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Friday, July 18, 2008

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:38:24 GMT

Evan read tonight's devotion to me from Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, and this set of sentences arrested me:

"In their Christian graces no one virtue should usurp the sphere of another, or eat out the vitals of the rest for its own support. Affection must not smother honesty, courage must not elbow weakness out of the field, modesty must not jostle energy, and patience must not slaughter resolution. So also with our duties, one must not interfere with another; public usefulness must not injure private piety; church work must not push family worship into a corner. It is ill to offer God one duty stained with the blood of another. Each thing is beautiful in its season, but not otherwise."

Even when we're hotly pursuing one virtue, hosts of others fall by the wayside. What makes it so inhumanly difficult to realize this is that the answer does not lie, as many would say, in balance; but rather the union of two things that seem to clash: extravagant joy with rigorous self-control, steadfastness with humility, truthfulness with gentleness, justice with mercy. It's not a mixture: both must be completely exercised and completely realized. That, of course, is why real goodness is never easy. And never boring.

I'm thankful Christ kept the whole will of God for us.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:57:03 GMT

I'm now accepting recommendations for good cookbooks.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:49:06 GMT

1862, June 8
My garden looks well, and we have an abundance of raspberries and some early vegetables which I have managed to get planted and cultivated. I have a good crop of early potatoes, and also some late ones, enough I hope to serve the family for some time. We have many provoking, and some amusing encounters with our neighbors, the Yankees . . . . One day lately, a rather impudent looking elderly man in a shabby suit of clothes and . . . an unmistakable Connecticut twang, stepped up on my back porch and walked unceremoniously up to the door as if about to come in. I had a rather independent feeling at the time, and stopped him, asking what he wanted. "I am a gentleman," he said, "and I am only looking around." "I was not aware that you were a gentleman," said I, "as they do not usually come to the back door."

At that he grew very angry, and said he was looking at those two places, Mr. Mason's and ours, and he had some view to settling in the valley when the rebels were cleaned out. I laughed partly in derision and partly from amusement, then, quoting Mrs. Barton, told him that he was entitled to six feet of Southern land if he needed it, and that we would joyfully give every one of them, but more than that they never would have.

A Woman's Civil War
Diary of Cornelia Peake MacDonald

Lately I've been reading two Southern diaries by two widely different women. This one, Cornelia MacDonald's, is the diary of an ordinary woman fighting to protect her house and children in a Virgnian town occupied by the Northern army. The other, more famous book, is Mary Chestnut's diary. She was the wife of Senator James Chestnut, and an intimate friend of Jefferson Davis's wife, moving in the first circles of Southern society, and a firsthand observer of some crucial moments in the North-South rift. Both women tell absorbing stories. I haven't finished either, so I can't offer much in the way of insight and opinion, but I can assure you they're gripping reading.

Here's a sample, by way of contrast, from South Carolinian Mary Chestnut:

Feburary 25, 1861
. . . At dinner Judge Withers was loudly abusive of the Provisional Congress (already?). He said: "They had tramped the Constitution underfoot. They have provided President Davis with a house." It is hardly worth while wasting time in quarrels about nonessentials. He was disgusted with the folly of parading the president at the inauguration in a coach drawn by four white horses. (I thought that all right.) Then someone said Mrs. Fitzpatrick was the only lady who sat with the Congress - and after the inaugural poked Jeff Davis in the back with her parasol, that he might turn and speak to her. "I am sure that was democratic enough," said someone.

June 7, 1862 (nearly the same date as Cornelia MacDonald's above entry)
Commissary Jones told Mrs. McCord, "Each sandbag cost fifty-five cents." She answered, "You had but to put two lines in the morning paper, and every woman in Columbia would have been there with her needle and scissors and they would have cost you nothing."

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:30:11 GMT

How did the experiment turn out? Well, Evan decided that I should sample a variety of Japanese cuisine, and ordered a sashimi sampler, dynamite rolls, and another kind of roll whose name I don't recall. It had avocado and cucumber and, unlike the dynamite rolls, wasn't served futomaki style.

