Going to have penne for lunch with mushroom-enhanced red-sauce on it -- and some salad.

Plenty to keep one from brooding unhealthily on Original Sin, anyhow.

Of time, and routines...

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.

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?

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.

(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.)

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.)

1. GET OUT OF BED.
2. Take morning meds if any as appropriate.
3.  Take large mug of plain hot water downstairs
4.  Ensconce self in library armchair with good light and resources at hand.
5. MORNING PRAYER according to the (old) Book of Common Prayer, without Scripture readings other than the Psalms appointed in the simplest of the reading tables.
5a.  Pluck Biblia Sacra (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.
5b.  Note prayer concerns in handy notebook by my left shoulder.  Then trot across the landing and hop onto the
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
7. SCOOP THE CAT'S BOX (loud cheers from the cat).
8. Wash hands, contemplate what needs to be taken upstairs -- clean laundry, food from the pantry or the freezer or both...

And there I am ready for my shower and my coffee and my breakfast.  And the rest of the day!

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).  

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.

I am working on that one, too.

The Mysteries of ... Radicchio.

OK, I've just got a whole THANG going on here about radicchio, this week.  Bear with me.

Almost the first thing I learned, reading  Jennifer McLagan's Bitter -- 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.

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."

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.

But last week, the Strange Thing du jour 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.

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...

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.

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...."

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.

There's got to be a solution...

pressing on...

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).

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.

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.

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...

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.

All Monday, all day long

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.

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.

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.  

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.)

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.

I find this totally endearing.  

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.

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.

Y'all take care.  Or, "stammi bene," out there.  Yes.


 

Friday again, woo hoo, I think, anyhow...

Up and full of good resolves this morning, some of which I've even carried out.

It is a constant, repeated (I don't know whether I mean "continuous" or "continual" or both of them) business managing what I need to do, what I want to do, what I have to do, and what I can do -- not to mention "what I FEEL LIKE doing" which usually has nothing to do with any of the above.

Part of this -- I think of it as "ergonomics" in a sense -- has to do with noticing when there is energy and when there isn't -- against a backdrop in which the constant is "less energy than there was, more than there will be" -- which is disconcerting at the very least.

Part of this is learning to ask the question, "What and how much of it do I need to do today in order to feel contented when I turn in, tonight?"  because there will always, always, be more on THE LIST than can be done in one day.  Not to mention more things in the "henh" file.  I am very fond of the concept of the "henh" file. (It contains all those items which you pick up, or remember, or think of, and then say "henh" and lay them down again.)

I have letters to write.  I have nearly finished the laundry.  I have made two business-like phone-calls.  I have scheduled some deliveries.  I have done all the newspaper puzzles over my breakfast this morning -- a sign of sufficient sleep last night.

There is ironing.  There are groceries to manhandle into meal-form before dark.  There are pots to wash, books to read, carpet to vacuum, and a kitchen floor to scrub...and somewhere in there, a walk; and somewhere soon a foray to buy new bedding for a new bed, a brand-new bed, to be delivered next week--very exciting.

And there are books to shelve, papers to sort, archives to shred, garments to mend, projects to complete.

And there is a parish on the horizon--six weeks' interim supply work in last summer's venue, "Little Prairie Town Halfway to the Jumping-Off Place" as we might call it.  Long, long drives every Sunday, but I'm looking forward to it.

But the Blog Post is done.  So now that comes off the list.  It suffices.

Moving along

Aha.  Back again at 70+1 day.  Got through a Eucharist this morning with active help from "Sound System Guy," "Musician," and "Acolyte," not to mention "Rector's Warden" and others in uncredited roles.  Preached -- about three times longer than I meant to.  I have a strong feeling the congregation was finished listening well before I was finished talking.  However they were polite, and did not retract the honorarium.  We had good coffee afterward and pleasant if desultory conversation.

One of the Rambler's birthday gifts yesterday was a set of beautiful bedsheets.  Of a size incompatible with the Rambler's current bed.  Which has been her current bed since 1967.  Indicating the impatience of her family with her SLOWTH in the replacement of worn-out furniture.

