A PINCH OF THIS, A PINCH OF THAT

"A pinch of this, a pinch of that, a Dewey button, and a French-fired bat." Those in the know recognize a witch's spell from one of the "Fractured Fairy Tales" on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. It is somewhat descriptive of the miscellany of this blog.

Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Day are at last past. I suppose I should be discussing the spiritual qualities of this time of year, but for this cleric, it's a time of absolute exhaustion. We clergy don't really appreciate the spiritual aspects of these days because we are so overwhelmed by the work necessary to produce these days. There are extra sermons to write, additional services to plan, and all the usual routine. One finishes the last Easter service and collapses. Most clergy take the Monday following Easter as a day off, but pay for it on Tuesday. Ah yes, the answering machine was blinking madly on Tuesday with an assortment of calls that required not only answering, but were the cause of additional work. And then there is email with more requests and, of course, the New Nited States Mail brought more things demanding attention.
Oh, yes, there were 144 people at worship Sunday, but this week will be half that number at best. Low Sunday, it's sometimes called.

Monday had to be a day off because I had been working for nine days without a break, sometimes putting in 12 hour days. The pressing problem becomes clean clothes. One has to do laundry sometime or other.

Ah, but Monday did allow some time for multiple cups of tea. I chose a very special tea, one of the very expensive French blends from Mariage Freres, 30 & 32 rue du Bourg-Tibourg, Paris. The French aren't known as tea drinkers, but the Mariage Freres make some very exotic blends of tea flavored and scented with flowers and fruits. For example, my choice for this Monday was Montagne d'Or, Mountain of Gold. The dealer describes it: "Marigold, safflower and rose blossoms are added with pieces of papaya and apple to create a symphony of flavors. For the afternoon. Because 21% of this tea is composed of flowers and fruits, this tea is low in caffeine."

A tea that elegant required a special pot and cup. Out came my Royal Albert china in the Old Country Rose pattern. It's not quite Hyacinth Bucket's (pronounce Boo-KAY) Royal Doulton china with the hand-painted periwinkles, but it is genuine. Of course I bought the tea pot as a second (the glaze isn't quite right in a few spots) and I think the cups came from T. J. Max, but it is my very own imported china. I sipped my tea in style while reading Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four. (No sticking out the pinky. It's quite vulgar to do that.)

The stress of the last few weeks has taken its toll on me. My back spasmed a couple of weeks ago and it was days before I could straighten out. Then there was the nightmare. It began at the local high school auditorium. I was ushered back stage to watch from a table behind the scenes. It developed into a talent show of sorts, only several of the performers who I knew were singers insisted on playing the harmonica. When it was over, it seems that I was supposed to be one of the judges of the talent show. I hadn't been paying that much attention. Fortunately the person next to me seemed to have a score sheet and I just agreed with the decisions. Actually, it was only to decide which performers would be back next week. I gather this is something done on American Idol, but I never watch that program and don't understand all the fuss. Somehow I ended up with the scoring sheet in a metal file folder and was concerned that it get back to the proper person. Only now I was walking on the campus of the university where I used to teach. There ahead of me was a brown and white gazelle-like animal. (I called it a deer in the dream even though in the dream I knew it wasn't a deer.) And then in the bushes close to me I spotted a snow leopard. (In the dream I called it a panther although I knew it wasn't a panther. The panther was the University's mascot.) Naturally, the leopard attacked the gazelle. I walked around the scene and warned people coming on campus that a panther was attacking an animal. Then I went back to worrying about the metal file folder. Fortunately that was the end. I have no idea what all that means.

Last thing. One day while doing the laundry (seems laundry occupies a large part of my life), a title for a story hit me: "Millard, the Vampire Frog of Pottsylvania." I had used the name Millard the Frog in signing an email once, so it was on my mind. My initial thought was that it would be fun to write a sort-of progressive story with different people writing successive parts, rather after the fashion of ghost stories at camp. I used to do a comic strip story with somebody like that when I was in seventh grade. But I don't know anyone who would want to do that any more, so I decided to write my own story. Usually a story involves a plot first, but I had a title. It's going to be a challenge to develop a story, but I've got the section us to where Millard is about to become a vampire frog. I'm stuck at getting a magic spell right. Of course the inspiration for the frog transformation comes from the Fractured Fairy Tale. I admit I don't know where to go next in the story, although I have a thought about scenes with a crocodile and maybe Dr. van Helsing from the Dracula story, but I don't know how to make something of the idea. Naturally there has to be a beautiful princess, but it needs a twist, and the princess cannot be turned into a vampire frog herself because that's too much like the fractured fairy tale. Oh well, I suppose this will go the way of many of my writings and never be finished, like my musical based on Noah's Flood, several blogs, an article based on my dissertation, and that map of the eastern hemisphere I was supposed to do in third grade. I'm afraid I lack persistence. Well, at least I finished THIS blog.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne