46 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-15-17”

  1. How can I be first at 8:06?

    good morning Aj and everyone else but Jo.
    Good night jo.

    Yesterday seemed like Saturday all day.
    Chuck had the day off and came over and we -he cleaned out gutters and Linda took Elvera shopping.
    While on the latter, Chuck said, “Fifty years ago, you were on the ladder and I was standing down watching.”
    They are afraid of me getting on a ladder, though I could still do it. Both of my parents died from something initially caused by a fall. They say falls affect older people more than younger.
    I don’t know nothing about that.

    Liked by 7 people

  3. Out here in CA, I’ve been awake for an hour. Laundry is going, potatoes cooking, editing and gardening awaiting. A busy day with too much to do. I don’t think I can get 40 pages edited with everything else, to meet my personal deadline. 😦

    Lovely, poignant Tenebrae service last night, as always.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. Late to the discussion with this, but two years in a row we had a turducken for Easter dinner. The first year, I made it. I ordered the boned meat from an upscale grocery store and made cornbread, sausage, and bread stuffing for in between the layers. It was very good, too much food for the twelve of us, and a TON of work. The next year I ordered one online and it was disappointing – heavy on the stuffing, which overpowered the taste of the meat.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Speaking of editing…the very thing I came to say.
    Catherine Fyffe has written many books. This latest one I am reading is set in Logan Meadows. I just read a sentence where the mother from New York says to the daughter, “I knew I should have went to the hotel first.” Who is editing these books these days? Does anyone speak properly anymore? Does no one teach proper English? I know I sometimes slip in conversation or perhaps even writing, but I am not a published writer and I don’t have an editor.

    Chas, your son’s comment made me smile. It really is the circle of life.

    I enjoyed my day at the beach yesterday. We were there for about 3 hours. Some lazy mother had several children in the water but the youngest drifted down our way. He was such a little boy. The waves were fast and coming in closer to shore. I was paying attention and could hardly hear his mother yelling for him. She also yelled for one of the other children to go get him and that child ignored her mother and only yelled for him to come into the water with her. “Grandpa Safety First” next to me went on high alert. Eventually another of the children came to get him and walk him back to his lazy mother. First rule of the beach is not to let children out of your sight or too far away. We have rip tides.
    There was another guy at the beach who was having a great time all by himself. He walked into the water, stretched his arms wide and yelled in happiness. Then his hopped, skipped, jumped and danced his way down the beach, eventual repeating the process back up the beach past us. Mr. P laughed and said the guy was high. I thought he may just be a little “flamboyant”.
    I do so love to people watch.
    When we left we stopped by one of our favorite restaurants and had a late lunch early dinner. The day was exactly what I needed.

    Liked by 5 people

  7. What Peter said Chas….my brother in law fell from a ladder at 61 years old…that was 6 years ago that we lost him….a very sad day in our family….stay off the ladder….we love you!! ❤

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Perfect, Kim, and just what we prayed for.

    Isn’t it wonderful to always have a lifeguard with you? I’m pleased when I can travel with my own personal EMT and engineer. When they’re not debating details, they make me– organized and efficient me– feel even safer.

    No one will die–including machinery–and my husband always finds a convenient parking place, usually free.

    🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  9. When I took the kids to the beach, my rule was to stay in water up to THEIR waste line.

    I told Chuck that fifty years from now, he would be watching Caden or one of the others clear his gutters. It didn’t occur to me that fifty years from now chuck will be 109. But I was cleaning my gutters until I was over 75. I still could, but wisdom keeps me off the ladders.

    Liked by 4 people

  10. Stay off the ladder, Chas, that is what Chuck is for. My dad told me he has not been on the roof since his seventies, so he understands my concern about continuing to go on the roof. There are enough things to die from without throwing in unnecessary ladder trips.

    On another note, eighteen year old has made the decision and followed through with stopping public school. They requested he withdraw rather than drop out as that reflects better on their school. The games we play.

