Lift Up Your Hearts!

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.

Lent came late for me this year.  At its beginning we were in Switzerland visiting Janet, and Mark 2:19 seemed applicable.  For another, even after we returned there was nothing that seemed right to do.  Until now.

About a month ago I read French Women Don't Get Fat; I found it only moderately interesting, but if all I take from it is the author's baguette recipe I am still much the richer.  (Side note: I have a friend who is gifted with the ability to make an excellent summary of the important points in a book.  The down side of this is that I'm usually disappointed when I read a book she has recommended, because I'm expecting more but have already received most of what's there.  It happened with The Power of Full Engagement, and again with this book.)  One of the author's suggestions, which I've heard before, is to keep a food diary, in which one writes down everthing eaten over a period of several days or even weeks.  Similarly, Randy Pausch's lecture on Time Management strongly suggests keeping a time log, for thirty days, chronicling how one's time is spent—for every 15-minute interval!  If the food diary seems daunting, this seems downright impossible.  We're talking about someone who is woefully behind in her personal journal, and unaccountably uninspired to do better.  I can't do this!  It's crazy.  It would require...um...discipline!  Ah, ha!  And look, thirty days brings me right up to Easter.

So I'm attempting both:  keeping logs of both food and time.  You needn't worry that I'll share the details here—for both my sake and yours I'll limit myself to general observations.  One thing I've learned already is that I'm a compulsive multitasker.  I like to read while I eat, work while I'm talking on the phone, scan photos while IM-ing, and write (mentally) while doing almost anything else.  (One reason I don't care for watching television and movies is that I don't knit and there's not much else you can do effectively at the same time.)  Even my 15-minute segments often have X's in two or more boxes!   This may be a natural part of my personality, but I'm also convinced it's a learned behavior, a consequence of my career as wife/mother/homemaker.  Is there any other job more prone to constant interruptions?  Children, of course, but also husbands, friends, neighbors, telephones, and boiling-over pots are all prone to demanding frequent attention—and right now!  Before long, the ability to string two thoughts together is in jeopardy, and one loses the habit of concentrating on one task alone.  Of course, being available when needed is part of the job description, but perhaps we allow it to be taken too far.

The ability to multitask is a useful one, to be sure.  To be able to fit more than one activity into the same time slot enables us to accomplish more, and this is no small achievement.  But it's also true, I'm afraid, that we're likely to do neither activity as well as we could if only we'd give it our full attention.  And perhaps our enjoyment is less, also.  In many cases that may be okay, and "good enough is better than perfect."  But the problem is worth considering.

And at this point, just considering.  The purpose of these Lenten exercises is not change, but observation only.  Change may come later, but it's going to be quite enough at the moment just to write things down!

One other thing I (re)discovered is my perfectionism.  I wasted too much time trying to design the "right" log templates.  It's harder than it sounds to come up with the right categories and labels and deliniations!  But you know what I discovered?  It doesn't matter.  I finally started with very basic logs, almost blank, and have discovered that they are designing themselves as I go along.

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.

While I was still on the phone, a truck with flashing lights pulled up behind me.  Thanks to the AAA lady, I felt free to roll down my window and speak with the Road Ranger. I had no idea Florida provided this service.  The Road Rangers constantly patrol major highways, looking for motorists in trouble, and offer simple help such as changing tires, providing gasoline and water, and making phone calls—all for no charge.  Since AAA was sending a tow truck, I needed none of these services, but gladly accepted his offer to stay with me until the truck came. Since that turned out to be more than an hour, and the day turned from dusk to night, and I was a woman travelling alone, I was especially grateful.  The Ranger was friendly and interesting to chat with.  I knew he was one of that rare species, and Florida native, from the way he pronounced "Deland":  DEE-land, not Duh-LAND.  He could have made a commercial for AAA, saying that in his business he's discovered just how valuable their services are.  They are safer and more dependable, in his experience, than competing services, and just one incident can pay for the year's membership.

