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An Update
I wanted to thank everyone who has offered prayers on behalf of Mrs. Orr and me during this season of trial. We got an update on something we’ve been anxiously awaiting, and I thought I would post an update here. Not far into the new year, I was fired from my work-at-home position. The reason for my termination was my refusal to comply with a company policy that I believed was unethical and heartless. I had been previously warned about this on prior occasions when I was a new employee, and the situation did not arise again until sometime around Christmas. I was advised by my supervisor that I was…
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Last Saturday in the Fall
The good news is that Joy Cartwright is feeling much better, and I am grateful. The bad news is that I am feeling pretty crappy. Started feeling very droopy yesterday after, with all those flulike symptoms of dizziness, achy bones, flushed face, sneezing, completed congested head, etc. It’s been a real fun time and I’m trying not to re-gift it to Mrs. Orr. *** Speaking of Mrs. Orr, she took the oldest granddaughters out yesterday for their birthday. They wanted Chinese, and so after they ate, they asked their MeeMaw to take them to a used bookstore they particularly enjoy. Yes, they are definitely our granddaughters with their hunger for…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Paths of Freeze
Upon our second awakening this morning, the sun showed the crushed glass rug of frost all over everything, and my bones felt as if someone had injected crushed glass into the joints. Second awakening? Oh, yes. Our first awakening of the day was at about, ohhhhhh, 0230, when the dogs began snorting around outside our bedroom and demanding some attention. We got up to let ’em out and and see what might be yanking their emotional chains. They ran straight to the maple tree in the back yard and started leaping up on it like trained coon dogs. I shined the flashlight up into the bare branches and expected to…
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Working Conversations About Grams
If this ain’t October weather, it’ll do ’til October gits here, as Tommy Lee Jones might say. Crispy, gusty, leaf-splayed, paintbrush-daubed, frost-threatening, owl-hooting, cloud-scuttling October. We went down to a nearby town yesterday and ate at a seafood restaurant we’d both heard good things about for years. The reports were more than accurate. We had a great waitress who, when not serving customers, was in constant motion cleaning and sprucing up the place. The restaurant was immaculate as a result. We each got a lunch special, very reasonably priced, and we figured the meals would be the usual slightly-reduced-in-size lunch entrees. Nossir. Mrs. Orr got popcorn shrimp, and I got…
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October Settles In
A week ago today, Mrs. Orr and I spent the afternoon on the back porch with a fan on, swatting yellowjackets and watering the flowers. Today? The promised cold front swept in night before last, and we are snuggled in the living room, wearing sweaters. We finally fired up the furnace this morning and it was pleasant to feel the chill melt out of the rooms. Putting the flannel sheets on the bed will be the final sob in our season of grieving the loss of warm weather. But…this is life, and we are grateful for it. Can one describe an October day without using the word “crisp?” The day…
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections
In The Carolean Era
We went Thursday evening to the orthopedic urgent care clinic I mentioned in my last post, and it was a surprisingly good experience. I was dreading any encounter with the post-coof medical/pharmaceutical behemoth, but this was an example of being in the right place at the right time. It was clear as soon as we entered the clinic that we were the only people in the place. The receptionist was kind and affable, and got me checked in quickly. An x-ray tech who looked like Lisa Loeb’s twin sister appeared with a most-welcome wheelchair and took me back for pictures of my knee. She, too, was very kind and personable,…
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Soft Days
We finally saw our first hummingbird last evening and were so happy to see him. We were relaxing on the back porch and the whirr of his wings made us both look up in delight. He didn’t stay long, but here was there, so we were content. Bluebelle did her part….I had her on hummingbird sentry duty all day and had ordered her to sing a song to coax them in. Mrs. Orr got our taxes done, and I am reminded again of how gifted she is in so many ways, and how she takes so many burdens from my shoulders. A latent benefit of her doing the taxes instead…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Lectio Divina, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints
Holy Week
The days have unspooled quickly in this early part of springtime. My interior life has been not in turmoil but in flux, an almost palpable ebb and flow, and through all my misgivings and doubts and ragings and grim, silent musings, I have felt like some sort of antenna, unmoored but still grounded, with invisible signals popping and whizzing around me during my hours. A good friend, who roves across much of the same rocky spiritual landscape I do, recently mentioned in passing how he just might be holding onto a hope that he will one day believe again. That sentiment sang in me like a tuning fork when a…
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Passing of the Days
Three years ago today, Mrs. Orr and I looked outside and saw a dog standing at the end of our driveway. Spotted and hyperactive, he was romping around, amusing himself by chasing birds and sunbeams. He clearly belonged to someone, because he was wearing a collar. “What a funny looking dog,” said my wife. “Yeah, he is,” I replied. We left the house to run some errands. When we returned, the funny-looking dog was sitting in the front yard, sunning himself. When we exited the car, the dog leapt and bounded and cavorted all around us, trying to jump on us and ignoring our shouted commands to get DOWN, GET…
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St. Valentine’s Music
Mrs. Orr and I tend to ignore Valentine’s Day, seeing it as just another Hallmark holiday. We do, however salute each other every February 14th morning, and we even grab a kiss or two during that twenty-four hour period. She is my Valentine, in the old-fashioned sentimental sense of the word, and she is my dear dream. So here’s to you, beloved wife, from one of my favorite singers. And I’m your Valentine, too, sweet Texas girl. ~ S. K. Orr