Random Ramblings from me :)

Random Thoughts from Monday night

 

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

I drink alone, for no friend is near.

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For he, with my shadow, will make three men.

n      Chinese poet Li Po (701-762)

 

I’ve enjoyed having a glass of Maker’s Mark on the rocks before bed lately. While sitting outside sipping my drink this summer I will keep the above in mind. It’s certainly more poetic than the following by Crow T. Robot during an old episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000:

 

Life getting you down?

Headache pain?

Try booze.

 

See what I mean? Just doesn’t flow as nicely. <smile>

 

I watched the final episode of “Seventh Heaven” tonight. I used to watch it every week for it’s first six or seven seasons, but stopped watching around the time Matt and Sarah got married. It was a really good show, and ended up lasting ten years and 221 episodes. Tonight’s episode was not all that great, but I haven’t watched in a few years so perhaps it was limping towards the finish line for awhile, and needed to get off the air before they “jumped the shark.” But it was neat seeing how the kids you watched every Monday have grown up, and the flashbacks were heartwarming. The fadeout to Roy Orbison’s “You Got It” was a nice touch, too.

 

While watching this finale, I saw a promo for a new movie starring Sondra Bullock and Keaunu Reeves called The Lake House. It looks like a weeper, opening June 16. Also a nice counterpart to Over The Hedge which I’ve been looking forward to since first seeing the previews last year.

 

I recently finished my first Hemingway novel, A Farewell To Arms. While it was a good book to be sure, the story of Frederick and Catherine in Italy during World War I is likely one that I won’t fully appreciate for some time. Perhaps that’s where Hemingway’s greatness lies…it has to soak into you so that you fully absorb it after some time passes.

 

I am currently reading Mr. Blue, a book in the recently reissued Loyola Classics series. A short novel at 115 pages, Mr. Blue was written by Myles Connolly in 1928 as a modern-day story of a St. Francis of Assisi character. Connolly was a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work, specifically The Great Gatsby. J. Blue is an “anti-Gatsby” in a way, a peek at what would have become of Jay Gatsby if he had not been so intent upon affluence and the wooing of Daisy, but had used his money and his life to achieving a more selfless end. I am also beginning a book of collected poems of Robert Browning (1812-1889), whom I have never read, but have always wished to do so. I would have picked up my book of Yeats poetry, but it is for the moment sealed inside a bookcase downstairs, shielded from the dust generated by all of the basement remodeling by a plastic sheet taped over the shelves.

 

We visited the first weekend of the Farmer’s Market in the Haymarket here in Lincoln on Saturday. My main reason for going was to reconnect with an old friend from high school, Becki, who I called out of the blue two weeks ago to finally do some catching up. Becks has retired from teaching after seventeen years and has founded her own salsa company, Moody Girl Salsa, and was in a stand at the Market on this day. She’s in several stores in the Lincoln/Omaha area, but if you wish to sample a jar or two, you can also visit her website and order some for yourself. I highly recommend it, as while I love salsa, I am picky about it, and the two jars we bought on Saturday morning are already history, so a reorder (and soon) is on tap for this week. Do yourself a favor and pick up a few jars for the summer.

 

While at the Market one encounters many people with their dogs on a leash. I paused to chat with and kneel down to pet two of the dogs because they so closely resembled Fenway. It was the first time I had petted another animal since that final Saturday morning at the vet, and I can’t believe just how much I’ve missed that. Damn but I miss my dog.

 

Serendipitous moment of that morning: A man stopped in front of me and pointed at the Red Sox jersey I was wearing and said, “I was at Fenway Park on Tuesday night.” I replied, “The rainout with the Yankees?” “Yes,” he said. And we both looked at each other and heaved a collective heavy sigh while continuing to walk in opposite directions. Nothing else need be said. Fenway has sold out over 270 straight games. This man finally got to a game, traveling from Nebraska to watch the hated Yanks…and it rains. Pathos personified, being a Sox fan.

 

Eric Genuis is a man I’ve gotten to know over the years who is a classically trained composer and pianist, recording several CDs. He tours with former St. John’s parishioner Dave Barry as Radix, and we’ve seen their performance of The Passion for several Palm Sundays when they return to Lincoln. Eric and I have spoken about the loss of children as he and his wife have lost 5 to miscarriage/infant death, while four children have survived. While we lost one to miscarriage some of his talks and his music have helped to heal that hole. Eric’s latest CD that is receiving a lot of play in my stereo is one he recorded in Europe with the Slovak National Symphony last year. It’s a beautiful piece of work, and in this year in which we celebrate Mozart’s 250^th birthday, one that helps to remind us of the simple beauty that we can find in everything, if we but slow down and take the time to appreciate it. Eric’s mission is to help people discover the world’s inherent beauty, and with this CD has gone far in doing just that. A nice tonic to the mass-marketing and intrusive media that pervades our lives. The deeper one enters into Mozart…into beauty…the more one seeks to find there. In short, the more one allows it to penetrate the soul, then the more it is felt as transcendent, sublime, and consummately beautiful.

 

Sorry to have rambled so much, y’all. I haven’t had time to catch up as much as I’d like to as I finished one five-month long project only to transition right into another that may be keeping me busy until January ’07. We had equipment pick-up the other night, and it won’t be long before I begin calling the kids to organize our first baseball practices for Nolan’s team this summer. Currently we’re halfway through soccer season and doing well. We had planned on going to Kansas City the week of Memorial Day, but I got called to jury duty and Nolan will be taking his turn as altar server at morning masses that week, so we’ll just stay home and hopefully enjoy some nice spring weather.

 

I’ll leave you romantics with the following, and hope to catch up again (in a shorter form) with you soon!

 

 

Meeting At Night

The gray sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

 

n      Robert Browning