Lift Up Your Hearts!

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?

Since—ta da!—we expect our fourth grandchild in October , and since choosing a baby's name has an aura of sacrament in the Daley household, and since others have already begun making positive suggestions, I hereby offer an article on baby names not to use.

Ancestry.com's Bad Baby Names on the Brain features the book, Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With—And Now You Can Too!  I don't know if the article is open to the public or requires a subscription; in case of the latter, I present just a few of the 2,000 or so names, culled from census data, that I would rather not use when speaking of our newest grandchild:  Title Page, Magenta Flamingo, Ghoul Nipple, Mann Pigg, Mary A. Belcher, Deuteronomy Temple, Hell Grimes, Lucifer Carmendo, Sandwich Green, Mayo Head, Tuna Fish, Fanny Pack, Major Nutt, Warren Peace.  Some people have no imagination; names like Octavio and Quintin clearly indicate birth order (though the one present-day Octavio I know is an only child; go figure), but the authors also found, as first names, "every number from one to twenty, by tens to a hundred, and thousand, million, billion, and infinity."  I know our Puritan ancestors were fond of naming their children after virtues (Love, Prudence, Patience, Charity, Endurance), and sometimes after circumstances associated with their lives (Fear, Wrestling), but who would name a child Lust, Wrath, Greed, Avarice, Envy, Sloth, Wrath, or Pride?

Take a moment and be thankful for your parents' wisdom.  Even if you've always hated your name, you now know it could have been much, much worse. 

I've known the Agony of Defeat often enough when it comes to the sport of e-mail balancing, but today I glory in a victory:  My Inbox is empty.

That's rare enough, but not enough to merit a blog post.  Although it seems to balloon to over 100 e-mails with unconscionable ease, and sad to say even 300 if I blink, I can usually whack it down to manageable size, even briefly zero, with a little sustained effort.  And some cheating. (More)

I had hoped to bring you video of tonight's launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.  Night launches are rare and beautiful.  However, although Endeavour had a successful launch, my view was completely obscured by a generally-overcast sky.  So my best view was the same as yours:  that provided by the television cameras.  Only I'll bet none of you were actually up at this hour watching.  I wouldn't have awakened just to see it on TV, but any launch is worth seeing, and even the chance of a night launch is worth arising for.

It was almost worth getting up to see another phenomenon:  twilight at 2 a.m.  The clouds were low and reflected back so much city light that I could have been excused for thinking I'd wandered into the Land of the Midnight Sun...were it not for the 62-degree temperature.

As Janet has mentioned (in her comment on My Lenten Disciplines), nothing sends me to sleep faster than staring at the television set:  broadcast show, DVD movie, or even a Teaching Company lecture that I'm particularly interested in seeing, it matters not.  There's something about the experience that triggers the sleep reflex in me.  Oddly, it's a particularly pleasant sleep, too—perhaps it hearkens back to childhood days of drifting off to the incomprehensible yet comforting sound of adult voices.  Thus I couldn't help noticing when two consecutive comics (Baldo and Hi and Lois) in my morning routine hit that nerve.

For those of you who don't read Heather and Jon's blog, I can't resist posting this view of life through the eyes of a four-year-old living in a geek house in this new century:

We happened to get two pictures in the mail, and Jonathan was holding them and looking at them. Then he piped up, "How do you get pictures to look like this?" Like what? This is a 21st century boy—he meant how do they get on paper.

It's another one of those things I lived without just fine, thank you, though now I wonder why I waited so long.  Blame an outdated sense of the cost of webcams; I never imagined I could buy one for under $100, much less under $30.  But thanks to Stephan, Janet, and Best Buy, I'm all set.

It has been great to be able to see Janet when I talk with her, as well as for her to be able to initiate phone calls.  Now I'm having double the fun (or five times as much, depending on how you calculate it) because another of my favorite families has joined the video Skype crowd.  I'm sure the excitement will wear off after a while, but for now I'm enjoying lots of smiles, hugs, I-love-yous, what's-happening-now, and best of all those dear faces and voices.  I love to get those quick little text messages that say things like "Hi! I finished my math and am now going to do writing," with plenty of music note and hugging teddy bear emoticons.

And this morning?  This morning I was the delighted one-person, long-distance audience for a cello concert!

Now here's something we don't see every day.  In fact, this is the first time.  I looked out the front window, saw a flock of ibis (or ibises if you prefer) standing around on our street!

  

Then they started marching.

Our neighbor, who is reroofing his house, made a sudden noise, and they flew off.

(As usual, click on the preview pictures for a larger view, and click on the links to see the videos.) 

