I got nothin' but Super Lady

I have nothing to say -- how boring is that. I am just trying to keep the ball rolling, especially since I don't intend to blog during Holy Week. That should be an easy resolution for me -- just about my speed.

The only slightly amusing thing I can tell you is that Heulwen, who is now three, has a personal favourite superhero she likes to be named Super Lady. I think that's kind of a scream. I have to stifle my smirks, though, because to her, Super Lady is serious stuff. Today Super Lady and Ella (alter ego name unknown at this point) were in one of their 'lava' episodes -- they have uncommon bad luck with lava, it seems -- and the dialogue went something like this:

Ella: Oh no! Here comes the lava! Run!

SL: Yeah! Here it comes! Let's get up higher!

Ella: It's coming higher now!

SL: Yeah! And I have to pee!

Now that's an issue they never dealt with in Dante's Peak: what if you are facing a pyroclastic flow and you have to pee? Methinks one just goes. Run from lava now, change trousers later.

A footnote: when I was cracking this gem of an anecdote to my husband, I referred to it as "chiroplastic flow"! I thought: that's not right, because I have no idea how I would spell that. He didn't seem to notice, though. Whew.

swiffer and gogol -- part II

After reading "The Overcoat", I'm mad at Gogol now too.

Consolation: I bought (with my allowance -- the greatest idea if you do your household budget -- let the grownups in the household have a monthly allowance -- it takes the sting out of paying all those boring grownup bills) Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. It's the new edition translated by the dream team of Volokhonsky and Pevear, about whom I've effused in a past post. I actually heard them (V and P) speaking on an Ideas show (CBC radio at 9 on weekdays -- really good) that was all about translation. They were asked what the hardest type of thing is to translate and Richard Pevear said peasant-type dialogue is hard -- which makes sense, and Larissa V said that Russian is full of these crazy (my word not hers) endearments like "Little Dove" and even "Little Falcon". That one kills me, little falcon. Also "little father" and "little mother" for people who -- er-- aren't parents. I noticed that Mitya in Brothers Karamazov was called "little father" (presumably "batushka") a lot, when he was, I understand, neither little nor a father. Discuss. Just kidding. Please don't discuss it.

Anyway, The Idiot is wonderful, and it has a stylish cover to boot -- all kind of cool and edgy. If I weren't a technopeasant I would show it to you, but you'll just have to trust me, or go find it yourself. The book is all about this totally virtuous young man who also happens to be a prince, but to him this seems to be no more interesting or important than having green eyes or a cowlick. I'm only two chapters in and I already just love this character. If you read BK and feel bereft of Alyosha after you're finished, Prince Myshkin is just the ticket. Ah, virtuous men. But I'll stop there.

I'm Back!

. . .if anyone still cares. I have to work right now (icons and more icons) but I will return later to put up something amusing/interesting/edifying (I almost typed "deifying" -- that would have been a pretty tall order!)

Okay, see you soon, orthobloggers.

Swiffer and Gogol (good fish names)

Have you ever had a totally irrational and long standing hatred of a product? I just realized the other day that I have this /thing/ against Swiffer! The first time I heard of it I thought it was stupid -- basically a paper towel jammed on to the end of a pole. Gross. Okay, then came "Swiffer Wet". Oh great, so now I get to run this thing all over my filthy floor, then pull it off with my bare hands, delightful. Then for some reason I heard this Swiffer ad coming from the other room (even though we gave up tv for Advent, I swear -- oh that's right we turned it on briefly to check the weather report) and I swear I was /heckling/ the ad out loud! Things like "That's so dumb. Just get a mop, moron".

Anyway, this has been going on for years. I should get over it.

Okay, so having absolutely burned through Crime and Punishment (and again I cannot recommend this new translation strongly enough -- will it help to say that this team have also translated Lossky and Schmemann?), I felt I had to continue in the Slavic vein, so now I'm reading Gogol for the first time. Boy, that's what's great about literacy, isn't it? All your life, no matter how ancient you become, even, say, 36, you can still have new experiences without leaving your living room. Anyway, it's this book of his stories called The Overcoat. So far I've just read the first story, called the Terrible Vengeance. It's one of the weirdest and most lyrical things I've read in a long time. It's kind of a scary fairy tale with a hair raising end bit which turns out to be a prequel thing which explains the whole bizarre thing. Check it out.

Then there's the second story -- I can't remember the name -- Somebody and his Aunt -- and I've only read a bit, but it has this great line from the aunt writing to her nephew. It is the ps and has nothing to do with anything:

We have the most wonderful turnip in our kitchen garden. It is not so much a turnip as a potato.

St Barnabas

 

two more completed icons, bringing my lifetime achievement up to five!

Well, here it is at last (thanks, Tab!) -- a photo of my completed St John the Forerunner. And it only took three and a half years! The St Barnabas one is above (if I do this right); I finished that one at the same time. They are now up Island and installed in the new (drumroll. . .) well, read on --

Congratulations to the mission of St Barnabas in Comox, BC, who have completed and moved into their new, purpose built CHAPEL!!!

I can't wait to go see it!

Joy of the Feast to all you Orthobloggers out there. 

novemblah

Actually I'm a fairly happy creature these days, rain and mud notwithstanding.
Really I have nothing to say except hi there, just to break throught the blog-block I have going again.
Just read: Till We Have Faces, by you know very well who. Hadn't read it in a loooong time. Pretty gripping stuff: I am Ungit! Brrrrrr!