I was certainly grateful for our AAA membership, even though my call took over an hour to bear fruit, despite being given priority status due to my position on the side of a major Interstate, and even though my clearly-stated report of my position (the Ranger bore me witness) was lost in translation so the tow truck wasted 15 minutes by looking for me in the wrong place.  I had expected to have the car taken to our mechanic, then to get home somehow; at least the late hour meant a better choice of friends to call for assistance.  Insead, the AAA person suggested what she called a "continuous tow," which meant having the car (and me) taken home, then calling AAA again in the morning and having the car taken to the mechanic then.  A much better idea, especially since it only counts as one service call.

So I arrived home, albeit several hours later than planned.  There's nothing to complain about, really:  I'm thankful that I was able to control the car and drive it to a safe place; for having a fully charged cell phone (I'd thought in the morning that charging it would be unnecessary, but decided to do it anyway, "just in case"); for our AAA membership; and for the prompt and friendly Road Ranger.  And one more thing:  Remember the desire, mentioned above, for something indulgent in the way of mental activity?  The day's mail brought the latest World of Puzzles magazine....

Despite having started the day at 4:45, it was well after 11 p.m. before I made it to bed, partly because of my puzzle indulgence, and partly because there were a few things that just had to be done, no matter how exhausted I felt. 

This morning, as planned, AAA took the car to Blue Book.  That worked smoothly, but Jim's call soon confirmed my fears.  Superficially things looked fine, but a test drive revealed the bad news:  Our darling Geo Prizm had transmission failure, repair cost estimate of $1200-$1500, more if the differential is also involved. "If you can't afford to buy a new car, sure, we'll fix it—but I recommend against it.  A $400 repair every six months or a year is cheap rent, but when you get a single repair that's worth more than the value of the car...."  Why did this happen?  "Bad luck and old age."  He's only seen the problem once before, on another Toyota from the late 80s or early 90s.

I firmly believe in the adage, "Love people, use things."  The car was 16 years old (ours for 10 of those), with high mileage (well over 100,000 miles; I'll look up the number when I go tomorrow to clean it out), and has owed us nothing for quite a while.  It seems particularly petty to mourn its loss when still in mouring for the loss of a person.  Nonetheless, I did love that little car.  It was small, handy, nice to drive, and has many memories associated with it—and I tend to be a sentimental person.  Not to mention the fact that I hate car shopping!  And all the time and decisions and phone calls and paperwork associated with it. 

R.I.P., little car.  You carried us well through many years and states. 

It's just as well Heather and Jon's next automotive need will be for a van, since we managed to finish this one off before passing it on.  The air conditioning still works, too! 

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.

The predawn drive to the airport went well, and I had a few hours to try to tackle the work that piled up over a very busy weekend.  Okay, let's be honest; there's plenty of work still piled up from end-of-the-year days spent enjoying myself out of town, not to mention all that comes with setting up a new computer...but that which accrued over the weekend would have been sufficient.

The main even of the day, or so I thought, was attendance at the interment of my aunt.  (Funeral-related activities were part of what had made an already-busy weekend seem a bit stretched.)  This required a drive to Daytona Beach, so I decided to go early and take advantage of the fact that the library, with its genealogical resources,  is less than 10 minutes away from the cemetery.  I didn't make any finds of note, but did get to know its resources a little better.

It was a lovely day, sunny and cool, and the ceremony was brief.  The grief that always accompanies loss was mitigated by a number of factors: my aunt was less than a month shy of her 90th birthday, had lived a long and satisfying life, and was sure of her hope of heaven; my cousins had the burden of all the arrangements; and best of all it was an reason to get together with people whom we don't see often enough, including some we seem to be in the habit of seeing only every 19 years.  The fact that they live in Costa Rica is no excuse for people who seem to have recently developed the habit of travelling the world to visit family.  Compared with Japan and Switzerland, Costa Rica is practically next door.

It seems odd to say that the day went downhill from there, but it did.  First was negotiations with the cemetery people over gravestones.  This particular cemetery is under new management, the previous owner now being incarcerated himself, not in a tomb but in a prison cell, due to certain business irregularities such as misplaced bodies.  Apparently two of the missing ones ended up in our family plot.  There must be few things more disconcerting than getting such a call from the cemetery:  "We're terribly sorry, but we won't be able to bury your loved one in her own grave, next to her husband, as planned; our investigations have revealed that that spot is already occupied."  A solution was found—there was an empty spot nearby—but one can only hope that the new management is doing a better job.

