Religious women - both Catholic and Orthodox, and yes, one Methodist minister - have been a tremendous influence in my life. Right now, American Catholic (mainly) Religious and (some) Nuns (NB: Nuns are cloistered and thus rarely found outside of monasteries; those women who taught you, etc. are Religious Sisters) are under threat from the Vatican ( Read more... )

Greetings, respected bloggers and all readers of my journal ( Read more... )

Coastal Maryland is now being evacuated. I'm very glad to live decently well inland and on a bit of a hill - near the crest, in fact. Nevertheless, I am a little worried about Hurricane Irene - more now than before, since Governor O'Malley is making a very big deal of it. They (governors) don't do that unless they really want you to leave. He ( Read more... )

My Grandpa Zacharias died yesterday morning at the age of 98 - except he wasn't actually my Grandpa Zacharias. Grandpa Zacharias was Mama Judy's father, and Mama Judy and Joe are my alternate parents - my parents' best friends. I grew up a very short walk away from them, went to school with their kids, spent weeks at a time at their house, had ( Read more... )

This is just to say that I am aware that radicalphear is in fact on my friends list, and she is a relative.

We got married yesterday. It was a semi-elopement, but we had a good small handful of close friends there, including klaughingbrook and dindin. melebeth took a lot of time and trouble to take a lot of photographs, truly beautiful photographs. scooterbird performed the ceremony, which had some traditional Orthodox blessings in with some secular and Pagan elements. My condition was ( Read more... )

Sometimes I find myself walking down the street and thinking, "My Uncle Bobby won't get to see the neighborhood kids walking to and from school this year," or "Eileen's new students won't ever learn checkers from my uncle ( Read more... )

Late summer is a strange time. The weather is more like Los Angeles than the Mid-Atlantic. Days are warm. Nights are cool, breezy, and relatively dry. Some of the trees are just starting to change - including the very top of one maple. I'm worried about my life and the months ahead ( Read more... )

Dear Miles,

You are extremely cute and somewhat insane. Do you realize that I spent three and a half hours on Saturday looking for you, calling your name, and begging you to come home? I walked into underbrush so thick, I doubt you could have even penetrated it. I had a stick. I lifted tree limbs. I talked to every person I saw. I spoke ( Read more... )

I have been thinking a lot about the concept of growing old gracefully. I had a conversation with my grandmother recently that precipitated this. We were talking about how hard things have been for my dad and his siblings since my uncle died. Grandma Snazzy (yes, we call her that) mentioned that she doesn't have any friends. All her siblings ( Read more... )