Sick of snow
I know some smart and funny people. My friend Bob, who lives in Washington, D.C., wrote this delightful ode to snow. Thanks, Bob! I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Oh, the weather outside is flaky,
And my nerves are kinda shaky,
And since I’ve no place to go,
I am so sick and tired of the snow!
It doesn’t show signs of warming,
And the drifts are slowly forming,
The temperature’s way down low,
And I’m so sick and tired of the snow!
When I’ve shoveled it all at last,
And the driveway is finally clear,
The plow once again comes past,
Piling it all up to here!
It’s certainly not too pleasing
When melted snow’s refreezing,
And I really want you to know:
I am so @&#^ sick of the snow!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You think you’re driving anywhere tonight? Ha!
Crazy snow drift from the last storm.
Posted by Becky @
5:50 am |
Blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see
Morning parhelion, er, sun dog. Woof.
Posted by Becky @
10:28 am |
I can’t make it on my own, drive me home
This is what it was like driving in a blizzard a few hours ago. Visibility now is even less, I’m sure, and the driveway is completely drifted shut. (Well, that, and it’s getting dark.) Better get out there and start clearing. If my count is right, this is Blizzard No. 5.
Posted by Becky @
5:36 pm |
Rocking pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu
I just moved my mini-pharmacy from the kitchen back to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I hope I didn’t jinx anything.
Posted by Becky @
5:09 pm |
I can’t remember what I said, I lost my head
This is what happens when the temperatures hit 30 degrees or so for a few days. (That’s the snowman’s carrot nose on the ground beside him.) It’s not like spring is here or anything. Just a mid-winter “heat wave” to make things all messy. The weather forecast calls for lower temperatures and more snow and ice.
Posted by Becky @
3:42 pm |
Books: An Ocean in Iowa
I just finished reading An Ocean in Iowa: A Novel by Peter Hedges, an Iowa author. (He also wrote What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.) It’s about a year in the life of 7-year-old Scotty Ocean. As I read the last word in the book, I just wanted to gather Scotty in my arms and give him a big hug. I can’t do that, so I’ll go hug my own 7-year-old boy.
Posted by Becky @
12:17 pm |
Children’s books about deployment
This is for Connie Schultz. She recently wrote about hearing a customer in a bookstore ask about books for children whose parents get deployed. The customer was turned away with none to be found. This is also for that bookstore, that customer and anyone else who might be looking for similar books.
Some great sources
Posted by Becky @
4:08 pm |
Books: Gilead
I’ve recently been told that I don’t deserve what I have.
Standing right behind that, I believe, is a condemnation that I don’t practice religion the way I “should.”
I have heard any number of fine sermons in my life, and I have known any number of deep souls. I am well aware that people find fault, but it seems to me to be presumptuous to judge the authenticity of anyone’s religion, except one’s own. And that is also presumptuous. (p. 173)
This has prompted a lot of self-reflecting and a search for understanding on my part. That search has led me to realize some very important things about the wretchedness of cruelty people visit on each other. It’s so difficult to see the good in others when one only looks for faults.
Let me say first of all that the grace of God is sufficient to any transgression, and that to judge is wrong, the origin and essence of much error and cruelty. (p. 155)
While all this happens, I read a book called Gilead. It’s written by Marilynne Robinson, an Iowa author. In the book, a kind, gentle, old man — a preacher — writes a last letter to his young son. Unintentionally, he also speaks to me when I am in desperate need of kind words.
When I read books is almost as important as what books I read. Reading is not just about content but also context, and it’s not just the context of the words in the books. It’s the context of my life. Seemingly unrelated books I read in sequence often fit together in unforseen ways. I often find myself reading a book at a time when I need those stories or information most because of what’s happening in my life.
It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he’s right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
And so it is with the old man in Gilead. He’s taking stock, looking back on his own life and looking ahead to his son’s life without him. He’s trying to tell his son what’s important. In doing so, he speaks to several things that have been on my mind lately — understanding the differences of others without mocking or ridiculing the very essence of who they are.
In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable — which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. (p. 197)
Some people believe the only way to hear the voice of God is to sit in a church or cathedral and listen to the voice of someone who preaches.
I hear the voice of God in a brilliant sunrise.
I hear it when I look into the depths of my husband’s or my children’s eyes.
You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years.
And I hear it in the words of books I read.
Posted by Becky @
12:03 am |
