Now Playing: Girls in the study.

It's been awhile since that last post, unfortunately. I'm seeing a trend here: last post near Thanksgiving break, this post during Christmas break. Perhaps more regular posting should be a New Year's resolution.

The past month has been eventful. Scott proposed the week after Thanksgiving, after talking to my parents during Thanksgiving break. I knew he was talking to them, and that it had gone well, but I had no idea when anything was going to happen after that. It felt rather like falling off a cliff. Ever since then we've been wedding-planning on and off. Wedding-planning made the ten-hour drive to Tulsa for Nicole's wedding pass much more quickly than usual.

Nicole's wedding was on 18 December at Christ Presbyterian Church in Tulsa. I was one of five bridesmaids, two maids-of-honour, and three junior bridesmaids. Quite a production. It was beautiful, though. Perhaps that's what we're supposed to say about every wedding, but her wedding really was lovely. The lovely awkwardness of watching her walk down the aisle, hardly able to bear looking up at Matt, hardly able not to look up at him. The elegance of her lace dress, of the white lilies we were all carrying. The quiet fitness of them standing side-by-side at the reception afterward. Their calm, in stark contrast to the bustling, noisy, jewel-colored hurricane surrounding them.

After scrambling around all weekend, returning to Stillwater brought a welcome break. We basically spent the weekend chilling out at my family's house. Laura, Stephen, Scott, and I would go for walks or sit in the living room, reading. Laura cooked lots of delicious food. My mother, Laura, and I shopped for wedding dresses. And so on.

On Thursday Scott and I drove up to Ponca City for Syneva's family's annual ball. Bittersweet: Amanda, Syneva, and I were the only RUF people there. Everyone else has moved on. Also, Scott was totally overwhelmed by the prospect of dancing and spent the night up in the stands, watching. It was still really good to get to see Syneva and Amanda and to hang out with Syneva and her family afterward.

Christmas here was extremely laid back. My father's parents came over Saturday night and Sabbath day for lunch, and we opened presents Saturday night.

Peppered throughout all this, I've been getting to see friends. On Monday, a trip to Enid for tea with Katie, Missy, Mr and Mrs W, Elizabeth, Anna, and Ruth; later, coffee with Sarah; yesterday, a scavenger hunt around downtown, particularly in the antique mall, with Elizabeth and Scott; today, coffee with Jenny. 

And today... the infestation began! At least, that's what my mother called it, with her best good Fearing humour. The cousins, minus Uncle Kirk, drove up from Texas to spend the week with us. The girls and Peter just finished watching the latest Dr. Who episode; Aunt Lisa and my mother are sitting in the living room, knitting and talking; Scott and my dad are reading, and so forth. Full house, fun times.

 The annual Christmas ball in Ponca City, 22 December--the Fairfield Fancy.

Lilies from my bridesmaid's bouquet from Nicole and Matt's wedding, 18 December.

Another musical weekend: on Friday Scott, Carmen, Bob, Eric, and I (we were only a small part of what turned out to be a large grad student contingent from across the disciplines) went to see IU Opera's production of La Boheme. Scott's opinion was that they should all have gotten jobs, which was a fairly accurate assessment of the plot. Brendan, one of Scott's friends, wondered where the old Classical idea of unity of action has gone, and I'd tend to agree. Maybe being forced to include a whole plot in a 24-hour time span would help librettists make stories that were more interesting. (But do operas really need plot?)

Anyway, the music was gorgeous, and the theatre department made full use of the stage's capacity. At the beginning of the second act, the set unfolded like a piece of elaborate origami, both rotating and moving forward on two enormous smooth turntables set within one another. Quite impressive.

On Saturday we went to a performance by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, a semi-professional group made of people from the community. They played Brahms's first symphony, which was absolutely amazing. It's a monumental, brooding piece of music, in C minor, with a beautiful hymn tune in the fourth movement and some wonderful violin and flute solos in the second and third movements.

And now it's back to work, for a brief time at least. I'm slogging through my twenty-five-page seminar paper. Outside it's raining, and the air smells like wood smoke, which always reminds me of Northern Ireland. Tomorrow Scott and I leave for Oklahoma and Thanksgiving festivities with family. Grading in the car, woo hoo!

The images below are from last Monday's field trip to the Lilly. I'm working on a project for the seminar class on late medieval literature, a project having to do with the Pieta in Books of Hours (and other sources--Margery Kempe, Thomas Hoccleve, John Lydgate, etc.). Scott came in with me to see what he could find in the Lilly's holdings for crusade narratives, but we spent most of the time examining these lovely, lovely illuminated books.

Posts have been woefully sparse since school began. My apologies. Here is a brief rundown of today. Maybe you'll get a taste for what life has been like this fall. 

25 October 2011. Very tired today. My own fault, I suppose. It is rather demoralizing to wake up just over five hours after you went to sleep, to a world that looks almost exactly the same: pitch-black outside, pitch-black inside. Shower, e-mails. LMB made baked oatmeal for breakfast, which was delicious. By the time I stepped outside to catch the nine o’clock bus, the morning had become spectacular: lapidary, crisp, the sky brilliant, leaves and lawns infused with yellow sunshine. I walked briskly from the bus stop to Weatherly, where my office is, and met for about five minutes with one of my better students about the essay due tomorrow. Then I walked to Scott’s house. As I walked, I thought hard about the final project for L758, my late medieval literature seminar, for which I'm hoping to write a paper about theories about absorption in art, and about late medieval Books of Hours.

At Scott's house, Blanche, the white cat, greeted me. Scott was just leaving to meet with his adviser, so we stood outside and chatted for a bit before he left. He has very kindly given some of us keys to his house. I went indoors, curled up on the living room sofa, and dozed for about half-an-hour. The old furnace purred up through the 1930s-vintage grates, the white sunshine fell in still oblongs on the dark hardwood floor, and the cats rattled their food bowls in the kitchen. Eventually, I went back outside to sit on the patio and read my Bible, Isaiah 6 this morning. The passage worked oxymoronically for me: reading about God's holiness, I was struck by His nearness, by the parallel between the hem of His robe filling the temple and the woman in Mark 5 touching the hem of Christ's robe and being healed.

