HOPALONG

A rather quiet Easter. It's really lost any family feel to it since Mom's death
and we don't get together for Easter dinner like we did in the old days when
Dad would fire up the pressure cooker for the Boiled Cabbage to go with the
ham.Cheryl has been fighting a headcold and had an interview for today that she
wanted to rest up for, and her husband has finally gotten over the staph infection
in his side that he seems to have developed either at Walter Reed while visiting
Paul or at home from some germ Paul had. We think this because it was originally
a small scratch and the infection was especially tough to clear up. I wonder how
many other health problems have come back from Iraq with our troops?

Work Saturday was a madhouse. We were light on staff to begin with and then
one of the girls went home ill. So for three hours in the afternoon there were four
of us on the sales floor(not counting the cafe worker) and of the four, three of us
were on the registers. We had a non stop line, but luckily the customers were
good humored. But by the time I got out at 6 I was wiped out. I came home, ate,
napped in the parlor off and on for nearly 6 hours before checking in online at
Cams. I got to bed around 3:30 and ending up sleeping in until nearly 2. So, not
a heck of a lot got accomplished today .

And my shifts this week are all mid shifts...12-9pm for four days, 11-8 on Saturday

Fun fun fun.

ALL QUIET ON THE WEST-ERN FRONT

Nothing new to report tonight. A quiet day off. A mostly quiet day online
except for some conversation near the end of the night in the Keep.

I have fallen into the worrying habit of occasionally talking aloud to myself around
here and now worry I will start doing it in public. I'm not crazy, really, it's just that
there's no one else here to talk to. Occasionally I sing a little (badly) along with
some music but other than that, it's pretty quiet around here . So I will tell myself
what an idiot I am when I do something stupid or I'll comment about a news story.
I also made some insulting remarks to the radio weatherman today on his lousy
prediction of a major snowstorm that didn't happen.

Ah well..as long as I don't scare the hell out of some old lady someday muttering
to myself at the laundromat.

ANOTHER LAZY SUNDAY

..and I did nothing of interest..

But hey, I'm on a roll posting so I thought I'd keep it going especially
since I am working three 1pm to 10 pm shifts the next three nights
and I'm not sure I'll be awake before midnight tonight if I doze off.

So there, I've preserved my blog continuity...bloginuity?

At any rate, good night and good luck.

TERRY SHIAVO

I am astounded at what a circus this whole affair has become. A flatbed
truck drives around her hospital with a large replica of the two tablets of
the Ten Commandments and a working replica of the Liberty Bell. A man
walks around with an 8 ft foam spoon with a "Feed Terry" sign attached.
Bo Gritz tries to smuggle bread and water to her as a "symbolic gesture"
since she's incapable of eating or drinking on her own.

And Tom Delay in a cynical ploy to divert attention from his shady deals and
from Republican disarray over Social Security reconvenes Congrss to try to
step in and reverse the court decision to remove Terry's feeding tube. A memo
has been leaked that talks of how this will appeal to the Christian Conservatives
and Right to Life factions.

Is this an example of letting someone go to their Creator with dignity?

Do we want politicians stepping into these situations for their own purposes?

If this grandstand play succeeds can we expect more appeals for Congress to
overturn similiar court cases in the future? And if they decline to do for the next
case what they might do in this, will we be faced with the prospect of Congress
being sued for failing to intervene the next time?

It's wrong that Terry Schavo is brain dead. It's wrong that her husband's decision
to let her go in peace as she would have wished is being painted as murder. He
didn't walk in the day after her heart attack and asked to have all life support
removed. It was only after some time and when it became obvious that his wife
was never going to return to him that he arrived at the decision.

I feel for her parents, but they are unable to face the reality that their daughter
is reduced to this vegetative state and prolonging her life is only going to add to
her body's pain.

And it's wrong..horribly, disgustingly, wrong for Congress to use this issue as
a political football.

I hope there's enough members who will see that when they take the next vote
tonight.

