I've spent most of the afternoon and evening watching the news coverage of hurricane Gustav.  I have no idea why, but I've always been fascinated by storms, especially hurricanes.  There's something about them that's exciting to me.  Of course I'm quite sure my tune would change abruptly if I ever had to live through one.  Well, a bad one anyway.  I think I could handle a category one.  My own personal insanity aside, we need to pray for the people along the coast.  Pray big.

***

I preached my last sermon this morning.  As relieved as I am, there's some sadness in there, too. (about 75/25, I think.)  I mean, hey, I went to church with these people for fourteen months.  Those potatoes are not small.

***

Some friends of mine recently brought me back a big box of salt water taffy from Myrtle Beach.  I ate most of it, except for these strange, brownish tan colored pieces.  I'm not sure what flavor they're supposed to be, but they definitely don't make me happy.  In fact, they make me decidedly un-happy.

In related news, I've sworn off taffy for a while.

***

For those of you who are made happy by astronomy and space related things, you should stop what you're doing and check out this site.  I downloaded the top 100 images (they have them all in one file) and have been switching them out on my desktop about once a week.  They've gone a long way towards countering the taffy related unhappiness.

***

I finally got my passport!  (Now I just need some place to go!)

***

Favored random Wodehouse quote:

"She looked at me like someone who has just solved the crossword puzzle with a shrewd "Emu" in the top right hand corner."

***

Tootle pip
[doodlebugs]

So here's a few things I've been meaning to post about.  I'm pretty sure most of it counts as the light hearted frivolity I promised earlier.

-------

Now that I'm no longer doing the associate pastor job, it occurs to me that some of you [my dear and much loved readership] might be wondering what I'll be doing to keep food in my belly and books on my shelf (not to mention pay bills and buy gas).  In other words, what I'll be doing employment wise.  Well, as in all the things, the Lord is good and has already provided.  A little less than two months ago (just a few days after my contract with the Methodist Church actually ended) a position opened up at our library and I jumped on it.  Since I'd worked there during college and am on a first name basis with everybody there, I was hired pretty much immediately.  So now, three days a week and every other Saturday I check books in and check books out; I clean books, and shelve books, and straighten shelves of books;  I stamp due dates in books and recommend books and sigh and wonder why anyone would read certain books. And, when the place is quiet and no one is asking for a computer or where the magazines are or when our only copies of Breaking Dawn or Duma Key will be available, I sometimes even read books. 

I also smile alot, because, for the most part, I really like my job.  (I should note here that I'm also still employed cleaning my home church, a position completely separate from the preaching gig.)

-------

Yesterday I finished reading The Great Gatsby, and I have to admit, contrary to everything I've ever been told by English teachers, fellow book nuts, and Amazon.com reviews, I hated it from beginning to end.  Set in the Roaring 20's, the characters are at best amoral, and at worst are vicious, hateful, and selfish.  Greed, envy, lust, adultery, and lying are all accepted as matters of course by the main characters, and, as far as I can tell, by everyone else in that world too.  There's an echo of something that might resemble true friendship and loyalty in the last couple of chapters, but by then it's a day late and a dollar short. 

I remember being told by several different people that the message of this book is that, like James Gatz reinventing himself as Jay Gatsby, life is what we choose to make it.  But I'd say that the message of this book was already covered in Proverbs 16:18: Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Don't get me wrong, Fitzgerald's writing is wonderful, and he can paint a scene beautifully.  It's just that I'm afraid his talent was wasted on this story.  It's like looking at a beautiful painting...of a garbage dump.

-------

To purge the residue left over from reading suffering through Gatsby, I'm now reading The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne.  It's sort of like when you've had the flu, and you've spent a couple days in bed and feel like a complete grease ball, but then you feel better and take a nice long hot shower.  Yeah, that's what it's like.  A nice long hot shower.

-------

I've been cleaning.  I would call it spring cleaning, but as you may know, it's August.  So most of my late summer cleaning has consisted getting rid of things, and organizing what's left.  So far, two walmart bags full of books and one big trash bag full of cloths have been sent off to goodwill.  I think I'll tackle my closet this evening.

-------

In the midst of all this cleaning, I've been finding things.  A t-shirt I thought I'd never see again, a wallet that I lost last spring ( with $30 bucks in it! score!), and two SD cards that I have no idea where they came from.  I think I'll clean more often.

-------

I'm starting to catch myself singing Christmas songs.  Which is a good thing.

-------

Speaking of music, I've been listening to some that's really great.  I think I first heard of the band Over the Rhine from Amanda.  Well, the girl's got good taste!  I downloaded their album Drunkard's Prayer and it's been the sound track to my life for several weeks now.  It's warm and soft and it makes me happy and sad at the same time.  Yeah.  Highly recommended.

Also highly recommended is the album Hymned Again by Bart Millard (lead singer of Mercy Me).  Old hymns mostly set to jazz music.  Amazing! 

Okay, listen to me.  I didn't do a good enough job describing Hymned Again.  YOU MUST buy it and listen to it yourself.  YOU WON'T be sorry!

-------

Alright, that's probably enough for one post.  If you've read it all, congratulations.  Your stamina is impressive.  If not, I really can't blame you.  Now go and be happy.

Tootle pip
[doodlebugs]