I am on an Andrew Pudewa kick.  I first discovered his Institute for Excellence in Writing through an online forum for early childhood education, and—as usual—once I'd heard of him, his name started coming to my attention in other ways.  A friend of ours is the principal of a private Christian school which emphasizes academic excellence as well as a solid Christian worldview, and she and her teachers waxed so enthusiastic about his program for teaching writing that she even sent me a sample videotape of one of his lectures.  It didn't take me long to get hooked.  For the first three minutes, I found Pudewa's voice to be annoying; after that I was so intrigued by what he was saying and how he was presenting it that it didn't matter.

Now I'm not averse to spending money on educational materials for our grandkids, but they're not yet old enough for the writing materials, which are a bit pricey to buy on speculation, especially since there might well be a subsequent edition or two by the time they would be used.  Fortunately for my curiosity, one of our favorite homeschooling families was impressed enough to try it out, and I'm looking forward to hearing about their experiences. (More)

I love the season of Lent.  Not only because of all the great hymns associated with it, but because of the new possibilities it opens up.  At face value, idea of giving something up for Lent is a negative one, and a rather poor picture of the one at whose "right hand are pleasures forevermore."  Whether we observe Lent by abstention from something pleasurable, or by some positive action, I believe God's purpose in the exercise is to unshackle us from old habits and open our hearts to something new and better.

Thus I have at different times celebrated Lent in various ways, from a more traditional fasting from sweets to "fasting" from making negative comments (harder than you think!) to making myself listen daily to a genre of music I dislike ("praise and worship songs") to listing, at the close of every day, five things for which I was thankful (a lovely exercise).  Lenten disciplines are much more fun than New Year's resolutions, because you only commit yourself from Ash Wednesday till Easter.  Thus it's easier to experiment, to be more daring, to test new ideas and practices.  (More)

We've heard the story for years, how Grandma's cousin was captain of an icebreaker and had a place in Antarctica named for him.  But is it Truth or Tapioca?  Thanks to the Australian Antarctic Data Center and the U.S.G.S. Geographic Names Information System, we now have Evidence! (Click here for an interactive map.)

Feature Name:	Porters Pinnacles
Class:	Island
Latitude:	713300S
Longitude:	0990900W
Description:	A group of low ice-covered rocks forming a menace to navigation along the N coast of Thurston Island, located about 4 mi N of the E extremity of Glacier Bight. Discovered by the USN Bellingshausen Sea Expedition in February 1960, and named for Cdr. Philip W. Porter, Jr., USN, commander of the icebreaker USS Glacier which made this discovery.

After spending a much longer time than planned in Daytona Beach (see Part 1), I began the return drive with a great longing for home, a simple meal, a cup of hot tea, and something indulgent in the way of mental activity.  I did get them all, eventually, though much later than planned.

I was nearly to Sanford when the car suddenly bucked; I can't think of a better word to describe it.  It continued to drive without apparent difficulty, but with a rather strained noise apparently coming from the engine.  At that point I realized that, though it's possible I might have been able to drive home, (1) I could be doing damage to the car that would make repair impossible or at least significantly more expensive, and (2) if I pulled over soon there was room to get well off the road, whereas if I continued further towards the city I might break down on a bridge, or in some other difficult spot—and in rush-hour traffic.  So I pulled off onto the grass and noted that the engine sounded fine as long as I wasn't moving.  Reluctantly, I turned the engine off, not knowing if it would start again, though it didn't matter because I'd already made the decision to call AAA. (More)

The day began with the sound of the alarm at 4:45 a.m.  Normally I don't have trouble awakening in the morning, even at that hour, but for some reason it was hard this time, which perhaps signaled what the rest of the day had in store.

I exaggerate a bit.  It could have been much worse. (More)

Orlando set a record low high yesterday, meaning the high of 49 degrees was the lowest ever recorded for January 2.  A hard freeze was forcast for last night (mid to upper 20's for several hours) so we took the standard precautions:  covered the plants (with their precious tomatoes, peppers, and new blossoms), turned the pool pump on, set the outside faucets on trickle, and set the recycled water to spray the grapefruit tree.  (Let me tell you, the water which I would have otherwise called very cold felt positively tropical on my hands, compared with the air.)  It must not have been as bad as predicted, however, because the temperature on our back porch was a hair over 40 degrees at 5:30 this morning.  The plants seem to have survived, even though there were spectacular icicles on the grapefruit tree through most of the morning.

I've been making soup stock, enjoying the peculiar situation in which I can have the oven and stove on for hours and not make any obvious difference in the warmth of the kitchen.  Soup-making is a cold-weather sport, and this has been our first opportunity this year to enjoy it.