Whenas in silks my Julia goes

I came across a great new word.

scroop


n. the rustle of silk



Reminds me of a great poem.


Whenas in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
Oh how that glittering taketh me!


Robert Herrick
 
 

 
Photo courtesy of Ingermaaike2, Flickr Creative Commons.

Monday, Monday

Long day, but a good one. Got up early for a meeting with a group of public health folks (very nice people), stayed at work late in order to walk over to World Cafe Live to meet husband and son for a Bill Frisell show.

A great show.

I was worried about taking a photo while the musicians were playing, because I thought the flash might go off, so I took a photo after they left the stage. Oh well.

Now that's a nice Monday evening.

Celebrity school photos

Some of these are just heartbreaking. All are fascinating (well, some of these celebrities I have never even heard of, but I've heard of most of them).

There's a "look" to school photos that is very distinctive, and very odd.

Dessert time?

I have not made a dessert of any kind in about a year or so.

I might have to make this, though.

I mean, if you're going to make a dessert, why not go all out?

There are those on the other side of the fence

Mass in a private home
December 20, 2007


Note - I am really, really going to catch up on these accounts of visiting a different church every Sunday in 2007-2008, the posting of which was the original reason for starting a blog! I'm hoping to be caught up to the current month (ie, posting April 2008 stories in April 2012) and then finish this project. If anyone wants to read them in order, just click on the Visiting Churches label at the bottom of each post and scroll to the beginning.
_____

Tonight I am going to attend Mass in a private home. I didn't even realize Catholics could do that!


We walk into the house, a modest ranch style home, and are greeted warmly. I am at once aware that this is simultaneously both the most Christmassy and the most Catholic home I’ve ever seen. There are lights and decorations on every wall and every surface. There is a Christmas tree in every room, except the bathroom, which features a Christmas shower curtain, Christmas throw rug, Santa Claus toilet seat cover, other Christmas decorations, and a huge picture of St. Therese, the Little Flower, holding a bouquet of roses and a crucifix.

A small table has been set up in the living room, next to the Christmas tree, for the altar. It is covered with a white cloth, and holds a book, candles, a cross, and some of the implements for the Eucharist. Pictures of saints seem to be on the walls of every room, and every room also has at least one crucifix. There is a holy water holder on the wall near the front door.


The tree topper on the main Christmas tree, in the living room, is a little lit-up Virgin Mary, which is something I have never seen before. She is cute – this is one of the few pudgy Virgins I have seen, although the plumpness may be partially a result of the fact that her skirts have to be really wide to encompass both the light bulb inside and the tip of the tree.


Chairs have been set up in rows in two adjoining rooms, the kitchen and a den that is a couple of steps down from the living room. There are about thirty people here for Mass, so it is fairly crowded. There is a nice mix of ages, and the young son of the host and hostess is serving as an altar boy.

 The priest enters the living room, wearing an elaborate maroon and gold patterned robe over some other garments, one of them being a sheer skirt with embroidery around the bottom, on top of another robe or skirt. The napkin covering the gold cup on the altar matches the priest’s robe. Very color coordinated!


We begin with prayers and hymns. The priest tells us the names of three or four people for whom this Mass is being said. One of them is Marie Therese, who I later learn is the daughter of the couple in whose home we are meeting, and he says that today is her birthday. So it's a kind of birthday mass, but the birthday girl is not present.

The priest is a tall young Irish man, with a lovely accent, and this is like some kind of movie set from the Bing Crosby era – the home filled with happy Catholic Christians, the Irish priest. He begins by talking about the passage in James that urges Christians to be patient in awaiting the Lord’s coming, and notes that the problem with many Christians today is that they are too patient – in fact, they would just as soon the Lord did not return, because they are having a fine time without Him.


He mentions that tradition tells us that Mary was praying for the coming of the Messiah when Gabriel appeared to her with the message that she would become the mother of the Lord. Then he says an interesting bit about how the innkeeper who refused to let Mary into his inn was (unknowingly) also refusing to let Jesus in. In the same way, anyone who rejects Mary rejects her Son. When Joseph was tempted to divorce Mary, he was (unknowingly) thinking of divorcing Jesus, in her womb.

Then he launches into a passionate defense of Catholicism, noting among other things that the only way to be saved is through the mass, and that no one can be saved apart from the Church. He seems to me to be preaching to the choir here – these must be some pretty hard-core Catholics, if they are willing to spend a hour or so attending a house Mass. I don’t think anyone here besides me is likely to dispute a word he says.

