Monday all day long

It's late, and I'm about to fold myself toward bed, I think.  Yesterday was "plenty" -- preached three times, one sermon at the early service and a second sermon (different readings) at the second and third services.  And I cut cake world-without-end...after the services.  Very kind things were said, and there are roses...and then Ace Brother, who had been waiting altogether patiently, whisked me away "whisk" to our favourite Sunday-brunch place, and we ate eggs with pleasant accompaniments and then reformed the constitution, the church, the nation, etc. and so forth until, in effect, they threw us out.  Back to the erstwhile workplace to pick up my own vehicle and then home through the least credible entanglement of traffic barricades and obstructions and constructions and detours...

Fell down on the couch with a blanket and slept hard for five solid hours.  Got up and "went to bed properly" and slept for another seven.

So today has been pretty productive...suffice it to say two vacuum cleaners came into play.

Number One granddaughter arrived with her accoutrements just after three o'clock.  We had a long walk all around the neighbourhood in the pleasant sunshine.  I put her hat on for her.  She took it off.  I put her hat on.  She took it off.  There was kind of a RHYTHM to it...and then on the way home we went to the PLAYGROUND, where there are SWINGS and SLIDES...she laughs aloud at the sight of them (she's not quite 15 months old) and is overjoyed to "be swung"...and fearless about coming down the slide by herself.  

What else is in the playground?  A lot of very little people...and their grandparents...so we compared notes, bragged, etc.


Came home (enjoying most of a rice cake in fragments as we went along) and then she was definitely hungry.  She practically inhaled a banana...I have never seen such an appetite in one so little... and we played.  I have a number of oversized stuffed animals, and these hit the spot... good to know!  Great hugging and cuddling and patting ... then it was supper time, with the nice things her Mama had brought for her...and her Mama arrived and was able to snatch a little supper for herself before inserting Granddaughter into her jammies and away they went home.

Absolute bliss, but oh! boy! there are reasons why we don't have babies in our sixties, and my muscles are reciting them all tonight!!!  

Tomorrow will be grass-cutting day here, weather permitting -- and a quick trip to the dentist -- and a bunch of little fiddly errands -- and then a dinner party "out."

I am in between appointments for almost the first time in three and a half years...and enjoying the freedom.  Lots and lots of projects to do but everything takes longer than it used to, and a "clear week" before me seems like inconceivable luxury.

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.

FRIDAY, Friday, fridayfridayfriday...

Hello all from the bowels of the Public Library.  I am a bit distracted, there is a gentleman even older than I am at the next computer over, being instructed in Twitter by a Library person, it is funnier than the circus.  "GO, OLD COOTS (AND COOTESSES)!!!" I say.

I have a solemn promise from my Personal IT Wizard that I shall have a computer all working and re-stocked with files etc. by sundown tomorrow.  It has been revelatory, confining my pointless self-distraction Earnest Inter-Webs Labours to an hour a day, in the meantime.  An instance of Involuntary Simplicity.  Beneficial, too, I think.

Reading Doris Goodwin's book on Eleanor and Franklin and "the Home Front" -- it is hefty, slow going, but interesting--gave me a running start on the NYRB review of Oliver Stone et al., The Untold History of ...  I didn't know anything about Henry Wallace.  Now I do (I think).

Re-reading The Virginian, which I love.  "A middlin' doctor is a pore thing," etc.  Words to be going on with.

Off to do some banking and make some appointments and then home again and consider the rest of the day.  I did some mending the other day -- I have a very nice cozy pair of Haflinger (sp?) slippers but I have worn a fuzzy hole in the toe of one of them.  The design is of a sheep, so I mended the hole with green embroidery floss and then added some more embroidered "grass" for the sheep to be eating.  If I can remember how to do the lazy daisy stitch I may include a few flowers.  The result is not unsightly.  Not as unsightly as the hole, at least.

Did some housework yesterday and it must have made a difference as I had to empty the "big" vacuum cleaner three times before I was done!

And so it goes...

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...

Faint, but pursuing...

A very fast post here to say, "Still alive" but not reliably connected to the internet in ANY WAY except when I can get to the public library...for a once-a-day 60-minute free session on the computers here.

It is SOME tedious, but OTOH lots of opportunity to do all those things that normally are deferred until after I've "just checked what's on Facebook etc. etc. etc." --

Lent has begun well and quietly -- renewing some resolves and taking steps to make them easier to keep.  Considering installing bear-traps all over the couch so as to preclude the "I'll just lie down here for a minute" gumption-sink.

Managed to inventory both the little freezer upstairs and the big one downstairs -- my neighbour came over to retrieve his "turducken" which he had stored with me for lack of space at his house.  Of course it had migrated to the bottom of my freezer so it could go wibble-wobble in company with my (two!? how did that happen) "famine turkeys"...by the time we had made our way down to it, there was so much food spread out around the freezer that listing it right then and there was the beloved line of least resistance.

Now to make some sensible meal plans.  Came home from the BE with all my baggage PLUS an "airplance cold."  It's gone away now, but while I was laid low the things I had cooked and frozen in January were mighty welcome.

Reading various things, Tzeporah Berman on environmental activism, some William Styron (I don't get it, or I don't get it YET), and The Best Spiritual Writing 2013, including the New Yorker article on the "C Street House" -- whoo.

Granddaughters flourish, and the eleven-month-old has learned to blow kisses.  This makes conversation with Grandma quite smacky.

OK, library time is nearly up, time to pack up here and mount an assault on the supermarket.

Peace, all.

...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.