Hair care

I can think of at least two movies in which women radically changed their hairstyles as a mark of a new stage in their lives. One was Waiting to Exhale. Angela Bassett's character goes from long, flowing hair to a very short cut after her husband leaves her. The other was Sliding Doors, with the same change (long to short) along with a color change for Gwyneth Paltrow's character after she breaks up with her boyfriend.

I've been through a few. Just to go back to my early 40s, I was without regular employment, and therefore without regular income. I grew very long hair without much intention just by not having enough money to go to the hair salon.



After I became a legal assistant, I got my hair cut. I pretty much stuck with shoulder-length, more or less, first with bangs and then growing them out, and gradually I colored my hair. I would go more dark red in the winter and more strawberry blond in the summer. Going to the hair salon every six to eight weeks was a symbol to me of my prosperity.



In July, 2016, my mom went to the hospital. I had to cancel a hair appointment because I was taken up with my concern for her. I never rescheduled. My mom went from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility, my dad moved into the assisted living facility next door to hers, my mom went into hospice care, my dad became more ill and weak, my dad went to the hospital and then to the skilled nursing facility, my dad went into hospice care, my dad died, and my mom died. By that time, it was April, 2017, and I had not had my hair professionally done in nearly a year. It was getting long, with blond ends and darker root (but the "roots" were pretty long, too).



I went to Super-Cheap Clips & Cuts, or whatever it's called, and had it cut to shoulder length. That took away most of the blond, but there still was an inch or two. Finally yesterday I went back to Super-Cheap and had it cut again. There may still be a fraction of an inch of color, but mostly the artificial color is gone.



This current haircut symbolizes my desire to simplify my life. I'm ready to go gray, if it's time for that. (Hiding gray was never the reason for my coloring; I colored because I thought my own color was uninteresting.) I'm going to let it grow. I look forward to being able to put it in a simple french braid or some easy updo. No fuss.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. (I Peter 3:3-4)

Something in the air

Can you tell the difference between the two photos in this post? They both show the road in front of my car (picture taken through my dirty windshield) in the hazy north Whatcom County countryside.

In this one, taken August 21st, the haze comes from smoke from wildfires in British Columbia:

Air quality: Unhealthy, perhaps even hazardous

In this one, taken August 25th, the haze comes from clouds, mist, and rain:

Air quality: good

They may look alike in photos, but what a huge difference in the experience.

For weeks, it seems like, we had hot, dry weather with smoke drifting and blowing into Northwest Washington from fires in B.C. My sister was visiting and as we drove through the county I said, "If this were mist and rain, it would be just the kind of day I like." The smoke gave a weird cast of light to everything and induced headaches. Public notices kept increasing about the bad air quality and what do in response (stay inside, close the windows, run air conditioning on recirculate, get a HEPA quality air filter). Yuck.

Finally, late last week, the wind shifted so that it was blowing in from the ocean, pushing the smoke away from us. Then yesterday, O frabjous day, it rained. It was even chilly! What a relief. Today it's still rainy, cloudy, and cool. Yay.

Doggy, come home

A Facebook "reminder" came up today that it was 8 years ago today that my dog went missing. He got out of the house while I was at work, and I didn't find him all evening, although I was out looking for him both on foot and in a car.

I didn't sleep at all that night. I was online looking up the Humane Society and finally figuring out that in the City of Lynden animal control is handled by the police department. The next morning I talked to the animal control officer, and he had picked up my dog on Front Street at about 7:30 p.m.

I was so relieved that he was alive and found. If he had just disappeared, I would have tortured myself imaging how he might have suffered. As it was, I just had to pay a fine and pay for a license for him and get him back.

My dear parents were also relieved for me. They knew how sad and upset I would have been, and, like me, they feared he was gone forever.

Here he is earlier that same year:

Complaining about the heat

What could be more boring than complaining about the weather? But I'm going to do it anyway. It's been hot and dry for weeks now. On Friday I read that a big change was coming: cold air and showers and thunderstorm. Hooray! I hoped for no lightning strikes in our dry timber, but I did hope for cool, cloudy, rainy weather.