    Anyway, since then, a couple of the men in town who really like him, (everybody does) offered him a few thousand dollars to stay in school. They don’t seem to understand that he already has a dipolma and even if he stays, he won’t get one from the school. And he is not interested in goofing off for the next two months when he could be working and making money for college. It would be easier to accept the money, but he declined.

    Liked by 7 people

  11. Good morning, all.
    Brisket was wonderful last night, as usual.
    We are going to Easter services tonight as we will be joining my MIL for brunch tomorrow at 11:00–which makes it impossible for us to attend our church in the morning (first service is at 9:20 and it takes almost an hour to get to MIL’s).

    Kim: Per your question to me yesterday about how Scott seasons the brisket–I actually have no idea what he puts on it—but over the years, he’s perfected it, IMO. I think it is better than any I’ve ever had in any restaurant. Same goes for his fresh-caught Red Fish cooked on the grill.

    Liked by 4 people

  12. Yesterday seemed like Saturday to me, too.

    Carol and I were busy, with a trip to The Grove and the Apple Store for technical help — they were able to get my work phone cleared of all data despite the password, ID hangup that was preventing me from doing so. Even our photo editor couldn’t do it when I asked him on Thursday and he’s a whiz when it comes to all things Apple. He said his son, a teenager who has started his own Apple fix-it biz, could probably do it but that it would be faster for me to go to the Apple store. Carol, meanwhile, had an iPad that some one had given her — their old one — but it apparently is “too” old to handle the new iPad software so it’s basically useless, unfortunately. But she was given the iPad free as a tech “hand-me-down” and she has other tablets so not a disaster.

    After that, we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, just a couple doors down, then went to Barnes & Noble (through all of that I was reminded again of how hard the world can be for those who are disabled with walkers, seemed like we were surrounded constantly by crowds of fast-walking people in a hurry and physical obstacles to navigate ranging from trolly tracks to curbs, always searching for the elevators rather than stairs); then we drove through Griffith Park (lots and lots of people out and about in the park, the observatory and zoo were open and it’s a popular park in which to hike and take photographs) and up through Laurel Canyon and back to Sunset where Carol wanted to stop in at Amoeba Records, the latest hot spot which is just like the old “record stores” we used to go to in our youth.

    I asked one of the young clerks (with long, very blue hair) why vinyl was making a comeback (along with turntables, who would have ever thought people would be buying those again? So odd). She said it’s mostly a nostalgia thing, but also with all the streaming of music we do now, she said, people like to have something “physical” that represents their music. She also said some people think the sound of vinyl is “warmer.” It was kind of like stepping into a time machine, reminded me of the Tower Records stores, those big warehouse-sized places we used to love wandering through in our teens and 20s.

    Then we went over to Hollywood Presbyterian for the 7 p.m. Good Friday Tenebrae service which started at 7 p.m. (we were an hour early). I’ve been to a Tenebrae service before but not in a number of years — beautiful and moving. It was co-hosted by Reality LA, a hipster off-shoot church that began as a ‘contemporary’ Christian movement within Hollywood Presbyterian and caused a bit of a rift and finally a formal split maybe 10 years ago. But the two churches lately have reconciled to the point of hosting some worship services and outreach ministries together. Last night’s the service was very traditional and included the full choir and instrumentation that ranged from a simple acoustic guitar to a cello and the church’s grand organ.

    And physically, it’s a beautiful church, with heavy, dark, ornate wood pulpit and furnishings throughout, stained glass windows. Looked like all the pews were filled on the main floor, with half of them filled in the surrounding balcony. The church remained open all night after the service and will be open through 8 p.m. tonight for silent prayer and vigil.

