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The Ides of Memoir
As I grow older, I live more and more in the past. And so I have decided to try and return to setting down my memoir, though in a different fashion than in the past. Previously, I started and stopped a memoir focusing mainly on my mother and my relationship with her (see here, here, here, and here). For reasons I won’t delve into here, I have decided that this focus was not conducive to regular effort, and so I have decided to start again. I feel the need to record my memories of certain things, places, people, and events that have remained clanging around in my mind, and I…
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Free Tickets: Dinner & A Show, on Me…
Some of you may recall that I have been a big admirer of the pop singer Gilbert O’Sullivan ever since he came to prominence in the early Seventies. Two years ago, I bought tickets so that Mrs. Orr and I could go to see Mr. O’Sullivan in person. After many years of waiting for him to return to the USA, we learned that he was launching an American tour and would be appearing in Nashville, Tennessee in early April of 2020. And then the Covid freakout started, and the tour was cancelled. The venue where O’Sullivan was to appear has a strict no-refund policy, but they did announce that they…
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Deserts And Caves
One of the books I got last week at the library book sale was Spirituality and the Desert Experience, by Charles Cummings, OCSO (1978, Dimension Books, Denville, NJ). This exploration of spiritual deserts by a Trappist monk (he died in 2020) is very readable and possesses one of those qualities that I so enjoy in a book: the need to set the book down frequently and ruminate on what I’ve just read. In chapter two (pp. 42-44), Father Cummings describes a sleep study profiled in National Geographic magazine from March of 1975 (Vol.147, number 3) which was conducted by a French scientist named Michel Siffre. Father Cummings tells us: [Siffre]…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Lectio Divina, Movies, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections
Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Tonight we make the annoying switch over to Daylight Savings Time. I believe the time changing back and forth is both irrational and also a deliberate thing. Those who rule this world could easily enact a law to keep the time one way or the other, if the hours really do benefit mankind by their placement. but those people choose to do the silly back & forth. I think they do this so they can remind us that they believe themselves more powerful than God. They can speed time up or reverse it, depending on the season, and for no better reason than a bureaucratic whim. Yesterday marked the two-year…
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The First Sunday in Lent
Another glorious day. I think it got up to about 72F today. Started out cloudy and gradually cleared through the day, with the breeze intensifying every hour. The weather people — none of whom are fit to touch the hem of my maternal grandmother’s apron when it comes to weather forecasting — are saying it’ll be snowing by this Friday night. Mrs. Orr and I had a lovely, leisurely, reading morning, settled in chair and sofa with dogs all around, our new used treasures piled before us, and we dipped into them like a all you can eat dim sum restaurant. I spent part of the day outside planting bulbs…
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39 for 35; or, 25 or 6 to four
Our maple reawakens The dogs awakened us extra-early today, which annoyed my beloved wife to no end. We let them outside, but made them wait for breakfast while we went back to sleep for a while. Mrs. Orr never really did get her sea legs the rest of the day, though, and felt groggy. Worse than toddlers, trust me. When I stepped out into the back yard, I saw the maple was decked with tiny pink blossoms. As quick as the moon changes, it will be covered in suncatching leaves. It’s hard to believe that it was a slender sapling, smaller in diameter than my wrist, when we planted it…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Lectio Divina, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections
First Friday In Lent
These last few months, I have felt like the tip of a bullwhip, yanked back and forth, snapping and popping with violence that almost tore my spiritual head off, then easing back to a casual, flyfishing rhythm for a few weeks, then back to the crack and snap. Being able to leave my former job and start a new one has helped immensely. It is a truly good thing to be able to work from the home that I love so much. Mrs. Orr enjoys having me here, and the dogs all seem to like it, too. The new job is not without its own set of stressors, but most…
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Sometimes, I Just Hafta….
…get political. This is the funniest Biden joke I’ve encountered in a while. Too bad some poor jokester at the station will lose his job over this. Oh, let’s GO already, Brandon! S.K. Orr
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Minor Annoyances
I always disliked 60 Minutes’ Andy Rooney when I was younger. He seemed to me to be that crabby old uncle who never had a good word to say about anyone, sort of like the actor Henry Fonda but with more apocalyptic eyebrows. I also disliked him because he sneered at Ernest Hemingway for the writer’s penchant for fistfights with men who had insulted him. All my life, I’ve mistrusted males who immediately and reflexively dismiss violence as an option in their daily lives. Ah, yes. Andy Rooney. “D’ya ever notice….? His end-of-show segments were a five-minute recitation of something or some things that ignited his ire over the past…
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In A Monastery Garden
Ah, the wizardry of the Irish tenor…no one like Joe Feeney. Ever. ~ S.K. Orr