So this afternoon I must ramble forth and take advantage of a momentary mattress sale (but when are mattresses ever NOT on sale, we ask ourself), and then investigate a suitable bed-frame, like, you know, with a headboard and a footboard and side-rails, and like them.

And then grapple with the whole SEQUENCING problem -- delivery of new bedding, delivery of new bed-frame, removal of worn-out bed, possibly ripping up of worn-out bedroom carpet somewhere in the one-two-three-four of that process?

And the lovely Robot Lady at the public library has called to tell me I have a book on hold, so I should pick that up this afternoon also.

And think about some supper, and the week's doings ahead of me.

Avanti! Away I go.  No Sabbath nap this week!

Evening sunshine, again...

Well -- we got through a whole day, today, without rain -- the first for a while -- so it seemed like a day to be outdoors as much as possible.
I got the last of the current list of thank-you letters written just as a robo-call came in from the Public Library reminding me that there were on-hold items to be picked up.
So with pedometer strapped to ankle (I've tried the waistband, but unable to keep pedometer in place owing to lack of...a waist) -- and bookbag in hand (water bottle, Tilley hat, sunglasses, etc.) off I went on foot to the closest branch of the library.  Picked up my four books, checked FB (the library computers are faster than my old laptop) and then on the way home popped into Second Cup for coffee, grilled sandwich, muffin, and a peaceful read of Frances Fyfield's Let's Dance -- P. D. James recommends FF's fiction (they're friends as well as colleagues) -- I think this title, a suspense novel, comes into the sub-genre of "dementia fiction."  A little of which goes a long way!
Eventually, home by way of a mailbox where I dropped off eleven letters -- keeping the tradition alive, folks!  Stamps on these: an artful combination of The Queen (63 cents) and Useful Insects (10 cents and 2 cents) to come up to the current price per letter of 85 cents (robbery).
Then unlimbered the big long extension cord, and the less SCREAMY of the two weed-whackers (how did I wind up with two weed-whackers? a mystery), and cut a swathe down one side of the back yard, grass and weeds and poplar suckers there being all about a foot or 18" tall.  It's a start.  My arms got shaky, so I stopped at that point.
And now supper -- a little stuffed veal "thing" from the supermarket -- a tomato -- some carrot and pepper strips and guacamole -- and a vegetable combination, chiefly zucchini.  
Sermon is ready for my guest stint on Sunday -- so after supper -- read, and read, and read, and read.  And maybe push the laundry, just a bit.

Reflection in the middle of the night...

I had a long conversation with myself, interrupted, the other night. 
For professional reasons, I was a guest at a local Conference/Retreat Centre (formerly, a very very large convent). 
For epidemiological reasons, I found myself on my knees shortly after midnight.  Not, alas, in any of the beautiful, tranquil, inspiring chapel spaces on the premises.  But in the little ensuite bathroom assigned to me.
I had extended opportunity to examine the furniture of that bathroom, closely.
And midway through the seance, it occurred to me: that the misery of gastro-intestinal upset is very materially lessened when all the porcelain ware within reach is as clean and shiny as your grandmother's bone china... as when you just have to rest your forehead on that rim...and you do so in the perfect tranquil confidence that you're not going to catch anything.  Else.
"Self," I said, reflecting..."how about we keep this moment in mind, the next time we decide we'd just rather  defer scrubbing the bathrooms at home, yet again?  How about we re-visit the Nasty Jobs, now and then, as welcome and easy opportunities to look after us, better?  H'm?  Instead of just Sordid Ordeals?"
And Self couldn't think of a single smart-aleck thing to say.
Believe me...if you get to pick the venue in which you're going to "hug the bowl," all night--hard to beat a NUN-CLEAN convent bathroom.  Just sayin'.

Back again...

Don't look now, but I'm blogging again.  Up at 5, blanched and peeled peaches (big BC freestone-type -- the stones may be "free" but oh boy, the peel wasn't) and put together a Dutch oven full of ingredients and made six pint jars of Peach and Raisin Chutney.  The jars all sealed.  There was a spoonful left over for me to enjoy with my lunch.  Jars are cooling on a rack in the kitchen.  Contentment.

