"As he bumped the car up the drive he deplored with sudden impatience the inescapable and impossible demands that his children make upon a man. It would have been more comfortable to have remained a bachelor and wallowed along in the agreeable state of self-deception that had been his before marriage. Fatherhood revealed one's inadequacies in an appalling manner..."
- The Heart of the Family, Elizabeth Goudge
Spirit of the Father and the Son,
ripen your fruits in our hearts:
Grant us patience and gentleness,
charity, joy, and peace.
- from Magnificat, May 2026
Well, last week was finally Pentecost, the end of the Easter season, and today is Trinity Sunday. It's very springlike, and pleasant out. Yesterday it was fifty five, wet, gusty and cold! Well, we'll be in June tomorrow, and done with that sort of thing, hopefully.
We had a nice Memorial Day and before that, a visit with an elderly aunt, my mother's remaining sister. She is ninety four, and doing as well as she can - still at home!
I finished the daffodil dress, except for the hem. I really like those sleeveless, a-line shifts for hot summer days at home, so I plan to make a couple more. I put the green blouse project aside when the heat rose - couldn't stand the thought of it.
A beautiful Tasha Tudor book was dropped off at the library, in perfect condition; I took it home to read.
Filled with quotes, poems, prose and everything romantic, I wouldn't put it in the children's section, even though it looks like all her wonderfully charming picture books for children - no, this one would go over the heads of the little ones. Apparently, if you have a toothache, you should kiss a donkey.
That was from Germany. But you're out of luck if you don't know anyone with a donkey, aren't you?
"In the Middle Ages they kissed the newborn baby three times
in the name of the Holy Trinity."
- Tasha Tudor
It's supposed to start snowing any moment, but the sky is too dark. When it's going to snow, the clouds are so thick, it looks whitish. But we are getting - some are saying five to nine inches, some six to ten - a good amount, and it will come in its own good time, I guess. But this morning, I hung something on the line to dry! It was just over freezing, but there is something mild in the air - it's hopeful.
We went to Mass this afternoon, in case it's too bad tomorrow. A lot of others had the same idea. One of the hymns we sang was In Christ Alone, which is rather stirring - an Irish-sounding melody.
I've put Samuel Adams aside (again! poor fellow) and am finally reading Hillbilly Elegy. I have been interested in that book for eight years, and now he's Vice President - it's time. What kept me from it, was the idea it would be heavy, but it's not. In fact, the introduction really grabbed my attention; I often skip introductions.
"I was one of those kids with a grim future. I almost failed out of high school. I nearly gave in to the deep anger and resentment harbored by everyone around me. Today people look at me, at my job and my Ivy League credentials, and assume that I'm some sort of genius, that only a truly extraordinary person could have made it to where I am today. With all due respect to those people, I think that theory is a load of bullshit. Whatever talents I have, I almost squandered until a handful of loving people rescued me.
That is the real story of my life, and that is why I wrote this book. I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on yourself and why you might do it. I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children. I want people to understand the American Dream as my family and I encountered it. I want people to understand how upward mobility really feels. And I want people to understand something I learned only recently: that for those of us lucky enough to live the American Dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us."
- J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy
At five minutes to ten, it hadn't begun to snow yet. At ten fifteen, I looked out - the ground was almost covered.
And I baked a fancy quick bread recipe, because I always want to bake during snowstorms.
Not the temperature they predicted, but Monday was sixty-five: mild, hardly breezy and wonderful for a day off. Now we have finally gotten into the forties for the daytime. Outside, everything is burnished. That's November.
I picked up a biography of Samuel Adams, cousin to our second president, John, and according to British officials of the time, "the most dangerous man in Massachusetts". Considered by Paul Revere, John Hancock and cousin John Adams as their "political father", and called "truly the Man of the Revolution" by Thomas Jefferson; it's a young adult book, but full of information and interestingly written. I really knew very little about him; now I know he failed at every job he undertook. He only seemed good at "talking and writing about the rights and liberties of the people". I love reading about this era.
I have returned to a dress I was planning to sew a year ago; I don't remember what happened. I had started on the bodice, and - ? So, now I'm ready to attach the skirt part, but I soon realized I hadn't cut them out. Okay, there's plenty of fabric there, so I looked for the pattern piece. All the pieces were there, except for that one - it was nowhere! But, looking at the shapes from the layout examples, I am sure I can just make a guess. There are center seams front and back, so - four pieces, and they're a-line. I just have to figure out how big the tucks should be and how much fabric to allow for them.
The Christmas cactus at work is setting buds.
Things are getting more intense in Tolkien's The Two Towers, with Gandalf and Pippin flying away on Shadowfax, his tail flicking in the moonlight. Then he leaped forward, spurning the earth, and was gone like the north wind from the mountains.
