We had a professional painter paint our living room and foyer. The living room is orange with a yellow ceiling, the foyer is red. The plan was to paint the inner faces of the archways purple, the fireplace brick purple, and four inches down around the top of the walls purple. He kept telling us about this great new stuff called Frog Tape, for masking off color changes such as the purple border he was planning. So he finished the orange, and tried to tape off the border.
The tape wouldn't stick! He talked to the Sherwin Williams people. They said that the paint needed to dry for three days. He came back yesterday and put some tape up on one part of the living room - the part where no furniture needs to move. About an hour after he left, the tape started falling down.
There is something about that deep base used for the orange - Frog Tape won't stick to it! so the living room walls are going to be orange all the way. Personally, I'm glad, but don't tell the design team I said so.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Lost And Found
In January of 2002 I voluntarily went to our therapist solo. I was in great distress, as you would have surmised if you knew me well and learned that I went to any form of doctor voluntarily.
A year earlier I had dusted off an old 1993 sermon entitled "Life And Death Tangled In The Interdependent Web," updated it with a couple of excellent books that had been published in the interim and renamed it "Leading The Way To Hope." In it I described our disastrous environmental situation, and ended up by describing how Unitarian Universalists were poised to be the leaders of the movement toward sustainability and responsible stewardship. At that moment I could see the tipping point ahead, where we would lead the world into a better tomorrow.
I already had a small local circuit that I toured: our Orlando UU congregation; the lay-led University UUs - a congregation birthed from the loins of the Orlando church; and the little lay-led Eustis congregation. If one of my offerings was well-received in Orlando, the others would hear of it and invite me to speak. Lay-led congregations are always hungry for speakers, even if we're just lowly carpenters (and who ever heard of a carpenter being a religious leader?!)
This particular sermon was so well liked, I was approached at District Annual Assembly by a representative of the Nature Coast congregation on the west coast of Florida. He had been asking around the other lay-led congregational representatives for suggestions of speakers. This sparked a germ of an idea in me. I had a District Directory that told me the names of all of the people in charge of lining up speakers in the district churches and fellowships. I printed up a flyer describing my sermon and mailed it out to every congregation in the Florida District, knowing that even churches with settled ministers had periodic lay services during the year and usually during the whole summer. Well... I got a pretty good response. Many had heard of me, and those who hadn't were directed to the many congregational leaders who had already experienced a Jim Emerson sermon.
During the spring and summer of 2001 I was out of town nearly every Sunday. I went to Lecanto, Ocala, Port Charlotte, Clearwater, Bradenton, and even Key West. Ocala asked me back for a date in early October, and Daytona signed me up for mid-November. I was on top of my strange little world, riding a wave of appreciation for my writing and my public speaking skills.
And then those damned four airplanes got hijacked into a huge high-profile big body count attack on the very same American wasteful value system I had been envisioning being phased out by peaceful example-led change from within. At that moment I watched my vision of a sustainable culture crash, explode, burn and die.
I was scheduled in Ocala to deliver a talk about humans and the blurring of the lines that we have drawn around ourselves separating us from the other animals. I tried to write that - really I did - but I couldn't pull my head out of my despair. So I wrote about what I really felt. What a mistake that was! Yes, I stayed for the "talk back" portion of the service, and felt as though the mood of my audience would have been more eloquently expressed by a barrel of hot tar and some feathers. Were these the same UUs I had recently invested with so much hope?
In November I mustered the gumption to go to Daytona and deliver "Leading The Way To Hope" as scheduled, but I did so with a very heavy heart. That is when I learned that I did not believe it any longer. My hope was gone.
Doctor Hughes listened to my tale of woe, and did what he could to help me dig out from my despair. He told me that EVERYONE had lost something on September 11th, 2001. I had lost my hope.
Life gradually got better for me, although I became more reclusive, and I was pretty introverted before. I withdrew from Unitarian Universalism just as Carmen was poised on the threshold of her quest for ministry. As we moved to Massachusetts and became immersed in the history of the UU movement, I gained a huge amount of respect for the things about it that I had admired years before, but now saw with mine own eyes. We visited dozens of churches that had been ongoing since the 1640s and directly involved in many upheavals in our culture.
