54 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-17-17”

  1. It’s FRIDAY
    You know what that means?
    If you’re Irish, it’s special.
    I was a grown man before I heard of St. Patrick.

    Sweet dreams Jo. Not quite bedtime yet since we are only 14 hrs behind now.
    The picture switched to a robin while I was typing.

    Once in Annandale, I saw a male cardinal bring a morsel and feed it to a female.
    She took it and they flew off together.
    I knew then that it was Springtime.

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  2. I learned about wearing green about sixty years ago. I didn’t learn about orange until this morning.
    I still don’t understand it. Something about e guy named Bill something.
    I’m wearing kaki pants and multi colored shirt. It has both green and orange stripes.
    Looks like I’m OK today.

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  4. Good Morning! It is dark outside and the owls are hooting! Happy St Patrick’s Day…I’ll be wearing green to work today…don’t want to get pinched….who would dare do that to an old lady?!! 🙂

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  5. Good morning Chas, AJ, Nancyjill, and all. Good night Jo. Went to see the grands in northern NM last evening. Got home about 1:30 this morning. Now, I have been awake for half an hour with no success at going back to sleep. We have at lea s t another hour until sunrise. Got up to read my Bible.

    I have a busy weekend ahead. We have a birthday party in Rio Rancho tomorrow, followed by a wildland fire refresher on Sunday. My hubby is going to install hand rails in the bathroom his mother, who just got home yesterday from rehab, after a hip fracture.

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  6. Serious question for those of you with Catholic background:
    What is the significance of “lighting a candle”?
    Is it the same thing as a prayer? If the candle goes out, is the prayer stopped?
    Do Catholics believe the action has significance or is it symbolic?
    If you don[‘t have a candle, does the prayer count?

    I’m serious. To we Baptists, most actions are symbolic. They carry no significance in themselves.

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  7. Top of the mornin’ to you all!

    St. Patrick’s Day is a good excuse for listening to Irish music. This musical group has long been the godfather of Irish folk music, but they have reached out to other Celtic musicians worldwide. The two younger men who stepdance at the end of this clip are from Ontario:

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  8. Chas, I cannot answer for dyed-in-the-wool Catholics, but I have a cousin, raised in a Baptist church, who now attends a Catholic church. I have been present when her family has gathered for devotions. Sometimes, they candle, sometimes they do not, but aside from that occasional candle, and the fact they cross themselves at the beginning and ending of their prayer – they sound exactly like Baptists praying.

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  9. I mentioned that the Chieftains have reached out to other Celtic musicians worldwide. That doesn’t mean they have just reached out to Irish immigrants in other parts of the world. The Celtic tribes were actually great migrators. Gaul, which is now France, was settled by Celts when Julius Caesar conquered it – he actually went over to conquer Britain because the Celts there were destabilizing his work in Gaul. Evidences of Celtic migration has been found as far East as Central Asia – mummified tribespeople wearing the characteristic Celtic cloth have been found preserved in in the salt mines of that area. So, Celtic music speaks many languages. The Galicia region of Spain is one of those areas, and here are the Chieftains playing with a Galician musician, Carlos Nunez, in both the Galician and Irish style – note the two different types of bagpipes, the Irish uilleann and the Galician gaita:

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  10. Chas, I have been around Greek Orthodox and Catholics most of my life. Lighting a candle signifies “I am the Light of the world”. In the Greek Orthodox church near me there is a table that looks like a sand box, inside are votive candles. Many times I have gone in to light a candle and say a prayer. There is a locked box near it where you can drop in change or a dollar bill. It isn’t that they are charging you to light a candle and pray it just helps with the cost of keeping the candles there.
    As with many things done in the liturgical church it is “and outward sign of a inner conviction”. In some higher churches (meaning more formal) there is a candle lit at all times in the front of the church next to the tabernacle.The tabernacle contains the consecrated elements (usually bread and wine) and the candle represents that Jesus is present. The prayer candles are symbolic of your prayers rising to God. By themselves they have no meaning. They are just candles. What they represent is different.