The priest tells us that we must believe in all seven sacraments, and urges us to be sure to make good confessions. He denounces abortion and birth control. He tells us that we must accept every teaching of the Church. He is quite concerned about the sad state of “those on the other side of the fence,” by which he means either non-Catholics, or lapsed Catholics, or perhaps both.


“Some on the other side of the fence think you can confess your sins directly to Jesus, without going to a priest,” he snorts. “Just trying telling that one to Jesus! Jesus, who breathed the Holy Spirit on Peter, and said, “Whatever sins you loose are loosed, etc.”


Everyone who is able kneels for the Eucharist. The priest dispenses the wafers by placing them on people’s tongues. (This is a crowd that is not partial to the reforms of Vatican II.) I am the only one who does not receive. I accidentally make a mistake about this, though. When the priest comes over to where I am kneeling, I hold up my hand like a stop sign. The priest looks disgusted. (I learn later that the correct form for people who are not receiving the host is to cross your arms over your chest.) Only the priest drinks the wine; this is one of those masses where it is not offered to the congregants.


After the service people are invited to come into the kitchen for food. There is a buffet set up with meatball sandwiches, salad, chips, and lots of really great desserts. The priest changes into his street clothes (normal clothing except for the clerical collar), and everyone visits. I talk to our hostess’ mother, and learn that she has six children. One is a nun and one a priest. The hostess's sister is also a nun.


It turns out that the daughter who is a nun is the one having a birthday today. Today is her eighteenth birthday, and she is not at home because she joined a Carmelite order in New York on her seventeenth birthday. Her family has not seen her or talked to her during the last year, and they will not be able to call her and wish her a happy birthday on the phone.

To say that Carmelites are strict is to put the matter lightly. Marie Therese has joined an enclosed order, which means that it is possible - probably, actually - that she will never leave the monastery for the rest of her life. Imagine agreeing to live in one building for the rest of your life at the age of 17!

Marie Therese has had no contact with the outside world for the past year, and I don't know when she will next have a visit or phone call. The idea is that the first year is a chance to acculturate oneself to the enclosed, isolated life of a contemplative nun, and get a good idea of what it is like before you take final vows. It's a hard life of little sleep, physical privations, and lots of prayer and religious rites. An enclosed nun does not leave at any time except for an extreme emergency, such as hospitalization. They have few visitors, or none - and even when they do have visitors, it is often under some kind of strict separation, such as being in different rooms, and seeing the visitors only through a screen, for a short time.

Frankly, I can totally understand a devout teen-age girl raised in an extremely Catholic house feeling an attraction to this heroic life of self-denial and submersion in the religious environment. I can understand that a year (or even a few months) of this kind of thing would cause lasting changes in one's personality and in one's ability to return to the outside world.

The hard thing for me to understand is saying good-by to your 17-year-old daughter, knowing that you will never see her or speak to her again for any length of time for the rest of your life.

There are those on the other side of the fence indeed.

Silence

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.


Billy Collins

Today was pretty awesome!

The title of this post is somewhat misleading. What I first thought of titling it is:
Ouch

The discomfort is coming not so much from the injured toe. It's the funny shoe that hurts, because it makes me walk in a weird way. My muscles are cramping from walking crooked.

Sigh. It's a monster shoe. Or a Munster shoe.

On the other hand, I noticed today for the first time that there is a small art gallery inside the lobby of a building I have passed almost every weekday for eight years. Never even saw it before!

Perhaps the giant black shoe got my attention.

1975

Scanning old photos tonight. Here's one of my faves, taken in early 1975.

Sunday, Sunday

Successfully left the house today - drove to Philadelphia, as a matter of fact, and saw the musical Memphis at the Academy of Music. We loved it.

Have you seen the blog Hyperbole and a Half? Written and illustrated by the extremely talented and funny Allie Brosh.

A good place to become acquainted with her style is her post on pain charts.

Another great one is The God of Cake.

And her thoughts about her dog. 

But there is plenty of other good stuff to look at.

I'm a little worried, though, since her last post was in October of 2011, and it's about severe depression. I hope she is okay. And I know her fans hope so, too. There are more than 4,000 comments on that post alone.

Aji limo rojo

Finally - snow. The first snow we have seen since that surprise storm last October.

Especially nice for me, since I have been snugly settled at home since last Monday, waiting for my toe to heal. I plan to step out the door tomorrow. But for now nothing is cozier than sitting at home in pajamas and robe, gazing out the window at the pretty little snowfall.

