Monday: XP & פסח
Fog Season, I love fog season, ]used to love fog season for what it heralded as Spring drew near. Now I love fog season for itself, and so will you as you progress through octogenarianism and realize that every season is a beautiful season. When I first went out this morning, fog was so thick the garden below was invisible: came inside, brewed a coffee, grabbed my camera (phone), and fog was already lighter.
But I love the fog. Remember Carl Sandburg?
Did I first read that in an English class at Bay High in the early fifties? IDK, but like some poems and most Bible verses, it's always there.
Some folks enjoy seeing and hearing what old Father Tom had for breakfast. Some do NOT enjoy seeing if it's eight or a dozen raw oysters, pepper vinegar and saltine crackers, which to be honest is quite often, especially now that Sam's is featuring pints of Chesapeake Bay oysters at about half the price and, lightly salted, as delicious as Gulf Coast oysters from local seafood markets. For a long time, Sam's had West Coast oysters: they are good, but labeled "extra small" were the size of the palm of my hand; plus, anyone raised on Apalachicola, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas oysters has to get used to a different taste; most of those from Sam's (and WalMart) had a brassy finish, one of their classics and fine, but not my usual.
But I finished my oysters yesterday by mixing the final half pint of oysters and their liquor into the spaghetti sauce (Italian: "gravy") we were having for Sunday dinner after my martini. One martini, or one finger of single malt Scotch and an ice cube, a week. Otherwise ice water. Three to five ounces of dry red wine with dinner three or four days a week, currently working on a 2016 Toscana.
The climax of Sunday of course, is neither Sunday School (more below, scroll down) nor church, but the high priestly nap.
Oh, but breakfast. Too late for a photo, two sausages wrapped in toasted bread. Pork sausage, which is carefully rationed out so as to last as long as possible, perfect and mildly spicy. A wild game sausage, seasoned slightly sweet. More than twice what I usually eat, but WTH, TGIMonday. See, if you're in my vocation, TGIF is the first day of your workweek, so TGIM instead of TGIF. Although as a serial retiree, Every Day is a Holiday with Me.
Wasn't that a song sixty or seventy years ago?
Yesterday morning we had our second session of Confirmation Lite, as we've styled them because nobody registered to be confirmed when the bishop comes in May. Our topic was Sacraments and Covenant, and we had a handout with many words and more pictures. Attributed to Rembrandt, the cover picture was a sketch of the Baptism of Christ,
but the rest were color pictures visualizing various sacramental or covenantal events in the Bible. One was a painting of The Last Supper by a nun, Plautilla Nelli c.a. 1568 AD
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-last-supper-woman-painter-florence
and also a close-up of its center that she titled "Christ and St. John", that
was included not to reveal Plautilla Nelli's cozy seemingly suggestive epiphanic snuggle and squeeze between XP and the Beloved Disciple, but to show that the artist depicted the Passover Lamb, which one doesn't see in paintings of The Last Supper, nor even think of (and which Leonardo* da Vinci's earlier and more famous painting does not show, just an empty plate). But there it is in artistic elegance: the crystal goblet of Wine, Jesus holding the Bread in his right hand, and פסח pesach the Lamb. If you remember Exodus 12, the lamb must be a male, a year old, without blemish, and EX12:9 "Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs".
So there it is, after slaughter skinned for the oven, roasted, and simply presented in a beautiful dish.
The class proceeded in good order, reverent and solemn until, examining the picture closely, our co-mentor observed aloud that the roasted creature appeared to be not a lamb, but a possum.
As I say, good morning, and I'll draw the curtain here. In discretion, I'll publish this blogpost on my personal Facebook page, but not on our HNEC Facebook page.
RSF&BLM&PTL
T+
* https://www.britannica.com/topic/Last-Supper-fresco-by-Leonardo-da-Vinci