It’s part of the routine, now, Éa. I haven’t missed a wibble wibble in a week!
— me
He picked one and broke it in two. The flesh was dryish and bread-like, something of the same kind as a banana. It turned out to be good to eat. It did not give the orgiastic and almost alarming pleasure of the gourds, but rather the specific pleasure of plain food—the delight of munching and being nourished, a “Sober certainty of waking bliss.” A man, or at least a man like Ransom, felt he ought to say grace over it; and so he present did. The gourds would have required rather an oratorio or a mystical meditation.”
— C.S. Lewis • Perelandra
I laughed out loud at the last line.
“…we ran into each other at Rey Azteca like we live in a small-town movie script!”
— Ruth
The Peters gave us a bound copy of Stories of the Supernatural today. And we chased Santa down on Hickory Drive, having come home too late from the Peters’ house to see him from our stoop. And we ate at Olive Garden. And I focused at work! And I (mostly) stayed God’s. And Sullivan got sad about Ponyboy and wanted to take better care of his next fish; he wants to breed gobies. And Éa was upset by Sullivan’s gift of a plastic bow and arrow to her.
I am grateful to and for the entrepreneurs who started the Sweet Tomatoes salad bar restaurant chain. It’s a salad bar unlike any other I’ve seen, with as many choices in lettuce as some salad bars have in toppings! The cross section of humanity you see there ran the range tonight from white health nuts to overweight, clearly transvestite Hispanics. That, combined with the memory of talking the problem of evil with Brandon at the Sweet Tomatoes in Orlando, makes going there an acutely human experience for me.
I am also grateful for Scott Buchanan having reduced the logical problem of evil for me: Having faith that God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil that exists in the world, whether I understand that reason or not. Isn’t that the point of Job?
I’m also grateful that I’ve started to take the compassion that arose in me last Thursday evening in dealing with Carol out of its atheistic, fatalistic case and spread it out on my theistic, hopeful table. I started to feel it when interacting with the good ol’ boys at Smyrna Truck & Cargo today. Thank You.
Carla and I are both very happy today.
We’re in the groove, so to speak. I remained calm and focused the entire day at work. She enjoyed a lunch date at Panera with Éa during which she heard several other OCC moms complaining that they’re lonely and without close friends, which caused her to reflect that she is full of friends. I enjoyed a brisk walk in polar temperatures to and from lunch at Ethan’s house for forty-five minutes of conversation with the single friend of mine who is closest in outlook and makeup to me. Éa and I enjoyed me dancing with her in my arms during “25 or 6 to 4” and “Tusk.” Carla volunteered to clean up the sewage solids from the basement floor tomorrow morning.
About the worst thing you can say about today is that we finished up the coffee banana chocolate chip scones.
I could go on and on. O God, that we be very grateful.
We started dating the kids again. I took Éa to the Creamery, where we shared a vanilla cone. We then headed to Schlow Library for a storybooks, violins & pajamas event put on by four undergrads in the Downsborough Community Room.
(My five favorite ice cream flavors are currently Meyer Dairy Grape-Nut, Creamery Death by Chocolate, Turkey Hill All Natural Vanilla Bean, Meyer Black Raspberry, and Turkey Hill Mint Cookes ‘n Cream Frozen Yogurt.)
On a different, sadder subject, Rich Biever told me today in a reply to an email inquiry I sent him about his production of Les Misérables that he lost his job at the State Theatre and that LES MIS is therefore not happening.
It’s a disappointment to me, but a relief to Carla.