And how wonderful that I have not one, but two jobs that can be done at home. My full-time job allows us to work from home whenever necessary, and my part-time job is teaching an online class. So I actually stayed home this week and got lots of work done!

The first snow calls for comfort food, and for us that is mac and cheese. I made a big batch tonight, and I made it very hot and peppery. I added jalapeno peppers, chili pepper in adobo sauce, habanero cheese, and one dried aji limo rojo (a Peruvian pepper), crumbled up and added to the onions and mushrooms.

MMMM. I welcome winter.

Calculate your risk

If you are female, you can calculate your risk of breast cancer here.

Mine is extremely low. I hope this thing is right.

In other health-related news, I have now spent five days indoors, wearing a fuzzy blue slipper on one foot and a sock and orthopedic shoe on the other. I am so ready to go somewhere - anywhere! Big plans for an excursion on the weekend.

Don't always carpe diem

Some good and interesting thoughts on seizing -- and not seizing -- the day.

Did the hail destroy your crop?

Looking through old postcards again.

The cards are pretty, and the messages on the back are puzzling.

Pa I will send you a birthday card. Did the hail destroy your crop How is every body Silvia

Now, obviously this is a card that was never mailed. I have lots of these, and I don't know the story behind them. Why did Silvia write a card she never mailed? Why was she sending a postcard to let her father know that she planned to send a card?

The note about hail, though, is a good reminder of how precarious life can be when the heavens can ruin months of work at any moment. Farming is hard today, but it was harder only a few short decades ago.

Speaking of sudden downpours, Neil received a phone call tonight telling him that his temp job has ended. Just like that - don't come in tomorrow. It's only a temp job, but still . . . oh well. It's not actual hail.

Piperoids

Working from home today and tomorrow (see post below concerning ridiculous and horrible foot injury). So I had time to stage a photo of the Piperoids my sister-in-law gave everyone for Christmas. She always comes up with some interesting gifts!

Be afraid!

Turning down the thermostat

It all started around 1:00 am on Saturday, when I woke up and realized that the bedroom was nice and toasty.

Oh no, I thought. This is not right. This is a waste of money, since all three of us are snugly wrapped up in our down comforters. I should go downstairs and set the thermostat lower.

I've done this hundreds of times. I'm Miss Frugal with the thermostat. I'm the Wee Hours Heat Regulator.

Also, since I've lived in this house for many years, I have no need to turn on lights. I can find my way around in the dark. Easy peasy.

Until the moment I tripped on the stairs, and felt some kind of weird searing pain in my left foot, and stumbled the rest of the way downstairs, in a bit of a shock.

How bad could it be? I thought, slightly stunned by the pain. I didn't even fall down, just stumbled a little. I set the thermostat lower and limped back upstairs. I'll just go back to sleep and this will be fine in the morning.

Thirty seconds pass.

There's no chance I'm going to fall asleep with my foot in this kind of agony. Better take some aspirin.

Because we are not sensible people, there are no bottles of aspirin in the bathroom on the same floor as the bedroom. The aspirin bottle is in the kitchen. So, back downstairs. This time I turn on the lights.

What the - ???

There is a tidy trail of blood up and down the carpet on the stairs, leading over to the thermostat in the living room and back again. Almost like a diagram - Dotted Line Indicates Path Taken by Idiot.

I examine my left foot, and see that blood is seeping out all along the edges of the toenail of my big toe. I surmise that I have torn the nail loose from the nailbed. This is creepy.

Well, I'll just take the aspirin, rinse the toe well, and put on a band-aid. Blot up all the blood spots on the carpet, and get back to sleep.

Done and done. Back to bed.

Good god almighty! I can't bear the weight of even a sheet on my foot, let alone a comforter.

All right. Don't panic. I'll sleep outside the covers.

This is when I suddenly realize that the room is now freezing cold. Wonderfully, frugally cold.

Aaargh. Back downstairs to turn up the thermostat.

Epilogue

Went to the doctor this afternoon. My toe is broken. There was infection under the nail, and the nail was removed. I am in for a couple weeks of daily soakings and dressings and other lovely procedures. On the plus side, I may have saved ten cents on the heating bill.

Glitz on a budget

People who live near Atlantic City realize that you can often get free or nearly free rooms in AC, especially during the cold winter months. The casinos just want to get people in the doors, because they obviously have a much better chance of enticing people to spend money gambling if they can get them there in the first place.