ANOTHER SPOOKY COINCYDINK

As I've blogged before, I've been exploring the family tree for a
year or so now and there's been some eerie coincidences between
my presnt interests and my family's history. I found another a night
or two back.

I needed something to read at work one day and picked up a
magazine called "Scotland" that deals with Scottish history and there
was an article in it about "Scottish Slaves in New England". Seems that
after Cromwell defeated a Scottish army in support of the Stuart kings
there were a lot of Scottish prisoners to be taken care of. So many of
them were sent over to the Massachusetts Colony as indentured servants
to help with much of the heavy labor. Many of them helped to build and
run the Saugus Iron Mills, the first foundry in America. This was a chapter
of American history I hadn't known about before so I found the article
fascinating.

A few weeks passed and then the other night I was digging around in my
Dad's maternal Barker ancestors among whom are members of the Upton
family, in particular one John Upton. Who, I then discovered, worked at the
Saugus Iron Works and who some other genealogy researchers say was one
or may have been one of the Scottish prisoners.

Spooky, eh?

ADSUM DOMINE

This is the Healer's Oath from Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series.

"Adsum Domine" means "Here I am, Lord" in Latin

Here am I, Lord: Thou hast granted me the grace to heal men's bodies.

Here am I, Lord: Thou hast given me the might to bend the will of others.

O Lord, grant strength and wisdom to wield all these gifts only as Thy will

wouldst have me serve.

The Lord of Light siad unto me, Behold:
Thou art my chosen child, My gift to man.
Before the daystar, long before thou wast in mother-womb,
thy soul was sealed to Me for all time out of mind.
Thou art My Healing hand upon this world,
Mine instrument of life and Healing might.
To thee I give the breath of Healing power,
the awesome, darkling secrets of the wood and vale and earth.
I give thee all these gifts that thou mayst know my love:
Use all in service of the ease of man and beast.
Be cleansing fire to purify corruption,
a pool of sleep to bring surcease from pain.
Keep close within thy heart all secrets given,
as safe as said in shriving, and as sacred.
Nor shall thy Sight be used for revelation,
unless the other's mind be freely offered.
With consecrated hands, make whole the broken.
With consecrated soul, reach out and give my peace.

Here am I, Lord: All my talents at Thy feet I lay.

Here am I, Lord: Thou art the One Creator of all things.
Thou are the Omnipartite One Who ruleth Light and Shade,
Giver of Life and Gift of Life Thyself.

Here am I, Lord: All my being bound unto Thy will.

Here am I, Lord: Sealed unto Thy service, girt with strength to save or slay.
Guide and guard Thy servant, Lord, from all temptation,
that honor may be spotless and my Gift unstained.

Katherine Kurtz

ST PATRICK'S DAY

And a Happy St. Paddy's Day to one and all.

I have two vivid memories of past St. Patrick's Days

The first involves my mom and the revival of the parade in Abington. Now, while my
mom was Irish American (with a little German thrown in) we had never been really
rambunctious a family over celebrating the holiday. But one year she and some others
got to talking about how it was a shame that a town like Abington that had such a
large Irish American community didn't have a St. Patrick's Day Parade. One of the
group, Eddie Bailey, owned a car repair place and said that if they wanted to do it,
they could decorate his flatbed tow truck and he'd drive them around town.

Of course, you need music for a parade, so Mom asked me if they could borrow my
boombox and I bought them a cassette tape of the Irish tenor John McCormack singing
all the old ballads. I brought it down to them at the shop and so I guess I was the first
offical parade spectator because I hung around long enough to watch the decorated
"float" drive out onto the main road with Mom and the others singing "When Irish Eyes
Are Smiling" before I had go to work.

Within a few years, it had become a major event with four parade divisions and marching
bands. Every once and awhile the local paper will make mention of the parade's origins
and Eddie was Grand Marshal still up until a few years ago. And for years, Mom would
always take the day off from work if she had to so she could march in the parade with
her VFW Auxiliary group. She never missed a parade.

