Santa Lucia / Saint Lucy
Today is the feast day of St. Lucy, or, as I was growing up in Alaska, surrounded by Scandinavian fishermen and their families, Santa Lucia. In Swedish families there is a tradition that the eldest daughter, on Santa Lucia day, wears a wreath of candles and brings her parents coffee and special saffron buns in bed. People always make jokes about someone following her with a bucket of water, but I can imagine there were mishaps – imagine, mixing candles and hair. As you can see in the photo, thought, the candles are tall – at least at the beginning.
Never kid yourselves. Children love blood and gore, and love to be a little bit scared. The Grimm Brothers knew this, and if you have ever read their original stories, the hairs on the back of your neck would rise and you would say to yourself “How can these be stories for children??” Think about it – Hansel and Gretel abandoned by their own parents to starve in the woods? Girls with really mean stepmothers, who treated them unfairly?
Back before all the romantic literature on zombies and vampires, we children would stand out in the bus stop (in winter, the sun barely rises during the long Alaskan winters) and tell each other stories of the saints in the bible. Many of them died horrible deaths, and this one ended “and then they took her eyes out of her head, and she was still alive!!!!” I don’t remember ever hearing the miracle of the restoration of her sight, in fact, I thought she was killed, martyred, but here is her story, for those who want to know what Santa Lucia’s day is all about.
LUCY
VIRGIN AND MARTYR, abt. 304
The early Roman lists of martyrs commemorate Lucy, virgin and martyr, on 13 December, and her name, with that of Agatha, appears in the Roman Liturgy as an example of those who have gone before us, in whose company we join in giving thanks and praise to God. Aside from this, little is known of her, except that she lived in Syracuse in Sicily, and probably died around 304. Her name, which means “light,” probably accounts for the story that her eyes were put out and her eyesight miraculously restored, and may be connected with the fact that her feast occurs near the time when (in the Northern Hemisphere) the nights are longest.
In Sweden and elsewhere, the day is observed by having one of the daughters of the house dress in a white robe with a crown of lighted candles and go singing from room to room (presumably followed by an adult with a fire extinguisher) early in the morning when it is still dark to awaken the other family members and to offer them St. Lucy’s Cakes and hot coffee.
Ember Wednesday (of the winter season) is defined as the Wednesday after Lucy’s Day. (An equivalent definition would be: the Wednesday preceding the last Sunday before Christmas.)
The above in dark type is from The Lectionary which publishes daily readings and these stories of the Saints put together by James Kiefer.
“I’m Not Sure I Agree With What I am About to Say”
After all these years . . .
AdventureMan can still crack me up. As we were talking the other day, he started a sentence with “I am not sure I agree with what I am about to say . . .” and he didn’t get any further. I was cracking up too badly to listen. Like – if you might not agree with what you are about to say, why on earth would you say it??? I didn’t even have to say it, he started laughing, too, and whatever he was about to say did not get said.
This morning, he came in wanting to interrupt me with some item of business and I glared at him. I glared at him.
“I’m paying bills.” I said. That says it all. Paying bills is stressful for me. Historically, as a young military wife, it was all about making sure the bills were paid and wondering how much money would be left after paying all the bills. We never did not pay a bill. We often eeeked our way from paycheck to paycheck.
Now, by the grace of God, there is enough money, even retired, but we still need to be careful, and I particularly try to be careful because so much is done electronically, that transposing two digits could post a payment to the wrong account, or pay the wrong amount. For me, it takes concentration.
“After 37 years, I should know that, shouldn’t I?” he asked, backing carefully out of my office.
LLLOOOOLLL.
Game Day
Today, more than any other Saturday, I saw Game Day T-shirts, not just on men and women, but on entire families. Flying from Pensacola to Atlanta and back, the flights were full of mostly FSU and Auburn. Sitting behind us at lunch today was a family of five, mom, dad, two sons and a baby, all dressed in Auburn colors (Pensacola is in the part of Florida sometimes called FloriBama because it is boarded on two sides by Alabama, and the lines are very fine.
Yes, I was wearing garnet and gold, but it was subtle. 🙂
Would You Like Fries With That?
When I saw this, I whopped with laughter, i couldn’t help myself, it was so unexpected and, to me, awful. This is just sad! This is for the kid who wants to grow up to say “Would you like fries with that?”