Scott came home, and we sat on the back patio, talking over tea/coffee in the cool autumn sunshine. Blanche tried to poke her face into our cups but was deterred by the steam. At about half eleven, Mary came over. The three of us went inside, ate lunch, and discussed our seminar readings for this week about Pearl. Then we walked to campus for class at one o'clock.

Seminar today lasted from one until four. After the seminar I stayed in the classroom with the other half-dozen grad students who are also in Old English from a quarter-past-four to half five. Today we had a midterm exam. I had studied thoroughly, I thought, but there were still a couple of questions out of left field that made me flounder. Oh, well. Nothing I could do about it. At half five I went to another talk for W501, this time by an expert in teaching composition. She led an engaging workshop. 

Mary and I ducked out at the end to drive out to the Cs' house. For Bible study this semester, we've asked women in the church to present to us once or twice a month about their life experiences, testimonies, lessons, etc. Mrs. C had graciously offered to host us at her house and lead the first of these talks. The Cs are quite lavish in their hospitality. Everyone came tonight: Carmen, Courtney, Cindy, Laura, Lisa, Mary, and even two Chinese girls, Lilly and Charlene. Mrs. C was as upbeat and joyful as ever. Afterward she and her daughters served pumpkin pie and apple pie to us, and we all stood around and talked.

When we got home, I went straight up to my room and sat down to answer a stack of student e-mails: questions about and a draft of their essay due tomorrow. Now it's time for bed. It will all begin again in the morning. Tomorrow I need to translate a long passage from Bede for Old English on Thursday and start reading the York Mystery Plays for seminar next week. Also in class I'll be given a nice thick stack of essays to grade.

Now Playing: Antonin Dvorak, "New World" symphony.

Photos of our house-painting party this past Saturday are in this album, and photos from Bob's birthday party are in this album.

Now Playing: Haydn, Concerto in C Major for Cello and Orchestra.

This piece has been stuck in my head all evening, which is my own fault, because I've been listening to it over and over again. Scott and I drove up to DePauw last Friday to see Yo-Yo Ma play, and this was one of the pieces he performed. It was a glorious day: high autumn, quintessential autumn, fields of stubble running smoothly into forest-eaves gilt and garishly colored like the painted rafters of a medieval parish church. Blue sky. Intense sunshine.

Yo-Yo Ma is quite a performer. His presence fills the auditorium when he walks onstage. He likes to talk a lot and make jokes, and while he plays he nods and winks at the audience or at the other musicians onstage. The concert hall at DePauw's music school has surprisingly excellent acoustics. The strings sounded amazingly warm, hospitable, joyful. Yo-Yo Ma also played one of Bach's suites for unaccompanied cello and an andante by Tchaikovsky.

Last week was an insanely good week for music. In addition to the Yo-Yo Ma concert, on Wednesday a group of us (Courtney, Matt, Mary, Eric, Lisa, Scott, and me) went to a performance by one of the IU symphony orchestras. They played Dvorak's "New World" symphony. Glorious. Almost every time I hear one of these orchestras play, I remember why recordings simply aren't good enough. The recorded pieces even out the tambres of the instruments, hide some parts, distort dynamics, etc., so when I hear a live orchestra play, the piece always has far more richness and depth--startlingly more, in fact.

Then the Saturday night before, we went to see Cosi fan Tutte, a production put on by the IU opera. A Mozart comedy: simplistic plot, cynical ending, good music.

Now Playing: Flook, "Haven," "Souter Creek."

Appropriate music for today: it's been raining all day. Rain, rain, rain. Tiny yellow sweet gum leaves on the wet sidewalks, pressed and curled like baby hands, and vivid scarlet-and-gold sugar maple leaves bright as headlights through a window, and brown-and-yellow elm leaves furled like sherds of pottery.

Work, work, work. I'm trying to do a better job of preparing my students for their second essay, which is due on Friday. Being observed on Wednesday doesn't help the stress level, unfortunately.

Another perfect autumn evening happened today when Scott and I came back to my house from medieval Latin reading group. It was just starting to sprinkle outside as we walked in the door. Laura sat against the sofa, facing out onto the back patio through the open door, reading. The house was quiet. Scott and I started to make tea for my housemates, Cindy, Mary, and Eric. Since Kroger's cilantro selection left much to be desired, Scott had the delightful job of picking out the slimy or brown leaves from the bunch, while I chopped up chicken and marinated it in buttermilk.

Chicken curry was the main item on the menu tonight, straight out of an Indian-food-made-easy cookbook I bought at Borders in Chicago. While the wok heated, I diced tomatoes and onions, furiously trying to have them ready before the butter in the bottom of the wok started to spatter. Scott and Eric stood by, watching. In the living room, Cindy, Ethan, and Laura were chatting.

With Scott and Eric still keeping a lackadaisical eye on me, I sauteed the onions and garlic with cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamom, and turmeric. Then tomatoes. Then, when all of that had become this sweet-smelling, bubbling mass, I added the chicken, and it all bubbled away together. Mary arrived, exuberant, flailing, uproariously energetic, and set about making a pear-and-spinach salad.

Just before the curry finished simmering, I threw in the actual curry powder, and Scott added the fresh cilantro. While we waited for it, we munched on the salad, and when at last it was ready, we all sat around the living room, cradling our bowls of warm, creamy curry and rice, and drinking the rich, red wine Eric had brought. Rain spattered on the patio behind us, and a north breeze swirled through the still-open patio door.

But inside everything was warm, fragrant, rich. We all sat around and talked, planning a trip to the opera sometime in the next few weeks, discussing books, etc. Laura and Mary cooked up a scheme for making a B-rated horror film. To follow the curry we had a red-wine-and-chocolate cake Laura had baked, with delicious fluffy icing.

After tea, Ethan, Lindsay, Scott, and I drove to the IU Auditorium for an orchestra concert at eight o'clock. We scuttled through the rain, keeping our heads down against the chilly wind. Inside we found that we were joining a stream of people into the auditorium, up through the tunnel from the atrium into the auditorium itself. Red plush seats, gold railings, gilt trim around the stage.