I bought a half-case (allegedly, 10 pounds, but I think the fruit merchant was a bit generous in his measures) while I was at the downtown market in Prairie Metropolis on Saturday.  A full case was beyond me, I knew, in part because I was coming and going by bus.  As it was, I "blessed" the ones I had purchased before I finished wrastling them home.  I've eaten several "in the hand" -- and there's enough left still for at least a generous peach pie and something else, not sure what.

I'm in the "crack" between two ministerial assignments -- finished my happy summer stint with the parishioners in Intensely Orange -- Sundays only, one service, a 400 km round-trip drive through prime agricultural country as well as a small national park, so I had at least a glimpse of Bison bison athabascae  once a week -- and on the last Sunday at different points along the way I saw FIVE moose -- and at least three vast flocks of snow geese resting and fuelling up for migration among the stubble.  I'd seen snow geese before, back East on the St. Lawrence, but never on the western flyway. 

Pretty rich stubble this season too.  My summer congregation were, um, agriculturalists, and as we got on from August into September they began to smile very, very cautiously and mutter, "she...doesn't look too bad, this year..."  This unemphatic perspective translates into newspaper headlines about "Best Yields EVER"... wheat, barley, and canola...   I kept saying to myself, "There IS corn in Egypt yet..."  Must be irretrievably carnal-minded, I guess, but nothing improves a vista like the visible presence of (potential) GRUB spread over it.

So now it's time to get dug into St. Leroy's, here in town, half-time, while their Rector has parental leave.  The trick will be giving an honest half-time's worth of work AND NO MORE.  Still juggling that in my own head.  I'll see what the lay leadership thinks about priorities and necessities.

All this--and reading, and reading, and reading.  Working on understanding my OWN priorities and necessities.  I seem to have been doing that for a very very long time.

A busy sort of lovely day.

After a pretty good night's sleep...re-vacuumed the living room in response to a strange proliferation of CHEERIOS hither and thither... Then got the kitchen counters cleaned, the dishwasher loaded, and headed off to the dentist for the second instalment of a three-stage cleaning.  My dentist has been my dentist for just under 40 years.  He is sidling into retirement...has taken on a new young partner and a bevy of new hygienists.  The receptionist remains the same, with a wonderful whooping laugh like a troop of cavalry crossing a tin bridge...
I dislike the tooth-cleaning routine but I have techniques for coping.  Two Tylenol (about 1/2 an hour before my appointment) seem to help.  And I tell the hygienist how gentle she has been, and how much I appreciate it.
Then home, a little, a very little, lunch (tooth-cleaning always makes me think, maybe intravenous is the way I want to go from here on), and then LAWN MOWING.  Brief frustration at trying to find the keys to the shed (the shed which contains the mower), but we managed that, and I was happy to use my NEW and very flexible 100-foot extension cord (electric mower)...It took me three or four sessions, with iced tea in between, but the front yard looks, if not good, at least INTENTIONAL.  And not so much as if "some kind o' widder-woman" lives here (my grandmother's label for a certain state of dilapidation and neglect).
And then got myself cleaned up and away to a wonderful dinner and glorious spiraling conversation with one-two-three charming gentlemen--life and art and dance and theatre and The Church and The Faith and national identity and lovely never-exhausted topics like that.
I have put the garbage out.  I am going to bed with some good reading.  Tomorrow is also a day.

If this is Wednesday, it must be...Wednesday.

It's morning, I'm up, I'm washed, I'm dressed, I'm reasonably groomed, I've taken my meds, I am having a pretty good skim milk latte (having made a pot of espresso earlier) and anticipating some Enhanced Oatmeal.  Decided oatmeal-every-morning would obviate weary choice-making.  But it definitely needs help/work/thought etc.  Pretty sure I want to carry on with the additional sesame seed flax seed wheat germ wheat bran cracked wheat sunflower seeds* possibly unsweetened coconut raisins or even craisins cinnamon cloves and of course salt.  The Tabasco was an interesting experiment, but.  Thinking now along the lines of crumbs of dried lemon or orange zest. Artificial bacon bits, for now, no.