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  13. Meanwhile, the work on the driveway continues, but they concluded yesterday that they need more sand base so the extra bags of sand have been ordered and will be delivered Monday. Workers are supposed to come back today (but not until later this morning) to do some more “tamping” down, there are “spongy” areas they don’t like so they want to make sure those are built-up and hard-packed enough before laying any of the pavers (which are stacked everywhere along the driveway edges — they looked a lot more colorful on the display when I bought them, but right now I only want them in the ground and done, regardless of how they look in the end; I’m sure it will all look nice).

    They think they should be all finished sometime around Wednesday. So what was anticipated to be a 4-day job turned into an off-and-on 3-week project. Story of my life with this home improvement campaign. 🙂 If something can be more complicated, more expensive and take longer, it will.

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  14. Daughter’s boyfriend got out of the hospital. Still not having much sensation in one leg. They say it will return when the inflammation around the vertebrae reduces. She brought him home to her house, as he is still using a walker, and was afraid he would fall. In my mom heart, I was skeptical this was a good idea.
    When I went to pick up the grands after work last night, she told me they got married that afternoon! I am not even sure what to think. I am sure they will need prayer, on many fronts. She works 1 on and 3 off as a paramedic.

    I keep Connor Matthew when she works, and usually spend the night with the girls and get them off to school the next morning. We could use prayers.

    Liked by 5 people

  15. Oh, and how could I forget? Carol and I also stopped in at the library, of course. She signed up to play a part in a sort-of impromptu Shakespeare performance of The Tempest they’re doing next Saturday at the library. She asked if it was free to participate, and very gay librarian says “Of course!”

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  20. I love browsing through album covers again but I honestly would never want to go back to buying them. I love the “iTunes” / Pandora radio (I don’t have to ‘own’ it) convenience and cost savings of digital music.

    Reminds me, though, of something else that’s in my garage — the old cabinet stereo that sat in my room during my later teen years. 🙂 And a box of some of the albums I saved, thinking they might we collectors’ items someday. Probably not in very playable condition anymore, but the covers — one has Sonny’s and Cher’s autographs — might be worth something, who knows.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Carol seemed intent on finding a way to buy a CD player and was talking to one of the clerk’s there about what they had in stock, but I told her later that it really makes no sense (she listens to music on her phone, like all the rest of us). Do you really want to have to then buy a bunch of CDs? But she gets an idea in her head of something to buy and it’s hard to dislodge it with logic. 🙂

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  24. Making the sign of the cross …

    More wildlife news from my neighborhood:

    “I just saw a giant cat, thought it was coyote but by time I got out there it disappeared into a neighbor’s yard, I think my neighbor Joe’s yard? It is huge! Interesting, pretty sure it is Oscelot”

    Liked by 1 person

  25. The ocelot, also known as the dwarf leopard, is a wild cat distributed extensively within South America, including the islands of Trinidad and Margarita, Central America, and Mexico.

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  26. Her neighbor Joe replied to original post : “thanks for the heads up! At the moment, there does not seem to be an ocelot (or lynx) on the premises.”

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  28. Kim, dialogue is the one place the best editor can let bad grammar stay. If the character would say it that way in real life, as long as the reader can understand it (not indecipherable gibberish), then it can stay. Now, too many amateur authors think they need every “uh” and “how are you?” and “it’s been just forever since we’ve talked! we must get together again real soon.” Dialogue should sound genuine without being boring, but poor grammar can stay.

    I do have way too many authors nowadays who want their writing itself go be folsky, with a “just” and a “like” every other sentence, and exclamation points two or three sentences in a row. No to that one.

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  29. Oh, the photo is hepatica, one of the first wildflowers of spring. This is a fresh new bloom, not fully stretched out yet. They also come in white and I think in pink. This was one of the first flower photos I took with my new camera, and I was happy to find that it focuses more easily on flowers than my old one did.

    Liked by 2 people

  30. Anyone ever hear the name Kixstan before (or maybe there’s no “s”, not sure)? That’s the name of Little Guy’s friend next door. The family moved here from Idaho, where I guess people are more comfortable with the idea of free range children than many parents here.

