Two church programs to ring-and-sing and a Christmas brunch

Imagine these singers with handbells

I’ve had no “company” since the floors were all re-done, so I invited the eight bell ringers to a brunch. Why not? Our Christmas music presentation was December 14 and we wouldn’t be rehearsing until next year?

          You’ve heard that when one part of your house gets a new face (or floor, in this case), it calls for upgrades in other departments? Those’ll have to wait until next year. I’ve tried to repair the ceiling in the living room by hook and by crook, and up until I painted my handiwork, I was satisfied. Not now. All I could do was to hide it under a similar-colored, sheer cloth with push pins and spray glue. Time, time, time! Like reading the newspaper, it took ‘way too much time. I could almost write a BuzzFeed article, “Ten Ways to Waste Your Time Trying to Do It Yourself.” And I may—next year.

         To warm up the kitchen one recent morning, I decided to bake, using the peanut-butter cookie packet, the cornbread muffin box and one of the clipped recipes for pumpkin cake/pumpkin pie cake. I’d freeze the cookies and the pie-cake for the brunch and our family Christmas.

          The kitchen warmed before I started on the third item. And, because there were so many other things to do—do I have a short attention span?—I turned off the oven, loaded and started the dishwasher.

            As in 2013, this year, I toted the top tier of a 3-part, 6-foot, pre-lighted tree from the attic, set it in a fishbowl of marbles. Voila! Centered on a long, narrow table covered to the floor in maroon cloths and placed in front of the east window, it glows with symmetry--and pears.

           The dining table was re-dressed and readied for food. As BFF Dot knows, it’s hard to keep a dining table clear just for dining. It’s happened many times before: papers, notes, calendars, to-do lists got pushed off into a box and shunted under or behind or inside something. Hopefully, in all that clutter, no unpaid bills get lost. It’s possible the box will be forgotten until a deep-cleaning spell next spring—if then.

         In the meantime, two musical “programs” were planned—on the same day: early church at Bryant; late church at Salem. Sis Carolyn and I rang bells in both—she led the latter group, so we rushed out of the first service after we finished our part, then raced to the second venue to reset the chancel from THEIR early service to the traditional Lessons and Carols.

           With 3 bell tables, additional chairs for 3 brass players, the choir director was squeezed behind a bell player and the sopranos. I’m lobbying for a roll-out extension of the chancel for special programs—in both churches.

            But we survived, and after a long, Sunday-afternoon nap, and continued preparations for the bell brunch--which was a barrel of fun--well… here’s my post for this week.

           May we all slow down, breathe deeply and still enjoy the onrush to Christmas.

This 'n That: Random Thoughts in December

 

 

Fun stuff from the newspaper: Heloise answered a reader’s question about “cute postmarks for our Christmas cards.” And she answered:

                “Here’s a short list to pick from: Evergreen, LA 71333; Garland, NC 28441; Hope, MI 48628; Noel, MO 64854; North Pole, NY 12997; Rudolph, OH 43462; and Star, TX 76880.”

“After my long-in-progress novel manuscript is at the publisher, I’ll deal with the ceiling”.—from a Standard column in December of 2009.

Though A Journey of Choice went live in September of 2010, I immediately began—at the complimentary behest of quite a few readers––a sequel.

Here it is, four years and three months later, and that novel is finished. While it is being re-revised by one group, I have extra time to do something to the living room ceiling. As I mentioned in last week’s column, I’m “workin’ on it.”

The Hot Springs Novel Writers weekly critique sessions have been such fun. Bill White is writing a novel based on a true story. We have just finished re-revising Bud Kenney’s travelogue about walking from Arkansas to New England. HSNW is all business, except for anecdotes here and there about family “doings.”

On the other hand, The Central AR Writers (CAW), a group of three (ahem) mature women and one young sprout (she has two young-adult kiddos), meet monthly, each driving an hour to our complimentary meeting room at the Faulkner County Library. Complimentary, because none of us live in that county. The youngest one always showers us with gifts, so the rest of us have begun bringing little fun things—individual packages of crackers, nuts or candy, maybe a knick-knack. Of course, this month, as it’s December, the gift bags will likely be larger and more full. Goodies aren’t the reason we meet, of course. We continue meeting to critique each other’s current submission. All of us are working on another novel. Though my sequel is finished, this group—meeting monthly—hasn’t yet gotten to the end of it like the Hot Springs group has.

The sequel, Her Face in the Glass, will be edited and published by Alderson Press on a CreateSpace platform. It will not be available in hardback, just softback and as an e-book. We’re looking at sometime early in 2015 as the “live” date.

 A Journey of Choice is still available at Amazon and B&N and iUniverse. Oh, and (like John Grisham’s first book was) from the trunk of my Taurus.