"The policy here" is to assemble all these good things, plus water, in the teeny-tiny oatmeal saucepan in the evening, and apply heat upon rising.  So dried enhancements, like the lemon and orange peel, have leisure to reconstitute themselves overnight.  Thinking further on this weighty matter.

*The theme of this cereal is "let's be moving right along here," as you see. 

In other news, coming to the end of my third part-time interim post-retirement appointment, and facing forward as confidently as possible.  Meantime, granddaughters continue shedding joy in all directions...and Beloved Famblies are all well.

Wrangling together a sermon on the Dedication of the Temple and the Faithful Centurion and the Astonishing Galatians.

Family Day

It is "Family Day," soi-disant, in Prairie Province -- cynics see it as "we needed a Monday off in February" and/or "Previous political figures attempted to compensate for inadequate parenting they provided by proclaiming a holiday in honour of families."  Whatever.  It is nice to have a Monday off particularly when the weather is not outstandingly horrid.

As it is a provincial holiday, not a federal one, the Post Office works, and we GET REAL MAIL.  Including some reading matter -- Jen Hatmaker's 7, or is it SEVEN?, and various magazines.  Also donation receipts to attach to the tax return.

Cleaning house, focussing on small areas i.e. about 18" square.  As long as I can see results heading to the curb on garbage pick-up day, I'm happy.

And doing some cookery -- made bread this morning from the sourdough basic recipe, with many modifications; the usual yield is two medium loaves, but this morning I made one loaf and a speculative quantity of long rolls suitable for hot dogs etc.  Came up with 10, of varying sizes, and I think 12 would be feasible.  This is basically white bread but it is mightily enriched with veg. oil, skim milk powder, wheat germ, wheat bran, cracked wheat, and quick (small-flake) oatmeal.  Sometimes sesame seed on the bottom also.  I'm well pleased with the result.  Makes good sandwiches, makes good toast, makes good French toast, and eventually makes great croutons and/or crumbs too.

Yogurt (home made) and granola (home made) for breakfast, very tasty.  I'll take a large jar of yogurt to #1 Granddaughter tomorrow, she consumes it at a great rate which is good for Grandma's ego.

Still computing courtesy of the public library (also open, this afternoon, predictably full of young'uns)...

Did not preach or officiate or do anything liturgical this last Sunday except to garb up and adorn the chancel.  Having worn out my alb to the "borderline disgraceful" stage, I regularly wear cassock and surplice.  Turns out this suits the African constituency in the parish just fine.  A delegation informed my Excellent Boss recently that "THAT one" (i.e. me) "is PROPERLY dressed"...which he found very funny, fortunately.

Reading Umberto Eco, a slim collection of essays entitled five moral pieces.  I acquired it for the sake of the essay titled "Ur-Fascism"; in other translations it appears as "Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt," which is wittier.  But there is also a gorgeous little essay in the form of a letter to Cardinal Martini of Milan -- title approximately, "When the Other Makes an Appearance."  Wow, can this man THINK.  (So can Cardinal Martini -- not surprising that their public dialogues were a very "hot ticket" in Milan.)

I'd better make a break for home at this point, company coming for supper...

...mit Frolocken...

It's snowing here this afternoon -- fat fluffy flakes; earlier in the day, they were smaller, and there was just enough of a breeze to toss them about in Brownian motion between our house and the house next door.  But now they're just enough heavier that they're falling almost straight down.  I'll have to shovel out tonight before I go to bed.  But it's all right -- it's not what the friends-who-are-nurses call "cardiac snow."