    Here is another explanation:
    http://stgeorgepa.net/about/what-is-the-orthodox-faith/faqs/why-do-we-light-candles/

    Every candle that we light should be a time of prayer in which we reflect upon the salvation that the Lord has worked for us and also a time of recommitment, where we renew our Baptismal vow that we, as children of God, are called to “Let our light so shine before men, that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in Heaven.” (Matt. 5:16)

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  12. Just to explain the Baptismal Vows I share this from the Book of Common Prayer

    The Baptismal Covenant

    Celebrant: Do you believe in God the Father?
    People: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
    Celebrant: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
    People: I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
    He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
    Celebrant: Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
    People: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
    Celebrant: Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
    People: I will, with God’s help.
    Celebrant: Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
    People: I will, with God’s help.
    Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
    People: I will, with God’s help.
    Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
    People: I will, with God’s help.
    Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
    People: I will, with God’s help.

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  14. Chas, on your question about the colour orange and how it has come to represent Protestantism in Northern Ireland, and thus among the diaspora of Protestant Irish, the answer is long and involves the history of, at least, four different countries, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and Ireland. It starts with Spain, and how they tried, as good Catholics, to preserve the Low Countries for the Catholics church in the late 1500s and early 1600s. There was a lot of back and forth, but Spain was not nice to the Dutch Protestant, to put it mildly. The Protestant cause gained a leader in William, Prince of Orange – the name of a principality now part of Provence, France (that makes five countries). The symbol of the house of Orange included a hue that was slightly orange. Well, the war with Spain was eventually sorted, and the Netherlands remained Protestant, while Belgium (six countries) remained Catholic.

    Fast forward to the Restoration of the throne of England, after Cromwell failed to make it a Puritan state. Charles II of England died without legitimate issue, and the throne went to his brother James II. James had been raised Protestant, but converted to Catholicism. He was married twice – his first marriage, produced two daughters, Mary and Anne; his second marriage was to a Catholic Italian princess. When that second marriage produced a male heir, Protestant England realized they were about to be ruled by a line of Catholics. They invited James’ eldest daughter, Mary, and her husband, the great grandson of the afore mentioned Prince William, also named William of Orange, to assume the throne of England.

    However, factions in Scotland (that makes seven countries) and Ireland were still supportive of James – the Jacobites of Scotland would later attempt to restore James II’s grandson, Bonnie Prince Charlie, to the throne – and the Irish, who were Catholic, had little reason to love the Protestant of England. Not only had Cromwell in his zeal massacred them, but throughout the 1600s, there was a concerted effort by the British to replace the Irish Catholic population of Ulster in Northern Ireland with Protestant settlers, mainly from the troublesome borderlands of Scotland and England. Enter the Protestants of Northern Ireland, who were actually Scottish and Northern English transplants. That is where the roots of my father’s family come from. Since that time, until the coalition between the Catholic leader of Sinn Fein and Protestant leader Ian Paisley in the government of Northern Ireland in 1998, there was a constant and frequently bloody struggle between the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland. The Catholics kept their traditional green as their symbol, while the Protestant assumed the colour of that Prince of Orange who was called over from the Netherlands to depose the Catholics in England.

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  15. Kim, the Easter Uprising, though it initially failed, did lead to the independence of Ireland. But Northern Ireland, with its mixture of Irish Catholic and transplanted Protestant remained under the British government. Hence The Troubles of Northern Ireland throughout the late 1900s.

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  18. I was just thinking, my father’s family was Irish Protestant, but Eldest-sibling-in-law’s family was Irish Catholic. I’ve mentioned this before, in regards to an ancestor who fought with the British in Canada during the Seven Year’s War (also known as the French and Indian War) and ended up marrying a French Canadian, but it is the little people who make peace in great conflicts.

    Eldest-sibling-in-law was briefly Baptist, after coming to an understanding of the salvation of Jesus Christ, but eventually he and Eldest sibling became Presbyterian – we wondered if the slightly more formal structure of the Presbyterian, with things like the catechism, felt more familiar to someone raised Catholic (although very nominally). However, in the case of my cousin who went from Baptist to Catholic, the stepping stone between Baptist (and Christian Reformed for her husband) and Catholic was them attending an Anglican church for a while. There is a lot of denominational migration of the younger generation who are orthodox in their beliefs (I have no doubt my cousin is truly a Christian) but dissatisfied with what they see in the churches they were raised in or converted into.

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  20. Now that’s orange.

    Our family’s heritage is mostly Scottish, British, but we do also have some Northern (very Protestant) Irish ancestors — the ones who likely passed on all the Orange Order books that my grandfather had.

