The main thing I wanted to get accomplished before I went to work today was to get my car to the shop. I have been driving with one working headlight for far longer than I should and it was time for an oil change. The garage I use is next to a Dunkin’ Donuts, so…
We woke up this morning to a beautiful blue sky. Gracie woke me at 6:30 to make sure I got to see as much of the day as possible. Ginger and I ate breakfast together and then she left for work. I came upstairs to check email and could feel the gathering gloom. Sunshine or…
Last night at youth group, one of the folks in the Hanover church made a special trip to the parish hall to bring me a book she thought I would like based on my last sermon: Invisible Lines of Connection by Lawrence Kushner. I sat down with it this morning and read this paragraph: The…
When Ginger wrote for her sabbatical grant, one of the things the Lilly Endowment encouraged her to include in her budget were monies for a Send Off Party and a Welcome Back Party. I volunteered to be the chef for the gatherings. We had the first party today, even though next Sunday is her last…
I got to participate in my first Portuguese pun today. Robert, the chef, likes to say, “Obrigado too much” when he wants to thank one of the Brazilian folks for helping him with something. It caught on with all of us, so you hear it a lot in our kitchen. Thelma came up with the…
Today has been a hard day, not because of anything that happened as much as reality is setting in: I’m in a downward spiral and I can’t seem to stop it. For reasons I don’t understand, I’m depressed again. I had one particularly strange moment tonight. Friday is one of my full days at the…
I was supposed to go bowling this evening. Bowling in New England is unlike bowling anywhere else, unless you happen to be in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Up here, we call it candlepin, which means – well, here’s how they describe it at Boutwell’s Bowling Center in Concord, New Hampshire: Candlepin bowling unique to New…
We’ve had a run of beautiful early spring days that have lifted all of our spirits and made us think winter was gone, at least for this year. It’s a lie. I’m sitting in my office watching the flying saucer sized snowflakes swirl around, taunting the Schnauzers and me: there will be no walk to…
Tomorrow (Wednesday) at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. It will never happen again. The moment I’m waiting for is twelve minutes and twelve seconds after either noon or midnight on December 12 (my birthday) in 2012: 12:12:12 12/12/12. This afternoon, I drove…
Saturday AOL played an April Fools joke on me. Besides posting here, I send my Lenten Journal to a number of folks by email. I had it all typed and ready to send, hit the button and got a message in return that told me to go to KW: RATE LIMITS. I typed the phrase…