The orchestra played three pieces tonight. The entire second half of the concert was Camille Saint-Saens's Symphony No. 3 in C minor, "Organ." Fantastic (medieval Latin fantastic-us , late Latin phantasticus , < Greek ϕανταστικός , < ϕαντάζειν to make visible (middle voice ϕαντάζεσθαι , in late Greek to imagine, have visions) OED) in the true sense of the word: Gothic, evocative of Jane Eyre and The Hunchback of Notre Dame rolled into one--perfect for a stormy September evening.

In highschool I used to listen to this piece over and over, imagining all sorts of wild, grim, Scottish-Highlands-type stories to accompany the music. Yet I love the opening of the final movement, and indeed the whole final movement, with its resolution into clarion, bell-pealing, golden-toned victory. The organ, of course, helps with this, with its bold, clanging chords, as do the strings, which have incredibly difficult phrases to play as they build anticipation. Such a great piece.


After the concert Lisa, who had joined us after class, and the rest of us met up with Peter, who's sitting first chair in the orchestra right now. We all congratulated him on a job well done before making our way home through the rain.

Laura, Lindsay, and I watched The Pianist this evening. Now I want to listen to lots and lots of Chopin, and maybe Beethoven's "Moonlight." A gut-wrenching production, though not quite as intense as Schindler's List. Having seen both those films, I think I'm finished with World War II tales for a little while.

Every time I watch a World War II film, it makes me wonder what would happen if that were to happen here, now, again--what we would do, what would become of us--not just our society as a whole, but my small network of friends and family. A natural reaction, I suppose. The images of burned-out, bombed buildings make me shiver with the closeness of such a happening. I look at my cozy townhouse and know that one packet of explosives would reduce it in a few seconds, adding it to that landscape of past and future ruins.

Laura and I were musing after the film about how World War II really isn't that far away. It still looms over our cultural landscape, even as other wars have begun to replace it in immediacy. I sometimes think that the Holocaust is the nightmare of academia, and that that is what drives gender and race studies--the fear of such brutal discrimination returning.

For most of my class of freshman composition students, though, World War II may be much more in the shadowy past. Laura has a great-grandmother who endured the war in a concentration camp in Latvia; I have a grandfather who was at Normandy. Losing that generation will mean losing perspective. Even though films can't capture the horror of that war, at least they force me to remember what is at stake when something like that arises again. And they prompt me to be thankful for the comparative peace I enjoy now.

This past week was crazy but good.

Last Friday, Syneva drove up from Nashville to visit. It was really wonderful to get to see her. She, Cindy, and I went out to dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Though the evening was really too warm to sit outside, we did, and we ate delicious minty soup and grape leaves. On Saturday, Syneva, Scott, and I braved the heat again in order to go to the Fourth Street Festival, where we saw works by all sorts of local artists--woodworkers, painters, sculptors, glass-blowers, leather-workers, potters, etc.

On Monday it cooled down suddenly, so Laura organized a bonfire to celebrate the beginning of autumn. We have a fire pit behind our house, which served the occasion perfectly. Laura bought a big bag of enormous marshmallows for us to toast. Grant G., Peter, Nathaniel, Eric, Cindy, and Scott all joined us.

Then Emmaline flew into Indianapolis on Tuesday evening. Scott and I drove up to the airport to collect her. It was as though no time at all had passed since we'd seen each other; we picked right up with catching up on each other's lives. She stayed until Friday afternoon. Whenever I wasn't in class, we were doing things together: shopping at the mall, visiting Nashville to look at the artisans' shops, hiking Lake Griffey, exploring the zoo, or eating with friends from church. Scott even cooked a delicious pasta sauce for us one evening.

Yesterday afternoon was the church outreach picnic. Since I'm on the outreach committee, I helped set up, which took a solid couple of hours. During most of the picnic, I played with the small children, which was my designated job. Mostly that meant pushing Jane on the swing and opening bottles of bubbles and packages of chalk for the kids. It also meant that I got to talk to their parents--Wes and Angie, Amy, Minda--which was quite pleasant.

So it's been a wonderful week for hanging out with people, but now I'm a bit behind on school, so tomorrow will be an intense reading day.

Photos from last week are here.

Photos from last weekend are here.

Last weekend, Laura and I went to Chicago, a celebration of the end of the summer. We spent a lovely afternoon walking around downtown, especially Millennium Park. We met Anna R. for tea, went into Anthropologie, and visited the Art Museum, which was closed. That didn't make the lions outside any more impressive, or diminish the loveliness of the gardens as evening fell.

Scott, Eric, Laura, and I hiked to the waterfall at McCormick's Creek State Park this evening. Then we went to Mother Bear's for pizza and the Chocolate Moose for ice cream. A good way to celebrate the end of summer.

Now Playing: Mumford and Sons, "After the Storm."

It's moments of clarity and peace that I've come to value as most precious. Over the past year or so, fear and anxiety have never been very far away, and with them, the obstruction of God's grace that inevitably arises from sin. I become so anxious about the details of day-to-day life that anxiety frosts over God's providences, which ought to be windows onto His love and grace.

Case in point: in May, when the schoolyear finished and summer began, when Lisa and I found ourselves launched immediately into French classes, I was desperate for quiet. For time to reflect, to meditate, to pray, to be alone. The changes of the past year have been overwhelming--as wonderful as they've been in many ways--and I felt the compulsion to run and retreat from everything in order to get my head around what God had been doing.

But that desire for being alone only lead to more anxiety. I worshiped the moments of solitude I had and worried and fretted because I couldn't have more of them. Because I was worshiping solitude, not God, I couldn't it properly.

This week, though, I've suddenly, unexpectedly found that time given to me. I woke up on Monday to an empty house, and again this morning. This morning I cleaned the kitchen, baked scones, ate a scone and part of a peach for breakfast, drank tea, read some of Murder Must Advertise. And realized--as I'd known quite clearly all along, even back in May in the worst of it--that the anxiety was completely unnecessary. God knew when and where to give the time.

Now as I look forward to next week, when AI (Associate Instructor) orientation starts, I'm seeking the grace to keep God's love first in my mind and heart. Psalm 62:8, "Trust in Him at all times, o people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us."