At church this morning, Carmen's sermon was about the dynamics of cultural evolution, resistance to change and fiery determination to take it to where someone thinks it ought to be. Religious freedom and religious pluralism was the focus of the sermon, and the events leading up to recent anti-muslim sentiment were spelled out. Her point was that Unitarian Universalists were poised on the threshold of tipping the scales toward real religious pluralism, because this is what we are all about and have been for decades. I was forcefully reminded of the events leading up to the day my hope was lost.
Today, I think I found it again.
A year earlier I had dusted off an old 1993 sermon entitled "Life And Death Tangled In The Interdependent Web," updated it with a couple of excellent books that had been published in the interim and renamed it "Leading The Way To Hope." In it I described our disastrous environmental situation, and ended up by describing how Unitarian Universalists were poised to be the leaders of the movement toward sustainability and responsible stewardship. At that moment I could see the tipping point ahead, where we would lead the world into a better tomorrow.
I already had a small local circuit that I toured: our Orlando UU congregation; the lay-led University UUs - a congregation birthed from the loins of the Orlando church; and the little lay-led Eustis congregation. If one of my offerings was well-received in Orlando, the others would hear of it and invite me to speak. Lay-led congregations are always hungry for speakers, even if we're just lowly carpenters (and who ever heard of a carpenter being a religious leader?!)
This particular sermon was so well liked, I was approached at District Annual Assembly by a representative of the Nature Coast congregation on the west coast of Florida. He had been asking around the other lay-led congregational representatives for suggestions of speakers. This sparked a germ of an idea in me. I had a District Directory that told me the names of all of the people in charge of lining up speakers in the district churches and fellowships. I printed up a flyer describing my sermon and mailed it out to every congregation in the Florida District, knowing that even churches with settled ministers had periodic lay services during the year and usually during the whole summer. Well... I got a pretty good response. Many had heard of me, and those who hadn't were directed to the many congregational leaders who had already experienced a Jim Emerson sermon.
During the spring and summer of 2001 I was out of town nearly every Sunday. I went to Lecanto, Ocala, Port Charlotte, Clearwater, Bradenton, and even Key West. Ocala asked me back for a date in early October, and Daytona signed me up for mid-November. I was on top of my strange little world, riding a wave of appreciation for my writing and my public speaking skills.
And then those damned four airplanes got hijacked into a huge high-profile big body count attack on the very same American wasteful value system I had been envisioning being phased out by peaceful example-led change from within. At that moment I watched my vision of a sustainable culture crash, explode, burn and die.
I was scheduled in Ocala to deliver a talk about humans and the blurring of the lines that we have drawn around ourselves separating us from the other animals. I tried to write that - really I did - but I couldn't pull my head out of my despair. So I wrote about what I really felt. What a mistake that was! Yes, I stayed for the "talk back" portion of the service, and felt as though the mood of my audience would have been more eloquently expressed by a barrel of hot tar and some feathers. Were these the same UUs I had recently invested with so much hope?
In November I mustered the gumption to go to Daytona and deliver "Leading The Way To Hope" as scheduled, but I did so with a very heavy heart. That is when I learned that I did not believe it any longer. My hope was gone.
Doctor Hughes listened to my tale of woe, and did what he could to help me dig out from my despair. He told me that EVERYONE had lost something on September 11th, 2001. I had lost my hope.
Life gradually got better for me, although I became more reclusive, and I was pretty introverted before. I withdrew from Unitarian Universalism just as Carmen was poised on the threshold of her quest for ministry. As we moved to Massachusetts and became immersed in the history of the UU movement, I gained a huge amount of respect for the things about it that I had admired years before, but now saw with mine own eyes. We visited dozens of churches that had been ongoing since the 1640s and directly involved in many upheavals in our culture.
At church this morning, Carmen's sermon was about the dynamics of cultural evolution, resistance to change and fiery determination to take it to where someone thinks it ought to be. Religious freedom and religious pluralism was the focus of the sermon, and the events leading up to recent anti-muslim sentiment were spelled out. Her point was that Unitarian Universalists were poised on the threshold of tipping the scales toward real religious pluralism, because this is what we are all about and have been for decades. I was forcefully reminded of the events leading up to the day my hope was lost.