A Change in the Weather
Today my Mom and I went shopping, tough work in a soggy, sultry heat. She was game, though, and shopped ’till she dropped, or at least until time to pick up AdventureMan to head for lunch at the Marina Oyster Barn. We’ve taken Mom there before, and today, that was just where she wanted to eat. Oyster stew. Hush puppies. Grilled tuna sandwiches. A slice of key lime pie to go – oh yummm.
As we entered the Marina Oyster Barn it was 77 degrees F. An hour later, as we left, it was 55 degrees F and it was starting to rain. This was not unexpected, but the sheer drama of the one hour, 22 degree drop made our jaws drop.
We dropped Mom off at home and hurried off to finish some errands before the big storm hit, but we were too late – just as we left the store with the 2 pounds of Jordanian dates for Mom, the squall hit full force, and we were soaked in the ten feet it took us to get to the car.
I’m happy though. I love the cooler temperatures, I love a chance to wear some of my more wintery clothing, and I love love love not having to use the air conditioning. 🙂
Shooting the Grands
One of the family traditions at this large family reunion is taking photographs, different family groupings, and . . . all the kids. This was totally hilarious. This was chaos with some really fun props. The older kids tried to cooperate. The younger kids . . . LLLOOOLLL.
Intlxpatr Updates and ReVisits
Oops. I totally forgot. I wanted to show you my Halloween pumpkins.
What? ? ? Really? ? ? Halloween was almost a month ago? ? ? Time just flies these days.
I carved my pumpkins only a day or two before Halloween because with the heat and humidity here – like in Qatar and Kuwait – pumpkins can go moldy and soft if you carve them too soon.
I was OK, except for the ears. The ears – even just in a couple days – got all shriveled, but I kind of liked the effect. These were supposed to be cat pumpkins:
Happy Baby is learning to feed himself. He does great with Cheerios, with rice, with little things he can pick up and put in his mouth. Not so great yet with the spoon, but he is learning to love BBQ:
He thinks the flash on my camera is hilarious. Other than that, he likes me OK, but AdventureMan is his favorite right now.
The Qatteri Cat has a new bed, and oh, he just loves it. It has a tiny heating pad inside and is just warm enough to entice him. He sleeps so happily in his new bed, and he puts his baby in the bed to keep him warm, too, LOL:
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Panama City Beach, but my sunset photos are in the other camera and I don’t have the thing to download those photos. You have something to anticipate. 🙂
Great breakfast this morning at Andy’s Flour Power on Panama City Beach, one of our favorite places to go for breakfast:
AdventureMan and my Mom had the Vegetable Fritatta, and I had the Eggs Benedict:
We hope all our friends who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday will take it easy on the Black Friday shopping, don’t get too excited, don’t fight over those great bargains. Have a great day.
Demon Cat From Hell at the East Hill Animal Hospital
The Qatari Cat occasionally has a little problem with cleanliness and hygiene, and since we don’t know if it might be a sign of something serious, we booked an appointment with a vet, the vet everyone talks about as being the best vet in town, so caring. We’ve visited her operation on open house day and we were impressed with her professionalism and knowledge, so we called her.
It was a really really good thing we did. When it came time to take him to the vet, I just plonked the cat cage down next to him, picked him up and put him inside, before he even really knew what was happening. He complained all the way to the vet, but nothing serious, like our diabetic cat who hated car motion and always threw up and defecated when we would take her places. 😦
We signed in, visited with the three little kittens seeking adoption, and then, our name was called. We took QC into an examination room where the assistant weighed him and stroked him and told him how sweet he was. He ate it up. He was as good as gold.
The vet came in, and took a look, said it didn’t look serious but that sometimes you see this problem in big cats and long haired cats, so they would just clean him up a little and shave his bottom.
“Hold him down like this,” she showed her assistant, and the Qatari cat cooperated. Er, well, he cooperated until the first vibration of the razor hit his hind-end hairs, at which time he did an instantaneous transformation into The Demon Cat From Hell, twisting, howling, hissing, trying to bite or scratch, little legs going in reverse, back writhing . . .
“I can’t hold him!” the assistant cried, and she hid her terror, but her voice trembled.
“Get the towel,” the vet said calmly, as she held him down with her two strong hands while the demon-cat-from-hell told her he intended great harm to her as soon as he could get free. She threw the towel over his head, which only made him madder and squirmier, but as the vet tech struggled and held the Qatari Cat down, the vet calmly continued with the “grooming.”
“We use these to clean the bottoms,” she said, pulling out those antiseptic wet-wipes we all carry around to wash our hands when there is no water around.