Also this morning I read Psalm 105:1-6,
               "Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples!
               Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; tell of all His wondrous works!
               Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
               Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His presence continually!
               Remember the wondrous works that He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He uttered, o offspring of Abraham, His servant, children of Jacob, His chosen ones!"

I'm to be defined by these actions: give thanks, call, make known, sing, glory, rejoice, seek, remember. No mention of being perfect, of managing every detail of life smoothly, of being obedient or righteous. That goes against my grain. I'm supposed to be a "good little Christian girl", after all. 

In Christ there's no such thing. There are only children of Jacob--"worm Jacob," as God calls His people in Isaiah, to remind them that they're completely worthless and helpless on their own. So I'm to do what the Confession calls faith: receive and rest. And I do that by these actions, these actions that build my identity as a child of Abraham, who walked by faith. Faith in a Savior who has done it all for me.

Now Playing: Psalm 13B.

We're having communion tonight in Bloomington. A couple of appropriate quotes:

But Christ took all our sins upon him, and for them died upon the cross: therefore it behoved that he should become a transgressor, and (as Isaiah saith, chap. 53) ‘to be reckoned among transgressors.’ And this, no doubt, all the prophets did foresee in spirit, that Christ should become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, blasphemer, etc. that ever was or could be in all the world. For he being made a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, is not now an innocent person and without sins, is not now the Son of God born of the Virgin Mary; but a sinner, which hath and carrieth the sin of Paul, who was a blasphemer, an oppressor and a persecutor; of Peter, which denied Christ; of David, which was an adulterer, a murderer, and caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord: and briefly, which hath and beareth all the sins of all men in his body, that he might make satisfaction for them with his own blood.  -  Martin Luther, commentary on Galatians 3:13

Yet the duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ. We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God’s tasks. This is a law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover.  -  John Owen, Sin & Temptation

Now Playing: Sufjan Stevens, "Amazing Grace."

Elizabeth visited yesterday. We sat outside on the back porch for an hour or so, and she told me all about the RPM team to Covenant Fellowship that she's been leading for the last month-and-a-half. Lots of great stories about inner-city Pittsburgh people...! Scott cooked dinner for us, and then he, Laura, Elizabeth, and I walked down to the Chocolate Moose for ice cream. We met a bunch of people there--Mary, Mallory, Eric, and Olivia--and sat in the park with our ice cream, by a fountain, under the brilliant three-quarters moon. Elizabeth and I talked all about Cyprus.

Today the weather is still cool and clear. It feels as though I'm back up at Horn Creek, or in Northern Ireland on one of its best days. A green hummingbird keeps visiting the zinnias on our back porch. It zooms up to look in the back door, then zooms to the zinnias, then to the lantanas, its tail scintillating as it hovers.

Tonight we're watching TTT EE and eating Chinese food! Ah, these final lovely days of summer.... I finished Have His Carcase earlier this week and started Excellent Women, a novel written in the 1950s by a British novelist, Barbara Pym, and recommended to me by Syneva. It's a bittersweet read, told from the perspective of a single middle-aged woman in the shadow of WWII. Like Jane Austen, but more melancholy.

Thunderstorm tonight to the northeast of us. No rain for our house, though.

Now Playing: Bach, Mass in B minor, "Gloria/gratias agimus tibi propter."

Photos from this past weekend and yesterday are in this album again.

Yesterday we had another poetry dinner, this time out at Scott's house. Eric grilled Mexican carne asada for us, and the rest of us chipped in. It was a delightfully colorful meal: a peach-and-spinach salad from Mary with purple onions in it, red and green peppers and onions on the grill, grilled corn-on-the-cob, guacamole, pico de gallo, and of course a ridiculous spicy salsa that Eric concocted. Never had anything so intense in my life! It tasted smoky, but perhaps that's only because it was slowly sizzling the lining of my mouth away.

That was appropriate, though, since the theme of our evening was fire. Scott read a tongue-in-cheek story about romantic passion by a Victorian author, Lord Dunsany; Cindy contributed along the same theme, with a reading of the lyrics to Cash's "Ring of Fire." I took it in another direction and blazed through the passage in The Hobbit in which Thorin and Co. are trapped in the pine trees by wargs and goblins. Eric and Lisa both wrote poems for the occasion, which kept us in stitches.

Highlights from this past week:

Meeting Mary's sister, Emily, at the party Mary hosted for her on Thursday.

A summer festival orchestra concert on Friday night at the IU auditorium. The program included the William Tell overture, The Pines of Rome, and Beethoven's 7th symphony. Absolutely gorgeous. I love the second and third movements of The Pines of Rome in particular, with the second movement's evocation of the catacombs and third movement's liquid, languid clarinet solo. Of course the Beethoven was stunning. The second movement of that symphony is almost enough to move one to tears. This time I found a new appreciation for the first and third movements, though; it was as though some huge, shining, overjoyed creature had escaped from backstage and come romping out into the concert hall.

Spending Saturday afternoon at Oliver winery with Scott, sitting on a blanket under maple trees, and reading part of The Story of the Champions of the Round Table and the first Father Brown mystery ("The Blue Cross"). His first introduction to G.K. Chesterton, whose inimitable style really shines in those short mysteries.

Later on Saturday, celebrating Eric's birthday by going out for sushi and then retiring to our house afterward to watch the extended Fellowship of the Ring with our (appropriately numbered) group of nine--Eric, Scott, Mary, Malory, Emily (Mary's sister), Lisa, Laura, Cindy, and me. We tried out mochi ice cream as a treat halfway through the long film.

And even though today is part of this week, not last week, seeing Uncle Scott and Aunt Anna at church today was definitely a highlight! The sort of lovely people who really communicate the love and joy of Christ, even as they prepare to return to hard work in the year ahead.

Now Playing: The Decemberists, "The King Is Dead."

Today has been blissfully peaceful as far as summer days go. I got up to run and listen to a sermon by Pastor D about the beginning of Ephesians 5, loving people. Later on, I had the chance to talk to both my parents, which was good.