Reading now: Crime and Punishment. Have never read it, which is delicious. The last time I had a 'Russian' phase was in oh, 1992. High time for another one. If you want to know, the first couple of chapters constitute one of the most heart-wrenching depictions of what alcoholism does to families in --I'm sure -- all of literature. (Angela's ashes is another, of course.) It is a bracing reminder of one of the functions of literature: to bypass the cliche detectors in your brain and slap it with something as if for the first time. All the AA pamphlets in the world can't shake you the way Dostoyevski does when he drags you into a miserable apartment where children are starving (and then beaten for crying with hunger) and a young woman-- their stepsister -- is forced into prostitution to save them (and then is kicked out of the building for being an 'bad' person) all because their father drinks every bit of money that comes his way.

It sounds wretched, and of course it is, but reading it is somehow wonderful. It helps that the translators of my edition are the exquisite team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonski. If memory serves, Heather (my iconography guru) went to St Vlad's with Ms Volohonski and I think Mr Pevear as well. Cool. Plus the book has a nifty cover design, which always helps.

Okay, off to bed now, mainly so I can read.

hello from your friendly neighbourhood single celled organism

I don't really have anything to say and it's super late but I am
BUSTING OUT OF BLOG AVOIDANCE!!!! Aiieeeeee heeeeeeeeeheeeeeee!!!

There. Okay, so I've been really busy and I finally finished two major icons for St Barnabas Mission -- the same two you've seen many times in the past in various states good and bad.
I'm pretty happy with how they came out, but can I show you pictures of them? No! Why? Because my digital camera went belly up, that's why! I took some regular photos, so at the rate I do things those should be available about 2025.

So now it's on to the remaining four (two archangels and XC and MP OV enthroned). It's a lot more fun starting these as I am no longer terrified quite out of my mind. Though don't get me wrong -- I feel rather unworthy to even contemplate doing iconography. The deeper I go the deeper it gets and the more like a silly amoeba I feel, but in a good way. Funny how eschewing the fear of doing what you are meant to do actually leads to more joy and more gratitude, and humility (I'm especially proud of that, ha ha) rather than some kind of reckless presumption that you can do this.

Okay, I'm not even sure I'm writing English anymore. Gotta go read Harry Potter until my eyelids collapse. . .

Dubious Deeds

Is the name of a very funny book by someone named Philip Ardagh. It is the first in a series which is itself a sequel series (lost yet?) about a little boy named Eddie Dickens. The style is hard to describe -- they are set in the Victorian period, but the author talks to you the reader in the present day. Hmm. Better just give you an excerpt and leave it at that.

***

He knew that English Law could be a very slow process. Once a local schoolteacher had tried to sue when Mad Uncle Jack had grown a particularly ugly hybrid vegetable and named it after him. Some gardeners made it their life's work to grow new varieties of flowers and vegetables, with varying degrees of success. Mad Uncle Jack's cross between a pea and some root vegetable or other had come about accidentally and the result looked like a very large, very hard and very knobbly pea; the kind of evil giant pea that would be discovered pulling levers behind a curtain at the end of a film in which vegetables were rising up against their human masters.

Mad Uncle Jack had decided to give a name to this extraordinary new vegetable, which didn't taste too bad if boiled long enough and was served with plenty of salt, ground black pepper and butter. Eventually, he settled on 'Lance Peevance' because, as he later explained in the local court, 'Peevance incorporates the pea element of my triumphant vegetable-child, and it is also the name of that man there,' he paused to point at the schoolteacher who was also in court that day because he he'd brought the legal action against Eddie's great-uncle, 'who bears more than a passing resemblance to it.'

Lance Peevance -- the man not the vegetable -- had, by now, had quite enought of Mad Mr Dickens and tried to make a lunge at him, screaming: 'I'll get you yet, Dickens!' which didn't please the judge.

The judge was already on Mad Uncle Jack's side, as it happened. Although schoolteachers were well-respected members of society and seen as better than scullery maids, for example, they still had to /work/ for a living. Mad Uncle Jack, on the other hand, was a true gentleman /and/ lived up at the big house, which meant that, in the judge's opinion, he should really be allowed to do what he liked and that included calling ugly vegetables after Mr Peevance.

Having said that, both Mad Uncle Jack's and Mr Peevance's lawyers wanted to make as much money from the case as possible, so kept raising very complicated legal objections on both sides
and sending eachother very expensive letters (which their respective clients would, of course, eventually have to pay for).

After three and a half years, judgement was finally passed in Mad Uncle Jack's favour and Lance Peevance was ruined. As a result, he owed his lawyer and the courts so much money that he fled the country disguised as a bag of coal.

On a matter of principal, Mad Uncle Jack paid for WANTED posters to be printed at his own expense. On them was an artist's impression of his own new variety of vegetable, under which were the words:

HAVE YOU SEEN A MISSING SCHOOLTEACHER,
WITH MORE THAN A PASSING RESEMBLANCE
TO THIS VEGETABLE?

As a direct result of seeing a copy of the poster, a Briton holidaying in France later recognized Lance Peevance and had him arrested. Mad Uncle Jack felt that this was proof, if proof were needed, that calling his vegetable child "Lance Peevance" in the first place had been completely and utterly justified.

Innocent

I don't know whether we will be able to find out whether the child was a boy or girl, but assuming we can't, the baby's name will be Innocent.

This is not because we expected a boy -- my intuition has always been non-existent for these things -- but because a girl could, in a pinch, also be called Innocent, whereas I would not want to land a boy, even a boy in Glory, with "Nina" (our choice if we knew it was a girl).

Innocent fits for many reasons -- what a wonderful saint (Renaissance man in a kayak), and what a good description of the child.

I want to thank everyone for their words and prayers (expressed or not). One great blessing to come out of this experience is that we are left in no doubt that we are loved (a lot!), and that this community of the Orthodox Church in BC and beyond is really filled with light, life and the Holy Spirit. I am just completely humbled and honoured to be part of it.