Month: May 2008

  • Two-Word Meme

    I've been gone to a Ladies' Retreat, and just realized that I was tagged by the very funny Ruthie, aka Jersey Chick.  Consider yourself tagged, if you'd like to do it.  If you'd like to see better, more clever answers go here
    and here and here.  **Addendum** My new friend, Sonja in South Africa, also new to blogging, answered here.  Go leave a comment and encourage her!

    1. Where is your cell phone?  Call me a Luddite, I don't own one. (oops! - it's called Two Words for a reason. Wait a minute and I'll start over...)

    1.  Where is your cell phone? doesn't exist
    2.  Where is your significant other? working, naturally
    3.  Your hair? a lot
    4.  Your mother? miss her
    5.  Your father? him, too
    6.  Your favorite thing? husband, reading  or husband reading or reading husband!
    7.  Your dream last night? ... came true
    8.  Your favorite drink? tea, with
    9.  Your dream/goal? jazz pianist
    10. The room you're in? fragrant kitchen
    11.  Your hobby? reading, blogging
    12.  Your fear? nobody cares
    13.  Where you want to be in 6 years? size 12s
    14.  Where were you last night? can't say
    15.  What you're not? naturally tidy
    16.  Muffins? not particularly
    17.  One of your wish list items? laptop tote
    18.  Where you grew up? Chicago suburbs
    19.  The last thing you did? butchered Chopin
    20.  What are you wearing? reading glasses
    21.  Your TV? plays DVDs
    22.  Your pets? Singular: labrador
    23.  Your computer? it works
    24.  Your life? goodness/mercy
    25.  Your mood? satiated, tired
    26.  Missing someone? someones: siblings
    27.  Your car? aging Subaru
    28.  Something you're not wearing? damaged weddingring
    29.  Favorite store?  Scottish deli
    30.  Your summer?  more books
    31.  Like someone? piano tuner
    32.  Your favorite color? the gloaming
    33.  When is the last time you laughed? (my) Pilates Pastor
    34.  Last time you cried? reading poem

    Leave a comment if you do this in your blog.  If you don't blog, put your answers in the comments (wink).  Or not.

  • Hospitality 101

    1.  Accept offers from guests to contribute to the meal or to help in preparation or cleanup.

    I learned this lesson from my dear, now far-removed friend Lisa, to whom God has given many extra dollops of wisdom.  As she raised her four daughters, she always honored their request to help.  You can hear a toddler's voice, can't you, saying, "Me help you Mommy!"  Honestly, the best help Mommy needs is the removal of the sweet toddler into another room.  But Lisa knew that she was training her daughters as well as putting on a fabulous meal for guests.  She started them on folding napkins, carrying small salt and pepper shakers, and made a job for them to do if there honestly wasn't anything left to do, i.e. straighten the forks.

    My philosophy of hospitality is wanting our guests to feel more like a member of our family than a Distinguished Guest.  When a guest offers to bring something I give her a choice: perhaps a salad, a bottle of wine, a vegetable, or a dessert.   If I am aware of tight schedules or special circumstances, I might invite them just to bring themselves, but that is not my default response anymore.  And, cough cough, sometimes when I invite a bachelor, I suggest (in a lighthearted manner) he bring an item to contribute, "Hey, Mike, would you bring two bottles of sparkling cider?"  Some guys haven't yet realized that they can be contributers as well as eaters.

    Food prep and cleanup are so much more fun when done as a team.  When guests arrive and we've taken their coats, there are usually final touches to the meal.  If a guest offers to help, I put them to work: stirring a sauce, cutting bread, fetch a tomato from the garden, cutting crudités, pour water into glasses.  I have had many occasions to learn from my guests (do you know how many ways one can cut up a bell pepper?) and a few opportunities to teach.  One fifty-something guest asked to help; I had her set the table.  Her setting was quite unorthodox (the knife and fork on the plate and the spoon to the left and the napkin who knows where) which I intended to politely leave as is. She, however, asked if her setting was correct and admitted that she had never set a table before.  I showed her the Elizabeth Post way, and she was truly glad to know. 