Shortly, however, I'm on my way to spend the evening with Delightful Grandbaby.  She is 10 months old today (less the five weeks she missed in utero).  She can sit herself up; she can crawl, she makes wonderful games out of clapping and waving and uttering funny noises.  Last Monday  we had a game with hiccups.  I patted her back; she hicc'ed.  When she hicc'ed -- I hicc'ed, just to demonstrate solidarity.  She looked at me dubiously -- she seemed to detect a certain lack of depth and authenticity about my performance.  But after half a dozen or so, she solemnly reached up and patted me on the chest.  "You pat me, Grandma, I'll pat you, we'll get the upper hand of these darn hiccups somehow."

Spent yesterday afternoon in a special kind of study on Romans 8, guided by the old Fifth Evangelist, there, at the head of the post...in the motet "Jesu meine Freude".  Singers comprising friends of my children and children of my friends -- or both.  Conductor: the Poppa of Delightful Grandbaby.   We are a very BACH family.

Does anybody else listen to Bach for the WORDS?  My gain yesterday was Frolocken.  I know that in standard orthography it's Frohlocken.  But without the "h" somehow -- it's more FROLICSOME.  And I love it.  Frolocken forever.  And more of the style of devotion, of thinking and feeling, that invites that rejoicing.

Bach does me good.  Thanks be to God and thanks be to the old Kapellmeister -- and to the young one, and to all his Musikant friends, too.

And so we go on...

Here it is Thursday and there should be an Ask the Matriarch post up already -- and there isn't -- haven't found the exactly right kind of cyber-trowel to spoon it into the RGBP slot.  EVERYBODY BE PATIENT...especially me.

Still dark out -- in another hour we may begin to see some intimations of dawn, and the sun will skulk and scuttle around the Eastern-Southern-Western horizon until between 4 and 5 this afternoon.  Meantime, though, it is MILD -- -3 C for people who do metric, or about 26 F.  We can expect some thawing later on. 

So it might be a day to do an outdoor task -- given that one could, today, stand still for ten minutes or so without freezing solid.

I can shovel the snow off my new deck -- I can clear a bit of a path to the compost bin -- I can even ambitiously dig out access to the SHED.  And retrieve therefrom the emergency shovel, which I'm supposed to have in the trunk of the car (I know, I know, I know). 

And when I've done all those fun gross motor things -- I can figure out how to instal the outdoors component of my fancy tell-all thermometer.  Preferably, on one of the supporting posts in the shade of the new back deck.  Nothing like a little power-tool work to make a person feel competent.

And "competent" would be a good feeling about now.

Heading back into work mid-morning (for "work", read "employment" !!); continuing interim, part-time, on a day-to-day basis -- like a hockey-player on the injured list... (what, by the way, is a "groin-pull," and how exactly does one get... oh, never mind)

There is a noon Eucharist, for which we can anticipate a congregation of six at most.  Today, complicating matters, there is a BIG memorial service at two.  BIG as in Major Civic Philanthropist.  So it will behoove us to "euch" with brisk efficiency, minimizing the pauses for silent reflection, and scoot out from under the chariot wheels of the funeral director's staff.  Our HOS is on vacation.  The memorial service is in the hands of senior diocesan clergy, not including the Rambler, who can come righteously home and get on with the installation of thermometers, etc., before heading out for supper.

creeping back toward the light...

It’s 6:30.  The furnace thinks I’m now out of bed, and is kicking the temperature up to 68 F accordingly (from 64 overnight, not bad).

I’ve been up for some time – about an hour and a half.  I’ve read a National Geographic article on the Lakota people and life on the rez in South Dakota.  I’ve read quite a lot of Zadie Smith, review essays in a collection called Changing My Mind.  It’s due at the public library tomorrow.  Maybe I can figure out how to renew it on line?

I’ve taken my meds, and drunk a glass of water, and eaten two pieces of toast (home-made bread: one with peanut butter, one with honey) and made a POT of coffee from fresh-ground, and drunk most of a mug of it.

Finished the big crossword from the weekend paper.  Bundled the weekend paper into the recycle bin.  Unloaded the dishwasher from yesterday, and put odds and ends of dirty things in it.  Disassembled and cleaned my espresso pot.  Added skim milk to my shopping list. 

