Fri May 9 8:37 AM

 

Didn't occur to me during preparation, but breakfast sandwich of lox (thin sliced smoked salmon) on crisp-toasted very thin white bread would have been better and more Jewish with a smear of cream cheese instead of mayonnaise on each slice of toast. The 40 calories per slice of bread was better though, than the calories of a bagel.

Not really into chewy bagels anyway, I'm better for Thomas' English Muffins or this very thin sliced bread from Pepperidge Farm.

The lox I only buy when it's twofers at Publix, or the half-price lox scraps at Fresh Market. No purist, I like soy sauce on my lox. Makes it more like salmon sushi, nomesane?

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Linda's hobby is spotting things of mine that can be thrown away or given to Habitat for Humanity. My shoes. My shirts. My extra underwear. My extra socks. My suits that no longer fit. This morning I managed to salvage my exercise pants that I use for house clothes in the daytime or pajama pants in winter. Having to give up something, though, I finally agreed to pack up the tall bar I bought for grabbing when I step out of the tub (I should have converted my bathtub to a step in shower while 7H was rebuilt after Hurricane Michael, but Whitehead Plumbing declined to do the work because they once were sued for a job here at HV that leaked into the apartment below, so I gave up on that project but now wish I'd pursued it). I'd assumed (assume = making an ass of me) that the tall bar would be held up by pressure between floor and ceiling, but it has to be screwed permanently into the floor (which is tile) and the ceiling, and I've been procrastinating on that for a couple of months now, so out it goes. Pack back up and take to the Habitat store out on the east end of 11th Street (they apparently shut down their facility just up Beck Avenue from us). 

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So, what else is new? Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost elected Pope and chooses the name Leo XIV. Press is saying that the name a pope chooses signifies; my recollection of Pope Leo XIII is that he's the one who declared Anglican orders invalid. Any Anglican clergy who transition to the Roman Catholic Church must therefore be ordained again, whereas any Roman Catholic clergy who transition to our church are simply received. 

Why would a Catholic priest want to transfer? Usually because they think they've fallen in love and want to get married, I remember one or two. Why might an Episcopal clergyman elect to transfer to Rome? Have known one or two of those also: they come to realize that Rome is the one, true church; they enter Rome laicized; re-ordained, if married they must agree to live with wife as brother and sister, and if widowed never to remarry. What the heck - -> if you join an institution you should expect to live by the rules. 

Anyway, the new Pope gave a fine opening blessing and address, only bits and phrases of which I could understand as he spoke only Italian and Spanish. As well as born American, he's a naturalized citizen of Peru where he lived for much of his ministry as priest and bishop. He's a gifted intellectual and his career history is most extremely impressive.

Pope Leo XIV has the same birthday as mine, September 14, and at sixty-nine he's exactly twenty years younger than I am. He'll turn seventy the day I turn ninety. I pray him a long, healthy life and a papacy of peace and joy as he continues to live into and exemplify the life of Jesus Christ.

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On the home front, I understand there's a birthday parade coming up, down Pennsylvania Avenue. In my memory I have a vivid image of birthday parades with armor and artillery rolling by, warplanes flying overhead, and goose-stepping troops saluting the leader as they pass in review. Perhaps the cheering crowds will be required to remain and continue cheering and saluting as the leader rides by standing at the windshield in the front seat of the parade car acknowledging the adulation of the adoring Volk.

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Friday May 9: while enjoying today looking out across St Andrews Bay and beyond Shell "Island" into the Gulf of (gulp), I'm looking forward to Saturday because TJCC plan to drive over from Tallahassee to honor Mother's Day for Linda. They're going to take us out for dinner at the wonderful Italian restaurant on Harrison Avenue. I'm intending to have spaghetti because I love pasta that I can twirl with my fork. 

For life and love, good food, and a prayer for peace before it's closed in the sod, 

RSF&PTL

T89&c