I just laughed. I have chased the Qatari cat around with warm wet cloths, with wet wipes, with towels . . . he does not like anyone messing with his bottom.
“Now that you’ve shaved him, I think he’ll be OK until the next time,” I said.
Trust me, Qatari Cat, when he is rational, knows I am the alpha. He obeys me. I can tell him to come in out of the garage and he will come; I can pat the bed and he will come lie down next to me. He knows my signals and he acknowledges my Queen-of-the-food-supply-and-warm-body status. Mess with his bottom, however, and all rational thought (in cat terms, rational thought, not our terms) flies out the window as the basest of instincts takes over.
Here is the sweet part. The clinic wrote us a thank you note for our visit. When it came in the mail, I was almost afraid to open it, afraid they would tell us that unfortunately, their practice is full right how and that they would like for us to find another vet for the Qatari Cat. Not so. It was a genuine thank you note, thanking us for our visit. They are totally a class act.
Sweet Prospect: Music At Christ Church
I remember when I lived in Qatar, and Kuwait, and then Qatar again, how I would read about something in the paper – the day after it happened. The things I did go to – and there were some spectacular events in Qatar – were mostly word of mouth, a personal invitation, very few cultural events were well advertised.
Not so in Pensacola. There is a wonderful Symphony, truly wonderful. There is an Opera, and several theatres, and even a Pensacola Ballet. And there is Music at Christ Church.
Yes, I am partial. We attend Christ Church, and I always love a concert where the surrounding is so beautiful. Tonight’s concert was irresistible – hammered dulcimers. Hammered dulcimers! Some of the earliest music in our country was hammered dulcimer. Lucky for me, AdventureMan loves music, and was as eager as I was to go to this concert.
So off to church in the morning, then meet up with our son and his wife – who ran the half marathon today, HOOOO-AHH! And of course, our darling little grandson, who wants nothing to do with me these days, not when there is AdventureMan, the original fun-guy. Famous Dave’s Barbeque, a wonderful meal with a truly great waiter, patient, kind, didn’t mind a baby and four dawdling adults – good fun, good conversation, good food, and then off to the concert.
The sun started setting around 3:30, and the concert began in the dimmed church around 4. It was sheer magic. The group, Sweet Prospect, is so talented, and their music is so lovingly performed. Melissa Allured plays the recorder as well as most of the melodies in the selections they played today, Sheryl Bragwell plays the hammered dulcimer and a bowed psaltery, and Gary Diamond backs them up with guitar. They played a wide variety of tunes; Scottish, Irish, early American, even a very Wyndham Hill sounding piece from a Lopez Island (Washington State) artist Gary Haggerty, called Coffee American, which was lively and quick.
(angel playing Psaltery)
I have a complaint. The concert was only an hour long. I could have listened longer. But oh, what a wonderful hour it was! I love the Music at Christ Church program. There is a suggested donation for the concert, but if you can’t afford the $10 donation, no one is standing there scowling if you want to come into the church and hear some great music. There is a bowl out for collecting the donation, people toss their donation in and sit down. The concerts are also sponsored by several levels of music lovers at Christ Church who are patrons of the arts, and contribute generously so that these opportunities are available to the Pensacola community. How cool is that?
The good news is that on the Sweet Prospects website you can also listen to some of their recordings, and you can buy their CD’s. THIS IS IMPORTANT, ADVENTUREMAN! The one I really really want is called Cold Frosty Morn. If you go to their website, it tells you how to order it, or you can find one of the bookstores in Pensacola that sells it. (hint hint) It is Christmas music. If you want to go listen to a tune or two by Sweet Prospects, click on the blue type above, and listen away. 🙂 If you live in Pensacola, and you want to learn to play the dulcimer – or several other early musical instruments – there is a group that welcomes you and will teach you how. Learn to play hammered dulcimer – in Pensacola. I am blown away.
It’s just been such a great day, full of church, family and culture. We are so glad to be in Pensacola.
I just wish Sweet Prospects would be picked up to be sent on a cultural tour to our embassies in the Middle East. I wish our friends there, who love music, and who know the early musical instruments of the Middle East, could hear this music, and see these instruments, which are so similar. As I enjoyed every minute of this concert, I was wishing my Arab Gulf friends could be hearing it, too. This music is so American, and yet, you can hear the early strains of the Irish, the Scottish, and yes, even the sounds of the Holy Lands, brought back to Europe by the early crusaders.
Veteran’s Day Tribute
Thank you for your faithful service to your country, and to mankind.
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