Now, I must get to that ceiling. Where is my phone? I promised Dot that when I climbed the ladder, my phone would be in my pocket. Just in case. Oh, wait. I need more spray glue.

                Speaking of waiting, in liturgical churches, this season of Advent is one of waiting and preparation. A time to realign, if necessary—and it usually is--our priorities, our souls, to take stock of our spiritual health. Two of my writer friends have compiled two different booklets with daily Advent meditations. Those readings will be an aid toward the four-week season preceding Christmas.

May your Advent/Waiting/Preparation season be soulful and rejuvenating.

New words & experiences keep us learning & busy

~Google images~

 

 

              Because my two novels are set in the Missouri Ozarks, I “follow” Ozark Highlands of Missouri’s blog. Last week, it discussed how controlled burning practices were not what they should be. In the information was the word “forb.” The blogger apparently presumed his/her readers knew all the terms. I didn’t, so I Bing-ed the word.
 

          “Forb”—herbaceous flowering plants that are not graminoids (grasses, sedges and rushes). Examples of forbs are sunflower, clover, daylily and milkweed. A peek into vegetation ecology.

            Then, there’s the experience I had over the Thanksgiving weekend. Since my daughter’s family would be in the Mississippi deer woods from Wednesday through Saturday, I was fingered to tend their five Black Australorp hens. Again, I had to Bing (alternative to Google) the breed to find the correct spelling. Daughter wasn’t sure, she said.

          Tending her chickens was a piece of cake! All I did was gather the eggs, check on the water bucket, check to see no feet were hung in the wire, go inside, wash the eggs, stick ‘em in the fridge. Feeding/watering the indoor/ outdoor cats—and I was done. Fun.
 

          I love Bill White’s column in this paper, especially when he tells of doing things around the house himself. He and Cupcake get into it at times, don’t they?

          I, too, try to do things around here myself—not because I can’t afford to have it done, but because I like the challenge. Of course, I couldn’t EVER and wouldn’t EVER do re-laying of carpet, re-finishing hardwood floors, or laying tile in the kitchen like I hired done this past summer.

         But the living room ceiling was a different matter, I thought. At two different times, after several days of rain, some of the 70s-era Celotex tiles fell. The original textured plaster (from 1932) painted a light green came into view. Immediately, I knew I would not replace those fallen tiles. Thus began months of intermittent removal of the myriad squares. Then the grasping and twisting of the 40-year-old staples out of the wood strips (1 by 4s) Dad had fastened end to end and nailed through the plaster to the studs in the l-o-n-g room. Every eight inches of ceiling is another parallel set of boards, supposedly added to keep any more of the plaster from falling.

 

            Pulling staples pales in comparison with the prospect of repairing the ceiling where the original plaster fell. The shape of Africa, that hole shows the laths and the old cement between them and spreads under six of the boards. I would need nearly one-half inch of filler––for unlike today’s plaster coating, this stuff is thick. I looked on the internet, gathered some information on materials I would need. I bought a can of mix-it-yourself plaster of paris along with a sponge and spreader. But all that sits as yet untouched.

            I’ve had other ideas about how to repair it without all the aforementioned stuff. Maybe next week I can show what I did. The photo is someone else's ceiling.
 

           Meanwhile, onward in the rush to Christmas.

Writings of the Masters--Thanksgiving

 

 

                AUTUMN SUNSET – by Henry David Thoreau

                “The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendour that it lavished on cities, and, perchance, as it has never set before—where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like a boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening.

“So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn.”

 

A PRAYER – by Max Ehrmann

“Let me do my work each day; and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation of other times.

“May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my childhood, or dreaming on the margin of the quiet river, when a light glowed within me, and I promised my early God to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years. Spare me from bitterness and from the sharp passions of unguarded moments. May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world know me not, may my thoughts and actions be such as shall keep me friendly with myself.

“Lift my eyes from the earth, and let me not forget the uses of the stars. Forbid that I should judge others lest I condemn myself. Let me not follow the clamor of the world, but walk calmly in my path.

“Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am; and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope. And though age and infirmity overtake me, and I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me still to be thankful for life, and for time’s olden memories that are good and sweet; and may the evening’s twilight find me gentle still.”