    Unfortunately, I think Kixstan’s parents have gotten a bit of a bad reputation among a few in the neighborhood. They let their children come out & play in our yard, which they can’t see from their home, without knowing, or even meeting, us. One day they took off for somewhere as a family, but they forgot the little three year old daughter (they have two boys & a girl). Neighbors found her when she came out of the apartment crying. Then the parents drove back in to get her. (I don’t know how long they were gone before coming back for her, but I guess not too long.)

    I want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were in a hurry, & maybe each parent thought the other had put her in her car seat, but the neighbor we heard this from doesn’t think they are good parents. 😦

    The children don’t seem too wild, though, so I’m not rushing to judgment. We’re glad Little Guy has a friend to play with outside. (And I pray for the family.)

    Liked by 1 person

  31. an. Sounds like he was named for a bicycle part: kickstand.

    There seems to be no rules for name these days. Some friends named their son Onyx. Not a name to take for granite.

    Liked by 4 people

  32. I didn’t notice that Kindle edited that for me. The first word was supposed to be the name Kizzie mentioned.

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  33. Cheryl, in this case the mother was supposed to be a snob from New York not happy that her only daughter had gone West. It was clearly a grammatical error.
    I appreciate dialogue. That’s why a while back I wanted Michelle to leave in a word instead of describing the woman a different way. If I am reading about some dirt poor farmer and he had said, “I shoulda went” It wouldn’t have stuck out like it did.

    Liked by 3 people

  35. Kim, yeah, you’re right on that one.

    Most beginning writers end up either having all their characters speak alike (the way them themselves speak, most likely) or they stereotype and exaggerate. In my opinion, it’s much, much easier to write nonfiction!

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  36. We forgot a child several times between us. The most terrifying “miss” was a non speaking 13 month old who toddled off into a crowd at Heathrow when the parent “thought you had him.”

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  37. He does not look like the other three children and we’ve wondered if we got the right one back . . . British Airways slapped a luggage tag on him once found.

    Garden is planted. It would be lovely to have decent soil some day.

    But, I now I can do laundry and feel self-righteous!

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  38. I’m doing laundry and sorting through socks with no mates. Hmm. So many.

    Driveway workers are still here (after saying they’d not be here long today — it’s been 6 hours so I guess they got inspired or just want to get this done asap already and figured the more they did today the less they’d have to do later?). They’re trimming up pavers to fit right in that crazy long, thin area right over the sewer pipe. Neighbor was a little complain-y, suggesting the vibrations of some of the other equipment being used in the past week might be harming their foundation … Can’t win. I’m fixing something she’s worried about for years (my cracked driveway) but now she’s anxious about the work required for the fix.

    I still need to pick up dog food and (for tomorrow) fruit salad ingredients (+ drinks).

    Had a rather disturbing movie on this afternoon while I was working in the house, “Premonition’ with Sandra Bullock. Kind of jarring, definitely kept you guessing all through it.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Thanks for the links, Kizzie — I do take World but get behind. The LAPD officer is well-known on social media now and has advised people in our community, as well as Venice to the north of us, grappling with mini-skid rows of our own.

    Homeless advocates press the idea that ‘it’s not illegal to be homeless’ (though lapd will quickly say a lot of crime comes as a result homelessness). Once the court ruling came that said it was legal for people to sleep on the streets, Skid Row in downtown exploded and now it’s huge, sadly a way of life.

    “Premonition”: Yes, the ending was unexpected; when the movie started, I figured it would be straight forward, but it was anything but. Eerie.

    Liked by 1 person

  46. Workers did an awesome job today, they got a surprisingly large number of the stones all laid and will be back Monday early — need to figure out more sand quantities they’ll need and I may have to swing by the yard to get those ordered for delivery. He thinks they’ll get finished Tuesday night, maybe.

    Rented “Hidden Figures” tonight, what a good film.

    Liked by 2 people

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