Sleeping, jarred semi-conscious by a huge explosion: a bomb? a plane crash into the building? Dream driftily. Second explosion: naval gunfire from offshore? Awake to sit up in bed: lightning and thunder. Up, slip around curtain, slide door open, step out onto 7H porch darkness into severe thunderstorm with driving rain. 5:58 a.m., already six hours old, Tuesday begins for me. July 31st. Something inside me still hates for summer to slip away. Sixty-five years ago there'd still have been a month left of summer vacation, the heaven of June, July, and August before Tuesday after Labor Day. Can't shake it even though summers have become insufferably hot and eighty-two is slipping away faster than the rainstorm.  Rain away to the east as quickly as life itself, and is gone! Nearly. Raining in the Gulf beyond Davis Point. Dawn, light. Coffee, second mug, boat motoring noisily out to sea or maybe to join five others fishing in the channel at the Pass. Breakfast warmi...

Amen. One of numberless joys of 7H life is clouds, not so much winter but clouds of summer that approach, threaten, dark, ominous and flashing, sometimes pass innocently all bark and no bite, and like life itself often animate or morph anthropologically before moving on. Where? Do clouds go to heaven? There are lots of bears. Alligators, rabbits. Man driving a racecar. Man and woman making love. Man kicking a football. This guy: what's he doing, praying, or praising God? No, he's poised to catch a flyball and tag out the runner trying to make it back to first. Field of Dreams, build it and he will come.  At any event, a clear blue sky may make a fine day for a picnic, but it takes clouds to make a spectacular sunset*. There'll be other days. No there won't. When you get to this age you'll realize that that was the only one and you can't get it back. T *Great picture, Hercules Pettis, thank you!

2 Samuel 11:1-15 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.” So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go ...

2 Samuel 11:1-15 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.” So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uria...

Twin boys named Tom and Brady, smacking hands with the man, I like it. Football in mind, GoGators, MGoBlue, IDK, hopeful, we'll see. Al Saban's competing QBs. Wildfire horrors out west. Princess Leia redivivus. Moonves. Russia. North Korea. Tornadoes. Jongdari. Bus slams into building. Plane lands on Lake Shore Drive, nobody injured. Looking west at 5:25 AM, setting moon over StAndrewsBay, the little green triangle is a shrimpboat returning from overnight on the Bay to her berth at StAndrewsMarina, home of working boats.  Read:  https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/smoking-raises-risk-of-aneurysm-recurrence-after-endovascular-treatment Saturday morning and away we go. T

Again, for folks watching for news from us. In our Pensacola visit, when she came into the examining room Thursday afternoon, Dr. T the neurosurgeon said she was going to give Malinda a surgery date (the procedure will be vascular from groin into brain instead of through the skull), but upon finding out that, due to a stroke or other event in the right eye, vision there is significantly occluded by blood clot across the retina that seems to be slowly improving, the doctor decided not to give a surgery date now, but to see Malinda again in a month to check status of that eye clearing up before stirring activity on the left side. She said the aneurysm on the left side is wide, broad, but seems not in imminent danger of bursting. M's eye is under care of a local ophthalmologist.  We left with an early September date for returning to Pensacola. Several things in mind this morning. Easily the most significant is that Dr. D, who does aneurysm surgery every single day and has done fo...

This morning I clicked open our parish newsletter for August and one thing that appeared is the list of birthdays for August.  Birthdays seem important to us, celebratory, a birthday party; announced on Facebook; the first Sunday of each month everyone whose birthday falls in that month comes up to be recognized, song, Happy birthday, we love you then the second verse May the good Lord bless you. Me, I'm not a limelight person, my favorite seat in classrooms was always in the far back where I mistakenly thought the teacher wouldn't notice or bother me. Did you know that the best seat in class is front row so people don't turn around and stare at you as you answer "I don't know" or with a blank look of ignorance? I didn't realize that until years too late.  As part of anonymity, on my facebook page I've changed my birthday so many times that the last time I did it FB said "this is the last time you can change your birthday," and it would...

Out of touch with reality, and I went to UFla and UMich not Wharton, but there's not much that's dumber than tariffs, which hurt everybody on both sides. My econ, finance, and international business courses taught me, as I recall, that the one possible justification for trade tariffs is the "infant industry" argument, and that only temporary and still arguable. Want to pay more for your Buick that was made in China? Put tariffs on it so people buy more American-made Hondas instead, but the Honda will be more pricy too, because some of its parts are imported. International interdependence serves to help make war inadvisable and unaffordable and encourages nations to get along because it's in their financial interests even if despots whose sons and daughters are safe from the battlefield like to rattle swords at each other and parade tanks to wildly cheering crowds. Everybody likes a parade, some even like a military parade of missiles and tanks and marching troop...

Weller, peculiar, off-the-wall, blogs odd stuff, homiletics professor at seminary critiqued "an eccentric preaching style" whatever that meant at the Time, holds wildly contradictory political sociological theological views, does not fit into a particular cubby, agrees with nobody not even himself, can't and isn't trying to match the Rev Fr C LaFrond, whose priestly history is intriguing, lives alone with Kai-the-dog, throws beautifully artistic pottery, posts a whimsical, imaginative blog http://thedailysip.org  far superior to the usual self-serious religious rubbish on line Good old boy redneck white trash notwithstanding, stand your ground allows you to stop an attack or threat, not angrily to punish shoot and kill someone who pushes you because you bullied a member of his family then turns to walk away. The world has gone off the deep end and likes it Southport post office is closing, folks there must be terribly upset and I feel sad for them, remember...

76F 92% along with Christmas Vacation, Summer used to be my favorite, but anymore sliding the door open and hit in the face with insufferably hot muggy, it's slipped to equal place with Winter. 7H porch is always good, but best when comfortable to go out with breakfast, lunch and supper. Winter? blast of bitter cold. Spring and Fall and remembering Newport 1957 1968 lobsters and clams. I guess you had to be there.  Week waiting. Monday meetings, neaten office for bishop's use next Monday. Tuesday oysters. Wednesday church & supper. Thursday to Pensacola for next phase with M, and maybe Friday, don't know yet.  Humility, that may have been what I meant yesterday, trying to see the missing piece, to identify what's missing. The puzzle can't be completed because a piece that I grew up seeing has been lost. Entitlement has been substituted for humility, and it doesn't fit. Charles LaFond says it - - The Daily Sip Latest posts from on 07/22/2018...