I was part of the gravestone meeting because my mother is buried there (I hope!) and there is a spot reserved for my father (free of other bodies; they checked), and we are trying to clean up the mess the previous owners made of everything—stones broken or missing, not to mention the extra, unknown bodies (not just one but two were found).  All in all it was a very distasteful process.  Perhaps they hope not to scare people away by the large price tag, but I think it was worse to have it come piecemeal.  $2300 for this, $1300 for that, $600 here, another $600 there, every time we turned or asked another question there was another fee.  And the rules!  A casket or urn is not sufficient; each must be put, not directly into the ground, but into a buried vault.  The vault is labelled and sealed, so perhaps the hope is to avoid further misplacement of bodies, but it does conjure up the image of Yucca Mountain more than peaceful decay and reintegration with the elements of the earth.

Thanks to my genealogy work, I have a newly-acquired appreciation for gravestones and the information inscribed thereon,  and as I have grown older, I've come to understand the value of symbols.  Our loved ones can be (and are) remembered and honored anywhere, but it is good to have a particular place where those activities are focused.  Nonetheless, this day's activities have me leaning more than ever towards having my name inscribed on the existing monument (in a different cemetery) and my ashes scattered if they can't be buried in something more permeable than a heavy metal vault.  In any case I see the value of making such decisions, if possible, before they are dumped on our heirs.

This day was long enough I think it deserves to be split into two posts.... 

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. 

I'll write in further detail about my wonderful Christmas present from Porter, the outcome of the debate detailed in this post.  But while reading the Safety and Warranty Guide for my new computer, I came upon this admonition and could go no further without reporting it:

Do not operate your computer inside furniture, as this might increase the risk of overheating. 

My mind boggled trying to imagine what piece of furniture I might wish to be inside, even if I could imagine how to get there.  I finally decided this must be a very generic booklet that doesn't realize this is a laptop computer—after all, it did also tell me to keep the cover closed whenever the computer is plugged in.

Porter, of course, is amazed that I am actually reading the booklets—well, most of them.  I'm skipping some of the more boring details, and the parts that are in French.  I did observe that a "Notice for users in the U.S.A." warns, "Handling the cord on this product or cords associated with accessories sold with this product will expose you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or other reproductive harm.  Wash hands after handling."  Users in other countries are safe, one could conclude.  The computer was manufactured in China, so maybe there's some truth behind a friend's joking remark that China is sending us lead-painted toys as part of a secret military effort to impair our children's brains. 

Okay, back to reading. I do miss the days when computers were shipped with several thick manuals one could curl up with before turning them on, but I'll have to do so soon because most of the manual appears to be located on the hard drive, which is kind of hard to curl up with. Especially inside furniture.

You haven't lived until you've been awakened at precisely 6:30 Christmas morning to the glorious strains of O Come, All Ye Faithful on the clarinet just outside your bedroom door!  And very nicely played I must say.

I watched Santa fly over Austria and Germany, so I assume he made his deliveries in Switzerland  already; it will be CHristmas in CH in less than an hour.

We're listening to Irish music here, which makes me happy and sad at the same time.  Soon we'll have a great fondue dinner and then go to church before returning for dessert fondue and hanging our stockings.  We just finished making dream cookies to leave for Santa, along with carrots for the reindeer.

Janet, here's a genuine, real, just for you, Christmas hug from T!  [[[[[[[Janet]]]]]]]

We love and miss you so much!   (Along with all the other loved ones we aren't with this Christmas.)

They say trying new things keeps your mind young.  I should be in good shape, having recently ventured into two areas I was sure I'd never touch, finding them useless at best.  One is Facebook, which I had classed—along with MySpace and LifeJournal—as boring, yet time-wasting websites for teenaged girls to gossip and bully each other, and for sexual predators to troll for victims.  But Janet was invited to join by her oboe professor, so how could she say no?  Then she had so much fun finding people with whom she'd lost contact that I decided to see what it was all about.

