OUR ISAAC

The rains of Isaac

The rains came after we thought Hurricane Isaac was over.  As you probably know Isaac was a huge storm, as was the eye, which passed directly over us, after which the wind came up again.  Then followed the rains, and the rains, and the rains.

The aftermath of Isaac

We were fortunate that downed limbs were the worst of the damage we suffered from the hurricane, but Grandpère had a huge clean-up job facing him. As you see from the little pile of limbs in the rain picture, he had already started to pick up before the rain stopped him. My son came later and was a big help to GP. You may wonder why I didn't help. I have a bad back. I know that's the common excuse lazy people use for not working, but, in my case, the excuse happens to be true. I'd have lasted about 10 minutes and paid for the short effort for a long time thereafter.

Piles of limbs waiting to be picked up

The city has not yet got around to picking up the piles of limbs along the curb.  One day...

Where the crepe myrtles were

Apropos of nothing to do with Isaac, GP cut down two crepe myrtle trees which were planted directly over the sewer line, whose roots growing into the pipe had probably caused our plumbing problem last year. The plumbers told us the trees should go, and, at first, Grandpère would not hear of taking down the trees, but he finally came around, and he and a neighbor cut them down last week.  The trees were not flourishing because their roots were blocked by the pipe, so they were no great loss.  The space along the driveway has a clean look now which I rather like.  The next step is to get a plumber with a camera to go in and examine the inside of the pipe to see if it is compromised, which it probably is, so we may be looking at a large repair bill.

This morning the weather was gorgeous...a delightful 65°F.  The day is still fine, but the temperature is already up to 81°F.  Still it was lovely to feel, if only briefly, a touch of fall in the air.

Tail end of a gorgeous sunset

The photo of the sunset was taken before Isaac. I was walking during the high point of the breathtaking beauty of the sunset, but I had no camera with me. By the time I reached home the sun had nearly set, so the photo above was the best I could do. I should carry my camera on my walk.

MARY BLACK - "BRIGHT BLUE ROSE"

Mary Black Live At The Royal Albert Hall

For all of you who must discover
For all who seek to understand  
For having left the path of others  
You'll find a very special hand
 
And it is a holy thing and it is a precious time  
And it is the only way
Forget-me-nots among the snow, it's always been and so it goes  
To ponder his death and his life eternally

Thanks to Tim Chesterton for introducing me to this wonderful singer with the lovely voice.

BINGEING WITH BARBARA PYM

Recently, I began rereading Barbara Pym's novels.  I have them all, but I was only going to read the one, The Sweet Dove Died, but Pym's fiction is addictive, and I'm now a good way through Excellent Women.  Before the Pym binge is over, I will have gone through all the novels again for probably the third reading.  I Googled around to see what I'd find online before writing this post .  On my second click I struck gold, pure gold at the Guardian - an article on Excellent Women, the very book I'm reading now, that links Pym to Jane Austen.  I'd already made the connection a long time ago, when I first began to read Pym.

Like Jane Austen, Pym painted her pictures on a small square of ivory, and covered much the same territory as did her better-known predecessor: the details of smallish lives led to places that could only be in England. Neither used a megaphone; neither said much about the great issues of their time.

On Excellent Women:

That world of vague longing is described in this novel in a way which not only shows us the poignancy of such hopes, but allows us to smile at them. One does not laugh out loud while reading Pym; that would be too much. One smiles. One smiles and puts down the book to enjoy the smile. Then one picks it up again and a few minutes later an unexpected observation on human foibles makes one smile again.

It is these asides, I think, that make Excellent Women so beguiling.

Oh, but one does laugh out loud, repeatedly, even in a semi-public place.  As I sat in a waiting room passing the time reading EW, I laughed out loud.  Fortunately, I was alone in the room, but I wondered whether the receptionist behind the glass heard me.

Even the names of the characters...

'And Mr Mallett and Mr Conybeare, just look at them,' she went on in a voice loud enough for the two churchwardens to hear.  'It wouldn't do them any harm to soil their hands with a little honest toil.  Teddy Lemon and the boys put up all the trestles and the urns.'

'Yes, Sister, we found everything had been done when we put in an appearance,' said Mr Mallett, a round jolly little man.  'It was quite a blow, I can tell you.' 

