Lift Up Your Hearts!

We've lived in Florida more than 20 years and haven't yet mastered the art of gardening in this climate.  After a year or two of being defeated by nematodes, giant grasshoppers, and the need for daily attention, we pretty much gave up, until inspired to try again by Heather and Jon, who managed to get a few good things to grow even at their zero-yard city apartment. (More)

Don't take my word for it; read about Our Big News in Janet's own words (and pictures).  For the really curious, you can find a link to Stephan's blog there.  Hmmm, her webmaster is going to have to make a change, and move thduggie up from Friends to Family on the sidebar.  And while I'm at it, will IrishOboe change to SwissHarp, or maybe SwissFiddle?  Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I'm contemplating the complexities of having an international family. (More)

Thanks to Janet reminding me (she'll have to write her own post as to why), I was able to watch NASA TV live coverage of the landing of Phoenix on Mars (and at a much more reasonable hour than she did).  For obvious reasons (the view out our front door) I pay more attention to Shuttle launches than other NASA activity these days, but watching this excitement took me 'way back.  Back to 1969 and the Apollo 11 moon landing...stories from my cousin who worked in the space program...some of the first pictures of the Earth from the moon that were treasured trophies from a Boy Scout (Explorer) program I participated in with General Electric...and even 'way, 'way back to standing on the porch with my father, watching Echo I pass overhead.

Thanks for the memories, Janet and Stephan!

Having finished watching all the available “Best Picture” Oscar-winners—all except for one or two he decided early on weren’t worth the wasting of his time—Porter is catching up on the James Bond movies he’d missed, which was many if not most of them.  Not feeling any lack whatsoever for having missed them myself, I’ve generally elected to indulge in what to me are more profitable activities, such as reading, writing, or sleeping.

Every once in a while, however, I’ll find myself sucked into the story, never long enough to see the entire movie, but enough to provoke a few of thoughts. (More)

A friend of mine once lamented that at her church Mother's Day received more attention than Easter.  I'm sure most churches do better than that, but I'm equally sure that in many churches, at least in the United States, yesterday received more honor as Mother's Day than as Pentecost.  We celebrated both, making the Christian festival primary, but not disdaining the secular celebration.  I like the way our rector mitigates the other problem with Mother's Day celebrations, the pain they cause women suffering from infertility, by asking to stand first all great-grandmothers, then all grandmothers, then all mothers, then all daughters, till all the women of the congregation are standing, and all the men of the church pray for us.  Still, the main focus was Pentecost, and we even had a baptism to go with it.  We sang a lively and appropriate anthem by Pepper Choplin called Fill-a Me Up! for two services, though we sneaked out of the second service after the anthem to get in a few minutes of our Sunday school class.  Unfortunately, the anthem is sung after the sermon; good as the sermon was, I'd happily have skipped the second hearing to have attended more of the class, but the memory is still too strong of one occasion in which the normally long-winded preacher (in a different church) drastically and inexplicably cut short his sermon.  We didn't want to risk not returning in time. (More)

As my father would say, we were sloppin' up culture like a hawg yesterday.  (I believe the reference was to a L'il Abner comic strip, although it may have been Pogo.)  It all started when the Orlando Magic (local basketball team) advanced to the playoffs, thereby causing a parking problem for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra concert since the Bob Carr Auditorium and the O-rena (it keeps changing its name based on sponsorship, so since I can't keep track of it I generally call it by its original appellation) share parking facilities.

In order to help alleviate the problem, the OPO delayed its concert by half an hour.  We figured that still wasn't going to be good enough, since one never knows how long a basketball game is going to last, so we decided to expand the evening. (More)

The end month of Porter's recent gig was very stressful, with lots of pressure and 80+ hour work weeks.  My father often said that his favorite Bible quotation was "And it came to pass...."  This, too, has passed at last, and we have survived.  Many thanks to those of you who upheld Porter in your prayers.

If anyone wants a measure of how stressful the time was, I need only say that he has spent several days recently working on replacing a neighbor's roof, and some of you remember that two years ago—after replacing ours—he said he'd never, ever do that again. But this is how he chooses to relax these days, finding the physical work a delightful change.

So, onward!  Two days in Roanoke, then who knows?  It's always an adventure. 

When I was in Pittsburgh, we bought some dried pineapple at Trader Joe's, and it was very, very good!  Thus when I saw the same at my local health food store, I snapped it up.  Did I say it was the same?  Not.  Even thought the label did not mention added sugar, this pineapple must have been sweetened, as is the dried pineapple I can buy at the grocery store.  Yuck.  I couldn't eat it, so I cooked it with some dried apricots to make a fruit topping for my breafast muesli.

Not to be defeated, however, I set about making my own dried pineapple out of canned pieces (rings work best) heated in a low-temperature oven.  Voila!  Wonderful!  Delicious!  The only trouble is that a can of pineapple shrinks to something so small—and so tasty—one could easily devour an entire batch in one sitting.  (One didn't, but it was a close thing.)

The acoustics in our house are such that the sound from the television is loudest in every room except the one in which the TV resides.  Perhaps that is not literally true, but to those trying to work or sleep while someone else watches television, it certainly seems that way.  Hence our joy when Porter's "thank you award" came from IBM:  a set of wireless headphones.

Fortunately, there was no need to understand in detail the instructions, which contained several gems.

This wireless headphone is worked based on optical-electricity transition.

Well, of course.  What else would it be worked based on?

As dictated, unedited, while Mom, Dad, and Noah were napping.