Today, I think I found it again.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Geezer of Meadville
On March 11th of this year I posted "The Conquering Geezer Returns," a slice of my new life as an official geezer (the tipping of the scales was the hearing aids.) On March 11th, on my way home from getting my aids tuned up, I had to wait an hour for the next bus to my neck of the desert (in Albuquerque.) I walked into Wendy's at 11:00am and found myself surrounded by geezers. So I turned up my hearing aids, adjusted my trifocals, hitched up my compression stocking and limped in on my orthotic arch supports.
Today I walked down to the Area Agency for Aging, where I was hoping to get some help finding a job. I was walking past the Wendy's at about 1:15 and realized I was hawngry! Well guess what - it was filled with geezers. I felt right at home.
After eating I went on down Park Street to the address of the AAA - in the Senior Center. I went inside and walked from one end of the building to the other. Nobody was home, even at the welcome desk. I guess they were all at Wendy's.
So I walked over to Market and Chestnut Streets to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Workforce Development office, hoping for some help there. I found a couple of geezers there. I think they were volunteers. Their "job" was to help people look for work on the Workforce Development website. It turned out that I knew more about that than they did. I did a little looking on their computers just to be polite, then walked on home. My computer is faster than theirs.
It was a nice walk, anyway.
Today I walked down to the Area Agency for Aging, where I was hoping to get some help finding a job. I was walking past the Wendy's at about 1:15 and realized I was hawngry! Well guess what - it was filled with geezers. I felt right at home.
After eating I went on down Park Street to the address of the AAA - in the Senior Center. I went inside and walked from one end of the building to the other. Nobody was home, even at the welcome desk. I guess they were all at Wendy's.
So I walked over to Market and Chestnut Streets to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Workforce Development office, hoping for some help there. I found a couple of geezers there. I think they were volunteers. Their "job" was to help people look for work on the Workforce Development website. It turned out that I knew more about that than they did. I did a little looking on their computers just to be polite, then walked on home. My computer is faster than theirs.
It was a nice walk, anyway.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Only Kitty
When Professor Remus John Lupin came into our lives, he was the youngest of four kitties. Big bad Peanut was outside most of the time, and when he came in he would take nothing from Remus. Yang avoided him as much as possible, and Yin wasn't much fun to hide from and pounce on, so R.J. Lupin slept a lot, ate the cheese Aunt Cyndie fed him and grew that famous Mozzarelly Belly we know and love.
In 2005 Peanut went to live with my parents at their mountain cabin in Georgia. In 2008 Yang died. As long as Yin was alive, ReLu had to be fed in a separate room and kept there until Yin was finished eating - otherwise Remus would eat her food then his. Yin was always underweight, so we kept a good supply of dry food in a bowl for her to munch between feedings - which kept Remus' mozzarelly belly in full bloom. Now that Yin is no longer with us, the perfesser is on a diet! He doesn't much like it either. He howls at me to put down dry food between meals, and I put down ten or twelve nuggets. He looks at me with a puzzled, contemptuous expression.
It's been over a week since Yin did any eating. I've been feeding Remus "where the white kitties eat" this whole time, but he still goes to his quarantine room door when I set out to feed him. Critter of habit.
Sometimes he howls for no apparent reason, and we have to wonder if he's grieving for Yin. After all, she was good for a pounce and roll every now and again, or a game of "under the door" or "the chair game." And they often shared the sunshine streaming in through the back doors in Albuquerque and here. I'm certain he misses her.
He has never been an only child before, taking the brunt of both of our affections. But he seems to be getting used to it.
In 2005 Peanut went to live with my parents at their mountain cabin in Georgia. In 2008 Yang died. As long as Yin was alive, ReLu had to be fed in a separate room and kept there until Yin was finished eating - otherwise Remus would eat her food then his. Yin was always underweight, so we kept a good supply of dry food in a bowl for her to munch between feedings - which kept Remus' mozzarelly belly in full bloom. Now that Yin is no longer with us, the perfesser is on a diet! He doesn't much like it either. He howls at me to put down dry food between meals, and I put down ten or twelve nuggets. He looks at me with a puzzled, contemptuous expression.
It's been over a week since Yin did any eating. I've been feeding Remus "where the white kitties eat" this whole time, but he still goes to his quarantine room door when I set out to feed him. Critter of habit.
Sometimes he howls for no apparent reason, and we have to wonder if he's grieving for Yin. After all, she was good for a pounce and roll every now and again, or a game of "under the door" or "the chair game." And they often shared the sunshine streaming in through the back doors in Albuquerque and here. I'm certain he misses her.