So this morning it still felt kind of warm and muggy. After a while, it cooled a bit and a breeze rang my wind chimes. Finally, I smelled rain. Ah. It rained just enough to wet the pavement.

An hour or so later, the sun came out and the cool, cloudy weather system was done for. I just looked at the 10-day weather forecast, and while tomorrow should be a reasonable mid-70s temperature, after that it's 80s and even 90s as far as the eye can see. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I hate the heat. And have I mentioned that I hate the heat. When will it end?

Meanwhile, I'm in a continual state of inelegance.

Hours and days and years and ages

Sometimes on Fridays, on my commute home, I'll repeatedly check my dashboard day/time display just to verify that it really is Friday evening. It seems too good to be true.

I love Friday night and Saturday morning because I don't have to care what time it is. If I wake up, I can get up or not, as I choose. If I doze, it doesn't matter; it's not like I'm going to be late somewhere.

When were clocks invented? According to Wikipedia, the first mechanical clocks were made in the early 14th century, which would be the 1300s—is that right? The 1900s were the 20th century, so, yes, the "hundreds" are one less than the "century."

I wondered about the timing (ha, ha) of clock inventions because I want to say my aversion to "clocking in" anywhere is the natural state of humanity, while structured and strict time are an unnatural aberration of the industrial age. For millenia, people woke up and did what they needed to do and went where they needed to go but without precision as to when they got there.

Biblically, timing was by the sun. Each day ended (and the new day began) when the sun went down. Rather than a specific time for sunset, I seem to have read that, for instance, a woman ceased her sewing for the Sabbath when she could no longer discern the difference between certain thread colors.

In the New Testament, there are references to the "3rd hour," the "6th hour," and so on. According to Wikipedia, the Romans had 12 hour days and 12 hour nights, but the length of the hours varied by season. In the winter, daylight hours were shorter and nighttime hours longer, and in the summer the other way around.

Another Wikipedia article fascinatingly says that for ancient Jewish people, it was considered night when the first three stars appeared in the sky. I love that. The third star begins the 1st hour of the night, and like the Romans, Jewish folks had 12 hours each for day and night, again varying in length according to season. Daylight began at dawn, prior to sunrise. The sixth hour of daytime was when the sun was at its zenith.

That's so much more natural than clock time. In the winter, when the mornings are dark, I have such a hard time waking up to get to work by the precise hour required. How much nicer if I could wait until daylight to get up. I would have to get up earlier in the summer, but that's easier. But then in the summer I would spend longer hours at work—but there would be the payoff of shorter hours in the winter.

Office life as it's experienced today—seven or eight (or more) hours of sitting at a desk—is a product of mechanized time. In pre-industrial times, only scribes and scholars, I would guess, sat for long period of time. In monasteries, though, the monks who copied manuscripts probably did not do so for seven or eight hours. Monasteries generally have a balance of time for study, physical labor, and prayer. Desk work does not engulf the whole day.

I guess pre-industrial women sat for long times when they sewed or wove or spun, but if they were doing that as part of the overall task of housekeeping, they too would not have the sedentary work taking up the whole day.

I am very sedentary. I sit at a computer most of the day at work. I sit for meals. I sit in my car. At home, I sit and read or sit some more at my computer. Sometimes I sit to do needle work of one kind or another. Not natural or healthy, but hard to change. This is especially true for these recent years of sorrow as my parents' health declined and then they died. Even mild exercise, like gardening, is hard for me to make myself do because grief and chronic depression have drained my energy. It becomes a cycle: I don't want to move, so I lose conditioning, which makes it harder to move, which further decreases my desire to move, which causes further loss of strength. I should make changes, but it's hard to summon the will. I don't know if even my spirit is willing, but certainly my flesh is weak.