So it's a pretty cheap getaway if you use the offers.

We used one Friday night. We had dinner at home and then drove to AC and checked into the Taj Mahal. The Trump Taj Mahal. I am so not a fan of The Donald, but I didn't feel that I was particularly subsidizing his business by taking advantage of this offer.

I hoped for an oceanview room, but we had a view of the sound, with the golden Borgata shimmering in the distance.

And closer to us, a nice view of the wavy reflections in the windows of the Taj Tower.

AC is all about glitz and shimmer and size and gold. It is amusing for a few hours. At the Taj, even the house phones are gold.

And the bathrooms in the hotel rooms are enormous, particularly the shower stalls, which could easily hold 5-6 people.

And there are always lots and lots of mirrors.

The other thing that distinguishes casinos from other places is that indoor smoking is allowed; sometimes it even seems to be encouraged. This seems a bit shocking to Americans who have become accustomed to the nearly universal ban on indoor smoking everywhere else. At the casinos, they apparently expect people to smoke even in bathroom stalls.

On Saturday morning we had breakfast at a restaurant in the casino, Plate. I had the asparagus and crab omelette. It was not good. I think it was a microwaved premade omelette. The crab was undetectable. Even worse, the coffee was tasteless. Bummer.

On the other hand, breakfast was free, due to the special deals. But bad or mediocre food, even free, is not such a great bargain.

The only food we needed to purchase was decent coffee at a coffeeshop. We had brought along yogurt, Clif bars, and bananas for Saturday's lunch.

The pool was pretty nice, and not crowded.

The murals in the pool room were funny. I wonder what Indians would think of them.

The other thing we did during this little getaway was watch the movie Melancholia. We began watching it on Friday night, and finished it in two sessions on Saturday, before and after the swim. This is an odd way to watch a movie - more like the way you read a book, over a period of days or weeks. It gave us the opportunity to discuss it between viewings. An interesting movie - part of the premise is that seriously depressed people act well during emergencies, because they already expect everything to go wrong. So they don't get even more depressed -- unlike optimistic people, who are gobsmacked by catastrophes. (The catastrophe in this movie is the end of the world.)

A good combination for a quick getaway - a pool in the middle of winter, a movie with enough mystery in it to make you think a little, a touch of goofy glitz, a short drive, and not much money spent. If only breakfast had been tasty!

The Mighty Boosh

If you have Netflix, check out The Mighty Boosh.

You won't be sorry.

Well, you will be perhaps a tad disappointed if you have an entirely different sense of humor than I have, but I don't see that you could be actually sorry. Irked, perhaps.

They have their own website, and there seem to be lots of spin-offs I have not seen yet. Something to look for.

Longing for a bite of the Big Apple

Has it really been more than a year since I've been to New York City?

Must make plans . . . .

So the whole work thing isn't working out.

I wonder how many people in this country are saying the same thing.

The non-job application.

If you visit the site linked above, take some time to notice her terrific artwork. She has a series on greyhounds for sale. We owned a wonderful, beautiful greyhound for about eleven years (she lived to the ripe old age of 14) who was a rescue from a racetrack. So, you know, I just had to buy a print.

Those were the days, my friend

My kids in the mid-eighties. One of my favorite photos.

The Painted Chair

When the season changes

(that first snow, that first really hot day),

my earlier selves come crowding back, jostling for attention.



Again I walk on bright leaves, savoring the air's tiniest chill,

my twelve-year-old body springy and yearning,

envisioning some cloudy fabulous event still to come.



I wasn't sure what it would look like, but it was something so good

that when it arrived I would be stunned with my good fortune,

able at first to think only, "Oh! Oh! Oh!"



And for some moments I feel that again, the feeling shadowed this time

by the knowledge that the immensely good fortune never came,

and never would, unless - could it be? - this is it. Oh.



Or, I wake up in a room not mine,

and I know my own room again, by its absence.

Not just the smell and look of it, but also the feeling

you get from knowing that walls and furniture are located here

rather than there.

And suddenly I know my self

in my accustomed room,

and the difference between it and my self

in this room.


For a moment I know the house I lived in as a child, and the bed I slept in -

they are back again, brighter and more solid than they were then,

and more lovely - the lilac leaves through the window,

the painted chair,

the door through which I will walk.




Photo by Horia Varlan

Slime Dunk

These are the things of great import that I think about.