The first thing I tasted, in minute quantity, inexpertly wielding my upside-down chopsticks, was the wasabi sauce. That alone was a novel experience. I didn't taste it at all: I felt coldness on my tongue and fire in my nostrils. Then I tried the pickled ginger. That I definitely tasted. Then Evan stabbed a slice of raw, pink salmon from the sashimi platter, and there was no more staving off the evil moment.

It was awful.

If there was any flavor, I didn't notice it. It was damp, pink, and mushy. I had one consolation:

Me: *watching his face* Evan! You don't like this either!
Evan: I never said I liked sashimi. I said I liked sushi.
Me: Oh sure.
Evan: Try a dynamite roll.
Me: What's the black stuff that looks like electrical tape?
Evan: Seawood. (Nori, as I later learned.)
Me: Ugh. This just keeps getting worse. What's that orange stuff?
Evan: Fish eggs.
Me: It's still getting worse.

But I tried it, and . . . well, I'll admit it. It was pretty good. I ended up eating most of the dynamite rolls and a couple of the other variety. I did eat one other piece of the sashimi, but I don't remember what kind of fish it was. I didn't like it one bit better than I did the salmon, and I don't feel obligated to try another piece of sashimi in the whole course of my life.

There you have it. Sushi yes, sashmimi never.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:17:54 GMT

Evan: It makes me happy to see you.
Me: I'm glad.
Evan: Because I'm going to make you eat sushi today.
Me: Eeeek!

A first-time experience is definitely in store for me today.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:06:24 GMT

I can sleep in peace now that the Braves have proved their pitching is not altogether lost. Jurrjens pitched a shutout game against the Blue Jays and the Braves won 4-0.

Jeanna: Brent Lillibridge is all fast and stuff and once he pinch runned for Chipper!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:01:12 GMT

Evan and I have an apartment and I'm SO excited! One never gets a lot of space in a one-bedroom apartment, but the layout of this one is very sensible and makes the most of the space that's there. I think it's an excellent location and I like the apartment community - which is very friendly and down-to-earth- and I'm so excited to have a "house" where I can set up housekeeping!

Thirty-eight days and counting!

By the way, you can buy a fresh jalepeno for four cents. And you should never rub your eyes after cutting one up.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:36:52 GMT

I haven't forgotten about my blog. I think I'm just puzzled right now as to what to write about. Oodles of details about weddings and marriages and oodles of details about my students' personalities and learning styles are dominating my life right now, and I'm not sure how much of that warrants lengthy public discourse.

I'm collecting all sorts of interesting facts I never knew before. Did you know that dendrobium orchids are edible, so much so that chefs at fancy restaurants serve them on salads as a garnish?

I'm also plumbing the mysterious depths of formatting in Word. I've been working on wedding invitations for the last week or so, and since my paper is not a standard size, I've been doing a lot of careful eyeballing and a lot of minor margin adjustments. It's actually been pretty fun. I LOVE playing with paper. My handwriting is sloppy and I have no skill in arts and crafts of any kind, but I love paper, fonts, and colors anyway. One of these days I want to learn how to calligraphy. That would just be cool.

Evan and I spent hours this week registering, mostly at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and we probably looked like kids in a candy shop. The bridal registry assistant set up a place setting for us - and we like some VERY funky shapes and combinations - and we played with it for the next half hour, roaming all over the store and collecting pieces we thought might coordinate, trying them out, and giving them a thumbs up or thumbs down. By the time we got to registering for bath towels we were so hungry and my feet were hurting so badly that we sounded something like this:

Me: Do we want washcloths?
Evan: I just scanned washcloths a second ago.
Me: Oh. Do we want handtowels?
Evan: YES we want handtowels!
Me: Oh.

It's a good thing I wasn't by myself.

Well, now I'm off to persuade the post office that my invitations are not oversized, and then to reduce an orchestral arrangement of my bridal processional for piano and violin. Bye!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:35:09 GMT

This blog has now outlived my laptop.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 21:57:49 GMT

I have a married brother.

Seven and a half weeks to go, and I'll have a husband.