Jesus said that his disciples' flesh was weak, though their spirit was willing, when they fell asleep while he agonized in Gethsemane. I like this prayer that covers us whether we sleep or whether we lie awake: Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep, that awake, we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep, rest in His peace.

What's in a name?

Most mornings, I listen to the daily readings that are put online by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Today's gospel reading was Matthew 16:13-23:

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi
and he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Then he strictly ordered his disciples
to tell no one that he was the Christ.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
"God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you."
He turned and said to Peter,
"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

I was struck by the parallel conversations our Lord and Peter have, which are recorded right next to each other. Let's start with the two things Peter says initially:

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
"God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you."

And then in the Lord's replies:

"Blessed are you....You are Peter [Petros]."
"Get behind me, Satan."

"Upon this rock [petra] I will build my church."
"You are an obstacle [skandalon = stumbling block] to me."

"Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you."
"You are thinking...as human beings do."

"My heavenly Father [has revealed this to you]."
"You are not thinking as God does."

So, first Peter identifies the Lord correctly as the Christ (= Messiah = Anointed One = one chosen for a certain task, e.g., prophet, priest, or king). Then Peter mis-identifies the Lord, he incorrectly says that Christ is not the crucified one. He does not perceive that the task for which the Christ is christened is to suffer, be killed, and on the third day be raised.

In response to the first, the Lord blesses Simon Barjonah and gives him a new name, Petros/Rock. In response to the second, the Lord utters what at first sounds like a curse and gives him a different name: Satan/Adversary.

The Lord responds to the correct identification by saying that on this petra/rock he will build his church. He responds to the incorrect identification by saying that he could trip on this skandalon/stumbling block. I looked for the literal meaning of skandalon and I found that it goes back to the thing one trips over that brings a trap down on one. And it developed so it could mean a stone sticking up out of the ground that could trip one. So when Peter identifies Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, he is the foundation stone of the church, but when he mis-identifies him as not the crucified, he becomes the stone that could trip Jesus and cause him to miss his calling.

Skandalon, you may know, recurs in 1 Corinthians 1:23: "we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block/skandalon to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles."

When Peter correctly sees Jesus as the Christ, he is not thinking like an unaided human—flesh and blood has not revealed this to him, but he is thinking in the way revealed by the Father in heaven. When Peter incorrectly sees Christ as uncrucified, he is thinking like a human/anthropos, and he is not thinking as God does.

This is pretty much what came to me as I listened to the Gospel passage this morning and thought about it through the day. I went to online lexicons, dictionaries, translators, etc. to confirm what I thought (was "obstacle" a translation for skandalon? What does skandalon really mean? Am I recalling correctly when I think that Satan means "Adversary"?—by the way it also means "Accuser.") And while I was looking around, I came across a blog entry from 2011, by a gentleman named Brant Clements, who, according to his profile, is a Lutheran pastor.

He writes of the final verse in today's passage, specifically about the saying, "Get behind me"/Hupage opiso mou, and then looks at the next verse (not included in today's passage) in which Jesus says: If anyone desires to come behind me"/Ei tis thelei opiso mou elthein...he must take up his cross and follow me. The NIV translates "If anyone desires to come behind me..." as "Whoever wants to be my disciple..."

So when our Lord says to Peter "Get behind me," he's not saying "Get lost," he's telling him, "Go behind me, which is where my disciples are," and later he says, "If you want to get behind me, you too must take up your own cross and follow in the way I am going—the way of the cross." He's not cursing Peter, he's calling Peter back to his role as Christ's disciple. Christ's task for which he is christened is to suffer, die, and be raised. That is also the task for which Christians are christened.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus said simply, Hupage, Satana. "Go, Adversary." But to Peter he says, Hupage opiso mou, Satana. "Go behind me, Adversary." Change from Adversary to disciple, to Petros.

When we oppose the way of the cross for Christ or for ourselves, we are Christ's adversaries. When we follow him in the way of the cross, we are his disciples, the building blocks of his church.

The next question is, What is the way of the cross for each of us?