Monday we went to the shore to visit a relative. I so enjoyed the ride; the trees are beginning to flower, forsythia is still brightly glowing and everyone is growing daffodils, it seems. It was delightful.
I had a quiet few days this weekend catching up on some painting in the bathroom. I also cut out fabric for a dress.
I was searching online for a linen blend to make the Nepheline blouse, but couldn't settle on anything. Meanwhile, I've had this green for years, and decided to make a dress from it. It's been hanging around too long, and I think it'll suit this pattern.
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We were out much of the day - there was a wind advisory. Well, it's March, isn't it? Oh, the wind. But when the strong winds come after a load of rain, surely it must help to dry things out. And it must be blowing in the warm air that's coming tomorrow: fifty eight, it's supposed to be!
Along the road we noticed how high the river was - we were going to the shore to visit cousins - and next door to their place, the neighbor had what looked like a lake in the back yard.
I guess they are that much lower than my cousin's, but we saw several properties with ponds in their yards; that's how much rain we've had around here.
I knew we might be out for a while, so I mixed up some pastry dough yesterday, and this morning was able to bake a pie crust. This made it easy to whip up a quiche when we got home. One doesn't always feel like doing these things ahead, but it would have been another half hour if I'd left it for later.
The cats, meanwhile, had to forgo lunch and I wonder what they thought about that. I suppose they just waited till we came, maybe knowing it was a longer while than usual, and just accepting it. But cats live in the present, don't they? So I may be concerned for nothing.
"...Better to live one day at a time. This is a hard task, often, for we tend to keep going to the past and trying to live it over again or looking ahead and uselessly trying to forecast tomorrow and next week and next year. But somebody has said all the time we really have is the NOW. We have today.
To use this day well, that is about the sum of it."
- Gladys Taber
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love endures forever.
- from Psalm 136
I don't know where the days go. My brother had a birthday, and I've been in the kitchen a lot; I made a gingerbread cake for the celebration, and found a nice recipe for a vegetable pot pie, with butternut squash, carrot, peas, spinach - I used a turnip instead of a parsnip, because I had it - onion, celery. Very delicious! I gave him a throw/blanket.
I don't think the cats can ruin it very easily and it's quite washable.
The Lord is our shepherd; nothing shall we want.
A few nights ago it got down into the thirties. Now, we're having summer again, with four days in a row of the seventies and up to eighty. I'm trying to finish washing the windows while it's nice.
Community comes from the Latin communio, for which the Oxford English Dictionary gives two derivations. Communio as a verb comes from munio - wall - and means "to build a wall around". So a community is defined by the wall - symbolic or otherwise - around it. Everything inside the wall is the community, and everything outside the wall isn't.
That was a good definition of the community of Laguna Honda. You were a member of it just by being inside its wall. Because the hospital did have a wall, a real wall of polished rocks, piled up and shellacked by patients long ago. And we were a community simply because we were behind that wall and stuck with one another - doctor, patient, nurse, administrator, and budget. We had to do the best we could with what we had.
But communio as a noun derives from munis - gift, so communio also means "those who share a gift in common." That was true of the hospital's community, too, though it was not as obvious as the wall.
- from God's Hotel, by Victoria Sweet
It's my brother's birthday and I once again made him a cheesecake. I have the recipe on a card in my box, but I'd also pinned it, and I first went to pinterest to look for it. But the website is gone! All I know is it was a European woman (because everything is in grams), and I had commented more than once to tell her how I loved her recipe, and she answered. Now, she's gone!
So, in the interests of preserving the delicious things in life, I'm going to print it here. I wish I could give this woman credit, but I don't even remember the name of her site - it may have been Gourmet Kitchen Tales, because that's what it says when you follow the link. I don't know. (they're selling the domain name for $4,795!)
Anyway, I love this cheesecake, so here it is, for posterity:
In an article by Madeleine Kearns in National Review magazine, she quote Archbishop Fulton Sheen on the different stages of a man and woman during their marriage:
"First is the 'body-mystery' of the marital act; second, in the arrival of the first child, a husband and wife 'see in each other' something they 'never before knew existed', motherhood and fatherhood; third, once children reach the age of reason, is the mystery of 'fathercraft' and 'mothercraft'; fourth is an appreciation of 'their contribution to the well-being of the nation.' And 'here, too, is the root of democracy,' he added. 'For it is in the family that a person is valued not for what he is worth, nor for what he can do, but primarily for what he is.' (emphasis mine)
All right, it took a while but we got Dolly's DNA results back. She has a less exciting, shall we say, bloodline than Annie, but they both have a common ancestor which I find a wonder.
I originally sent for Annie's because she has an exotic quality and we thought she might be part Burmese, and then there are always some folks who see a gray cat and think "Russian Blue".
So, this was Annie's result:
I am grateful for being able to cook much of the Thanksgiving food the day before, while I had a nauseous headache.