Considered for a bit just what I want to think of as DONE by bedtime tonight: organize my Christmas cards and list…put clean clothes away…write the better part of 50 personal notes to enclose with a seasonal charity appeal…box up some journals for transfer to a library elsewhere…clean the cat’s box…clean the email inbox!!!  Write a half dozen overdue letters…vacuum and mop the kitchen floor…clear the kitchen table, the dining-room table, and the laundry-room table.  Make a start on the pantry.  Concoct vegetable stock for soup base.  Think a bit about a meal plan for this week.

Straightened up the sofa cushions (where I slept the first part of the night last night).  Made the 187^th reaffirmation of resolution not to do that again…

8:30.  Bathed, dressed, ready for the day (using the term loosely).  The usual swathe of Hummers and Escalades bearing junior-elementary types to the school over the way has come and gone again.  It’s looking like a cloudless day on the way (sun just barely-barely UP).  Had a glass of juice and read today’s paper and did the easy Monday puzzles (“Japanese sash” in three letters, first letter “o” and last letter “i”), read the obits and the comics and glanced at the editorials.  Disregarded the sports section.  The National Classic next week involves only the Hated Calgaries and the Hated Torontoes, I am cheering for both of them to lose.

I think I can take this day in 20-minute lumps, if I pace myself.  So the next 20-minute lump will be Mattins.  

Midnight.  The first reading for Mattins was from I Maccabees.  It included just about my favourite Scripture verse EVER: "et cecidit elephans super ipsum, et mortuus est illic."  And the elephant fell on him.  And he died.  Well, you WOULD, wouldn’t you?

Spent a happy evening babysitting the wonder-grandbaby.  She was undeceived by her parents’ surreptitious departure to choir practice, and disposed briefly to fist-fight her grandma over the Bedtime Question, but settled down and went to sleep quite promptly anyway.

Roads were good, but fog settling in as I drove home.  Tomorrow is also a day—and I can’t find my keys.

something attempted, something done

Well, it's been kind of a fun day in the Interim Ministry department.  A lovely long confab with Marvelous Deacon filled the late morning hour...then Lunch and Lectionary with M Deacon and Fab Traveling Companion over Solomon, and the Temple, and the power of incense to knock clergy on their backs, and the status of "furriners'" prayers, and the whole armour of God, and the ever-lovin' bread of life YET AGAIN, and "Who you gonna call?" and all like that, all interspersed with munching on our own Desperately Healthy lunches.

Oh and during lunch -- phone calls.  St. Curious Too has more dang-nab phones -- land lines -- on the premises than any church I've ever entered.  So far I haven't found any phones in the washrooms, but EVERYWHERE else.  In consequence I had a fine conversation with a Victim Services lady in Herring-Choker Province, where they are fixing to incarcerate a young man found in possession of items stolen from the premises of St. Curious Too, back when (before my time).  Would we like to fill out a VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT prior to his sentencing?  So that has come, by email.  And then a call from a young man in search of a baptismal certificate.

Fortunately, I was able to tell him that it was on my desk and will be in the mail within 24 hours.  He and I had had previous conversations about the Catch-22 situation he was facing, and we with him: "We can't issue you a certificate because we do not have the baptismal register under our eye.  Nor can you be re-baptized, because we know you were baptized.  But we do not know that in a form or to a degree which permits us to issue a certificate.  But you can't be re-baptized, because" and a-la-main left, and around we go again.  

About the fourth circuit of the problem I bethought me of the old Book of Common Prayer, with its wise and pragmatic and pastoral provision for when the circumstances of a prior baptism are not clear enough to satisfy the priest.  Not its only liturgical recognition that STUFF HAPPENS, and the stuff that HAS happened, is quite likely to happen again, so let us have a nifty little ceremony, here, just to cover that eventuality.

The Book of Alternative Services sounds pretty raw by comparison -- coming out of an era when I guess we were still somewhat convinced that "nothing could go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong"  because we were all so clever and right-minded...

As it turned out, the Archives of Prairie Province had the register in question, and produced us a splendid document attesting to what is in the record, so our young man should be able to stand up and godfather his Roman Catholic friend's baby, and all's well all around.