Co-inkydink

Twelve days ago, I blogged about "a tisket, a tasket...I wrote a letter to my love, etc." and three days ago I blogged about the author Mary Stewart. Last night, finishing up the Mary Stewart book I mentioned, I came across, as a chapter epigraph:

I wrote a letter to my love,
And on the way I lost it;
One of you has picked it up,
And put it in her pocket.
(Traditional)

Sometimes when things recur in my life I ask myself if it's a sign of any kind. For this, I can't imagine much meaning, but still it's a coincidence. Maybe it's just an alternative answer for my curiosity about the words to that old song.

Ritual

My browser was on the youtube site when I sat down to it after dinner. That's left over from last night. At night, I go to youtube and start a video an hour or more in length that plays instrumental hymns, and generally by the time it finishes playing I'm asleep.

One of the suggested videos that came up after the hymns finished was for an episode of "What's My Line?" This one said a guest was the Trapp Family Choir, so I took a look. It was the same number and style of children as in the movie, but not the same actors. Turns out they were the kids from the Broadway play, starring Mary Martin. The "What's My Line?" episode was from 1960.

There were three other what's-my-liners on the show, each time a set of twins, although their twinness had nothing to do with their "line," except for the coincidence that both twins were in the same line of work. Anyway, what I noticed was that all the women on the panel and who were guests wore pretty dresses—mostly with flared skirts—and at least one set of girl twins wore gloves. Every time the panelists either guessed the line, or failed to guess in the allotted number of tries, then, as they left, the guests shook hands with each panelist. The emcee stood up as the guests stood to leave, the two male panelists (Tony Randall and Bennett Cerf, by the way) stood to shake hands, and the two female panelists remained seated while shaking hands. I liked that there was a correct way to do it and that everyone knew it and did it. I liked the formality; it was a cordial, courteous formality.

I once worked with a lawyer who told me that part of the reason she liked practicing law was because of the ritualism of court proceedings. You stand, you sit, you use certain forms of address, all according to ritual. She said that if she ever joined a church, it would be the Roman Catholic Church for the sake of the ritual.

I also have a Facebook friend who is a Catholic, who said that he joined that church because he is religious, but not spiritual. I like that.

I am tied to my church by ties of belief, affection, family, and culture. If I ever did change churches, it would be to Catholicism. What draws me is the sacramental nature of it. I am powerfully drawn by the doctrine of trans-substantiation.

I belong to the "holy catholic church, the communion of saints," the "holy catholic and apostolic church," from within the Christian Reformed Church. I am thankful for Article 35 of the Belgic Confession, which says:

Christ has instituted
an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body
and wine as the sacrament of his blood.

He did this to testify to us that
just as truly as we take and hold the sacrament in our hands
and eat and drink it with our mouths,
by which our life is then sustained,
so truly we receive into our souls,
for our spiritual life,
the true body and true blood of Christ,
our only Savior.
We receive these by faith,
which is the hand and mouth of our souls.

Now it is certain
that Jesus Christ did not prescribe
his sacraments for us in vain,
since he works in us all he represents
by these holy signs,
although the manner in which he does it
goes beyond our understanding
and is incomprehensible to us,
just as the operation of God’s Spirit
is hidden and incomprehensible.

Yet we do not go wrong when we say
that what is eaten is Christ's own natural body
and what is drunk is his own blood—
but the manner in which we eat it
is not by the mouth, but by the Spirit
through faith.

...we say that we should be content with the procedure
that Christ and the apostles have taught us
and speak of these things
as they have spoken of them.

He said "Take and eat....Take and drink," not "take and understand, take and explain, take and debate."

It's too hot to blog

I searched for a good quote about hot weather and finally found this one: "What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance." - Jane Austen

Mary Stewart

Lately I've read a few novels by Mary Stewart. They've floated across my Amazon page as "Recommended for you." I vaguely remembered her name from maybe high school. I read one or two of her novels now, and then I saw the title Touch Not the Cat. Now that one I was pretty sure I had read. I remembered that the heroine talked telepathically to the man she loved before she met him. She thought he was one of her distant cousins. I also kind of remembered something about a mosaic of a tiger or some other wild cat under water. So I re-read it now, and those details were there, along with a lot I didn't remember.