Mildred Lathbury, the first-person narrator, is having lunch with Everard Bone, an anthropologist, who had just returned from an archaeological tour holiday visiting caves in the Dordogne. 

'There are stone circles in Brittany, aren't there?' I began, trying to show intelligent interest.  'And then of course there's always Stonehenge.'  I remembered that my father had been interested in Stonehenge, and I seemed to see us all sitting round the dinner-table, my mother, father, a curate - I could not remember which curate - and a canon and his wife.  We were having a conversation about Stonehenge and suddenly all the lights had gone out.  The curate let out a cry of alarm but the canon's voice went on without a tremor - I could hear it now - just as if nothing had happened.  My mother got up and fussed with candles and the canon went on explaining his theory of how the great stones had been carried to Salisbury Plain.  It was an impressive performance and had been rewarded, or so it seemed to me, by a bishopric not long afterwards.  Thinking about it after all these years, I smiled.

'Yes, there's always Stonehenge,' said Everard rather stiffly.

I remember a conversation when I was in England last year about what a group of us would do on the day we met together.  One person in our group said, 'Can we not go to Stonehenge?'  All of us had seen Stonehenge, and we agreed that none of us were particularly eager for another visit.  Not that there's anything wrong with Stonehenge...

Mildred reminds me of myself in the way her mind drifts from the present moment to a time past and then responds to the memory with some sign, such as a smile, before drifting back to the present.

On marrying:

'Perhaps one shouldn't try to find people deliberately like that,' I suggested.  'I mean not set out to look for somebody to marry as if you were going to buy a saucepan or a casserole.'

'You think it should just be left to chance?  But then the person might be most unsuitable.'

The idea of choosing a husband or wife as one would a casserole had reminded me of Rocky's letter and his allegation that Everard had broken one of his casseroles.  I suppose a smile must have come on my face, for he said, 'You seem to find it amusing, the idea of marrying somebody suitable.'

Oh no.  I was somewhere else. 

I look forward to my binge.  I'd forgotten what a delight it is to read Barbara Pym.  Most of her novels are available at Amazon, and Excellent Women is on Kindle.

STORY OF THE DAY - MAKE BELIEVE

When I'm having a really bad day, she said, I pretend
I'm dead & you'd be amazed how much that perks you
right up.

I don't know about you, but it perked me right up to read the "Story of the Day".

From StoryPeople. 

SO WHO YA GONNA VOTE FOR?

The delegates at the DNC look like the people in the country.

What kind of people do you want to run your country? The folks who organized the RNC or the folks who organized the DNC? If the winner is the party who put on the best convention, then there is no contest. The Democrats orchestrated a near-perfect convention.  The purpose of a political convention today is no longer about choosing candidates for president and vice-president, because that's all settled beforehand.  The hope of the Democratic leadership is to fire up the delegates to the convention, the activists and the not-so-active voters watching at home and in gatherings around the country, both Democrats, independents, and stray Republicans to vote and to work to get out the vote which the Republicans are so very anxious to suppress in the battleground states.  The atmosphere at the DNC was electric.  The crowd was fired up. The convention was a huge success.

Because of Isaac, what I saw of the RNC was mostly on videos, and it was Dullsville.  I did not last 5 minutes with any of the major speeches, though I did watch Clint Eastwood to the bitter end of his conversation with the empty chair.  I'm not sure why, but I couldn't seem to click the stop button.  Note to Paul Ryan: Lying speeches can be boring.  The Republican delegates, along with a good many Republicans at large do not have warm, fuzzy feelings about Romney, but they liked some of what he and the other speakers said.  The delegates even applauded Ryan's lies.  The Dem delegates seemed to love Obama, which does make a difference in the enthusiasm of the crowd at the convention and that of the viewers at home. Disclosure: I am biased.

The delegates at the RNC look like the crowd at the country club.

While I am rather cynical about politics here in the US, seeing much of the talk from both parties for the BS that it is, I do believe this election is important and that the team that is elected will make a difference, for good or for ill.  Both parties neglected the matter of increasing poverty in the country, but to suggest an equivalency in the policies of Democrats and Republicans stretches credibility beyond the limit. The dog-eat-dog Darwinian policies of the present Republican Party are shocking and scandalous.  The corporate culture will continue to run the country no matter which party is in charge in the office of the president and the legislature, but let's not pretend that the coming election will affect the poor in the same way. Even marginal attention to the plight of the poor will have an impact, and which party is more likely to address the problem? Note that Sr Simone Campbell, the voice of conscience at the DNC, mentioned the Ryan/Romney budget at the beginning of her speech.

