Movies
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Second Sunday in Advent
We attended a Christmas party last night, the only one to which we’ll show up this year, except for the upcoming annual gathering with eldest son and his clan, to which will be added a son in late January. The party wasn’t excruciating, and we were well fed. We don’t eat a lot of beef these days because of the high cost, but I made up for it last night. Extremely tender beef tenderloin, a nice herbed chicken, green beans, lumpy mashed potatoes (and that is NOT a complaint), salad, and rolls, and started off with chicken salad, crab rangoon, pimento cheese, and several other finger foods and croo dee…
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Gradual Chill
It was a bringdown to return to work after a four-day weekend, but there were a few pleasant moments, one of which was talking to a woman in her nineties who lives in Van Lear, KY. I mentioned the Van Lear coal mines that the late Loretta Lynn sang about, and the lady volunteered that at this time of year, when the trees and hillsides are bare, she can see Loretta’s old home place from her back porch. She mentioned that Loretta’s brother’s nearby store is still in operation. Mrs. Lynn came from a time that has completely vanished now, and we will never see a world like hers again.…
- Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
No Rest
The heartbreak of seeing your grandsons incarcerated God offers to every man the choice between truth and repose. Take which you will, you can never have both. — Ralph Waldo Emerson One of the quotidian pleasures Mrs. Orr and I enjoy is working crossword puzzles. We haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in many years, but a friend does, and Mrs. Orr will often bring home copies of the puzzle from the paper. It’s a pleasurable way to unwind in the evening or in the mornings while trying to clear the cobwebs from the head. Mrs. Orr enjoys working the crossword while she’s cooking. Lately, our pleasure in the puzzles has…
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To Roam Through The New Earth
Heeding the news or pundits or bloggers about what’s going on in the world is like listening to preachers expound on the book of Revelation. None of them really knows what he’s talking about. It’s naïve speculation at best, and cynical self-centered grandstanding at worst. I grew up listening to sermons and skimming booklets that “proved” that Richard Nixon was the Beast, or that Henry Kissinger was the antichrist. And where are those authors now? Look at the current crop of blathering boys & girls, ignorant of both history and human nature, standing atop their picnic tables and waving their arms about. They, too, will be completely forgotten someday. Any…
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Covordidities
Guess I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off about people reveling in their various diagnoses. Looks like Mrs. Orr has the ‘rona. She wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and we thought it was a sinus infecton/allergy thing. She laid low most of the day except for a brief errand excursion, and when we retired, she seemed fine. Around 0300 this morning, my wife began coughing uncontrollably. She’s done this on and off for years, and it’s a very frightening thing. She says that she can literally feel her throat closing up, and this induces a panicky state, which makes her breathe faster, which turns the whole thing into a debilitating cycle.…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints
Memorials
I walked the road the other morning alone, leaving Jinx and Bluebelle to romp in the backyard while I strolled the mountain lane, and I noticed how the gravel at the edges of the road had been ground down by the tires and tires and tires until it resembled nothing so much as gray aquarium rock. If I had one of those glass boxes full of water and marine life and topped with a humming light — I’ve never in my life owned an aquarium, and usually only think of them when I read Loren Eisley, who spent a childhood making and stocking his own — I would scoop up…
- 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…
- 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 Breeze So Warm and Mild
A rainbow split the warm sky yesterday evening while we were enjoying some porch-sitting out back. The birds very active, as was our chipmunk, and the 75 degree air was a welcome relief to arthritic stiffness and the inactivity that frigid weather imposes. But today the temperature is dropping steadily, the rain will resume again in a couple of hours, and by morning, we’re forecast to have lots of heavy, wet snow. The kind that snaps power lines and turns mountain roads into luge tracks. May it not come to pass. I thought I’d share a cute video and a beautiful song, if you will indulge me, dear readers. First,…