knock knock

Tinned anchovies and tinned sardines have long been among my favorites. Tinned and glass jarred. With anchovies, I eat them from the tin or on saltines or cut up in a salad or, best, a can of flat anchovies laid out on very thin bread to make a sandwich, an occasional breakfast treat. You can use mayonnaise or just use some of the olive oil they're packed in. 

Sardines are also a breakfast treat, usually nothing with them but mustard, one of my mustard varieties. This morning I had an apple with my hot & black, then Linda remembered, "You were going to have sardines this morning," which I'd forgotten. So, peel back the lid on a tin of sardines from Portugal, a Fathers Day gift. Portuguese sardines are famously best, and they can be priced higher than those from Spain France Italy Norway &c. These were good, sans mustard, they were enjoyable just plain from the tin, at our table outside here on 7H porch. 

Yes, it's warm and I won't stay out here long, but with the box fan blowing it's tolerable out here. Anyway, the sardines were excellent. And a large mug of ice water.

Locally, a good source of a variety of sardines and anchovies is World Market PCB. For cheeses, Fresh Market, for tinned fish, World Market.

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We're expecting the kitchen cabinet installation team any minute. This will be their fourth day onsite, and it looks to me like they still have a couple of days to go. Staying out of their way, I'm avoiding the industrial district, which includes front outside area, inside entryway and hall, kitchen, dining room, and part of the living room. Our condo has a kitchen sink also in the laundry/pantry room, and a toaster oven in there, so we're not really inconvenienced, though it will be good to have the place to ourselves again, hopefully soon. Soon as the cabinet team finishes, the countertop people are to come to make their template visit. We're changing from dark cabinets and black countertop to white. At this age, for one reason, I cannot see anything that's laid down on the black countertop.

Again, a diary of sorts, see, and/or journal entry. Looking at our Gospel reading for next Sunday, Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father. It's basically the same as in Matthew, though Matthew has smoothed it up a bit, and his is the one used throughout the Christian church. That both Luke and Matthew have this indicates that it's from Q, the hypothetical source of material that appears in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark (Gospel John is an altogether different ballgame). 

In the next paragraph of Luke's story, Jesus seems to suggest that people may have to keep banging on God's door with their/our prayers, but that God will eventually respond. It's marginally encouraging, as our human experience confirms, with God probably most often seeming not at home, or at least not answering the door. WTH, there ain't no probably to it, nomesane?, prayer can be most frustrating. OT bible stories remember God as having always been right there present, active with his people Israel (usually on their side but someTimes coming as Israel's enemy). The stories are great, but our experience is more of being put here and left here to deal with life as it happens day to day. That's just a fact of life no matter who tries to rationalize for God.

As I know from life as a parish priest, it is a challenge to help people in the pain and sorrow of sickness, grief, extremis appreciate the theology that God is present in the care and loving concern of other people. We want and may expect Jesus to walk into the room and touch us or say the words, but this is not the New Testament Age. 

RSF&PTL

T89&c       

Luke 11:1-13

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"