No doubt it is a good place for teenaged bullying and dangerous liasons, but it doesn't have to be, and I've been surprised at how many friends I've found or been found by already.  I love sending Christmas letters, because it keeps us in contact with friends whose lives for the most part no longer intersect with ours.  I sense that this logic has no appeal to the Facebook generation, which may never lose that contact.  Perhaps the greatest danger (predators and bullies aside) is in being overwhelmed by trivial, shallow contact.  The signal-to-noise ratio is rather poor.  At least in a Christmas letter one is forced by space limitations to keep to the more important issues.

I've been enjoying my Facebook experience so far, mostly for the contacts I've made with people.  It will never replace this blog—I haven't yet figured out how to say something of substance there; I'm sure there's a way, but it's not obvious.  And I doubt I'll get into many of the "applications" that abound; most seem like silly time-wasters to me.  But so far it's been a good experience.

So, too, with my venture into another young persons' game:  SMS, aka texting, aka sending text messages via my cell phone.  I never saw the point, prefering either direct phone calls (faster, easier, clearer) or e-mails (definitely easier to type).  But then Janet discovered that she can receive SMS's for free, and it suddenly became a great way to send her long-distance hugs.  Short messages that don't need to have much substance, but tell her I'm thinking of her.  I can send them when I'm away from my computer, and she doesn't have to wait to get home to her computer to receive them.  I'm funny about it, though.  I hate those texting abbreviations and refuse to send "u" for "you."  I'm slowly being weaned from my need always to start sentences with upper case letters and to include all proper punctuation; I'll let that slip and will even abbreviate some wrds whn im in a hrry.  But it pains me to do so, and thus I'm a very slow texter.  So what?  It still works for me.

However, today's Drabble was irresistable:

I have extracted this, completely out of context, from an e-mail in which it made total sense, because nonetheless it amused me. I can so sympathize with the sentiments it expresses, even though they weren't those of the writer.

I am not ready for Christmas. Not only in a secular, material sense (cards to be written, cookies to be bakes, presents to be bought, wrapped, and shipped), but spiritually. As one for whom Christmas has 12 days, and doesn't begin till December 25th, I know that we are now in Advent, that powerful, yet neglected, season of repentance and contemplation, of preparation and anticipation. I'm ready for Advent hymns, not Christmas carols.

Many of our friends are making a determined effort to celebrate Advent with their families. (See Simply Serena, Smithical, and Groshlink for some ideas.) I commend them and am impressed by their creativity. And yet I find myself unable to find the right balance between living in the world and living apart, of maintaining our differences while being part of the culture in which we live. To maintain Advent until Christmas Eve, as some do, seems unreasonable, if not impossible. For one thing, as choir members we have been singing about Christmas for weeks in rehearsal. Everywhere we look there are Christmas decorations, and soon there will be Christmas TV specials, Christmas parties, and Christmas music everywhere. If, Grinch-like, we refuse to celebrate, we appear surly to our neighbors, who will in turn be surly to us when we insist on playing Christmas music after noon on December 25th. Somehow it cuts the legs out from under the holiday, and flattens the joy.

So here I stand, one foot on sea and one on shore: I'll keep Advent as I can, and delight in being in a church that won't exchange its Advent purple for Christmas white till the night of December 24. But feel free to wish me a Merry Christmas, even now. ("Happy Advent" just doesn't sound right.) I know it won't be long before I allow our mp3 player to dip into the "Christmas" playlist. After all, when there is no hope of falling flakes to provide an atmosphere conducive to Christmas-card writing, one may be excused for taking stronger measures.

Hooray!  I love Advent!  And I love being home at our church where the season is recognized in all its glory, and we don't plunge suddenly into Christmas.  Purple is the order of the day, not red and green, and repentence and renewal more than celebration.  Heather, tell your paster I thought of him today, as we started the service by chanting the Great Litany.  I particularly like this beautiful, ancient prayer.

Is there anything one can't find on the Internet?

