Friday the Seventeenth

We see marvelous sunsets and sunrises from 7H porch. The image above, Thursday sunset with the lights just starting to come on in Baypoint and in the Gulf-front high-rise condominiums over on Thomas Drive is always one of my favorites. I've been over there to look this way, and I'm over here to look their way, and I like this outlook best! 

In fact, this is my all Time favorite place of everywhere that we've ever lived. Rhode Island, Georgia, Virginia, Florida Atlantic coast, Michigan, Japan, WashingtonDC & Northern Virginia, Rhode Island again, California, Ohio, WashingtonDC & Northern Virginia again, Pennsylvania, at last moving home to Apalachicola, Florida, and finally Panama City, first The Old Place, and now 7H. 

When we moved to 7H just over ten years ago, someone told us, "This is a beautiful place, you're gonna love it here," and it was well said.

Apalachicola was close second, but home is where the heart is, and my heart is up here halfway to the moon.

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As well as the natural beauty of the place, and the 360° outlooks on where I grew up and places of my heart, I like retirement, no outside commitments, I can be here and contemplate to my content. Slowly, I can read everything I ever wanted to read. I scan and browse online, I play card games on the computer screen, I read comics on the computer screen. Though I miss Out Our Way, 

Maggie and Jiggs, Our Boarding House with Major Hoople, Archie, and Pogo Possum.

And there was one comic that included a dog with a zig-zag tail that had gotten caught in a screen door. 

Sometimes though, I find that things that I think I miss weren't all that great after all. I love reruns of The Honeymooners and the Carol Burnett Show now and then, but I looked up and watched a couple episodes of Red Skelton once, and it was pathetically bad.

We never watched Saturday Night Live, but I remember years in Pennsylvania, upstairs in bed and hearing Joe in the family room downstairs, laughing uproariously at SNL, practically rocking the house with his laughter. I liked John Belushi, maybe his old SNL reruns are available, I'll have to check one of these days.

Right now I've finished my magic mug of hot & black along with four very thin and crispy ginger cookies from Trader Joe's, and I've been contemplating breakfast. We enjoy breakfast together on Sunday mornings, our favorite soft scrambled eggs, a slice of pan-cooked tomato, and sometimes bacon. Other days, Linda has yoghurt or breakfast cereal with fruit, and I have something different from what I had yesterday. Couple Times a year, maybe after an early doctor appointment, we've enjoyed breakfast at Golden Corral, once in a while at Chick-fil-A. 

When we took Kristen's car to Pensacola for warranty servicing we might eat a scrumptious breakfast at I-Hop, and always lunch at Maria's Fresh Seafood Market on Cervantes, best when Walt and Judy met us there. Driving to Pensacola is out of our range anymore, and especially driving back in early evening rush hour traffic through Destin and SanDestin, an incredibly dangerous nightmare far worse than anything I remember from traffic in WahingtonDC or Atlanta. 

Wandering. It's my nature. It's why I never preached a sermon outside of the pulpit. 

But breakfast in this morning, as we'll be going to Pruitt to visit Malinda soon as Kristen gets out of school, then somewhere for dinner of late lunch or early supper. A happy memory was those years of breakfast with Robert after our walks around The Cove, best at Big Mama's on the Bayou, water, black coffee, and four eggs over medium and cheese grits while we watched birds diving for mullet and the wading birds eating minnows. 

But I don't cook eggs well, inevitably I ruin them; so maybe half a link of Bradley's sausage on a hotdog bun, with mustard. Maybe my last three tamales, with cheese melted on and Tabasco shaked over.

Our tentative plan for next breakfast out is after my next dermatology surgery on 30 Jan, go to Charlie Coram's Place just up the road a piece at W. 15th Street and, what?, Drake Avenue. 

In Apalachicola, my favorite breakfast was to take nine oysters out of the gallon bucket of oysters in the refrigerator and cook them on whole wheat bread in the toaster oven. Salt and butter. Black coffee. My best days in Apalachicola were the years before Tass went off to college. 

Not going there, not jumping off that cliff this morning, nomesane?

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But the retirement occupation of contemplating. Here's the gospel reading for Sunday morning, day after tomorrow:

John 2:1-11. The Wedding at Cana

2:1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 

6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. 9 When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 

11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they remained there a few days.

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It doesn't really matter that we won't be reading verse 12.

For Epiphany 2 Year C, the story is itself an epiphany: a sign showing who and what Jesus is. Within the story it shows the disciples and folks at the wedding feast. Apparently, both Jesus and his mother already know, but now everyone else who's there know. Actually, it's a literary agenda for us outside the story: the purpose of the story is to show Gospel John's audience who Jesus is. 

Gospel John characterizes it as a sign, not a miracle (Greek, dynamis) as in the synoptics. It's the first of several signs (Greek, semeion) that Gospel John has Jesus do to deliberately reveal who/what he is. In that regard, it's part of one of three main characteristics of Gospel John's story: the Signs; the I AM sayings; and the Prologue that takes advantage of the wording of Genesis 1:1f to identify Jesus as Logos, the divine Word through which all creation was brought into existence. 

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But at our parish we're waiting with overly strained patience to be told who our next rector will be. It's kept a closely guarded secret until arrangements are complete, why? Because sometimes things don't work out. People can be embarrassed, people can be hurt, offended. Sometimes the first choice candidate changes his/her mind at the last minute. I once did that myself, in 1984, changing my mind and declining a parish in Pennsylvania to opt for Trinity, Apalachicola instead, leaving folks devastated with disappointment and leaving whoever they chose next as knowing he was second choice - - not a good scenario. So, you have to make sure you're solid before announcements are made. 

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Anyway, there you go. TeeFerTom's rambling for Friday, 17 Jan 2025, the year in which I will complete my 90th year of life, God willing and Jesus tarries, eh?

RSF&PTL

T89&c

and remember when Twiggs arrived? I do!