Just today I started reading The Ivy Tree, which I thought I had never heard of. But in the first chapter, when a man mistakes the heroine for someone he used to know, it started to seem familiar. I thought, if he says the woman he knew was a horse-whisperer, then I've read this book before. Sure enough, he said it. Whenever I read this book previously, probably in high school, I think it was the first time I'd ever heard of a horse-whisperer.

Oh, my goodness! I just googled her and found out she's the author of The Crystal Cave and the other Arthurian sequels! Now, those I remember very well. I love the Arthurian legends in all their permutations, with the possible exception of movies starring Keira Knightley. I loved the movie Camelot, with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. I loved the T.H. White novel The Once and Future King, although it was a sad book that I read at a sad time in my life, so I've never re-read it. I loved the Howard Pyle versions. I also read some Jungian interpretations by Robert A. Johnson in my 20s, when I went through a phase of being fascinated by Jung.

Well, good. That's a good discovery. I don't know that I'll go straight back and read The Crystal Cave. Right now I'm only buying really cheap books on my Kindle. I got The Ivy Tree for $1.99, I believe. I can remember the premise of the book and a certain plot twist, but I don't remember how it all goes. If I read it in high school, and I think I did, it's been about 40 years since then. Wow, my adult life is middle-aged.

I'm older than I think I am. I was talking to some friends a couple weeks ago about getting new pets. We're all the same age, and the male half of the couple said that by the time a new kitten was 13, we'd be 70. No, I said. (Remember how good I am at math?) I was thinking that if we're in our 50s, then our 70s are 20 years away. But he pointed out that, since we're 57, age 70 is just 13 years away. I know he's correct, but it still just doesn't sound right. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

Historical fiction

August. Named, presumably, for Caesar Augustus, aka Octavius, aka Octavius Caesar. July was named for his great-uncle Julius Caesar. Those guys. Should I be ashamed to say that a lot of what I know about them and about the events leading up to Rome changing from a republic to an empire comes from a series of historical novels by Colleen McCullough?

Back in the day, meaning when I was young, she wrote a huge bestseller called The Thorn Birds. Later it was a made-for-TV movie that starred Mr. Mini-Series himself, Richard Chamberlain.

The Roman book series is called The Masters of Rome, and I think I did read them all. I bought the first few in paperback and the later ones on my Kindle. Although there is a pulpy quality to the writing, I think that her historical details are correct. At any rate, it helped me get those characters straight in my mind and know what they did: Marius, Sulla, Pompey the Great, Crassus, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, and Augustus.

Historical fiction is not all bad. In high school, I read some novel about Elizabeth I, and developed enough interest in her that I went on to read many non-fiction biographies of her and her contemporaries, the history of the time, and history and biographies of the English monarchs before and after her, and then a few about the rest of Europe.

Actually, I just read The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV, by W.H. Lewis, the brother of C.S. Lewis. He, too, was a member of the Inklings and read his works in progress at their meetings. It was a pretty good read.

There, too, I have previously met Louis XIV in the pages of historical novels. First Alexandre Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask when I was in high school, to the best of my recollection. As an adult I read a novel about Madame de Maintenon, but I can't remember the title right now. In that book, she secretly married Louis XIV after the death of his royal wife, and I thought that was a little fictional detail. But it turns out everyone seems to accept that this happened. She was his maîtresse-en-titre, but troubled by the adulterous nature of their relationship. When the king's wife, Maria Theresa of Spain, died, he privately married Madame de Maintenon. She was not of suitable birth to become the Queen of France, and he could negotiate with foreign powers for a 2nd queen if he found it useful for a ruse.

Isn't that interesting? I find it so, but perhaps others would not.