Month: September 2010

snapshots of my day…

* enjoyed my morning cup of coffee instead of the usual guzzling

* an amusing distraction courtesy of Silly Songs with Larry and a curious craving for cucumber salad

* a faithful prayer of thanksgiving for my dear dear friend and his battle with cancer … and a prayer for physical relief and creative focus for another

* the pretty lavender and eggplant lining in my black suit jacket makes me feel feminine on the inside and corporate on the outside — I like my secrets

* the fact that women reading this understand “eggplant”

* it’s cool enough for a sweater — mine is teal

* God’s house is big — where a door closes there’s usually another door open — I don’t need to go crawling through windows

* the oak outside my office window is still green and looks majestic against the bright blue sky

* in the continuing game of finding random Cubans everywhere, met a new student recently arrived from Havana

* a shot and a beer, albeit virtual, hit the spot when I found it around happy hour

* got home to a special delivery pizza, a glass (or two) of wine, and a quiet conversation on the porch. aaah.

It’s Banned Books Week! read something scandalous!

So I totally took this list from this American Library Association site. I’ve read the ones that are bold. I have to wonder what had people’s panties in a wad … but yeah, some of them had some themes, ya know?

*1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
*3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
*4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
*5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
*6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
*7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
*8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
*9. 1984, by George Orwell
*10. The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
*11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
*12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
*13. Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
*14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
*15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
*16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
*17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
*18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
*19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
*20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
*21. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
*22. Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
*23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
*24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
*25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
*26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
*27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
*28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
*29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
*30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
*32. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
*33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
*34. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
*36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
*37. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
*38. All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster
*40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler’s List, by Thomas Keneally
*42. The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
*43. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce
*45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
*48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
*49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
*50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia, by Willa Cather
52. Howards End, by E.M. Forster
*53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz, by Toni Morrison
*57. Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
*61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
62. Tender Is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando, by Virginia Woolf
*64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
*65. Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
*66. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
*67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
68. Light in August, by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James
*70. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
*72. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
*74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe
*77. In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
*80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise, by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather
*84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
*85. The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
*86. Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad
*87. The Bostonians, by Henry James
*88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
*89. Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
*90. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
*91. This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*92. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles
*94. Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread, by E.M. Forster
99. Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie

Anyway, celebrate our freedom of expression and the importance of reading — for the right reasons. Read a book. and then, do something even crazier — talk about it with someone.

I’m gonna do that tonight. In fact, maybe I’ll read something really far-reaching and thought-provoking. Like this little book.

stop the world…I cooked

And by that, I mean I cooked real food. As in, a real menu.

As in: Beef Wellington.

Yes, I know it’s amazing. Believe me, no one is as amazed as me. Well, maybe John, who was rather pleased, and that, my friends, was the whole point.

After almost two weeks of phoning it in as a less than mediocre homemaker, I pulled out the pearls and <gasp> Martha Stewart (I will deny this tomorrow), and proceeded to have a rather lovely afternoon in the kitchen being creative in all kinds of new ways.

I could do this again.

In a very long time. That bottle of  Clos du Bois from earlier this week was for me.

I knew I’d find it if I looked hard enough

Whoa, it’s been a heck of a week. The end of a term is always marked by chaos, long days and longer nights, and a certain level of anxiety and distraction that ends, rather suddenly, with the click of a mouse and a command: enter.

That’s a funny word: enter. In this case, it doesn’t mean enter at all. Well, it does mean “enter the information into whatever it is that goes on in the computer’s brain”, but for us in the real world, to end something — put it away — is not entering at all, but more of an exit.

Believe me when I say I have wanted to exit all week. Exit my office. Exit work. Exit this hard life.

Stop. Don’t read that last exit the wrong way. I was just thinking about heaven … and heavenly it must be to be surrounded by God, all the time.  Enveloped by His grace, all the time. And then I thought to myself, Self, what are you talking about? You already have that. Look.

And I did. Here is what I found:

  • Life isn’t a game show, so I have the “phone a friend” option all the time.

and

  • God is present in my life all the time, even if I’m the one with the vision problem.

Just when I thought all that profoundness was enough, I also found laughter in unexpected places.  I don’t need flashing lights and a game show buzzer to know that’s a winner. All the time.

contemplating…

Ce qui embellit le désert, dit le petit prince, c’est qu’il cache un puits quelque part…

“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…”

hurricane

Sometime’s it just be’s that way.

for when Peaches and Cream won't do

Y’all thought I was kidding. You have no idea.

Blessed John Newman

The Mission of My Life

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

John Henry Newman