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A Sunday
Winter feels over, though I suspect that we’ll have blackberry winter yet, and the frost will burn the tips of the tender things in the coming mornings. Today we saw 83F, and we were forced to put out the fans on the back porch. . The dogs lolled around on the warm boards, the bees and wasps flew their missions against us, the dandelions straightened themselves out on the green expanse, the birds gamboled and frisked, and the snakes made an appearance as well, prompting Mrs. Orr to ask me to cut down the Japanese magnolia at the southeast corner of the house. The lithe black things seem to be…
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Undisciplined
I have tried to keep to my schedule of weekly postings of memoir entries, but sometimes things just load up on me and I can’t do it. Lacka damn discipline, my Drill Instructors would have said. If I can’t offer my own words, I’ll offer someone else’s much more talented take on this life. For now, it’ll be Miranda Lambert and a little sample of her Marfa Tapes album. If you’ve ever seen the movies “Hud” or “Giant,” you’ve seen Marfa, Texas, a mysterious place of bleak and blasted beauty. Miz Lambert took two of her musician buddies out there, armed only with acoustic guitars and two microphones, and they…
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Shut Down Upon Our Little Days
I’ve always been something of a worrier, a personal trait that has never done me or anyone around me any good. Like so many other of my quirks, I have tried to pray it away or master it by stern self-discipline, but it remains as much a part of me as my freckles or my bone structure. Last time we were back in Texas, I found a tattered little prayer book in an antique store and bought it for five dollars (I’ve since learned that a used copy of this book sells on a major website for something like $80 or $90). Stuffed inside its pages were various holy cards…
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Dixee Update
The little girl made it through her surgery, and we are grateful. She’s limping like a fuzzy tripod, and unhappy with the much-needed cone, and we’re so happy she’s here with us and breathing her way into the next day of Holy Week. My sincerest thanks to James and Lewis and any of you who prayed for this scroungy little gray girl. We do appreciate it so much. ~ S.K. Orr
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A Little Dog
If you are the sort of person who prays for animals, please pray for our little elderly dog, Dixee. She is undergoing surgery today. A few years back, she developed a cancerous growth and was treated for this. A new, more sinister-looking growth has appeared on her leg and surgery is needed not only to remove it, but also to biopsy it and arrive at a prognosis. Our main concern is that due to her age and increasing frailty, the general anesthesia may be too much for her. We are prepared emotionally if she doesn’t survive the surgery, but I would still ask for your prayers, that the veterinary surgeon…
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Memoir 4
It’s no wonder I turned out like I did, given the arid terrarium into which I was hatched. My sister, older than me by almost two years, resented me from the beginning and never hesitated to show and tell her dislike for her younger brother. In our teen years and into our twenties, she used to tell me that she hated me, that she used to wish I would die when she would watch me in my playpen or running through the yard. I was never shocked by her admissions or her venom; they made perfect sense because I saw and felt them every day. And though we have largely…
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Saturday Before Holy Week
The day was odd. After mild temperatures all week, today saw snow all day, on and off, until about 5 pm. Sunny one minute, confectioners sugar in a tornado the next. It frosted last night and I covered Mrs. Orr’s new roses. I will do the same again tonight, because they are leafy and lush and thriving. One dislikes seeing good work undone. I’m uncomfortable in the shackles of the awareness that I’m almost three days late in posting my most recent memoir entry. I have half a draft ready and will, unless books and dogs and chores distract me, finish up tomorrow night and post it. I don’t listen…
- Bluebelle, Books, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Movies, Music, Photographs, Poems, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
Salmon patties for supper, and it’s not even a Friday. Ah, deliciousity…. *** It was too frigid and windy to do much outside today, though I did prepare the beds for Mrs. Orr’s new roses. Not just any roses, but certified Tyler, Texas roses. And climbing roses, at that. Tonight it will frost, and then we’re supposed to have at least ten days of no-freeze, so I’ll try to get them planted tomorrow, and then I can cover the tender leaves. They’ll run up the side of the old goat shed if everything goes well. I never could have thought I’d have to get out the San Angelo bar…
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The First Day of Spring
…and the third Sunday in Lent. Yesterday, the winter went out quite lion-like with gusty winds preventing us from describing the day as “warm.” The temperature was in fact nice, but we had to bundle into jackets as we sat with the dogs on the back porch in the afternoon, talking in our quiet Orr voices and watching the greening of our acres in this warming half of the world, the day, the so very awake day rushing along with the urgency of a waterfall, even an unseen waterfall. Things are warming, but I was also chilled by something I encountered while we were out shopping for supplies yesterday. I…
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Night, On the Feast of Saint Patrick of Ireland
First thing I did when I rolled out of bed this morning was to confront Mrs. Orr and see if she was wearing green. Foiled again. I usually do some sort of Saint Patrick’s Day post, but after reading Laura Wood’s collection of recent Hibernian posts, I decided it would be better just to link to what she’s written. First, a thoughtful and reverent entry about a prayer some say was written by the old saint himself. Next up, a grim and needful post about the state of Ireland today. And then finally, two items to leave a lighter feel in the heart, here and here. This day has been…