    My dad’s brother married a good Catholic girl and converted, so that side of my family — and my now remaining cousins — were all Roman Catholic. My mom was touched when my aunt (they were very close friends besides being sisters-in-law by marriage to 2 brothers) told her they requested a Mass be held for my dad after he’d died. Her husband died only a few years later, he just collapsed while they were getting ready for church one morning.

    I saw the Chieftains at the Hollywood Bowl a few summers ago. Lots of fun.

    I should at least get out my small celtic cross necklace today, I wore it all the time until the house projects launched and then it wound up in the spare bedroom, lost for a while, and I just got out of the habit of putting it on every morning. It’s on a long leather cord since my nickel allergy, which I developed maybe 15 years ago, made wearing metal chains of any kind, no matter how cheap or expensive, impossible without breaking out.

    Praying for BG’s counseling today.

    Oh, remember the story I was sitting on? I get to set it free today, from the looks of it. 🙂 It’s sufficiently incubated and is ready for the world. Of course, now I have 3 stories I’m trying to finish today for the weekend, which will make the day long and busy.

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  21. The discussion on candles reminded me of a retreat I attended in NY probably 25 years ago now — my Quaker friends there had invited me as they’d been to this particular retreat and found it so moving.

    It was held at a convent in the countryside and was a Protestant / ecumenical version of a Catholic retreat (I am blanking on the name of it now). I remember candles being lit during all of the main sessions and for formal times of prayer. Unfortunately, I was struck with a migraine for a good portion of the weekend so wasn’t feeling my best.

    OK, the cat is all over me, demanding food, guess I’d better get to feeding the animal mouths around here.

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  26. Not sure where to put this, as it is a continuation of a discussion from yesterday’s News thread, but only loosely pertains to either news or politics. So here goes:

    Deb, you mentioned in your reply to me that you considered rootlessness a curse. I’m not sure that what God did at the tower of Babel was a curse, not wholly. It has been pointed out by Bible teachers that in building the tower of Babel, humans were not only showing abominable pride, but they were not fulfilling the command to fill the earth. God, to break up their prideful and ultimately evil unity, and make them fulfill his mandate to humanity, confused their language so they would split and scatter.

    However, that is not the whole story. In the beginning of the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit reverses Babel’s confounding of the languages, as a sign that Jesus Christ was the Redeemer of all nations and peoples and his Church was to unify them. However, when the church at Jerusalem, daily growing in numbers and unity, failed to fulfill Christ’s mandate to Christians to go into all the world and preach the Gospel, God once again intervened, using persecution by the Jewish leaders to scatter the Church so they would plant other churches. Unity and rest are good things, but like Abraham, the father of faith, Christians are called, in this present world, to be strangers and pilgrims. Abraham never saw the promise of rest to his children fulfilled, he wandered through the land of Canaan a permanent stranger, because as the book of Hebrews later says, he “looked for a city whose builder and maker is God”. Right now, Christ is building his church, and he does so by constantly moving his people around – or perhaps, in the current wave of Muslim migration, moving other people to where his people are. When Christians get comfortable, that is the time to expect upheaval, as God will not let us rest while there is work to be down.

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  27. The birds are letting me get good photos today. The hairy woodpecker has finally figured out the rules of the bird feeder (in the past he has fled at the first sign of conflict, a face at the window, etc., but today he left when a whole herd of cowbirds moved in, came back in less than two minutes after I chased the cowbirds, fled for a larger red-bellied woodpecker, but as soon as the red-bellied settled on one suet he flew back to the other one–all with me at the window taking some photos; so he isn’t a tourist anymore, but a customer). The male cardinal has twice landed in the blue spruce while it was snowing, allowing some good photos. And the juncos have given me the chance to get photos of actual fighting (no blood, but claws extended). My husband wondered what happened to the nice peaceful juncos we had last year!

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  28. We’re having a snowstorm with scattered ice (I’ve seen them slipping off the feeders a couple of times), and bad conditions always bring the birds in larger numbers. They need more food to stay warm, and less is accessible elsewhere.

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  29. Realized I have a long, multi-colored striped scarf that will give me the orange I was looking for today. 🙂 I don’t think I really have anything that’s truly orange.

    We’re still in dense fog through the mornings, supposed to cool off over the weekend again with possible rain Tuesday-Wednesday.

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  30. Kim, my husband sings that song, but definitely a more country version. It has never been a favorite of mine, but was of my sister. She had a very small family gathering after her first marriage and asked him to sing it.