He has never been an only child before, taking the brunt of both of our affections. But he seems to be getting used to it.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Heart Of A Lion! - A Eulogy
Yin died tonight at about 8:30. For several days she has done little but lie there breathing, with that heart of a lion pumping. She was in Carmen's lap when it finally stopped.
The vet told us when we rescued her and her brother that they were damaged goods and we shouldn't expect them to live longer than three or four years. Yang died two and a half years ago at nine years old, and Yin made it to eleven and a half. She was always an inspiration.
At four weeks old when they were dumped by a breeder, they would both fit in the palm of my hand. After they were nursed back to health, they were regular kittens, into everything, exploring everywhere. Yin had no pupils in her eyes so we knew she was blind, but she was determined to go wherever Yang went, climbing up on chairs, desks, sinks and dressers. She used to run down the hall, turn into the bedroom and leap onto the bed - until we moved the bed. After that she would never jump up on anything unless she could feel the top of it with her front paws. She would jump down off of anything, though, trusting that the floor would always be there. She landed in a waste basket or two, but mostly that procedure worked. For that reason, we were sure to always close the lid on the toilet - and were aghast when a visitor would leave it open.
She had a mental map in her head at all times and in all places we lived - she lived in five houses with us - and changed the map when the furniture moved. If she heard us talking about taking her to the vet, she could hide faster and more bafflingly than any other cat we've had.
When she was young we had a bent wood rocking chair. We're not sure how it got started, but she had a frequent game going where she climbed up into the chair, ran up the back so it rocked down and up and down and up, until it stopped, then she would run back down to the seat and back up the back to ride the ride again, sometimes eight or ten times before she moved on to some other entertainment.
In Orlando our back pool deck was completely fenced in, so one day we let Yin and Yang outside to explore and sniff and feel the sunshine. For about a half hour it was paradise. They circled the pool, smelled the bushes, swatted at lizards and rolled around in the sunshine. Then they came on back around, looking like they were ready to go inside. I got up to open the door, and my chair made a loud scraping noise. Yin bolted away from the sound - directly into the pool! Carmen jumped in after her, grabbed her and tried to hand her to me - a sopping wet furry buzz saw of claws! We were both bleeding from several wounds by the time we got her calmed down and dried off. The next time she went outside was in the walled-in pool-free back yard in Albuquerque.
She saw us through Simply Organized, Inc., Lesley University, Andover Newton Theological School, the Albuquerque internship and the beginning of the Meadville ministry. I guess her work was done. We shall sorely miss her.
The vet told us when we rescued her and her brother that they were damaged goods and we shouldn't expect them to live longer than three or four years. Yang died two and a half years ago at nine years old, and Yin made it to eleven and a half. She was always an inspiration.
At four weeks old when they were dumped by a breeder, they would both fit in the palm of my hand. After they were nursed back to health, they were regular kittens, into everything, exploring everywhere. Yin had no pupils in her eyes so we knew she was blind, but she was determined to go wherever Yang went, climbing up on chairs, desks, sinks and dressers. She used to run down the hall, turn into the bedroom and leap onto the bed - until we moved the bed. After that she would never jump up on anything unless she could feel the top of it with her front paws. She would jump down off of anything, though, trusting that the floor would always be there. She landed in a waste basket or two, but mostly that procedure worked. For that reason, we were sure to always close the lid on the toilet - and were aghast when a visitor would leave it open.
She had a mental map in her head at all times and in all places we lived - she lived in five houses with us - and changed the map when the furniture moved. If she heard us talking about taking her to the vet, she could hide faster and more bafflingly than any other cat we've had.
When she was young we had a bent wood rocking chair. We're not sure how it got started, but she had a frequent game going where she climbed up into the chair, ran up the back so it rocked down and up and down and up, until it stopped, then she would run back down to the seat and back up the back to ride the ride again, sometimes eight or ten times before she moved on to some other entertainment.
In Orlando our back pool deck was completely fenced in, so one day we let Yin and Yang outside to explore and sniff and feel the sunshine. For about a half hour it was paradise. They circled the pool, smelled the bushes, swatted at lizards and rolled around in the sunshine. Then they came on back around, looking like they were ready to go inside. I got up to open the door, and my chair made a loud scraping noise. Yin bolted away from the sound - directly into the pool! Carmen jumped in after her, grabbed her and tried to hand her to me - a sopping wet furry buzz saw of claws! We were both bleeding from several wounds by the time we got her calmed down and dried off. The next time she went outside was in the walled-in pool-free back yard in Albuquerque.
