One of my solemnly sworn writing principles is never (never is an extreme word, so hardly ever) begin an essay, blogpost, sermon, paragraph, and - - okay with phrases following a semicolon but - - very few sentences, with the word "So" because it's too common, although one of my favorite authors, Harry Golden, even has a book titled "So, What Else Is New?" It was a favorite book, one of several he published that were collections of essays from his days with "The Carolina Israelite" newspaper, his half tongue in cheek socio-political essays based on his life in the segregated South, and on his life growing as a Jew is the garment district Lower East Side of NYC. Harry Golden was an extraordinarily observant, thinking, and expressive person; if you've not read his writings you've missed something worthwhile in life. But I wander, matter of fact, I even started out wandering because I'd started to open with the word So, and got off track bef

3:58 A.M. - - looking out and up, the moon is south and slightly west at about one o'clock from the meridian, 98% illumination and waning gibbous, a nice start to Monday, small boats racing across the Bay in the dark.  Had we been at home I'd have used the potassium product NoSalt, and I need to start carrying some when we eat out, but grinding salt on my eggs and catfish yesterday after church put four pounds back on me since yesterday morning's victorious weigh-in, now the right foot ankle leg is almost double-size and it's another FuroEighty day. Which limits today's POD, nomesane?  With my magic mug of hot & black, once again and always, +Time is not and never a food blog, but I've been tasting strawberry preserves, and've confirmed my favorite: not the German product we get at TAFB Commissary, but Trappist. Before ordering Trappist from EWTN my favorite might've been the French jar of Bonne Maman. Matter of fact, in the kitchen cabinet with wate

  After church this morning (we went to eight o'clock, we may vary between eight and ten-thirty from Sunday to Sunday) and then treated ourselves to breakfast at Bayou Joe's where we both had the catfish and eggs, for long years my favorite there along with their fried grouper sandwich.  Mostly good experiences at Bayou Joe's over the years, and it feels home for me because I grew up on Massalina Bayou. Along with Apalachicola, living in the condo there at Tarpon Dock Bridge, or Cove Condo on Cherry Street, were on the short list, along with three possibilities across Hathaway Bridge, until we realized the super convenience of the underground garage with elevators here at Harbour Village, united with my lifelong ties to St Andrews. As Sunday winds down and I realize that I'm older than I've ever been and older than I ever expected to be, what's on my mind? That some things are more important in life than others. Besides love, and those I love and have loved,  Th

  Out here on 7H porch with first mug of hot & black, eyes and ears on, watching, hearing, and enjoying nature's sound of waves slapping against the shore seven floors down, and flashes of lightning from the cloud far offshore over the Gulf of Mexico.  Weather radar shows tiny blips of green/yellow/red making their way north toward us, for a likely day of occasional brief thunderstorms. Our POD for Saturday 20 July includes a visit to the Farmers' Market next door in Oaks by the Bay Park, to buy tomatoes and also yellow crookneck squash if the Marianna couple have it at their kiosk.  Who the H am I trying to impress, myself?, kiosk? woo hoo, I mean at their booth, this is the South, Baby.  ++++++++ What am I contemplating as I work at dropping the last four pounds before my annual doctor's appointment weigh-in on 5 August, two weeks from Monday? The fried (I think it's actually baked, but rolled in cornmeal it's like southern fried without the grease) catfish fr

  Out of town, we weren't at our home church last Sunday, so I got it wrong, as HNEC seems to have changed from Track 1 to Track 2, in which the Old Testament lessons for Sundays are "old style" with the OT reading and psalm meant to bear some relationship to the gospel reading,  instead of Track 1, which (throughout the Season after Pentecost, or Ordinary Time as most denominations term it) reads through the Old Testament book by book, Bible story by Bible story.  My personal preference, which is irrelevant except in my own mind, is Track 1, reading each of the good old time Sunday school Bible stories in turn. My feeling about the old way, this OT passage and that one popping up out of the blue from Sunday to Sunday, was always that it was erratic, spasmodic, disconnected, not to say spastic. The intended connection of OT Reading and Psalm to the Gospel Reading was frequently elusive.   But I'm retired into the Wilderness that I have chosen, and it seems to be worki

  Raining over at Tyndall, which, from 7H, I can see to my southeast, and the weather ap notifies me there's lightning near Grand Lagoon, which I can see to my southwest; and sure enough, comes the rumble of thunder.  The weather ap that was so quick to pick up telling me about storms in Apalachicola last weekend is still keeping me informed, an advisory just now about "lightning near your current location in Apalachicola," which tells me more about the weather ap than it does about the weather. I'll be interested to see when it stops thinking I'm in Apalach; but not very, there are lots of other things to ponder, eh? Besides, part of my mental state is always in Apalachicola anyway. Pouring, driving rain coming my way from the direction of The Pass right now. I love being inside here on the Bay, watching summer thunderstorms, but since 2018 I will never trust the weather again. Lightning can be experienced as what a minister friend described to me long ago as &qu