My Parents and Tomato Sandwiches

Looks like today will be the last day of summery weather for us. I celebrated by making a tomato sandwich for lunch the way my Dad liked them -- American cheese, thick slice of fresh tomato, mayonnaise, and some garlic salt -- and even having a buttermilk with it like he did, only I skipped adding pepper to the buttermilk. 

That has got to be one of the best sandwiches ever and quite possibly the only good use for American cheese. All the flavors get nice and gooey together without even heating it up. I remember a couple years when we had lots of tomatoes coming and my Dad would buy those huge blocks of sliced American and we would have cheese and tomato sandwiches many happy lunches in a row.

And my Mum and tomato sandwiches?

Well, she taught us to love silly little line drawings called Droodles. They always have an unexpected caption on them and it's great fun to make them up and try to guess the caption, or see if you can improve on the artist's label. My Mum taught me this one, which has been a favorite of mine since grade school:

Got it? "Tomato sandwich as made by an amateur tomato sandwich maker."

But my Dad was no amateur. :) 

Poor Hello Kitty

My lovely mouthless but still apple-pie-loving friend has hit the news. Devastatingly Handsome woke me up with the news that it has been reported that Hello Kitty is not a cat at all. 

Talk about shocking news. A real crisis to test your worldview. I turned to the computer to see if it could be true and found that like most news, there are several sides to the story. The latest information according to Sanrio says that she is actually "a personification of a cat." Not sure what that means, it sounds a bit like she is a dream, as if she appears in the thought bubble above a cat's head. Or maybe a little girl's. I think I can live with that. 

~ ~ ~

By the way, the smartest Hello Kitty in the world lives in our schoolroom: 

Fungi Day

Today Devastatingly Handsome, Miss Dog Lover, Miss Dog, and I took a walk through our woods and carried along a picnic for our lunch. It was a beautiful day, cool for July but pleasant. It rained for maybe three minutes, tops, perfectly timed, while we were eating lunch in the shelter. 

It turned out to be what I declared fungi day. 

Here is a picture of my "fun guy" along with the girls: 

And here are some of the other fungi we saw... a pretty red toadstool of some sort... I am pretty sure there were fairies nearby...

there were lots and lots of Indian pipes... is it still pc to call them that? I may have to go back and see if I can get a decent photo... 

pretty sure some sort of (very small) alien came out of this ship cleverly disguised as a puffball...

and these fellows really were purple... if I can find them again I will turn off the flash and see if it shows that way...

"And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day." ~ Genesis 1:11-13

A Friend of Mine

I have been remembering a song I heard a few times my sophomore year in college when my roommate would play it (hi Catherwood!). I don't really know why this song has returned to me after many years but I share it here: 

Here are the lyrics if you'd rather read than listen, though the music is gentle and loving:

A friend of mine is going blind
But through the dimness
He sees so much better than me
And how he cherishes each new thing that he sees
They are locked in his head he will save them for when
He's in darkness again

He can't read books
And he can't paint pretty pictures
But he understands so much clearer than I
For he knows that all he's missing with his eyes
Is more vivid in the mind of the man who's going blind
And that's why he doesn't mind.

Won't you sing Tommy Davidson of
Things that you have seen
Sing of winter's bite and summer nights
And places you have been
Of dew drops and forget-me-nots and
Silver silky sheen
Lain across the morning meadow on the hillside

And this friend of mine, he plays guitar
And he sings so much better than I
He can sing you any pictures in your mind
He will sketch them out in rhyme draw the details in the lines
And he'll color it in time

And oh how he loves his guitar
And it loves him
And they play much sweeter than I
As if to say that come the day that he can't see
He will have at his command so much beauty in his hands
That the loss won't come so hard

Won't you sing Tommy Davidson of
Things that you have done
Sing of silver seagulls sailing into evening's golden sun
Sing of city streets and villages and people on the run
Tell the people how you know it
Tommy Davidson

In any case, I've been thinking about this song and Job and wondering why Job didn't have friends who loved him like this and were able to see at least a glimpse of what God was doing in his life. I have been blessed the last few years to watch several friends walk faithfully through cancer and all the Valley of the Shadow and suffering that entails, and come out with their faith intact, a beautiful walk. 

