but a whimper, as two girls and one of their parents have what appears to be food poisoning. I will not reveal which parent, to protect the identity of the ill. The girls are much better, but the parent may have been overheard praying for a quick and merciful demise.
Girls and healthy parent will fly […]

We’re here in Midwestern Captital, but we had to work to get here.

We found out Christmas night that United had changed our flights without telling us, from leaving Dulles at 1:30 to leaving at 7:30 p.m. and getting in at 11. Um, no. So they rebooked us, sort of, and instead of a 90 minute […]

So we have four services on Christmas Eve. The first is a children’s pageant. This year I will be working the nursery for that service, with the assistance (?) of little she and miss m. As a parent, I never get to volunteer in the nursery, so I’m excited about that.
Then we will have our […]

Three years ago today, I was feeling bored and restless at the church and wrote a silly list of Christmas music I’d been hearing on the radio. And reverendmother: the blog was born.
Three years! I certainly wasn’t an early adopter of this genre, but three years is a long time.
I posted a few times a […]

One of my favorite topics:
1. Favorite cookie/candy/baked good without which, it’s just not Christmas.
Our pralines, although we’ve had two botched batches so far this year. I don’t get what we’re doing wrong… I mean, it’s really humid today, but we used to make them in Houston!
2. Do you do a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, […]

Some of the readings for the Lessons and Carols service on Sunday, adapted for “speakers’ choir”:
Still to revise a bit (suggestions?), and figure out who will be saying what, and rehearse, and did I mention that now it’s *little she-who-is* who is running a fever?…
It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks.
FIRST LESSON Genesis 3:8-15 […]

daybreak is a blue receiving blanket
edged in baby pink, tucked tight
under the chin of a world that was
up half the night, wailing.
all is calm, tender and mild,
damp, glittering.
then out of nothing
a silver thread appears, streaks the sky
and hangs for a long piercing moment.
an airplane’s hasty journey?
or a lightning strike, frozen on film?
(I can almost believe […]

Lying motionless while bubbles float by.
Lying motionless while bubbles float by; eyes flash with delight.
Moving head and eyes to track the path of bubbles.
Moving hands and fingers to try and catch bubbles.
Closing hands and fingers around bubbles; cackling with glee.
Crawling toward the generator of bubbles; grasping for bubble bottle.
Saying, “buh.”
Saying, “buh-buh.”
Exhaling in the vicinity of […]

The divine miss m is completely back to normal health-wise. So we’re back to only dealing with the impending molars.
Little she-who-is had a sleepover with MaDear. They went to see Charlotte’s Web. They both really enjoyed it, although she kept asking me why the farmer wanted to take the pig to the smokehouse. Time to […]

We come to a time when we realize that the faith we have inherited is inadequate for what we are facing… At such moments we have three choices. We can hold to our religious beliefs and deny our experience, we can hold to our experience and walk away from our religious tradition, or we can […]

from the lovely Songbird:
1) It’s a Wonderful Life–Is it? Do you remember seeing it for the first time?
I love this movie. I try to watch it every year, although some years I watch the abridged version (from Uncle Billy losing the money until the end).
When I went to college, we had to fill out this […]

Because PPB did it and she’s a rock star.
The first line from the first post of each month this year:

I have to work hard to calculate what day it is according to the calendar; all I know is that the divine Miss M is five days old.
Yesterday was one of those freak-out days.
Excuse me, states […]

i was far away
when the messenger came to you,
her voice wispy white
it is time
and you readied yourself for the climb,
packed bags just so
then hoisted them on capable shoulders
and breathed stout sea level air
as your heart beat its thanks, thunderstruck
but it wasn’t time.
you were set, but the mountain
was still finding its shape
under furrowed drifts—
smoothing ancient footprints
wiping […]

[Because I’ve had eleven straight days of posting and I gotta keep the streak going, but man I’m out of ideas for tonight]
I’ve been meaning to post this for a week or two, but my alma mater is going to a bowl game for the first time in…
[wait for it]
45 years.
e to the x, dy […]

The divine miss m went back to daycare today. She squealed with joy when she got there, and had a great day, except this morning while the caregiver’s back was turned she climbed onto the Lego table, lost her footing and face-planted on a toy. So she has a handsome scrape on her right eyelid. […]

The divine miss m is much better. She’s still waking at night for various reasons, but hasn’t had fever all weekend. The snot river’s dried up, minimal coughing. Breathing treatments are prescribed through Tuesday; then we’ll see. We’re hoping she’ll be back at daycare tomorrow. She seems to be getting pretty sick of our house.
Meanwhile, […]

The yellow Boohbah is the best one.
There really is no comparison.

So, my love-hate relationship with the 24/7 Christmas music we’re all subjected treated to is well documented. It gets too sentimentally sticky-sweet sometimes, yet I find myself unable to resist it. And so…
1. A favorite ’secular’ Christmas song.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. There are many versions and most of them are good, except the […]

Which is all I have time for…

The divine miss m seems about the same as yesterday, maybe a little worse. The coughing keeps her up and/or wakes her up, and one of the medicine’s she’s taking is a STIMULANT!!!!!!!!
Two nights ago (the first night after the diagnosis), little she-who-is threw up in her bed for […]

worship
though it’s embarrassing,
like talking in one’s sleep
or feeling milk chortle out the nose.
it is unseemly, the amnesia of the self,
the adoration unto death, the testimony,
against the evidence, that there is
only
this:
the beloved
addressing her:
be loved,
as i am.
you cradle me, but it is i who will
save you, gather you back
from the
abyss;
with a
pair of eyes studying her face, […]