We have a great school here.
And in back of it is a huge field where we host our annual Parish Fair.
Why, here’s a part of the field now… maybe half of it.
And here are some of our dedicated Parishioners helping with the immense task of Fair Setup.
I helped a lot by walking around taking pictures. It’s hard work, and someone’s got to do it you know! (Although one of our Parishioners is a photographer for the Times Picayune and takes phenomenal photos… but we’re not going to talk about that.)
Things get a little crazed at times…
… and then people start running across the roof.
Interestingly, the most sturdily built booth is the beer booth. But that’s because it houses several large screen TV’s which will be showcasing various football games and sporting events throughout the duration of the fair.
But I am really looking forward to all of the great food. In fact I’m not eating anything but oatmeal and Cheerios all week long before the fair starts.
With everything else going on in the world, I often consider that I should blog about the important events happening daily. But, our fair is a very important event you know, and it takes a lot of effort on everyone’s part to make it the huge success that it always is.
Hope to see you there!
I love weekends. They’re on the long side with the work of the Church going on in full force at the beginning of the week every Sunday. But, they also offer a lot time to reflect and consider life.
And, every now and again there’s time to experiment with these coconut rolls that have been just begging to be made. This is the closest I’ve come to date; it’s almost where they need to be. Still these are great and someone asked me to fix 100 of them for a large party later this year. (I said no.)
And the weekend is a great time to practice close-ups of roses. I realize, one day I’ll look back at this and laugh, and wonder how I could have ever posted it. But for now, I’m thrilled with it. It’s a baby step in the right direction.
And the weekend is a time to take long walks. Feral chickens are all over the New Orleans area, and the park nearby has feral chickens aplenty. Here’s one with a local rabbit. The rabbit was sitting there minding his own business, and the chicken went over and pecked him on the head. Then they both stood there like this and looked at me taking their picture.
I think the heat gets to everything down here, including these critters. Walking around, or just staying outside for more than ten minutes, it’s easy to feel like a cypress tree standing serenely in the swamp, basking in the extravagant humidity. And the humidity here is very extravagant right now.
So much work to be done for the Lord; God grant us length of days to glorify you, and to bring honor to your holy name.
I drove down to Fort Jackson today. It was a pretty pleasant drive aside from a dramatic rainstorm. The road along the Westbank of the river ends right past Fort Jackson, since the river ends a bit after that.
I was expecting a sign saying something along those lines, which I had read about in a book discussing the Mississippi River Bike Trail.
But there is no sign. The road just ends very unceremoniously, and very unattractively.
I hadn’t expected the ride to be such a potent reminder of Katrina, which was perhaps naive of me. At any rate, I’ll have to leave off tonight with this intriguing photo taken at the farthest point south on the Eastbank road along the Mississippi, shortly after Pointe a la Hache.
I’ll write about the whole trip in the next few days, surely there are some spiritual lessons to be had. Ciao.
I attended a talk once by Judith McNutt; she described a disturbed client and then added that he was truly disturbed, ‘he wasn’t just neurotic, like most of us.’ I love listening to her talks, by the way.
That of course got me to thinking about the word neurotic. People use it jokingly, to describe themselves from time to time. And I have too.
So the other day I decided to look it up the word ‘neurotic’ before I go about using it randomly to describe myself, while it was on my mind. It causes strange looks from people at times.
FROM: Dictionary dot com
on “neurotic”
1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of neurosis.
~~~
and on “neurosis”
2. a relatively mild personality disorder typified by excessive anxiety or indecision and a degree of social or interpersonal maladjustment.
FROM Wikipedia
The American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has eliminated the category of “Neurosis”, reflecting a decision by the editors to provide descriptions of behavior as opposed to hidden psychological mechanisms as diagnostic criteria.,[3] and, according to The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, it is “no longer used in psychiatric diagnosis”.[4] These changes to the DSM have been controversial.[5]
So yes, I’m occasionally mildly neurotic. Continue on, please.
Yesterday while discerning the will of the Lord I drove over to Bayou Segnette Sate Park for some photo ops.
It’s crawling with gators, but yesterday evening they basically just looked like logs in the muck and were not that interesting to photograph. Unless they started splashing and moving very quickly, in which case the last thing I was interested in was taking their picture.
But, you know how when you’re walking through the woods admiring the generically beautiful woodsiness of it all and then…. suddenly… you feel something like light fish wire across your face and realize you’ve walked through a woodspider’s nest and all you can do is imagine it’s huge gnarly body walking all over yours as you both scamper to be freed from one another as soon as possible?
I hate when that happens.
It looks just like this bucolic photo above.
But what’s really there is this.
Exact same view, different focus.
Ick.
Being 6’6″ I’ve walked through my share of woodspider’s nests, and I just don’t like it.
Here is a baby gator in the muck. Mama gator was nearby watching, with lots of other gator heads poking up amidst the algae. Sadly, National Geographic I’m not.
I felt like a pelican in the wilderness, a lonely bird upon a roof…
Still, it was a good side trip after a long day in the office.
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