    I am not sure if churches can keep a candle burning in the sanctuary like they used to do. In the OT there is a light that was kept lit to remind them of God’s presence. Not sure what happened when they picked up and moved everything. However, it shows the scriptural basis for candles and incense. How churches use those (or not) today is another thing.

    In thinking about the discussion of health issues, I have red itchy skin everywhere I had tape or pads from testing and IV’s. I have noticed this for several years now. It is what makes me leery of any new medicines. I never know what the reaction might be. This is really true of all of us, but we tend not to think of it when we are younger.

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  31. We have a covering of snow on everything with some slippery ice underneath. Looks beautiful and there are a lot of birds here, too.

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  35. Roscuro makes a good point about how God uses wanderings. But I still don’t like the idea of families breaking apart, as Cheryl wrote about.

    When I was a child & a teenager, we moved around for Dad’s jobs. Sometimes it was for a new job, but others it was a transfer within the company. Most of my growing up was away from Connecticut, away from family. I didn’t remember meeting my father’s sisters & their families, but met them anew at age 19. It was a wonderful blessing to have my daughters grow up with their grandparents around.

    Abraham may have left his homeland, but didn’t Isaac live near, or at least somewhat near him, as an adult? (I could be wrong about that, but that’s how I’ve understood it.) When Jacob went down to Egypt, all his sons & their families went with him. I would guess that in the migrations after the Tower of Babel, families went together.

    (I realize that God does often call missionaries to leave their families to go to other lands, but that’s not the kind of thing I’m referring to.)

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  37. On the New/Politics thread recently, the subjects of the Cheesecake Factory, their portion sizes, & cheesecake came up. Here’s my comment on those. . .

    We like the Cheesecake Factory, but Hubby & I have only been there once, because it is pretty expensive, especially since the cheesecake is expensive. Although the regular food itself is delicious, we wouldn’t go without planning to have dessert, too.

    Usually when we go out to eat (which we don’t do very often), we will save money by buying a dessert at a grocery store on the way home, unless the restaurant has a special dessert we like. And sometimes we don’t get any dessert at all.

    As for the portion sizes, a lot of restaurants these days have large portions. I always have enough leftovers to enjoy the next day. I’ve never considered having enough food to take home to be a negative. 🙂

    I love cheesecake, but mostly just a plain kind. Chocolate cheesecake doesn’t taste right to me, although regular cheesecake on a chocolate crust might be okay. One time, Nightingale brought me home a slice of Vanilla Bean Cheesecake that was really good.

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  38. I have never liked cheesecake, but have changed my mind. I do like it with a good topping. Cheesecake Factory has some good ones. We have none of those restaurants around here, but will go to one when visiting.

    Chas–That “The Long Black Robe” song must be about a judge. 😉 I get it, though. Recently heard a bluegrass remake of “Patches” and it made me think of how much Chas would hate, hate, hate that song.

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  39. Funny, these food conversations we’ve had all over the place lately — cheesecake on the News/Politics thread, macaroni and cheese on the Prayer thread. 🙂

    Piano tuner was here this morning. Broken spring replaced on the hammer that needed it, so my B below Middle C is functional again. And the piano is back in tune now. After the piano tuner left, I sat down to play my performance pieces I’m working on, and the piano sounds as great after a fresh tuning as my teeth feel after a dental cleaning. 😉 Ahhh…

    I mentioned here that I had seen The Pirates of Penzance over the weekend. In addition to the Thursday dress rehearsal the cast (students from our area Lutheran high school) had last week, and the Friday evening, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon performances, they also put on the show Friday morning for area children in our Lutheran elementary school system.

    My friends in the Friday morning Bible study I attend both had children in the cast of this show, and the son of one of them played the Pirate King. He and a couple other cast members tossed around an orange a couple times during the production, a prop that happened to show up for the last three of the five performances they gave.

    Today I heard some of the backstory on the orange: After the Friday morning performance for the school kids was over, the cast had a break, as there was no school for the high school that day. So the Pirate King, the police sergeant and maybe one other character descended on a local convenience store — in full costume — and the PK, still totally in character, swaggered over to the clerk and asked, “So, ya got any oranges at your mercantile here? You know, to prevent scurvy and all?” 😉

    Now you know the rest of the story. 🙂

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  40. 6 Arrows, I’m glad you enjoyed Pirates. It’s got such great songs such as “When the Foeman Bares His Steel” and “Modern Major General”. I think my favorite is “With Cat-Like Tread”, all the pirates singing about how quiet they are. All the productions I’ve seen had them singing loudly. “NO SOUND AT ALL! WE NEVER SPEAK A WORD!…”

    My junior high had separate boys and girls glee classes. The boys put on an abridged Gilbert & Sullivan performance every year, boys playing all parts. In the 7th grade we did Pirates. I played one of the Major General’s daughters, and was understudy for Mabel.