    Hospitality is, at its core, opening your door.  When a guest offers to help and you refuse, you are, in essence, shutting a door.  The guest may not do things to your standard, and that's just fine.  Relax and enjoy your time together

  • Support of All Just Measures

    Most Fridays I receive an email from a friend in Zimbabwe, sharing her news and musings.  Whenever I see her email in my inbox I rejoice.   When we don't hear from her we intensely pray for her safety and security. This morning the email began,

    "I haven't written in a few weeks largely because I didn't know what to write. What's to be said? That we have suspended democracy?" 

    Sandy of Maple Grove and I are exchanging news we receive from our brothers and sisters in Zim. Our church is also praying for a congregation and orphanage in a section badly hit in Myanmar.  Lord, have mercy.

    Prayer In a National Crisis

    King of kings and Lord of lords,
    Thou Lord of life and death,
    protect [Zimbabwe][Myanmar] in its great need.

    Let men use this great trial to turn to Thee for strength
    and to find in Jesus their peace with Thee.

    Let wise counsel, calm thinking, unselfish aims prevail.
    Grant unity to the land and support of all just measures.
    In Jesus' name,
    Amen.

    (from the Lutheran Book of Prayer)

  • A Small but Indispensable Service

    (last summer's flowers)

    A garden...teems with life.  It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined...

    Without life springing from the earth,
    without rain, light and heat descending from the sky,
    he could do nothing.

    When he has done all,
    he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there,
    powers and beauties that have a different source.
    But his share, though small, is indispensable and laborious.

    When God planted a garden He set a man over it and set the man under Himself.
    When He planted the garden of our nature
    and caused the flowering, fruiting loves to grow there,
    He set our will to "dress" them.
    Compared with them it is dry and cold.

    And unless grace comes down, like the rain and sunshine,
    we shall use this tool to little purpose.
    But its laborious--and largely negative--services are indispensable.

              ~ C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves

  • May 7, 1968

    ...from the archives...

    The lunch bell rang at 11:30.  My fifth-grade teacher dismissed the
    class. I put my sweater on, picked up my cello and navigated my way
    through the crowded hallway.  As I crossed from the dark interior to
    the bright sunshine my mind swept through the corners of the morning
    looking for a scrap of a story to tell my mom. Since Danny had moved up
    to Jr. High, I had Mom all to myself during my lunch break.

    I bumped awkwardly down the sidewalk, stopping every ten paces to change the clumsy
    cello to the other arm.  A tune passed through my head and came out with
    a hum. Turning left at Elizabeth Street, I looked up and saw-my dad! - a
    block ahead at the edge of the school property.  He stood still as a
    sentinel, shoulders slumped. 

        "Dad!"

    I hitched the
    cello closer to my body and broke into an exuberant trot.   Never
    before had I seen my dad! in the middle of the school day.  One by one
    he had collected my six older siblings out of their classes, had broken the
    news to them and had brought them home.  For this final breaking, he
    waited for me to come to him. Out of breath, I set the cello down and
    gave him a hug. 

        "How's Mom?  Did you bring her home from the hospital?"

    His face was tired granite.

        "Honey, I have some bad news."

    It wasn't his solemnity that struck me; it was the absence of any movement.  I looked up with questioning eyes.

        "Carol, Mommy is in heaven with Jesus."

    I stared at him, staggered--completely stunned. It was only supposed to be a "Very Minor Surgery."

        "She died very early this morning."

    He picked up the cello and we trudged the two-block trek home.  We had passed two houses on the left when, looking up at him, I protested.

        "Wait, Daddy.  You said it was bad news.  But if she's in heaven with Jesus, that's good news, isn't it?"

    For the first time the muscles in his face moved.  He smiled down at me wordlessly.  While I couldn't comprehend that my Mom
    was dead, I could see the grief that had already moved into his eyes; I
    could sense him pulling into himself.   Flitting back to my own
    concerns, I saw my First Problem.