I'm grateful I was able to eat dinner today with a nauseous headache, and feel better afterward.
I am grateful for two people who didn't care that it just wasn't in me to make the mashed potato and turnip, or the glazed carrots. They ate what I did make, and complimented me on it.
I'm grateful to be working in a place that's always closed the day after Thanksgiving.
I am grateful for Exedrin, kombucha and peppermint tea.
I'm grateful that after thinking I'd have to cook an eight pound turkey breast for over three hours, I found Ina Garten's recipe which said it would only take a little more than two. At the same temp. It was perfect!
In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
- I Thessalonians 5:18
The storm moved more to the east and yes, we had lots of torrential rain but not as much as we feared. And, the winds were nothing like predicted for our area. I'm grateful. You know, you plan ahead for something, possibly destructive, and even when it doesn't come to pass, you need a day to just get over/process it, thank God, rest/recover, ponder it - whatever. Yes, you could go on with business as usual, but we are not machines. And we're still feeling the effects of it now, with tropical air and a soaking rain much of the day (but no "rivers" along the fence, as it didn't come down too fast).
A sympathy card came in the mail signed by one of Sweetie's doctors and two other employees there. This is not unheard of, but they each wrote a note inside! I was so sorry to hear about Sweetie. She was a very special cat - and so lucky to have such a loving family to care for her. Be comforted knowing you did everything you could. With sincere sympathy, and signed by the oncology doctor. Somewhere along the way, we'd heard there was a pet cancer center a couple of towns over which we had no idea of. We took her there in early spring, and even though by then Sweetie's tongue was infiltrated by the tumor, she still could move it somewhat and she still wanted to eat. They gave us a pill called Palladia, which is not chemo per se, but it can stop or slow down the cancer's growth. It seemed to, and Sweetie got used to us feeding her. It was a huge learning curve for all three of us, finding what foods were best for using in a syringe and what sizes of syringe are best. I will say that I'd always seen her as a difficult personality (Tortie!) but she surprised me, she was also willing to learn. She had to learn to get used to my brother trying to wash her feet and tail - you can't imagine how gross she got from the litter box. She had to learn to let us feed her, but even when she gave a hard time she'd come back for more food, and she'd always come to us again at night, purring; she did not hold a grudge, she knew we were trying to help.
Our poor Sweetie passed away on Tuesday. It was a long time that she couldn't groom herself or feed herself and we tried to do it for her, but it was hard.
I had forgotten that she ever weighed this much. We had to break with the traveling vet - she wanted us to euthanize her and she almost had us convinced to do it. But the reality was that Sweetie still wanted to come sleep on our pillows at night, purring like she always had, and even two nights before she died she came in my room, a creature of her little habits. She was a survivor and it was clear to us she wanted to keep going, so we did. And our local vet understood this.
Fly away, little Tweetie Bird, fly away! Rest in peace.
The fellow who grinds up the tree stumps came last week, so we thought we'd better go to the local nursery to see what they've got for trees. Why didn't I bring my camera? I love those places, they're like being in a sort of paradise. My brother took photos of the tags on trees we thought might do. Now, I'm looking them up online and don't feel any more sure than I was before. The laburnum is entirely poisonous - that makes me nervous. Two of the dogwoods we looked at seem to be kousas, but the tags didn't say that. The library has kousas all around - every year when they bloom, patrons come in and ask us what they are. But they seem more like a shrubby tree than a proper tree with a thick trunk. Yes, you can train anything to have a main trunk, but... I'm not keen on kousa dogwoods. I like a weeping cherry; my brother - I wish I could remember how he put it (kind of like cooked cherry tomatoes reminding him of the bog people), but he strongly dislikes them. And they're so graceful! Anyway. I don't know what the heck we're gonna do.
Stay tuned.
It's ten o'clock, and fifty four degrees out - if my hair wasn't wet I'd still have my window open. But it's tempting to keep it open tonight, on March 11th for heaven's sake. Today was almost balmy, well into the sixties. Delightful! I felt I should do something outside, so I picked up some sticks, then wandered to the garden and pulled up dried zinnia stalks.
Dolly has another UTI, and more bloody than the last, in case you wanted to know that. My brother happened to have time to come home when a client overslept yesterday and missed his appointment. The vet just happened to be free, so he dropped her off for observation and got her again at his lunch time a few hours later. They were looking to see if anything is wrong, but it's just another UTI, it seems. She got some blood on my quilt so I put it in the wash, and then she came back and got it on my other quilt. I was still finding spots on the floor this morning, but the Clavamox works wonders and she's feeling much better already. Everyone says UTI's are common with diabetes; I hate to think she's going to live the rest of her life on antibiotics every few weeks.
Meanwhile, while typing this, wild sounds of The Orphan speeding around the living room, crashing into things, reach my ears. She's happy.
