Holy Days
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White Christmas Eve
Our family Christmas party last night was a rousing success. It was so good to have everyone here, our usually quiet home transformed into a place of light and love and boisterous good fun. We were very pleased at Jinx’s behavior at his first large family gathering. He was calm and friendly,even when little boys were firing off toy machine guns a few feet from him. Sprawled in the floor and sporting his Yuletide bandanna, Jinx was an island of quiet in a tempest of child-noise. We awoke to rain this morning, and it grew steadily more intense throughout the day. By the time Jinx and I took our afternoon…
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Between Solstice And Celebration
I didn’t plan to stay away from this blog for so long, but life sort of ganged up on me there… We’ve been preparing for the grandkids’ visit. Once again, I am amazed at the number of things that need cleaning, stowing away, and rearranging. And in the midst of all the preparations, we’ve had repairmen and contractors and electricians here to do some much-needed work. For the past few years, my wife and I have been torn about whether to stay here in the mountains or to return to Texas. We’ve back-and-forthed ourselves to the point of exhaustion, covering all the pros and cons, exploring as many options and…
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We Command You To Have a Merry Christmas
Over at The Thinking Housewife, Laura Wood has posted a lively and encouraging message about this year’s Christmas celebrations. Read and heed. ~ S.K. Orr
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Second Sunday Of Advent
We’ve looked everywhere in this region and still can’t find old-fashioned icicles for our Christmas tree. Is there some connection between the CO-vid and thin strips of shiny mylar? If we manage to find any icicles, we’re going to buy many, many packs of them. Our tree always has icicles. It’s just the way things are done. We drape them, toss them, hang them, throw them…we need them. When I stepped outside this morning, I could smell the coffee in the pot, and I wanted a gallon of it, but duty and companionship called, so I walked with care on the deck boards and felt the grit of Jack’s sugar…
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One And Two Hundred Forty-Five
In my younger years, today was always significant, as it marks the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. This year is the 245th birthday of Mother Green, the Killing Machine. And while I have mixed feelings about my beloved Corps and the path she’s taken in recent politically-correct years, I will forever be proud of my association with the epitome of masculine insanity I lived and breathed for six years. Happy Birthday, Devil Dogs! But today marks a sadder anniversary. One year ago today, our beloved Bonnie left us in the early morning hours and left a void that will never be filled. I am grateful for my rambunctious…
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All Hallow’s Eve
Jinx and I went for our morning stroll while it was still full dark, the coin of the full moon shining down on the grass, the blades silvered by the breath of some Frost Giant who slumbered among these mountains during the night. I watched my dog sprint and prance among the tombstones in the graveyard, his shadow flitting along with him while the large owl in the adjacent trees asked his eternal question and the coyotes on the ridge sang their eerie songs across the lit valley and a rooster crowed in a nearby farmyard. Halloween already, and tonight we turn the clocks back to what my grandmother used…
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On Her Day
Today is my wife’s birthday, and I hope she understands how loved she is by her entire family, and also how important her life is. She has touched and influenced so many with her quiet, guileless presence. I can say with no exaggeration that my wife is the best, most virtuous, most noble human being I have ever known in my life. I will never understand why she fell in love with the likes of me, nor why God loved me enough to bring us together in holy marriage. Happy Birthday, my little Texas girl. I love you more than I can express. ~ S.K. Orr
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Mist Will Lift
A coworker who sits next to me at my office tested positive for the Covid-19 thingamajig, so I was required to be tested at a local hospital. It was interesting to note what a ghost town the hospital was. I was expecting squads of harried nurses and doctors to be running up and down the hallways, calling out orders and wheeling lifeless bodies on gurneys and asking for assistance. But the place was all but abandoned. A girl young enough to be my granddaughter performed my test, which, while not especially painful, was markedly unpleasant. She asked me if I was okay when she removed the fourteen foot swab from…
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Days Of Laze
Saturday’s weird dust-haze from the Sahara was gone Sunday morning, and in its place was a steady, soft curtain of rain. My wife and I deliberately chose to do nothing except rest. We felt somewhat battered by the week, by information we’re trying to process, by decisions we’re trying to reach, and by the time the first day of the week came around, we were more than ready to call “Time out!” and shrug the packs from our shoulders. I spent a large portion of the day with Jinx. Just wandering around, walking the road, exploring the woods and fields, sitting quietly, playing fetch. Jinx, for all his fine qualities,…
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Can Anything Good….
….come out of Africa? Here I am — behold me, a Southern man in whom there is considerable guile. I spent the day walking beneath a haze, a film of wind-blown filth from the dark continent. The normally sparkling mountain air was impure, casting a mosquito net of dark, obscuring Saharan dust across my green mountains and valleys. When the spattering, sporadic showers came, they left muddy smudges on the sleek surfaces they coated. My eyes and nose seemed to sting a bit, and the world felt…hidden. What are those words with similar meanings? Occult. Apocalypse. Jinx and I walked by a neighbor’s fields, and three horses gamboled in the…