There was a bear.  And then he started hunting.  Then the bear found a fox.  And the fox started scratching the bear.  And the bear could not beat the fox.  The fox started wildly jumping and kicking and swinging its tail around wildly. (More)

That's what we did this morning.  We arrived at the Pittsburgh Zoo with a crab and left with a jellyfish, but in between Jonathan was a perfect little boy, just the right age to delight in all the exhibits.  He could identify many of the fish as well as the animals, and explained to me—thanks to a Magic Schoolbus book that's currently one of his favorites—that the clownfish can live inside the sea anemone because it's covered with mucus which protects it from the anemone's sting.

Noah, on the other hand, could take or leave the animals.  What fascinated him was everything mechanical:   the big power cords at the entrance, the lights along the walkway, a child-proof outlet cover (which he promptly removed, then replaced when asked), emergency exit doors, a machine that made bubbles, and anything else with buttons, cords, switches, lights, or moving parts.  This is the same child who won't talk, but eloquently asks me several times a day if he can record his voice on my computer.  What he really wants to do is plug the headphone and microphone cords into the computer.  The headset was one of the first things he helped me unpack, and he grinned delightedly when he discovered the plugs, then pointed to the computer, which, incidentally, was still closed up and anonymous-looking.  He quickly found the jacks, and needed only a little guidance to make sure the plugs were going in straight.  (To be truthful, that was my paranoia; he could have done it all on his own, but I was a little nervous.)  One lesson in pink-to-red, black-to-green was sufficient; he's done it correctly ever since.  First thing this morning he came excitedly into my room, big grin on his face, running straight to...Grandma?  No, Grandma's computer.

I accept the challenge from Liz; the subject intrigues me.  What things are always found in your refrigerator?   I'll skip the "normal" (milk, eggs, ketchup) and list ten items that are nearly always in stock but might make our refrigerator unique, at least in combination. (More)

Last year when we went to Switzerland we tried several new Swiss dishes, but somehow missed raclette.  To make up for it, this trip we ate raclette four times, and lest you think we tired of it, we were inspired to purchase our own raclette set.

I call it our Swiss souvenir, though in point of fact I bought it from Amazon.com, in order to get one that didn't need a power and plug converter, and to save carrying it home.  Although this is a Swiss appliance (manufactured, alas, in China), it appears to have been super-sized for the American market:  the little pans are perhaps twice the size I was expecting.

Friday night we had our first raclette party, and though there are some modifications I would make next time, it went well.  I found raclette cheese at Whole Foods, but it was French raclette cheese, which may explain why it was softer and not quite as flavorful as that which we ate in Switzerland.  No matter; we spiced it up with the raclette spice and seasoned sea salt that did make the journey from Basel to Florida in my suitcase.

The cool thing about raclette is that, like fondue, it is a community cooking experience.  There's a bit of preparation involved, but the actual cooking is done by the guests as you all converse companionably around the dinner table.  Each person places a slice of cheese in his little pan and sets it under the grill to heat.  When the cheese is melted and bubbly, he  scrapes it out onto small, boiled potatoes (okay, so that part of the cooking is done in advance), seasons the mixture, and then digs in.  Accompaniments are traditionally pickled onions and cornichons.  (We substituted baby dills for the latter.)  One of our Swiss hosts cooked bulgoki on the top part of the grill, which was delicious.  I wasn't that ambitious, but did use the top of the grill to cook marinated green beans and mushrooms.

Dessert, of course, was Swiss chocolate.

Happy Palm Sunday, one and all!  The choir sang for two services today, so we had double the fun.  Those of you who live up north are really missing a treat—real, whole palm branches, and all the better if you whacked yours off one of the palms in your backyard last night, as we did.  :)  We started the service outdoors, and then the whole congregation processed around the church singing All Glory, Laud and Honor (Episcopal Hymnal chorus/verse version), led by the rector with his guitar, and through some miracle and a little help from modern technology we were actually together and in the same key as the piano and organ when we entered the church.

The rest of the service was good, though not quite what I would have liked.  I prefer Palm Sunday to be Palm Sunday, but often, as it was today, it is celebrated as Palm/Passion Sunday, because so many people don't attend the midweek Holy Week services.  Doing that, you pass from the Triumphal Entry to the Resurrection without having passed through the Last Supper, Gesthemene, and the Crucifixion, which is a rather significant omission.  So we give Palm Sunday short shrift as a concession to the reality of modern living.  Sigh.  But it was good, anyway, and although the framework was the same in both services, they were different enough to keep the second from feeling like a repeat:  one was Rite I, the other Rite II, and there were even two different sermons.

I hope your experiences today were as good! 

One of the strangest and most difficult aspects of interacting with other people is discovering those areas which you consider to be so basic, so foundational, so obvious that you don't even think about them—until you run up against someone for whom they are not basic, and maybe not even important.

For me one of those givens is that you don't take food from a common dish and then put it back, and if your hands touch something on a common plate you take it, even if you didn't mean to.  Thus I find it particularly unnerving to watch at church potlucks, or <shudder> restaurant buffet bars, as folks violate those maxims repeatedly and egregiously, with no consideration for those behind them in line.  I'm not speaking particularly of children here; the adults are just as likely, sometimes more so, to be the offenders.

This raises two questions:  Is this really a matter of fundamental hygiene and common courtesy, or merely a particular, culture-specific custom?  I do hope not the latter, or I may have to stop eating away from home.

and

What are the habits that seem perfectly normal and natural to me, yet cause in others the stomach-turning reaction I experienced this morning?