Which leads me to my second memory.
March 17th, 1999. It snowed that day, and when I went off to work Mom was still in
bed. She had already scheduled the day off for the parade and could sleep in for a bit.
I thought it unlikely that there would be any marching that day because of the snow.

I came home at 5pm and found the apartment dark.I turned on some lights and walked
for the bathroom. It was only after I left it that I glanced into my mom's room and
realized she was in bed. It turned out she'd never gotten up. I asked if she had the flu
but she said no, and I told her I would cook some dinner for her. By 7 when she still
hadn't gotten up to eat and was not answering me, I got worried and called my sister.
Cheryl came over and we decided that Mom needed to go see a doctor, so we got her
up and dressed and Cheryl took her over to the hospital while I waited for Joe, Mom's
boyfriend, at the apartment to fill him in.
And that was it. The beginning of the end. In four months she was dead from cancer.

I think of the two memories, I prefer the first.

A LITTLE FURTHER AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER

..over in the nightstand by the bed.
This concludes the books here in the same room as the computer.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces- Joseph Campbell
Primitive Mythology- Joseph Campbell
Oriental Mythology- Joseph Campbell
Occidental Mythology- Joseph Campbell
Creative Mythology- Joseph Campbell
The Development of Arthurian Romance- Roger Sherman Loomis
The New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology-
The White Goddess-Robert Graves
Scandinavian Mythology- H.R. Ellis Davidson
Celtic Mythology- Proinsias MacCana
The Greeks and Their Gods- W.K.C. Guthrie
Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature- W.P.Ker
Celtic Myth and Legend- Charles Squire
Northern Mythology- Benjamin Thorpe
Bulfinch's Mythology- Thomas Bulfinch
An Encyclopedia of Fairies- Katharine Briggs
The Discovery of King Arthur- Geoffrey Ashe
A Field Guide to the Little People- Nancy Arrowsmith & George Moorse
The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People- Thomas Keightley

SOME MORE BOOKS BY THE COMPUTER

ok..books actually on the desk's shelf or on the bottom shelf of the bookstand.
I've left off the books on Modern or U.S. History.

Bible-KJV
Bible-NIV
St.Joseph's Daily Catholic Missal
The Renaissance of the 12th Century- Charles Haskins
The Thirty Years War- C. V. Wedgewood
The Fall of the House of Habsburg- Edward Cruikshank
Imperial Spain 1469-1716- J. H. Elliott
Ancient Iraq- Georges Roux
The Vikings- Johannes Bronsted
The Celts- Nora Chadwick
The Medieval World- Friedrich Heer
Medieval Myths- Nora Goodrich
From Ritual to Romance- Jessie Weston
The Greatness That Was Bablyon- H.R. Saggs
The Heritage of Persia- Richard Frye
The Pelican History of Greece- A.R. Burn
The Romance of Tristan- Beroul
Tales From The Thousand and One Nights- Sir Richard Burton
The Waning of the Middle Ages- Jan Huizinga
The Nibelunglied- Anonymous
Le Morte d'Arthur (abr) -Sir Thomas Malory
Irish Sagas- Myles Dillon
The New Golden Bough-Sir James Frazier
The History of the Kings of Britain-Geoffrey of Monmouth
The Death of King Arthur- Anonymous (13th century)
Le Morte D'Arthur v1 (unabr.)- Sir Thomas Malory
Le Morte D'Arthur v2 (unabr.)- Sir Thomas Malory
Arthurian Chronicles- Wace and Layamon
Myths of the Greeks and Romans- Michael Grant
Idylls of The King- Alfred Lord Tennyson
The House of Habsburg- Adam Wandruszka
The Quest of the Holy Grail-Anonymous (13th century)
The First Book of Irish Myths and Legends- Eoin Neeson
A Celtic Miscellany- Kenneth Jackson
Ancient Myths- Norma Goodrich
Tristan -Gottfried von Strassburg
Mythology- Edith Hamilton
Gods, Graves, and Scholars- C. W. Ceram
Parsifal- Wolfram von Essenbach
The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles- Ronald Hutton
The Secret History of the Sword- J. Christopher Amberger
The Life and Death of a Druid Prince- Ann Ross
History of the Persian Empire- A.T. Olmsted
The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy -Oskar Jaszi
A History of the Crusades V.1 - Steven Runciman
A History of the Crusades V.2 - Steven Runciman
A History of the Crusades V.3 - Steven Runciman
The Knight in History- Frances Gies
Sword Fighting- Keith Ducklin
Celtic Sacred Landscapes- Nigel Pennick
The Rise and Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy- Victor Tapie
Encyclopedia of World History- William Langer
The Plantagenets- John Harvey
Dictionary of Ancient History- Graham Speake
The Ancient Near East- James Breasted
A History of the Vikings- Gwyn Jones
A History of the Later Roman Empire V.1- J.B. Bury
A History of the Later Roman Empire V.2- J.B. Bury
Lost Cities of China, Central Asia and India- David Childress

