Last Weekend

The weekend started on Saturday morning with a bang when I toppled backwards off my stepper. I twisted my left ankle while doing an exercise that was supposed to improve my sense of balance. Lucky I didn't break my neck. I couldn't put weight on my foot for the next two days.

I was able to hobble into Einstein's Bagels, where we had breakfast. I ordered 4 dozen bagels for our church's Help-the-Homeless Miniwalk on Sunday morning. After breakfast, I went to a crafts workshop at church to make items for the Holiday Bazaar in November. There were several projects to choose from---decorating miniature Christmas trees, creating stuffed animals, crafting embroidered handbags, or beading.

I decided to try beading. Everyone in our group, except for the leader, was a rank beginner. I was an "all-thumbs" rank beginner. Arleen showed us how to make a simple pair of earrings. Some of the others were already on their second pair while I was still trying to figure out which way to bend the wire on my first. Arleen was very patient. I spent the next three hours making a necklace in various shades of blue and turquoise. I really enjoyed stringing the beads in a pattern that emerged as I went along. It kept me off my feet.

Back to Ohio

We're going to our cabin in Ohio over Columbus Day weekend. We'll get off I-77 at Route 39 and head west through Sugar Creek, Walnut Creek, Berlin, Millersburg, and Nashville. On the two-lane highway between Walnut Creek and Millersburg, we'll see lots of Amish buggies. Berlin, in fact, has become a center of Amish tourism; the population of Amish in Holmes and surrounding counties is among the largest in the country, and is said to rival that of Pennsylvania.

One soon notices variations in dress among the various groups. Here goes a young woman dressed head-to-toe in black, wearing sturdy black oxfords, and there goes a gaggle of giggling prayer-bonneted teen-agers in pastel dresses and flip-flops.

Driving through Millersburg years ago, when our older daughter was five, we saw an Old Order Amish woman crossing the street with an identically-dressed toddler in tow. "Look, Mommy," said Margaret, "a baby nun!"

Blowhards

Our younger daughter is one of those people who can have everyone in stitches just by the way she talks about incidents in her life.

Once, at a party, she told a story that had everyone laughing. Later, an older man sidled up to her and said, self-importantly, "Let me clue you. Men don't like women who are funny."

A bit taken aback, she made no reply. Now she wishes she had cooly retorted,

"Let me clue you. Women don't like blowhards."

17th Sunday after Pentecost

Next week we'll have the Blessing of the Animals. The priest says that if anyone brings snakes, she'll bless them, but she won't touch them. And they'd better be in cages.

Last week, in keeping with the Season of Creation, we heard Eucharistic Prayer C during the Great Thanksgiving. The husband of the priest we had over 20 years ago called it the "Star Wars" prayer. It's my favorite eucharistic prayer, especially the part about "this fragile earth."

"At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home."

Denise was one of the servers at communion. I remembered getting a wrong number when I tried to call her one time.

"Is Denise there?" I asked.
"No!" barked a very annoyed woman.
I apologized and hung up.
Thinking I had probably made a mistake dialing, I tried again.
The same irate woman picked up the phone. "Yeah?"
"Uh...is Denise there?"
"Look, Bitch, do I sound like Denise?"
"No. Sorry for bothering you," I replied, timidly.

What I WISH I had said was, "No, you don't sound at all like Denise. Denise is nice."