This morning I managed to finish a chapter of French before lunch: imperfect, passe anterieur, more faire clauses, and so on. Lisa left for class at about noon. I baked peach scones, cleaned the house a bit while they were in the oven, and then spent the afternoon working on an article about a play for a database. Somehow I managed to finish a rough draft by the time Laura came home from work. She bounced upstairs and sat with me, flipping through pictures from the summer so far.

While I made tea downstairs--chicken, rice, green beans--Lisa sprawled on the sofa, browsing cooking magazines, and Laura sat nearby, strumming hymns on her guitar and singing. We ate together, and then Lisa and I went to Bible study at eight. The women's study this summer is working through Women Counseling Women, a book of essays edited by Elyse Fitzpatrick.

After Bible study I walked home. The evening was perfect, as perfect as a summer evening could be. The wind had changed to be from the northwest in cool gusts; the sky was cloudless; the air was dry and fresh. The sky resonated with deep color, as though it were the undulating silk of a pavilion roof, azure, peach, ochre. Bats zigzagged across it. I talked to Scott on the phone.

Nighttime was actually clear enough to be able to see Cygnus, Casseiopeia, the Big Dipper, and a hint of the Milky Way. Inside, the house smelled like chocolate chips and brownies. Laura had been baking for Mary's party tomorrow. She and I chatted about Les Miserables, which she'd watched while she was cooking, and then I went upstairs.

The new-ish beetle!

With the good ol' Buick still hanging out in the background. Looks like it's going to continue its trek north to Pennsylvania with Laura this fall. No retirement yet!

Today was car shopping day. We set out at about half nine with the goal of ending the morning in Loogootee, Indiana. On the way we stopped at two dealerships in Bloomington. The first salesman was a bit on the slicker side as far as trying to get me to buy things went. We'd found a Mitsubishi Lancer online on the lot that I liked, so I took it for a test drive. It behaved as well as could be expected and had a moon roof as a perk.

Having escaped that salesman, we went on to the next car, a Dodge Neon. The salesman there was an older fellow with an enormous Panama sunhat, who casually gave us the keys and let me take it for a drive. Again, it behaved itself. Its brakes were slightly better than the Lancer's. Always important.

Not terribly impressed so far, though both of those cars were 2005/2006, in my price range, with no terrible flaws, we set out for Loogootee. It's a fair drive from Bloomington, a good forty-five minutes or so. But the highway winds through some of the most beautiful countryside: high, rolling hills covered with thick hardwoods and the occasional grove of pines, sloping fields rich with corn and soybeans, pastures full of white Queen Anne's lace and yellow goldenrod, limestone quarries. It was about noon, and the distant hills were hazy, deep blue. Very peaceful to drive through that landscape.

Loogootee turned out to be a small but mostly prosperous town. The salesman was another older gentleman who put the least pressure of anyone: he actually handed us the keys and didn't stay around to sing the car's praises, but went inside and let me test drive it. The car was a Volkswagen Beetle, and it drove much more nicely than either of the other two. I couldn't believe it. I had set out wanting a Honda Civic or Ford Focus, but neither one of those cars existed in the market at a price that I could afford. It seemed ridiculous to be driving a buggy around, considering the amount of goofiness we always gave them as kids, but it was smooth and solid.

So we went inside the tiny office, and I told the salesman that I wanted to buy the car. After some phone calls to his boss (which were hilarious to overhear--small-town Indiana people are about as laconic as they come), he managed to take off six hundred dollars, which was almost enough to cover the sales tax. So away I went in a little tiny silver VW bug, over to the main dealership to pick up the title, and then back to Bloomington. I was so happy on the drive back that I couldn't stop smiling and thanking God. Had been praying for the last wee while for Him to provide, and He has!

That was just the beginning of the day's adventures, though. Mary came over at about half four, and while Scott kept us company, she and I made pesto and whole wheat noodles for tea tonight. Eric came over, too. Mary had never made pasta before, and I'd only made it with a pasta-maker, so it was rather an adventure. Homemade noodles cook fast, in about two minutes, and swell up to about three times their original size. Whole wheat pasta is pretty heavy, too. All those things were a surprise to us. With fresh pesto (from the basil on the back porch) and a strawberry-peach-spinach salad, though, it wasn't too bad.

We sat around joking for quite awhile after the meal. Laura had joined us; Lindsay has work in the evenings. Scott and Eric teased Lisa no end, which is about usual. At seven we went to the Hs' for our small group on Holding Hands, Holding Hearts. Somehow the Hs manage to pack a ridiculous number of people into their house even in the summer. Adam and Anne were there with wee Micah, and Scott, Mary, Lisa, and me; Laura had come with us, as had Eric, of course; Tom and Mary were there, and so were Russell and Nathaniel.

While Amy cut up brownies for dessert, Mary and I played with Anne and Jane. They rode piggyback on us, and we dashed around the house, with the two of them howling, screaming, and giggling from our backs. Ice cream and brownies for dessert. Scott, Laura, and I chatted with Tom's Mary about wedding plans. The small group discussion was about as usual, just talking about the book and its take on relationships. Good, plain, practical advice.

And so the evening ended with Scott and me back at the townhouse, saying good-night in the little buggy. Makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Now Playing: Jon Foreman, "Leaves and Branches," "House of God Forever."

Photos from Colorado are here.

We hiked up the Dry Lakes trail, with Horn Peak on the right. This is the basin that awaited us at the top, where we ate lunch.

More pictures from today here. Good times....

Scott, Laura, and I went to Waukomis today for gelato. Quite a sight, a BMW in Waukomis! The gelato was delicious, and on the way home we saw a tornado.

A small elephant trunk tornado, but a real tornado nonetheless. It was just hanging out in the field, not going anywhere, but it definitely prompted us to go somewhere much more quickly.

For being on holiday, I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in coffee shops over the last few days. Working on this project for Gale has been a bear. They've assigned us to write about one twenty-first century play a month as part of their push to put together a database of articles about twenty-first century plays.

The play I wrote about for June was a snarl of offensiveness, but for July I'm writing about an adaptation of Shakespeare's history dramas, the dramas centering on the War of the Roses. It definitely has its unorthodox components, but as a study in contemporary adaptation it's quite interesting. Thankfully the entry is nearly finished.

