The one you've all been waiting for

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Brewmonks

I ran into Fr. Benedict and Br. Augustine when I was on the way home from town this morning after running some errands. They were on their way up my road and off to the nearest village, Cortigno, to offer Mass, which they said is a very beautiful place. They kindly offered me a quick lift home up the hill, and in the two minutes it took, told me, with a little eye-glimmer, "Go look at NBC.com."

"Is it about the beer?"


It's always about the beer.

For a long time I thought Chimay (red) was the best beer I'd ever had or was likely ever to have again (my mother's home made and heavenly raspberry lager notwithstanding). But this stuff beats it.

The big monastic news of the winter is that they've started shipping it to the US. You can order some here on their website.



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Acornpocalypse

Uuurrggh...

Those mornings when the entire pot of espresso has no effect whatsoever. Sssooooooo sleeeeeeepyyyy...

I raked up about ten tarp-loads of leaves yesterday afternoon, some of them very heavy from weeks of rain and snow. There are four oak trees in my garden, that is about 90% slope. And I guess oaks only fruit every other year because I really don't remember last year having the same Egyptian Plague-level of acorns. Acornpocalypse. I must have raked up 60 pounds of the things, and yesterday spent quite a bit of time pulling up the little mini oak trees where tiny forests of them had taken root at the base of the rose bushes.

Today's job is to get the last of the leaves up and start digging in the composted leaves from last year into an area I've started turning into a veg bed. I've composted two buckets of soil from kitchen scraps too, so it will be really good soil.

After that my big ambition is to take the billhook I got for Christmas and build a wattle fence for my bed. There's so much hazel around here they won't even notice me cutting rods. Should have done it in January before the sap started running, but ... oh well...


I love this guy's accent. Sounds like home to me.

My mother told me once that her uncle Bill was a hurdle maker. Can't let the family trade die out.



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I still miss her

I can't tell you all how much I miss little Winnie. While I was sick, she started sleeping next to my pillow so the first thing I saw every morning was her little face looking back at me, little sleepy slow blinks to let me know she still liked me.

The day before she died, I took a long hike up into the hills behind the town, looking for a good place for her. She had seemed a little stronger that day, but the next day she was obviously sinking very fast. Dr. B came that evening and I took her up to the hills the next day and built a little cairn of big stones over her.

People don't think cats are important, or they think they don't get attached to us, but it's not true. They don't show it the same way, but the attachment is just as strong.

It's getting to be pretty springy around here now, and the kitties are having a ball in the garden. They're pretty awesome, but I can say that I haven't really bonded with them the same way I did with Winnie. She was my alter ego. We understood each other.

God is more kindly and delicate about our feelings and hurts than we could ever be. He gave us pets, and for a lot of us who are going through life with a little more damage than we can handle, attachment to these little creatures is more helpful than we usually think.



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The Slow Life

No, Norcia isn't like this.


But it sort of feels like this, in a way that's hard to describe.

I do my laundry by hand, on the whole. In the bath. And I hang it on the line.

I'm amazed all the time at the things my friends think are absolute necessities. I don't want a washer, and couldn't afford to run one of those wasteful things if I had one. The gas for heating the water, the electricity, the water itself. And for what? So I can save time and effort. Yes? Time that could be better spent doing what? Surfing the net, perhaps? Watching TV?

The picture to the left is page 8 of the Luttrell Psalter.

See the rest here.



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Reasons to love the innernet: the Macronesia project

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that the larger issues of state and Church and whatnot are really not what get me through the days.

There are a lot of reasons to trash the internet, and I've not been holding back on them lately. But I always add the caveat that I actually really love the innernet. I wouldn't be employed without it, for one thing, and I'd probably still be living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, would never have gone to Toronto, never started writing professionally and never have reconnected with my family in England or lived in Italy or moved to Norcia or become an Oblate.

Another thing I probably wouldn't have done was get into cephalopods or marine biology, a rediscovery of an avid childhood interest.


Marine Biology, however, is a huge motivator.

The name says it all: the flamboyant cuttlefish is one of the most striking cephalopods, in appearance and behavior. Usually no more that 8 cm (3 in), their small stature is offset by their big and bizarre behavior and literally "flashy" coloration. They usually move around by "walking" along the bottom, waddling by moving the bottom of the mantle back and forth in a comical elephant-like shuffle, while undulating their fins and waving their brightly-colored tentacles. When startled, they will "gallop" off, darkening in coloration and waving their tentacles wildly. Most striking is their habit of flashing black and white bars of color along the mantle. When at rest, they can go light or dark to find camouflage on the ocean bottom.