The disappearing middle class is a crisis that if not addressed will increase the numbers of those living in poverty, and we'll end up as a banana republic, with a society that consists of the very rich and the very poor and quite a small middle class. Although I'm disappointed that the Democrats did not highlight the problem of poverty in the country as I would have liked, I believe this election will make a difference to the poor, even if only in a moderate way.

DNC photo from Time.
RNC picture from The Huffington Post.
Sign from Prior Aelred's Facebook page.

COOL CRITTERS

Thanks to Doug.

SISTER ACT

And a fine act it was. Amongst the speeches last night was Sister Simone Campbell's gem in a class all its own.  Sister Simone, one of the "Nuns on the Bus", brought the crowd to their feet cheering and applauding time after time. She dared to mention the P-word and tell stories of the struggles of the people who live in poverty. The plight of the poor, which was not much mentioned in the course of the DNC, stands as a challenge to us all. The "We" in "We the people...." declare to each of us that not one of us stands alone, that I am my sister's keeper; I am my brother's keeper. As the Founding Father Ben Franklin said, "If we don't hang together, by Heavens we shall hang separately". The words were true then, and the words are true now.  Sister Simone served as the conscience of the convention.

MY FAVORITE NOT-AT-THE-CONVENTION PICTURES

President Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha watch Michelle Obama's speech

Hilary Clinton watches Bill Clinton's speech from East Timor in SE Asia

LOUISE EMERSON BROOKS - REST IN PEACE AND RISE IN GLORY

From Susan Russell, whose wife, Louise Emerson Brooks, died Sunday, September 2, 2012 after a long battle with cancer.

There are no words to express the depths of our gratitude for your words of support and love for us and in tribute to Louise's extraordinary life. We will celebrate her life with a service at All Saints Church in Pasadena on Saturday, September 8th at 11am with a reception to follow. Please come prepared to grieve her loss, celebrate her life -- and to tell stories about the part of Louise Emerson Brooks that touched your life. That is quite literally what she said she wanted -- as the producer in her was very clear that she wanted a "production credit" for the liturgical celebration of her life. For more details call All Saints at 626.796.1172.  Here's my new-and-improved 2.0 version:

For those who have asked about memorial gifts, two of the great passions of her life were the work of LGBT inclusion and the work of animal rescue. Contributions to Integrity will help support the distribution of her latest documentary "Voices of Witness: Out of the Box" and contributions to Husky Camp will support the ongoing Siberian Husky Rescue that brought us our beloved Luna and Juno.

Integrity USA in memory of Louise Brooks
http://integrityusa.org/
838 East High St. #291 Lexington, KY 40502

Husky Camp -- Siberian Husky Rescue
http://www.HuskyCamp.com/
SHRRCA
303 Cameo Dr.,
Danville, CA 94526

I met Susan Russell at GC2009.  The next year, I had the pleasure of meeting both Louise and Susan in New Orleans when Susan gave a speech sponsored by the New Orleans Chapter of Integrity and Human Rights Campaign at Trinity Church.  I was amongst the guests at a dinner in their honor and was fortunate to be seated at the same table with Susan and Louise and enjoyed their company and conversation immensely.  I teased Louise that, although I find it difficult to remember names, I would have no problem remembering hers since it was the same as the silent movie star.  Many would not recognize the reference, but Louise knew of whom I spoke. Louise had a sharp wit, which she sometimes expressed in throwaway-lines with a dead-pan expression, so you had to be quick to appreciate how wonderfully clever and funny she was.

Below is a picture of Louise, me, and Susan after Susan's speech.

May Louise rest in peace and rise in glory. May God give comfort, consolation, and the peace that passes understanding to Susan and to all who love Louise.

UPDATE: Louise's obituary in the Pasadena Star News. 

I GET THIS ONE

Grnadpère and I both have hearing loss, so the caption misunderstandings resonate.  We amuse, annoy, and frustrate each other another .  Observers of our exchanges either laugh or shake their heads.

Thanks to Doug.