And then, finally, a home communion visit with healing prayer for the couple who are filling my life with vegetables, after the manner of retired Prairie farmers of Slavic heritage.

Tomorrow -- day off -- will be a perfect ORGY of sugar, salt, vinegar, and Mason jars.  About six kinds of pickles, and chili sauce.

yesterday's adventures...

In which the Old Grey Rambler triumphed over modern technocracy in two happy respects -- first, in that she picked out FROM MEMORY the correct make and size of ink cartridge for her itty bitty printer -- and installed it -- and didn't hurt herself or blow up anything.

And then, second, no doubt only because previously fortified by Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberry Jam, she assembled a couple of IKEA tables directly descended from the beloved three-prong two-slot blivet of our youth:

"THE THING"

The results of all this fine work with the little Allan wrench and a couple of screwdrivers are two comparatively sturdy bench-like objects on which to foster houseplants in the light from the living-room window.

We are abolishing the little tilty spindly toothpick boot racks formerly supporting our horticultural efforts. We have decided that the Fourth Horseman of the Domestic Apocalypse is "Rickety Provisional." The first three, as you remember, are "Dirty, Dark, and Broken."




Just sayin', but this was also accomplished with the paws-on assistance of Nefertiti the Wonder Cat, who instantly recognized the Great Big Screws, the Weird Half Screws, the Nubby Bits of Dowel, the Twiddly Plastic Gizmos, AND the Allan wrench, as God-sent cat toys.

Oh yes. In between the Blivet Benches and the Swedish Meatballs, the Rambler passed a big bin full of ... stuffed toy ... rabbits. And they actually looked like rabbits, you know? And so, well, heck, Annie didn't yet have any stuffed toy rabbits... Don't laugh, I passed up the stuffed toy Golden Retrievers...

Facing the Void...

Our friend Sally, over at RevGalBlogPals, offers us this, today:

I have been pondering this Friday Five over and over in my mind, but I am coming up with nothing, so I am wondering; what do you do when you feel empty of all creativity and unable to make/do anything? This is a completely open question, the only rule is name 5 things that fill/ inspire you:

so here goes...

1. Extra sleep -- to a point -- often in the last 20 years the problem has been simple, brute fatigue.

2. Physical exercise, of which walking is probably prime favorite.

3. Fiction, especially classic children's fiction; or mystery series; or people like Nevil Shute (although there's nobody like Nevil Shute); or Dickens, or Austen.

4. Something mindless and minor, like ironing, or polishing silver (Memo to self: tomorrow, take down and wash all the 'copper' moulds and pans on the kitchen grid)

5. (and this is the prime remedy) -- Go see a movie...it never seems to fail, I come out just snapping and crackling with ideas and imagination.

It has been Some Kind of Day here at Tether's End...a nice peaceable, doable schedule and nothing too alarming--and then the phone rang--and it was the Daughter Unit, who had just been tentatively diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and was awaiting further tests. And all the internal sirens start up...

Warmest thanks to all of you who sent such Sustaining and Comforting e-mails. I am happy to say that by late afternoon she was safe at home and everything that could have been, and had been, measured was now just where it should be. But in view of the scare -- a spike in blood pressure and protein detected where no protein should be -- she'll be closely monitored at home for the duration of the pregnancy. Such relief...

And somewhere in the midst of the panic and its aftermath, I absorbed the message that Beloved Milkman, the very last one in Prairie Metropolis, will make his final delivery next Friday. And I spent a very productive couple of hours with Gratifying Theological Student, mapping out a paper on the Anglican theology of Christian Initiation...our targeted lunch place was mysteriously closed so we went elsewhere, and in the Sturm und Drang over Chorus's diagnosis, I wolfed down a whole steak sandwich before even remembering that it IS Lent, after all. Miserere me, Domine.

After coming home, made 1-800 phone calls and sorted out a credit card tangle; and betook myself to the bank, early evening, and did things with retirement-money.

Tomorrow, which is also a day, heavy-duty house-cleaning.