    In 8th grade I played Josephine, the Captain’s daughter, in HMS Pinafore. Such is the fate of a boy who is still a soprano until nearly 15 years old…

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  41. Kathaleena – Is that the “Patches, I’m dependin’ on ya, son. . .” song you’re referring to?

    Anybody here like the song “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro? Makes me cry every time. It is one of the songs in a set of CDs I inherited from my dad, through my mom. (I’ve mentioned previously that Mom gave Dad the set of CDs with mostly love songs from the 50s & 60s, & a few from the early 70s, for his last Christmas, but Dad died before he could listen to them. So she gave them to me, knowing that I would enjoy them. And I do.)

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  43. I remember ‘Honey’ from my teen babysitting days (for some reason I’m connecting it with the car radio music coming and going to babysitting jobs). There were a few tear-jerker songs like that in the later ’60s.

    So I got to wish a happy St Patrick’s Day to the Irish coyote researcher after our interview today 🙂 she’s busy-busy with coyote pup season upon us and is becoming the go-to scientist for coyote issues in the entire state right now.

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  44. DJ, we’ve heard coyotes during the night three times in the last week or two. Last night at midnight or so (I didn’t get to sleep until maybe 5:00 in the morning, but it was before 2:00) I heard a pack of them yip-yip-yipping their way down the street. Sometimes we hear them howling. We’re out in the country, so they “sort of” belong here, except that we are in the East.

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  45. K, it sounds like you might have an adhesive allergy, which is not at all uncommon. I would mention the rash the next time you have a procedure done which requires tape – they do try to avoid causing skin rashes, especially around IV sites, as that increases risk of infection.

    Kizzie, I take your point about families, but although Abraham had Isaak, he had to leave his brother behind in Haran and all of his relatives in Ur, was separated from his nephew Lot, and had to send away his other seven sons (remember how he grieved to send away Ishmael). Only Isaak was left. Isaak saw his two sons both leave him, though Jacob returned. As for Jacob, fleeing from his brother Esau and then his uncle Laban, he was so worn down by the long divisions in his family, as not only Joseph but also Judah was apart from the family for a while, that he described his days of life to Pharaoh as few and evil. There is only so long even the closest knit family can stay together. I love my extended family dearly, but we are gradually breaking apart, as my cousins have their own families now [On my mother’s side, which is the side that is primarily Christian, I am the only cousin who is not married and there are over twenty of us and only two of my married cousins have been unable to have children]. Their children barely know us for the most part. None of my cousins are grandparents yet, though my eldest cousin already has two married children, but the time will come soon enough when they will form their own clans. Certainly, Peter traveled on his mission with his wife, but Paul did not take his sister’s family with him. As Christians, only those members of our families who are Christians will be able to truly join our pilgrimage, which is why Christ said, to a culture where the extended family was paramount in importance, he that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

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  46. Kevin, those songs the policemen sing on are hilarious, as is “Modern Major General.” Such an entertaining show! Oh, and speaking of boys playing girls’ parts, as you did, almost the opposite happened for part of this particular production — eight of the ten “policemen” were girls. 😉 All ten of the policemen wore mustaches, and it really was hard to tell, when they were in costume, which were the boys and which the girls.

    In the printed program, there was a short bio for each cast member, and several included a personal sentence or two, or shout-out to someone, in italicized print at the end of the bio. One girl who played a policeman indicated she would like to pursue a career in either the police force or get K-9 unit training after high school. Then her personal concluding note read, Don’t be jealous if I look better in a mustache than you. 🙂

    Oh, and as far as retaining a soprano voice until almost 15, Kevin, I had a student in my junior high choir my first year teaching school — he was in 8th grade — and his voice had not begun to change yet. He had the most clear, pure tone of any young person I’ve ever heard sing, and I was so glad his voice stayed high for that year. I entered him in Class A (the highest skill level) for Solo and Ensembles, in the category Boys Unchanged or Changing Voice. He sang Shall We Gather At The River that spring, got a superior rating, went to state, and did just as well there. Such sublime tone.