Highlights from the week so far include meeting Anna and Ruth for coffee on Monday, the traditional Enid Fourth of July party Monday evening, and baking thyme focaccia bread with Laura. Also introducing Scott to Braum's ice cream and Hideaway pizza.

The heat continues to be nearly unbearable. I'm not sure how anything is surviving, and if the heat and drought continue like this, the whole state may go up in flames before autumn comes.

Bridge between two (empty or nearly empty) office buildings in Oklahoma City.

Scott and I are in Oklahoma for the next couple of weeks. On Thursday we went to Tulsa to see TU and hang out with people, and yesterday we went with my mother to Oklahoma City and walked around downtown. It's been brutally hot, but we've still managed to spend quite a lot of time outside somehow. Yesterday afternoon we discovered just how desolate Oklahoma City can be in the middle of the afternoon when it's over 100 F outside: it looks like a set from Inception.

More photos from the trip so far here.

A few photos from Eric's welcome back party yesterday here. Eric has been in Mexico for the last two months, so Scott invited people over to his house to celebrate Eric's return. Thanks to the fact that Lisa's sister Lindsey was in town with her daughter Caitlin, and also to the fact that the Petras and Niesses came (the Petras with baby Eli, the Niesses with wee Micah), the house was comparatively full of kids. It turned out to be a perfect evening to be outside: the kids played with inflatable balls and a frisbee on the grass, while some of the rest of us sat around on the back porch and talked.

Now Playing: Notre-Dame de Paris.

 My zinnias have finally started to bloom. So far, they're just pink.

 One Sunday at church, Annie gave Lisa and me a pot of pink splash, miniature ivy, and petunias. Unfortunately, the petunia buds look a lot like the dead flowers, and since they need to be deadheaded regularly, I'm always in danger of pulling off the buds instead of the dead ones.

Our tomatoes have reached absolutely monstrous proportions, as has the lantana. Hopefully the tomatoes will now turn to producing fruit instead of trying to grow higher than the house.

Indiana is lush in June! The top photo is from woods northwest of Bloomington; the bottom one, from the Lilly House formal gardens in Indianapolis.

More photos added to this album.

Now Playing: Indelible Grace, "Rock of Ages."

It's been some month so far...! Last week was VBS in Bloomington. Angie and I were teachers for the first and second graders, which meant that we had five boys and three girls to shepherd around the church all week. More like herd, actually. Some of the boys were quite unruly, which made teaching memory verses, doing worksheets, and even lining up to go outside for games an adventure. I was hoarse by the end of the week. During the closing program on Friday evening, though, all the kids were able to say their memory verses in front of a large group of assembled parents and guests, which was quite encouraging. At least they were paying attention some of the time.

During VBS week, Rachel visited from Illinois, so it was good to have her around. She helped Scott with games for the kids and was invaluable in that role. She also cooked for us two nights in a row, which was pretty delicious. One of those meals was her family's special tacos, white corn tortillas fried in a pan of oil on the stovetop.

The first summer session ended last week as well. We had our French final on Thursday. Now it's down to working on my own in order to pass the French reading proficiency exam sometime in September. I'm just thankful not to have to dedicate so much time to class anymore. Of course, I need to test for Latin proficiency at some point in the near future, too.

Now Playing: Nick Drake, "Five Leaves Left," "The Thoughts of Mary Jane."

It's gotten so warm here this week that birds are panting as they fly. Yesterday evening, while Scott and I were making tea, Laura befriended a cat who's been hanging around our house. She's a young calico cat, mostly grey, and she was lying on our back porch, panting. We sat outside after tea, and the cat stuck around, purring so hard that her whiskers vibrated. The cat didn't even mind when Laura started strumming her guitar. Lisa and Lydia, Lisa's sister who's living with us this summer, were both totally disgusted by how much we were enjoying the cat and how much the cat was enjoying us.

Now Playing: Notre-Dame de Paris, for which I have Laura and Peter to thank.

Photos from this weekend here.

Love this photo. So happy to have a new sister in the family!

Philip and Alyson were married this past Saturday. Scott and I drove over to St. Louis for the wedding, and it was a pretty wonderful weekend. Stressful, yes, since Laura, Stephen, and I were all in the wedding party, but really good to see everyone, not only family members, but also TU friends and old family friends. The wedding itself was beautiful and the reception elegant.

After the reception the wedding party went to Forest Park for dinner. It was good to be able to relax in that smaller group (by no means intimate, though it felt intimate after all the panoply of the wedding ceremony and preparation!). We sat on a green lawn by a small lake and watched ducks and white egrets on the water. Philip and some of the other groomsmen threw grapes at the ducks. Caroline, Alyson's wee sister, walked across a tightrope that a couple of random guys had set up between a couple of nearby trees. She was so excited with the experience that she made Alyson walk across it, too, in her wedding dress, with Philip's help--the photographers made the most of the opportunity. (The random guys, thankfully, didn't mind all the attention that their tightrope-walking lesson was drawing!)

Laura, Keith, and I were the last ones at the park. We got to wave Philip and Alyson good-bye as they drove away in a wee red Ford, very similar to the wee red car our parents drove away from their wedding reception.

Trees in Yellowwood. Being from Oklahoma definitely makes one appreciate these magnificent old forests!

Photos from this past weekend added to this album.

 Now Playing: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique."

This afternoon Cindy and Scott came over, and the three of us drove out to Yellowwood State Forest to hike. The drive into the forest was barely marked and turned out to be a pitted gravel road, slashed across by shallow creeks, which Cindy’s small Ford Focus bumped across. We walked a 4.5-mile trail that ran in a long loop around the lake.

The trail ran up and down the spurs of the hills. It snaked up into small valleys between hills in order to ford creeks where they were narrower, before they fanned out into marshes around the lake. We splashed across several small creeks on flat stones, the clear, shallow water flowing fast under ferns. On the hillsides marched the great beeches, red and white oaks, and sugar maples. Massive: the beeches with skin-smooth silver bark, the white oaks with deeply corrugated pale bark, the red oaks with their darker, more finely ridged exteriors. On the hillsides across the lake, sycamores made splashes of celadon against the jungle green of the other trees. We entered arcades of pine trees, again, straight, immensely tall. Our feet were silenced on pine needles, and that wonderful, aromatic smell mixed with the smell of masses of wild white roses growing over fallen trees. 