The flashy color and flagrant behavior is no bluff...they are highly toxic, one of only three poisonous cephalopods.

One very useful thing about the innernet, arguably the most important thing it does after informing, is getting people together. The other day a good friend sent me a link to the Facebook page of 2240 other people who think cephalopods and nudibranchs and sea stars and mantis shrimp are the best thing evah.

No, I'm not kidding. Ask anyone who actually hangs out with me.

Will Hilary suddenly interrupt a perfectly good conversation about Pope Francis or the end of the world with the exclamation, "You guys have to see this amazing cuttlefish!"

Yes. Yes I do. All the time.

More people than you would think are big cephalopod fans. Here's a guy, Shane Siers, who has made a whole career out of making videos of the cuttlefish and other fauna in a tiny island in the South Pacific. Macronesia.

My kinda people.



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Dreaming of professional development

Painting restoration courses in Florence.

One-year course

This course offers a comprehensive and accelerated program, giving a unique opportunity to acquire a wide range of knowledge and techniques related to your field of study.

　Along with practical classes of your major subject - combined with challenging homework and assignments – our Basic Art Lessons will provide you with fundamentals of arts and design.

　Furthermore, you will broaden and enrich your artistic experience - looking beyond the borders of your specialty – through our weekly guided Art Visits and monthly Art Stages.

　Through this program, you will not only acquire a solid foundation in your study area, but also develop specific, advanced skills, immersed in a stimulating learning environment. Moreover, you will have the chance to learn basic business practices, to start up you career as young professional. Diplomas are issued to those who pass the final exam.

At least I'd be able to save the airfare.



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So long to the Thin White Duke

You all know I left home at fifteen. The course of my life has been steered entirely from that one act. Looking back I think it was actually a perfectly sensible decision, but at the time... well... best not to think too much about it. I went from being a rather sheltered child to being the only one in charge in the space of a week. (I was a ward of the state, but being in the "care" of social workers and being on my own amounted to the same thing.)

At the time I mentally divided my life into two parts, the before leaving and the after, and it is still a pretty sound description. On the cusp of my 50th birthday, I am now at last at peace with it all. But at the time... Hm.

There were a lot of people and things that helped me survive along the way, and it might sound weird, but Bowie's music was one of them. I was raised very strangely by a woman I now understand was a pathological narcissist. One of the things narcissistic mothers do, especially to daughters, is to try to insert their own personality into the child, to make her a living replica of herself a kind of puppet. I had no sense of identity when I was 15 and broke away from her. Music was one of the ways I started the process of creating a person, an identity that was separate from my mother's.

One day, I went to visit my friend and she played her Bowie albums, starting chronologically with Hunky Dory.


It was the first time I'd come across something that I really liked that my mother knew nothing about. It was the start of me becoming me. It took a long time, but here we are.

David Bowie's music, for the next ten years, was playing as the soundtrack of that entire development, and will forever stand in my mind for that period of creating independence and identity.

Which is a bit funny considering ...




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20 + C + M + B + 16

You really do have to be in Italy for a while to really get it.

Last night, after drinks I said good night to my friend and started walking home through the very quiet streets.

It was chilly and a dense heavy fog had settled on the town, so thick I could not see to the end of the road. I flipped my collar up and shoved my hands deeper into my pockets. The main street, normally bustling in warmer weather, was ringing in its silence, the only sound was my own shoes.

As I approached the Rome Gate, and passed the antiques shop, I was suddenly approached by a woman in a big pointy black hat with a long crooked nose who came as if by magic out of the fog. She was dressed in a long skirt with many carefully sewn-on patches, and wore a woolen shawl around her shoulders. She brandished the big twig broom she was carrying and came over to me with her arms stretched out.

She said, "EElaree! Auguri!"

I replied, "Befana!! Auguri!"

We kissed each others' cheeks and laughed and I went home happy with my Epiphany blessing from the old lady who still searches for the Christ Child.



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___k the Innernet!

Hey it's me!

I've been doing research on the internet about why the internet is bad for you.

When I was a kid, my elders called the television a number of derogatory nicknames, “the gogglebox,” “the idiot-box.” I remember that serious parents took to heart the warnings of the documentaries and books that children’s TV time should be strictly rationed. They were worried about kids sitting in front of the screen all day while Leave it to Beaver was still being made. What would Ward and June have thought of kids taking the TV with them wherever they went? I know an orthodox Jewish rabbi in New York who has nine children and still refuses to get an internet connection at home. I asked him about it once, and he said it wasn’t the porn, he just didn’t want his children growing up to be idiots.

Yeah yeah...shut up.

What, you think I didn't notice?



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