She saw us through Simply Organized, Inc., Lesley University, Andover Newton Theological School, the Albuquerque internship and the beginning of the Meadville ministry. I guess her work was done. We shall sorely miss her.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Big Doins in Meadville!
In the past five years and five months I have lived in Orlando, greater Boston and Albuquerque before moving to Meadville. What I've noticed about Meadville is that things that would attract very small crowds in very big cities are per capita very big draws here. The first example is one we haven't seen yet, but we are assured that we must: there is a dam hereabouts where people feed the carp bread, and they have grown so big and so numerous that ducks walk across their backs. That's entertainment.
There are three theatrical entities in the city plus a few out in the hinterlands - we have been to shows put on by two of them already.
Thunder In the City, a motorcycle and classic car festival, was in the city the second weekend in August. The UU church put on a pancake breakfast that Saturday morning and nearly broke even.
The County Fair was last month, and every place we went people asked us if we had gone to the fair yet. (Don't tell anybody - we never did go.)
This week The Tall Ships are in Erie, and the chatter is all stories about times folks have gone up there to see them in years past, and/or plans to go see them this time.
This past Wednesday we were invited by a church member to the Crawford County Historical Society's presentation by a man who has done a lot of research into the history of the Medal of Honor with an emphasis on the two Meadville residents who were awarded the medal for their valor at Gettysburg in 1863. There were about seventy people there.
And today was my second session serving the homeless at The Soup Kitchen over at the Methodist Church across the street from the UU church. There were five of us from the UU church (the second Friday of each month is our day) four non-UU volunteers and after a while we were joined by about ten members of the Allegheny College Gators football team.
What I'm saying, I guess, is that in those places I used to live, this sort of thing is overshadowed by the sheer mass of events and activities available on a daily basis. Here in small town Pennsylvania, this is what there is to do, so many people do it. It's kind of refreshing, really.
I like it!
There are three theatrical entities in the city plus a few out in the hinterlands - we have been to shows put on by two of them already.
Thunder In the City, a motorcycle and classic car festival, was in the city the second weekend in August. The UU church put on a pancake breakfast that Saturday morning and nearly broke even.
The County Fair was last month, and every place we went people asked us if we had gone to the fair yet. (Don't tell anybody - we never did go.)
This week The Tall Ships are in Erie, and the chatter is all stories about times folks have gone up there to see them in years past, and/or plans to go see them this time.
This past Wednesday we were invited by a church member to the Crawford County Historical Society's presentation by a man who has done a lot of research into the history of the Medal of Honor with an emphasis on the two Meadville residents who were awarded the medal for their valor at Gettysburg in 1863. There were about seventy people there.
And today was my second session serving the homeless at The Soup Kitchen over at the Methodist Church across the street from the UU church. There were five of us from the UU church (the second Friday of each month is our day) four non-UU volunteers and after a while we were joined by about ten members of the Allegheny College Gators football team.
What I'm saying, I guess, is that in those places I used to live, this sort of thing is overshadowed by the sheer mass of events and activities available on a daily basis. Here in small town Pennsylvania, this is what there is to do, so many people do it. It's kind of refreshing, really.
I like it!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Wrong Again?
Those who've known me for a long time know that I am often wrong. Those who know cats know that they are expert in the field of making liars out of us. The freshest example that comes to mind is the food Yin just ate - a chunky bits in gravy kind of food that, until a few weeks ago (when Carmen bought some by mistake) I vehemently said that Yin will not eat. She eats it now.
The other possibility is that she overheard us talking about veterinarians, and decided she'd better snap out of her "declining" behavior. I've seen that before, too. She has been on enough vet visits to have figured out the drill.
Anyway, the bottom line is that she has perked up and is no longer acting as though the end is near. So - disregard the previous post.
The other possibility is that she overheard us talking about veterinarians, and decided she'd better snap out of her "declining" behavior. I've seen that before, too. She has been on enough vet visits to have figured out the drill.
Anyway, the bottom line is that she has perked up and is no longer acting as though the end is near. So - disregard the previous post.
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