We came across a much larger creek, dammed with fallen logs. Scott tried to teach Cindy how to skip rocks on a wide patch of smooth, deep water. We walked through a pine wood, absolutely silent, and then back up into the hardwood forest again. The forest was almost absolutely silent. As dusk fell the light deepened almost imperceptibly, until we were walking in a silent greenness. The wind rose in the trees. We finally came out at the dam at the bottom of the lake, where people were fishing. Wild daisies, red clover, and spiderwort were growing there, with Queen-Anne’s-lace. 

The trail required that we cross below the dam, but because of the amount of water flowing over the spillway, we turned back and took the road instead. By this time it was nearly seven. We marched on the extra half-mile to the trailhead. The drive back to Bloomington was lovely: the sun was just seeping through the clouds. Sheets of water on either side of the road shimmered in its vague light—so much water in the fields after all the storms! In Bloomington we went to Kroger to buy things to grill. Courtney came over to our house, and Lindsay came downstairs from her room and joined us. 

Starting the fire on the grill was an adventure. I didn’t put on enough lighter fluid to begin with, so it took several attempts with the lighter and quantities more lighter fluid (thanks to Scott) before the coals were actually burning. We finally put the top on the grill and left it to sit and heat, while we sat inside, snacking and talking. When the coals were hot enough, I went outside to put brats and hot dogs on the grill. Smell of smoke. Cool outdoors. Watched the clouds continue to roll away from the periwinkle sky. 

When the meat was ready, we all sat around the small table, eating hot dogs, brats, chips, fresh cilantro…. Suitably summery. We made s’mores, too, of course. Oddly enough, by this time the coals were properly on fire and extremely hot. Those perfect little rose-petal flames simmering endlessly over the coals. It would’ve been easy to cook meat on them by now, but it had taken them so long to get to this temperature! 

Three leggy Mayflies snuck into the living room, and a big Junebug buzzed onto my shirt and, when I flicked it off, slammed into the porch light. At about eleven Scott, Cindy, and Courtney went home. Sleeping with the windows open tonight for perhaps the last time for awhile—it’s supposed to be hot this week.

Now Playing: Second verse, same as the first.

It's been a busy few weeks since summer session has started. Lisa and I have French every afternoon from 1:10-2:30 p.m. supposedly, although the instructor usually ends about ten minutes early. Tomorrow we have our first exam, and I'm trying to understand direct object pronouns and verb tenses. Been revising my notes since class ended this afternoon. Lindsay is also taking summer classes, though hers, which are in the counseling program, are much more intense.

You might say that that doesn't sound too busy, but somehow since the summer term began our house has contrived to have a crazy social schedule on top of coursework. Last Thursday, of course, was Poetry Dinner III, which featured readings from Jorge Luis Borges and Dr. Seuss, among others. Saturday night Laura grilled for us, and we made s'mores afterward on the back porch over the hot coals. It's been chilly here, so we were all bundled up in blankets.

Monday was Scott's birthday party, which we hosted: mostly people from church. In order to carry on the grand tradition started by Laura-my-sister (remember that angel food cake we baked from scratch last year?), I made a chocolate cake from scratch out of the Joy of Cooking book. It took a solid hour to make, but the process is half the fun (until your wrists start to ache from using the beater for so long!), and anyway, the results were worth it.

Apart from having the luxury of time to spend with people, though, it's also been good to have time for other things: staying on top of e-mail, practicing my flute again, baking scones, a bit of gardening, and reading Dorothy Sayers mysteries. Lisa has been blazing through the Harry Potter books; she's on number five right now, and Laura and I giggle delightedly whenever she drags herself away for long enough to tell us how great Sirius is or whatever.

Now Playing: Corelli, Concerto Grosso in F., Op. 6, No. 3, Largo.

Once again, having fun with the camera: these chrysanthemums have lasted a ridiculously long time, ever since the end of April.

 

Baked blueberry scones today! Loving the new camera....

Some photos from this weekend here.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack.

Last night we had a fantastic party, the third in our poetry-reading sequence. The theme: monsters. Carmen painted these glorious little creatures as favors for everyone to take home after the festivities were over. 

We filled the back seat of Scott's car with plants this week, mostly for his garden. But our house also now has plants: a pot of cilantro, one of oregano, one of parsley, and one of basil, all duly fertilized and watered this morning before class.

Now Playing: Bach, Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1041.

One of the pleasures of being in grad school: sitting at the dining room table, watching a thunderstorm approach, while writing the conclusion to my paper on Heaney's Beowulf. Beside me Scott is working on a paper on the Lutheran appreciation for early modern anatomical texts, and across the table Mary is writing an essay for her Italian take-home exam about comedy and fencing. Tea and biscuits. Soon rain will be rattling against the glass.

Highlights of today:

Finishing everything except for two of my final papers.

Hearing again a conversion story.

Attending a glorious performance of the Brahms Requiem.

Smelling lilacs at night.

Now Playing: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique."

Today has actually been decent for the most part. After breakfast I went for a run. There's one house that I love to run past down in one of the neighborhoods: it's covered with weather-darkened grey shingles, and outside it grow a big redbud tree, covered thickly with those tiny, vibrant purple flowers, and just below that a big dogwood tree, also covered with flowers, but its flowers a pale green, as though each petal were a tiny china saucer. Love the contrast of the white dogwood against the vivid redbud against the dark shingles.

I did my quiet time outside this morning. The morning was extremely windy from the southwest, so I bundled up in a blanket and propped my Bible open with my phone while I read. I spent the morning grappling with the paper for L746. For some reason writing about Heaney is extremely difficult. A good deal of staring blankly at the screen and at the piles of notes I'd arranged around my desk occupied the morning. I listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and to Bach and Mozart flute concerti. At about one I got completely fed up with the paper and took a break to eat lunch.