People in my office bring in food - lots of food - to share with others. Usually it's very good and very tempting.

Today was an exception. Someone seemed to have found a big bag of old candy, perhaps left over from last Halloween, and he or she decided to leave it in the kitchen area for all to sample. Rock hard old pieces of candy. There was laughter and speculation about just how old this candy was.

I took something, just because I had never seen this type of candy before, and it exemplifies that urge that children have to eat candy that looks disgusting. They all think this is hilarious.

And you know what? In spite of the fact that we all made fun of the bad candy, by the end of the day most of it was gone, exemplifying another fact of human nature - we all love free food.

Good morning starshine; the earth says hello

Said goodbye to grandson this morning, and then off to Philadelphia to see Hair, the musical.

I did not see it during its original run - I was in high school, and not the type of kid who ran off to the big city to see live musicals. I saw the movie, I think, but have no memory of it. So all I remembered was the memorable songs.

I did not remember that is is essentially a tragedy, ending in the death of young man in Vietnam.

And then everyone gets up on stage and sings "Let the Sun Shine," and is happy again.

It was more than a little disconcerting, overall. Here are some of the stage lights (we were up in the nosebleed section, where we had a great view of the lighting system).

Here is the cast on stage at the end, with audience members joining them for the final song.

We intended to drive home right after the show, but it turned out that our car was blocked in by lots of other cars in the lot we had chosen, so we decided to walk down Broad Street, since we had to wait anyway.

Then we walked by Perch Pub, which I remembered as a great place to eat, and we decided to check it out.

I had a Belgian beer, Delirium Nocturnum.

Neil had the Mantua Martini.

Turns out it actually does seem to be the best damn martini ever. He ordered another. I tasted. We now love Right Gin. It also turns out we can't buy it, although it can be ordered for an exorbitant price via the Internet. Hmmmm. We may need to visit Perch Pub again.

We also tried an order of chickpea fries, which are a bargain at $4.00.

Chickpea fries are much yummier than potato fries.

We will be at the Academy of Music again, two weeks from now (we have a season subscription). I think we also now have, informally, a subscription to a season of martinis and chickpea fries at Perch Pub. All - the music, the drink, the food - highly recommended for anyone lucky enough to live in this area.

Houseguest

Lucky me - grandson visiting overnight!

My daughter is at a company holiday bash (they have it in January rather than December), and I believe I will enjoy her evening out even more than she does!

Positively 30th Street

A really nice warm winter day, and I spent all of it indoors. Ah well.

In the morning, on my way from the 30th Street train station, I noticed that the Cira Center was wearing cloud camouflage.

When I returned at the end of the day, the skies were clear and dark.

And along the way, I noticed that someone at the Drexel school of computer engineering is a big Bob Dylan fan.

And that's what I remember from today.

Crack Skull Bob

Recommended blog.

I don't always like it, but it's always interesting.

A smile of Brussels sprouts

OJO and OKO

I learned this today:

EYE is a palindrome in English, Spanish (OJO), and Polish (OKO).

Even better is the fact that the word for eye looks like two big eyes separated by a nose in Spanish and Polish.

Apricity

n. the warmth of the sun in winter



“A strange and lovely word.” — Ammon Shea, Reading the OED, 2009

Welcome, 2012

Might as well welcome the new year - it's here to stay no matter how we feel about it.

But I feel pretty good about it.

The nice thing about a blog is that I can easily look back to see what I was thinking this time last year.

I actually made resolutions on January 1, 2011 - four of them. And I didn't keep any of them, but I made varying degrees of progress, so that's not bad. In fact, I'm going to make the same four this year, and perhaps I'll completely succeed with one or more.

One resolution was to post every day on this blog. I was successful until the day in May that Google had some sort of crisis or breakdown or whatever. After that was resolved I kept posting daily until our vacation in New Hampshire, when I was unable to post for a day or two. And then at some point later in the year the resolution just fell apart, and I went days without posting.

Overall I judge the success of that particular resolution as pretty darn good. 279 posts in one year comes out to 76% - a solid C grade. I'll try to do better in 2012; not just to keep the resolution but because I found regular posting to be a good personal discipline.

Speaking of resolutions, I like Gretchen Rubin's six questions for making a good resolution. (Looking at question number 3, I'm a "yes resolver.")

We had a quiet New Year's eve - as usual, I was sound asleep before midnight. For an account of a truly splendid celebration, you can't do better than Nina's night in Spain.