There!
That's all.
For Now.

SOME BOOKS NEAR THE COMPUTER

ok..I'm tired and not really feeling all that philosophical tonight.

So here are a few of the books in the bookstand next to my comp:
These are books I use for inspiration or for information in writing.

The Age of Arthur -John Morris
The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History V1
The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History V2
The History of the English People -Henry of Huntingdon
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes -Amin Maalouf
The Welsh Wars of Edward I -John Morris
The Quest for Arthur's Britain -Geoffrey Ashe
The Ottoman Centuries- Lord Kinross
The Empires of the Steppes -Grousset
Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance -Roger Loomis
Medieval Wordbook -Madeline Cosman
Merlin- Norma Goodrich
King Arthur-Norma Goodrich
The Holy Grail- Norma Goodrich
Sources of The Grail- John Matthews
King of the Celts- Jean Markale
The Year 1000- Robert Lacy
Life in a Medieval Village- Frances and Robert Gies
Life in a Medieval Castle- Frances and Robert Gies
Life in a Medieval Town -Frances and Robert Gies
Medieval Folklore- Carl Lindahl
The Heimskringla- Snorri Sturlason
Celtic Magic -D.J. Conway
Scottish Witchcraft- Raymond Buckland
William the Conqueror- David Douglas
A Distant Mirror- Barbara Tuchman
Medieval Panorama- G.G. Coulton
Kievan Russia- George Vernadsky
The Wars of the Roses- Anthony Goodman
The House of Medici - Christopher Hibbert
The Little Herb Encyclopedia- Jack Ritchason
Medieval Swordsmanship- John Clements
Renaissance Swordsmanship- John Clements
Swashbuckling- Richard Lane
Arthur's Britain- Leslie Alcock


That'll do for tonight. I'm finally sleepy enough that the achy knees might
not matter. Besides, I can't read the bottom shelf from here ((grin))

More to come another night.

NUMPTY MIDDLE-AGED BACHELOR TIPS#2 & 3

Tip #2 : Never apply Flex-all to an aching knee in the dark. This avoids getting too much
Flex-all in your hand.

Tip#3 Over application of Flex-all to the knee not only alleviates the ache in your knee
but also does wonders for your sinuses.

NUMPTY MIDDLE-AGED BACHELOR TIP#1

Note to self:

No matter how much I love spaghetti, next time don't cook the whole package. Even with
the home made sauce, three nights of spaghetti in a row is too much .
And there's still more left in the fridge.

.

FLAT

Well, it's still snowing out. Whiteout conditions and officially the second blizzard of
the winter, although more for the high wind and low visibility than for total snow fall.
I'll have to do a little shoveling again tomorrow before going to work at noon, it looks
like. Man, that wind is really howling, though!