One of the reasons I like Advent is that, like Lent, we sing particularly good and meaningful hymns during this season.  The Sequence Hymn was and exercise in sight reading (The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns), but the Communion Hymn was the glorious O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and the Recessional was Rejoice! Rejoice, Believers."

Our choir director greeting us this morning with, "It's great to see you back.  Do you know we are singing today?"  Fortunately, it was not a difficult piece, and it's a good thing I'd actually rehearsed the alto line a time or two, as I turned out to be the only alto present.... 

Dear far away, liturgy-loving children:  I hope this comforts your hearts, and doesn't make you terribly homesick.

P.S. Our "for schools" prayers today included the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. :)

I've much to write about, but since I just returned from a lovely Thanksgiving+ visit with family and friends, and had a full day's work worth of travel today, I will begin with just a few random comments about my trip home.

Pittsburgh is a lovely airport to wait in:  they play soft classical music and real Christmas carols, without the accompaniment of blaring television sets.

If you print your USAirways boarding pass at home, the pass is printed twice on the page, with a dotted line between and instructions to "cut here."  If you do that, be careful which paper you pull out to show at the security checkpoint, because if you give the guard the one labelled "customer copy," she will make you hold up the line while you dig out the other one.  It seems logical to me to keep the one I'm going to need to get on the plane in a safe place, and use the other copy as the one I'm likely to drop and/or lose in the shuffle of coat, shoes, laptop, luggage, and clear plastic bag.  But the TSA doesn't agree.  At least not in Pittsburgh, at least not today.

The bus ride between the airport and the stop nearest home takes two hours during rush hour.  If one has a World of Puzzles magazine, the ride is no worse than the flight, though without the free drink and pretzels.

Ah, yes.  The free drink.  Usually I ask for tea or water, but since this time it was an ersatz lunch, I felt the need for something more substantial and nutritious.  So I asked for "spicy tomato juice," which sometimes gets me V8 and sometimes, like today, "Bloody Mary mix."  The attendant generously gave me the whole can, so I was able to check out the nutritional information on the label.  Sure enough, it promised to provide 25% of my daily requirement of vitamin A, and a few other good things, and for only 70 calories.  So far so good.  Then I notice the sodium level....   Nearly two grams!  As much as an entire 10-12 ounce bag of potato chips.  It tasted very good at first, but I couldn't finish it.  Since coming home I've been drinking lots of water and tea to try to flush some of that salt assault out of my system.

It's hot in Orlando!  The overly-air conditioned bus and the dark sky almost convinced me that it was cool outside, but not for long.  After the 30-minute walk home I had to resist the impulse to put on the A/C, but it was really only 70 degrees inside, so I just needed to change out of my jeans and long-sleeved turtleneck, which were much more appropriate for Pittsburgh's below-freezing temperatures than Orlando's 80 degrees.

Tomorrow I begin the assault on Mount Mail, Mount Laundry, and Mount All-That-Stuff-I've-Been-Avoiding-For-The-Past-Two-Weeks.  Um, well, not until after a visit to the dentist for a double-coronation ceremony.... 

Natsukashii!  There's no sound like it.  I had lost track of Discovery while out of town, but the familiar twin sonic booms as I was fixing lunch alerted me in time to turn on the television and watch the landing.

It had actually been quite a while since I'd heard that sound—even if the shuttle doesn't have to land in California, it sometimes takes a path other than one that goes over our part of the state.  This time it was quite subdued, though still obvious; at others it has been known to wake us from a deep sleep.

After a rainy day, the weather cleared in time to encourage the trick-or-treaters to come out.  We had more than usual and I was afraid we'd run out of Mounds bars, so a couple of times I gave out one each instead of two.  I needn't have been so parsimonious—the flow dried up at 9:00 as if someone had thrown a switch, and I turned out the porch light at 9:30.

It was a more pleasant group of people this year, too.  At least one, and usually all, in every group said "thank you"; only one, very young, asked, "Can I have more?"; most were young children escorted by parents; and the only group of older kids (middle school, I'd guess) had costumes and were polite.  Very encouraging.