    My guess is his voice probably began changing not long after that. Unfortunately, that one year I had him in my choir was the only year. His parents divorced very shortly after that, and by the time he was to begin his freshman year, he had moved away, and I never saw him again. 😦

    But, back to the late-changing-voice thing, I’m guessing that probably wasn’t the most fun thing for you. It’s easy to make comparisons, especially at that age, and for those undergoing physiological changes later than friends (that was certainly me, a good [well, not good] couple of years after most of my peers), it can be hard to wait.

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  47. Kizzie, I had forgotten about the song “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro until you mentioned it above. I went and listened to it on YouTube, and, yep, it brought the tears for me, too. Beautiful and sadly sweet song.

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  48. Patrick of Ireland was as orthodox as possible in his view of the Trinity, but there is a legend wandering around, along with the one about him driving the snakes from Ireland, that he illustrated the Trinity using a three leaf clover. No evidence exists to show that he did so, but this little cartoon has a little fun with the legend, and other poor analogies of the Trinity:

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  49. Big day tomorrow, with our district music competitions going on that I mentioned the other day. My high school student is playing in it for the first time, and I am a first-year member of the organization that sponsors it, thus my being able to enter students. Teachers who enter one or more students are expected to work a half day, serving as door monitors, musicianship test room helpers, etc. I was scheduled to work in the morning, being “on call” to help the event chairperson as needed. However, I told the chairperson at our last meeting that I could be available for the afternoon, too, so I will stick around for the whole day. (Finishes around 4:00.) That way, I’ll be on-site to pick up the judge’s comments and my student’s theory test results at the end of the day. (And if I’m not occupied with a job that needs doing right then, I might be able to sneak a little listen outside the door of my student’s audition site when she performs for the judge.)

    Do you remember my talking about accompanying a flute student for her solo and ensemble competition? She came to my home twice to practice, and then the competition was to be February 25. Well, our state got slammed with a big snowstorm February 24, and our area had severe winter weather warnings out that whole day and until 6:00 a.m. February 25. The competition was to start at 8:00 a.m., and I wondered if it would be called off.

    The morning of the 25th, I woke up to clear skies, checked my email, and saw a message from my flute student’s mom that S/E had been canceled, and there would be a meeting in the near future to determine a make-up date.

    As it turns out, the actual Solos and Ensembles event had not been called off. A bus that was going to take students from the school that this girl attends canceled. So those kids are going to perform at their own school this Monday. (I think there will be a judge there, too.) Because some of the kids might have accompanists who can’t be there that day, they can just play their pieces without an accompanist and not lose any points. I am glad I am able to be there on Monday at the time my student is scheduled. It was so much fun practicing with her, but practice culminating in performance is always the icing on the cake.

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  52. I love Pirates of Penzance–and of course, there’s the relief that since I’m an orphan, they’ll never kidnap me.

    Our church has a candle lit at all times. When we visited our HI church on Wednesday for the Lenten service my former acolyte daughter pointed out their candle was out.

    Nancy, the pastor’s wife, said, “No. It’s just electric and doesn’t send out too much light. An oil candle was too expensive for our small church to run after a while.”

    We suggested a brighter bulb.

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  53. I remember the song “Honey” with bittersweet memories. My mother had died a year or two before it came out, and hearing the song made me feel mixed emotions.

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  54. It was a sad song. 😦 My dad died when I was 18 this time of year (this week, in fact). Still hurts. 😦

    So I was on the phone with my car insurance people tonight, I’ve received a couple “cancelation” notices and can’t figure it out since I pay like clockwork (and usually a bit over what’s due whenever I can, just to establish a cushion). Guy on the phone (from Fla) couldn’t figure it out either, he said all my payments show up, so I’m going to have to call my agent on Monday to sort it all out. Grrr. I should have a decent-sized credit by now.

    Furniture repair guy hasn’t called, so I need to call them in the morning to see if they’re picking my bed up tomorrow. Carol, meanwhile, wants me to come up to get her 29 library books (overdue, but I’m not paying) pack to the library.

    What else …

    Oh yeah, my living room still has bags filled with clothes and other items that had to be cleared out — the remains of the bedroom clear-out for the ceiling replacement last weekend.

    And that story I was sitting on? Guess I’ll have to sit on it a while longer …

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