After lunch I worked for another hour or so, and then I wheeled my bike out of the garage, where it's been in dormancy all winter. Thankfully there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it aside from the tyres being flat. I biked to Kroger, bought a pint of cherry tomatoes, a red onion, and a container of part-skim ricotta, and biked home. The afternoon was warm: one of these variable spring days, where the sky is a pasty Easter-egg blue color, and the wind comes and goes in gusts through the new leaves, restless. Again I sat outside on the back patio, with my arms and legs bare to the sun, and read Middlemarch for class tomorrow. Starlings, robins, and a thrasher working their way through the detritus on the hillside made noises like plastic bags rustling in the wind.

At about half five I started to make tea. Laura came home. She and I worked in the kitchen together. On my countertop I sliced up the red onion (skin dark purple and silky) and cherry tomatoes, sauteed chicken, boiled pasta. On her countertop she mixed and kneaded dough for cinnamon rolls. Laura, Lindsay, and I ate tea together, discussing wedding invitations: our household seems to have received a sudden influx of them.

After washing the dishes, I biked downtown to meet Mary and Carmen for dessert. We ended up walking up the square to Tallent, a ritzy local restaurant where Carmen worked as a waitress last summer. I felt definitely underdressed--surrounded by people in suits and dresses, in an atmosphere of dim lights and sleek earth tones on the walls, with waitstaff dressed all in black gliding about.

The three of us had a delightful time, though. We ordered carrot cake with cardamom-flavored ice cream, a rhubarb ganache with rosewater-and-pepper flavored ice cream, and a chocolate tart with mint whipped cream and an espresso swirl. So, so delicious. The best part was watching Mary's faces while she ate: when she took the first bite of the ganache, she shut her eyes and fanned herself with her hand, her mouth spreading into a loopy smile. "If this had been the Victorian era, that would've been a swoon!" Carmen laughed.

We sat around and talked for quite awhile, and then we went for a walk, down Walnut, up Fourth Street (where the smells of the Indian restaurants--curry, cinnamon, garlic, cloves--embraced us), and onto campus. Through Dunnes Woods, where rabbits hopped across the path in the silent gloaming under the trees. Campus is incredibly peaceful at night: an expansive, luxuriant silence, the silence of aisles of trees, of empty buildings, elegant, restful. Down past the IMU, and so up Kirkwood, past all the restaurants and bars, people sitting outside at cafe tables, talking, laughing, TVs flashing and stereos playing through open doors and windows, the smells of cigarette smoke, barbecue smoke, grease. And so up past the library and back toward the square. We said good-bye where I had parked my bike.

I walked part of the way home, talking to Scott on the phone until my battery gave out. Biked the rest of the way. At home Laura was helping Lisa write her resume. It's gotten chilly outside, so I closed my window, but I can still hear the sigh of the woods through Lindsay's window. It had started to sprinkle a bit as I wheeled my bike into the garage.

Photos from this evening here. Hang-out time with the girls to celebrate Carmen's MFA completion!

Lisa sent this out this morning from Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening.

“Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him.”

Isaiah 3:10

It is well with the righteous always. If it had said, “Say ye to the righteous, that it is well with him in his prosperity,” we must have been thankful for so great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a gift from heaven to be secured from its snares: or if it had been written, “It is well with him when under persecution,” we must have been thankful for so sustaining an assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is mentioned, all time is included. God’s “shalls” must be understood always in their largest sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, from the first gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all conditions and under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It is so well with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well fed, he feeds upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears the imputed righteousness of Christ; he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is well married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is his inheritance. It is well with the righteous—well upon divine authority; the mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them all to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when the creatures contradict him. It is, says the Word, at all times well with thee, thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God’s word stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God blesses is blest indeed, and what his lip declares is truth most sure and steadfast.

Now Playing: Dave Crowder Band, "How He Loves."

In a bid to maintain sanity, I took some more photos around campus today.

Now Playing: Bach, Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D minor, BWV 1068: Gigue.

Although it's probably been overplayed, the Air to this particular suite is absolutely beautiful. One of the pleasures in life right now: sitting on my bedroom floor with the window partly open, listening to the tail end of a magnificent thunderstorm. Rain on the eaves, thunder, and a sparrow singing somewhere. When I woke up this morning, the sky was overcast, so overcast, in fact, that I couldn't even see the university library from my window. Everything was very still and humid; it felt as though the rain had already come--but no, a couple of hours later, we were treated to a smack-down, bang-up thunderstorm, complete with thunder, lightning, sheets of rain, and probably some hail. Quite majestic.

This has been a week for catching up with people. Monday I got to hear firsthand about how wonderful Cyprus is from Elizabeth; yesterday Nicole described her wedding plans; this morning Emmaline caught me up on teaching, Renwick dinners, and the latest engagements in N.I., and hopefully this afternoon and tomorrow I'll get to talk to Amy and Anna. 

Somehow all of that is happening around the work that's going on at the same time! So far, I'm pretty much ready to present an article on open syllable lengthening in Middle English in class on Tuesday, and to turn in the last short paper for Middlemarch. Neither one of these projects feels particularly secure as far as quality of work, but then I never feel particularly secure when handing anything in for Middlemarch, and phonetics has never been my strong point (as far as linguistics, I prefer lexis--vocabulary--like a good poet!). This afternoon the goal is to prepare for the Middle English paper that's due in two weeks.

Writing blog posts is rather frustrating because it simply can't capture the subtext of everything else that's been going on here for the past few months, especially over the last few weeks. Trying to come to terms with God's goodness, to accept the fact that He loves me--while being stressed and exhausted from work. But His love is so glaringly obvious right now that I simply can't ignore it. Which is probably a very, very, very good thing.

Now Playing: Bach, Concerto for Violin, Strings, and Continuo in A minor, BWV 1041.

I love this movement from this concerto!

Today before book history, I walked around campus and took a few photos. Unfortunately my camera wasn't too happy with the lighting, but even though it didn't capture the buds coming out on the trees very well, it did capture how beautiful their branches were against the noon sky.

This hillside was covered with daffodils a couple of weeks ago. They're still quite glorious and smell wonderfully of pollen.