--from One Thousand Beautiful Things, compiled by Marjorie Barrows, published in 1947 for Peoples Book Club, INC. Chicago

My wish is that you and yours enjoyed a day of thanks, family, food, friends, freedom and all other blessings which these readings might have evoked. -- PL

RUMOR SOMETIMES BECOMES MYTH

~~PL - 2013~~

 

How many of you have 1300-plus emails still in your computer? I do. One day, I decided to see what was happening in November of past years. I clicked back to November of 2012.                 Several emails evoked a smile, an eye-rolling (and a “delete”), a “good grief!” or some such reaction. One thread was from an across-the-continent relative. I had lately worked the polls with a high school classmate of his. During a lull in the voting, she had asked about him. I told her, and she said she seemed to remember he worked for/ at/ in the Jet Propulsion Lab.                 This was news to me. Unless he’d been keeping secrets all these years. He replied thusly:                 “Surely there’s a Will Rogers quote that fits this moment. (Or was it Mark Twain?) ‘The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.’ Never worked as scientist or engineer or admin or clerical or host or janitor for JPL. No connection whatsoever. Cannot imagine where such an accusation/ rumor/ report might have originated. Pure pap nonsense.”

I had an idea: Were there any historical rumors that weren’t true, but became told as truth? Here are three.

                Abner Doubleday was a Civil War general and abolitionist who famously ordered the first Union shots in defense of Fort Sumter. But while he had a distinguished military career, Doubleday is more commonly remembered for inventing baseball—even though he did no such thing.

                The story dates back to 1905, when former National League president A.G. Mills headed a commission to investigate the origins of America’s favorite pastime. Based on a letter from a man named Abner Graves, the commission incorrectly concluded that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. In truth, Doubleday was attending West Point in 1839 and had never claimed any involvement with baseball. Nevertheless, the myth persisted for years, and the Baseball Hall of Fame was even established in Cooperstown on the sport’s mistaken centennial in 1939.

              Lady Godiva is best known for defiantly riding naked through the streets of medieval Coventry to protest the crippling taxes her husband had levied on the townspeople. According to legend, at some point in the 11th century Godiva pressured her powerful husband, Leofric, to reduce the people’s debts. When he mockingly responded that he would only do so when she rode naked on horseback through the town, Godiva called his bluff and galloped into the history books.

               While this story has become the stuff of legend—a tailor who spied on Godiva even inspired the phrase “peeping Tom”—scholars agree that the nude horseback ride probably never happened. Godiva certainly existed, but most histories mention her as simply the wife of an influential nobleman. In fact, the complete Godiva myth didn’t even appear until the 13th century, 200 years after the ride supposedly occurred. The story was later picked up by notable writers like Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose 1842 poem “Godiva” helped cement the tall tale as a historical fact.
 

              One of the most famous stories of Roman decadence concerns Nero, the emperor who blithely “fiddled while Rome burned” during the great fire of 64 A.D. According to some ancient historians, the emperor had ordered his men to start the fire in order to clear space for his new palace. But while Nero was certainly no saint—he reportedly ordered the murder of his own mother during his rise to power—the story of his fiendish fiddling is likely exaggerated.

            While some ancient chroniclers did describe the music-loving emperor as singing while he watched flames consume the city, the historian Tacitus would later denounce these claims as vicious rumors. According to him, Nero was away at Antium during the early stages of the blaze, and upon returning to Rome helped lead rescue and rebuilding efforts and even opened his palace gardens to those who lost their homes. Another strike against the legend: the fiddle wouldn’t be invented for several hundred years. If Nero played any instrument while Rome burned . . . it would most likely have been a cithara, a kind of lyre.            [Information from www.history.com]
 

             Perhaps Mr. Doubleday, Ms Lolita and poor old Nero would have said the same thing as my relative: “Can’t imagine where or how such an accusation/ rumor/ report got started.”



One little nugget has made a stew

No Google images that I'd have for this subject.

 Here's the pic of the failed can opener incident

 

From a regional Arkansas newspaper column, I found this bit of bio about Clementine Hunter, the self-taught folk artist. It caught my eye and ear and mind. Hunter is quoted as saying, “Painting is a lot harder than pickin’ cotton. Cotton’s right there for you to pull off the stalk, but to paint you got to sweat your mind.”
 

I say the same thing goes for writing a novel (in my case), a story, an essay, a poem—“you gotta sweat your mind.”
 

To me, “sweating my mind” means looking up things like how to dance with one in a wheelchair, how to foreshadow a character’s ability to play the fiddle; which youth can play a harmonica; how to approach a returned soldier who’s a widower, especially since the woman’s husband was killed in a non-combat situation.
 

My “mind sweating” allowed me to finish the sequel in a final, 2,000-word chapter. The whoosh of exhalation you heard at 10 p.m. Sunday night was me––finally finished with the first draft. The Hot Springs writers’ group heard it Monday and pronounced it—except for a few things—finished.
 

I Googled (really, Bing-ed) the phrase “sweat my mind,” and the following showed up over and over:  “…sweat, my mind…”. Not what I was looking for. Sweat is not a poetic word to me, conjuring toil’s result, or a marathoner’s glistening.
 