I once heard a sermon about Job and the pastor talked about the way Satan came to God and God said, "Have you considered my servant Job?," then went on to talk about perhaps sometimes God asks if Satan has considered others of His servants. If that still goes on, I may know some who Satan has been asked to consider -- and by God's grace, they have stood the test.  

Random Thoughts on Death

I nearly chose red as the font color for this post due to being about death but decided death is more about life than about actually dying, so I am going with a nice vibrant green. 

So I have this bubble page going in my daily notebook with thoughts about death. They are all linked around a central bubble labelled "learning how to die." I hate to admit it but I pretty much think that learning to die is the main lesson of life. The problem for me, at least, is that I am generally disinclined to die, to put my old man to death. 

So many of my thoughts for this page are based around song or hymn lyrics. I wonder if the emotional weight of the subject is more easily carried on music. 

Lyric from Jon Forman song of the same title: 

She said, "Friend,
All along I thought I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really I've been learning how to die
I've been learning how to die"

Paul says (Philippians 1:21) ~  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

Andrew Peterson in The Havens Grey: 

When you sail from havens grey
Caught up on the wind and blown away
Close your eyes on the Shadowlands
And bid goodbye to all your friends 
And sail from havens grey
Caught up on the wind and blown away
You'll bid goodbye to all your friends
And close your eyes on the shadowlands
I know you will open them again in the endless day
Of a love that dawns beyond the havens grey.

I was taught once that death is a lot like birth. We were happy and safe in the womb and no words could have explained life outside the womb. We likely would never have chosen to leave and would have been scared if we knew we had to. 

I love the confidence we have both in life and in death, as expressed in In Christ Alone: 

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

And not in any hymnal, but a favorite for me, Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill:

I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
they've come to take me home."

Galatians 2:20 ~ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,who loved me and gave himself for me.

"Long Love Stories"

I read emails from Gretchen Rubin writing on happiness. This week she sent out one with this quote: 

“Collectors are basically of two kinds; those who aim at completing a series, and those who long to possess things that have bewitched them. The former, of whom stamp and coin collectors are the obvious examples, enjoy the pleasures of a limited aim, and its comforting certainties. The latter may suffer ups and downs, changes of heart and deceptions, but they have several great advantages. They never know when some new love will inflame them; they learn a great deal more about themselves from their possessions; and in the end they are surrounded by old friends, with long love stories which they must try hard not to tell their friends.”Kenneth Clark, Another Part of the Wood: A Self-Portrait

The last part of that quote resounds with me. I find myself telling stories of something I care deeply about and not too sure if my friends want to hear it or not. I guess that is one reason I like writing. You all can choose to come to my blog or not, I will never know the difference, read it or not, comment or not, roll your eyes or not. And I can share my long love stories regardless. 

Bean Report, Finally

I am a slow reader these days, not sure why. I finally finished reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow. Miss Language has been a fan of this series and shared it with Mr Music. Mr Music saw I was ready to read Ender's Game and was quite vocal that I must read Ender''s Shadow first, so that I would not "judge Bean ahead of time." Whatever that means. 

So, I finally did. 

Mr Music keeps asking what I think. 

Well, what do I think? I think I am not crazy about books where babies hide in toilets and children kill other children. And I never have understood why children have to command in this army, anyhow.

But. There were some interesting ideas and some good quotes. Those I marked were: 

"Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because when he works a particularly clever bit of mischief, God uses it to serve his own righteous purposes."

"So God uses wicked peoples as his tools."

"God gives us the freedom to do great evil, if we choose. Then he uses his own freedom to create goodness out of that evil, for that is what he chooses."

So in the long run, God always wins."

"Yes."

"And in the short run, though, it can be uncomfortable."

"And when, in the past, would you have preferred to die, instead of being alive here today?"

"There it is. We get used to everything. We find hope in anything."  (from chapter 16)

~ ~ ~
and

"... the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns  being his keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept." (in chapter 18)

Seems like I have read these ideas somewhere before. :)