Tuesday: finger bowl

 

Shades of black and white and gray outside this morning, seems to be our typical Florida Gulf Coast winter these years. Fine by me. No snow included in the white, BTDT enough Navy and later years from ages 22 to 48. No rain here yet, but 80% chance of precip promised for the day, Tuesday.

That picture is last night from 7H, looking west across the Bay at what used to be called Magnolia Beach (IDK, is it still?), but it's not clear, so I may change it, depends on whether it bothers me, and, no, it doesn't.

Just finishing second mug of coffee club coffee this morning, black, and a square of 100% cocoa dark chocolate, both fun Xmas gifts that keep giving. Keep Xpistos in Xmas. 

Okay, I finally worked around to food. Yesterday a determination washed over me, to keep January 24 as a day of celebration, Gina's birthday and my waking up in the recovery room and hearing my first words, "I'm alive!" Soon as I arrived home from Cleveland, early Feb 2011, Gina showed up with a celebratory bag of oysters and we opened and slurped down a few together on the back porch at the Old Place: just so my determination yesterday: by God, I'm having oysters today. 

We went to Hunt's Oyster Bar, arriving as they opened, 11:00 AM, surprised at the waiting crowd, but we got in and a table to ourselves. With the change in ownership, Tarpon Dock Seafood now owning and running Hunt's, the menu is being upgraded. You can't upgrade an ice cold salty raw oyster on the half-shell, of which I had two-dozen - - I mean, all those years, I went longer than I ever intend to go again without having a tray of oysters on the half-shell set down in front of me - - but you can upgrade the offering of cooked stuff. I was going to have the "side order" of fried oysters and fried shrimp, but glancing down the new menu I espied Whole Red Snapper, so ordered that, and so did Linda. Fried, it was good, and fun, and I ordered the fried oysters and fried shrimp to bring home for noon meal today. 

But let me clue you in: they don't give you slices of lemon anymore (IDK, maybe if you ask), and at a dollar a lemon, no wonder. I didn't squeeze lemon on my seafood anyway, I'm a Southern boy slob who eats seafood with my hands and always have: I always used the lemon to squeeze over my fingers and get all the fishy grease feel and smell off them. But there was no lemon to squeeze, so here's the clue: when you sit down, instead of a pitcher of beer, order hot black coffee. Sip the first cup, along with your glass of ice water, while you wait for your meal to be delivered to your table. As your meal arrives, ask for a second cup of hot, black coffee; take a few sips if you want to, but the idea is to save it. The coffee will still be warm when you finish your meal. Glance around to make sure nobody is stud'n you. Surreptitiously, hold a napkin (there's a stack on the table, with covid they're putting out stacks of napkins now instead of the paper towel roll), hold a white napkin with your left hand and cover your right hand as you dip it into the still-warm black coffee (don't do this if you put creamer and sweetener in your coffee), and rub your fingers and thumb together until they're nice and clean. Dry them with the white paper napkin. Pick up another white paper napkin and repeat for the other hand. The acid in the black coffee makes a great hand cleaner, which I already knew anyway because I frequently clean my eyeglass lenses with black coffee instead of licking them with my tongue. 

Probably don't finish drinking the coffee, eh? By now it was cool anyway.

Television is on in the background as the fingers tippy-type the keyboard and letters show up across the computer screen this morning: news. Some 8,500 American troops being assembled as we watch the Russian (almost said Soviet) buildup threatening Ukraine. Eighty-five hundred? There are a hundred, heading for two-hundred, thousand Russian troops, armor, &c gathering to intimidate the West. Me? I'd rather live in a world where the big problem is where to get parts and service for the unreliable Russian washing machines or something, but here we are, revving up to hate the Russians again almost as much as we hate each other. It's only this one little planet, how about we take the long view and quit acting like ants and chimpanzees? What am I thinking? How different the twentieth-century would have turned out if someone had not been too timid to bomb Germany to everlasting oblivion when they marched into Poland. Eighty-three years later, another blitzkrieg with another dictator. If he gets away with this, he won't be finished.

Sunday School this Sunday? Dr Dan will be leading the class as it's my Sunday in the pulpit. He's leading the class through Exodus. Here's the set of Propers for my bit:

The Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament Jeremiah 1:4-10

The word of the Lord came to me saying,

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

Then I said, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the Lord said to me,

"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you,

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord."

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,

"Now I have put my words in your mouth.

See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant."

The Psalm

Psalm 71:1-6 In te, Domine, speravi

1 In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; *let me never be ashamed.

2 In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free; *incline your ear to me and save me.

3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; * you are my crag and my stronghold.

4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, *from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.

5 For you are my hope, O Lord God, *my confidence since I was young.

6 I have been sustained by you ever since I was born; from my mother's womb you have been my strength; *my praise shall be always of you.

The New Testament

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

The Gospel

Luke 4:21-30

Jesus began to speak in the synagogue at Nazareth: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.