So I changed my search word to “sweat used in poetry.” I found a short story by Zora Neale Hurston titled “Sweat,” first published in 1926. Then, a poem, “Sweat” by Sandra Alcosser, b. 1944.
 

Next was a piece of rhymed and metered verse that could have been written by a junior high football player. The first and final stanzas were, “Ouey gooey sticky sweat/ it must be hot out, / this I’ll bet.” Bill Sawyers was the poet. His bio informs that he’s been a school custodian for 25 years and he writes short, to-the-point poems for children aged five and up. I take back what I said earlier. His heart is in the right place.
 

Then I found a free verse poem of 20 lines by Robert Johnston that uses the word “sweat” 15 times!
 

Whoa! Sometimes a search like this provides ‘way more information than you need--TMI. Here is an example:
 

 "See sweat used in context: 100 poetry verses, 34 Shakespeare works, 3 Bible passages, 48 definitions.” I did not look them up; I’ll take the website’s word for it.

 

A couple more examples and I’m ready to close out this “sweat” business. Who knew sweat was such a popular subject? Not I, said the writer who has a jillion poems and not one about sweat!
 

I’m glad I caught the mention of Clementine Hunter. I think, however, that I’ll take only Hunter’s phrase, “You gotta sweat your mind,” and apply it to those things that sometimes seem nearly impossible to do.
 

 Like patch vintage ceiling plaster, install a new fluorescent light over the sink.

Like light the gaslog's pilot light.
 

 Like write a book. Or even a blog post.



Another week in the Ozarks: writing/ critiquing

 

 

                OCTOBER 25, Saturday, 3 p.m. – Couchwood. Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs by way of Beebe overnight at b-f-f Dot’s.

                OCTOBER 26, Sunday, 10:14 a.m. Leaving Beebe on Hwy 64, turning north on Hwy 5 at El Paso through Rosebud to Quitman—new territory for me—we hit Hwy 65, thence to Marshall for gas, and Ferguson’s for coffee and a huge cinnamon roll. The vista was aflame with reds, oranges and yellows. Then through Harrison to Hwy 62 West, and on through Alpena, Hugh, Green Forest, Berryville and Eureka Springs. Between the latter two, we were stopped in traffic for (it turned out) fire trucks and ambulances. A vehicle was burned black.

At the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, we secured keys and found our suites in 505--the Usonion house adjacent—Muse 1 and Muse 2. After unpacking—or not—we sat on the deck with lemonade and surveyed this part of the Ozarks that we both love. Meals on the weekend have to be self-prepared from stores in the main kitchen, but we’d each brought enough food, so we ate in “our” dining area. Later, Dot worked a little on the BIG Sunday AD-G puzzle, then passed the paper on to me. I stayed up as long as it took to finish.

OCTOBER 27, Monday, 8:30 a.m. On the deck early, I began what might become the penultimate chapter of Her Face in the Glass, the sequel to A Journey of Choice. The voice is Liddy. It’s late October after WW2 ended. She’s sitting out early on their porch and enjoying the ambiance of the season AND the Missouri Ozarks. (Sound familiar?)

At 7 p.m., a Haymaker session was scheduled across town. At 6:50, mesmerized by another resident’s unfolding life, I remembered, bounded up from the communal dinner, and fled.

At 10, the six poets who had, as one guy said, “tortured” (critiqued) each others’ work, “limped away” to rest for the “onslaught” of a second session the next morning. All our poems were equally discussed, dissected or divided. Fun, fun, fun!

OCTOBER 28, Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. The poets met at the Forest Hill Restaurant, and then to the Express Inn (formerly HOJO) for another session. The glassed-in breakfast room jutting out from the building was our  meeting place.

After that session, we traveled to Sparky’s for lunch, fortifying ourselves for the final session that afternoon. Afterwards, we hugged and kissed (in some cases) those friends we won’t see again for a while.

OCTOBER 29, Wednesday, 8:45 a.m., in the 505 conference room—by then it had turned cold--too cold to sit outside. My goal this morning was to write the challenging assignment for the Bombadil’s online writing group, a branch of the Missouri State Poetry Society. Dot worked on her fourth novel (she read two or three books during the week). And I wrote until time to meet our friend Vicki for lunch at Catfish Cabin.

Afterwards, Vicki returned to work and Dot and I browsed at the Echo, a thrift shop that helps a medical entity.  Mid-afternoon, we returned with our bargains, and worked (or napped) until dinner time down the hill.

We secluded ourselves until 9:30 p.m. (wine-thirty) when we broke for snacks and visiting.

Alas, everything must end, and so must this post.

 Happy November to you.