        "But I wanted to tell  Mom that I got an A on my spelling test."

    I didn't ask for details.  Clearly, what he said was true.  I just didn't quite know what it had to do with me.

    My next impulse was to lighten his load. 

        "Daddy, let me carry the cello.  Please, Daddy.  Please...let me carry the cello for you."

    He
    shook his head as we continued to walk.  In silence we turned right onto
    Greenfield Avenue.  Our heads bowed in surrender to the
    heavy weight as we forced our feet forward.  Even with a dozen people inside, the house was as
    quiet and still as my father had been. 

    As we approached the porch, I bounded up the steps, remembering my good news.

        "Mom!  I got an A.................." 

    My voice broke off as the news dangled in midair. 

    ~     ~     ~

    That night after dinner my father took up Daily Bread, a devotional book, to read that day's entry:

    Trust in Him at all times, O people;
    Pour out your heart before Him.
    ~ Psalm 62:8

  • The Old European

    Carson and Taryn took us to their favorite breakfast place in Pullman, The Old European. Even if you don't normally follow links, you'll want to click on that one.  Trust me.  You can't gain weight from looking.  Go to menu and click on the pictures.  Do it.

    What a delight.  Fresh squeezed orange juice, food that melts in your mouth -- this would be the perfect place for a birthday breakfast. 


    Danish Aebelskivers with Blackberry Brandy sauce

    I scooped up the mission statement on the front of the menu:

    We believe dining out should be a wonderful experience, not just a place to eat. (Amen!)  With the economic trends of today, most breakfast and lunch restaurants have to accommodate a fast pace society by being quick, efficient, and inexpensive.

    In doing so, the art of home cooking gets lost, because quality requires time and raw ingredients. Few establishments take the risk of scratch batters, fearing the risk of inconsistency and the demand of constant training. Even fewer are set up to create products which are different and difficult to produce.

    As our name connotes, our menu features many "Old European" recipes. Recipes that not only take time, but also the raw ingredients make our food noticeably better (hear, hear!).

    Our welcome to you is "Guest in the house, God in the house" ~ a Polish attitude.

    They are singing my anthem: slow food, fresh ingredients, hospitality.  Oh my, oh my.

    The amazing thing is that this restaurant probably served 1,000 breakfasts on graduation morning.  The wait staff was exceedingly cheerful, helpful and efficient.  If you are ever in Pullman, Spokane, or Post Falls, plan on The Old European.

  • What Would You Say?

    Graduation speeches are hard to write.  They must be - I have sat through a score of wretched ones.  I'm sure you have too.  The three good ones I heard are memorable because they were so rare.

    The most recent speech I heard was a monotone, tiresome recitation of the speaker's career changes, a boring oral curriculum vitae.  The speaker's main assets seemed to be fashion-model good looks and the fact that he worked for the richest couple on earth.  Ayup. 

    So what are the key parts to a graduation speech? 

    Acknowledgment of work completed, without fawning, blarney and adulation.
    Thankfulness for the people who helped you get to this place.
    A charge or admonition. 

    Am I missing anything?

    Neil Postman wrote a graduation speech before he died giving permission for anyone to use it.  It is worth the ten minutes it takes to read it. 

    What do you think are the key ingredients to a good commencement address? 

    Do you know of other great speeches online?

    I'm asking.

  • Commencement

    Hurrah!  Carson graduated with a degree in
    Management Information Systems in
    the School of Business.

    We had a weekend together celebrating Carson's completion.
    Taryn put on a scrumptious feast for 15 - her first fancy family dinner.


    The happiest of all are these two!
    Carson starts working for Boeing in a few weeks.

  • And the Winner Is

    Dana of hiddenart.  My son picked the number 2 out of a hat and she was the second comment. She wins On Writing Well and Writing to Learn.  I was supposed to pick a winner on Friday, but I left for our son's graduation and didn't get the job done.  Congratulations Dana.  Enjoy the books.