I'm at that time of year again where I feel a bit of dissastisfaction with things.Lately the
books I buy turn out to be not worth the time or money spent on them.And of course
there's work and SWMBO, but that's a given. I can't afford to change jobs when in
all likelihood I'd have to take a cut in pay to start and I realistically cannot afford it. So
I soldier on and look for those parts and people I enjoy about the job and endure the rest.

It's not as bad in rp right now but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that all this silliness hasn't
had some effect. I cannot understand why someone who's chosen to leave the channel
cannot just move on with what has happened. One part of me tells myself to ignore it,
while the other part says to do so would be to validate what is being said. And it's hard
to kick a sl into gear when the chan population is low.

Even my writing seems bleh to me. I wrote HT33 today and one particular scene, the
walk up the side of the hill, had been in my imagination since the other night. I just re
read it and it seemed...flat.. to me.

Not to mention the two typoes I missed before posting to the list.

Flat seems the best description for it all right now;like ginger ale with the fizz
gone out of it.

But I' m mainly an optimist. I'll hang on and wait for a fresh glass and more
fizz.

..IN LIKE A LION

Only in New England. We had 46 degree temps this morning with rain.
It's now 33 with snow and sleet and going down into the teens by morning.with
wind gusts of 60 mph possible tonight. Ah well..the snow had melted enough
earlier so that you could see the grass for a few hours. It'll be covered up
again in another hour. 1 to 3 more inches (at least) of snow expected.

At least I had the day off and didn't have to drive in this mess.

FALL DOWN GO BOOM!

Which is what I did at work again today. This time it happened outside on the front walk.
I'd suddenly realized I'd left my wallet lying in plain view on the front seat of my car
so I went out to get it, not bothering with coat or hat because, after all, I was coming
back inside right away. I retrieved my wallet and started back inside, thinking about a
conversation I'd had with SWMBO just before this, and as I walked towards the door
I caught the tip of my shoe on the edge of the sidewalk. There's a tapering down of
the curb to allow handicap access and I hit the last actual edge of curbing.

I then did a fairly accurate impression of a dodo bird.

Nothing broken, but I cut the inside of my mouth a little and have a nice bruise on the
corner of my chin to match the scrape over my eye and the other bruises on my kneecaps.

Nothing injured except my pride.

Amazingly enough, my chino pants were not torn..not a mark on them.

Wish I could say the same.

Ah well...let's hope I don't fall out of bed.

UP TO HERE

Well, we got hit with yet another snowstorm. We got about a foot of it in this
area and that brings the total for the Winter so far in the region south of Boston to
77 inches. Normal snowfall in the Boston area for Winter is about 28 inches. Last
year we had 36. The record was set back in the winter of 1995-96 of 144 inches
or 12 ft.

Of course, at 77 inches that's nearly 6 1/2 ft which is above my height. My knees
have been bothering me a bit lately and I think part of it is due to the cold and part
to the frequent shoveling of snow.

I don't mind the shoveling so much as the driving. I left work at 8pm last night and
it was just starting to snow. By the time I'd gone three miles, the snow was coming
down heavily and covering the roads. I immediately slowed down to keep from
slipping and sliding all over the place. By the time I had gone another mile, it was
white out conditions. It was a classic nor'easter with high winds and "horizontal"
snow. Took 45 minutes on what's normal a 15 minute drive to get home.

And even as I typed this, the radio had a report that the National Weather Service is
already forecasting more storms this weekend.

Ah well..it's New England...Spring will eventually get here...some time in May, probably.
Further north where my father grew up there will be snow on the mountains until early
June. My grandad died up there one year in Feb. They kept the body in storage at
some funeral home until late April when the ground was softer and it was easier to dig
out a proper grave. ((This was back in the `60s. I'm sure by now they've all got
machinery up there to do the work instead of waiting for the thaw.))

We'll moan and complain but we're used to the snow. As long as the Red Sox home
opener isn't snowed out in April, we'll survive.

Now if you'll excuse me, my shovel is calling...