Monday

Here we go with Holy Week. Don’t come here looking for inspiration, unless I repost something from previous years. It’s not that I don’t feel inspired. It’s that the world – especially the Internet World – is just filled with Inspiration™️ and Encouragement™️ that I figured there’s enough of that around.

Plus, my inspiration this week has to go – inconveniently – to thinking about Advent. It’s due next week. But that’s the way it goes in the Catholic Writer World™️.

So let’s just be dull and digest instead.

Writing: As just mentioned, a small Advent-related project due next week. I’d hoped to get it done last week, but…no…So here I am, not only complete over Inspiration™️ and Encouragement ™️ , also having to think intensely about Advent during Holy Week. My fault, totally.

I did made progress on a new novel and a new non-fiction project. No one has asked for them, no one has requested anything from me, but whatever. I’ll just keep writing.

Blog posts here in this space, which is my favorite space after my living room with Spotify playing. Click back for those.

Reading: House of Mirth by Wharton and the non-fiction Unworthy Republic, an account of the expulsion of Native peoples from their lands in the United States.

ALSO – I just ran across this. Newshounds may be aware that there is a huge unionization struggle happening down here in the Birmingham area, in the small town called Bessemer just west of here and, of course Amazon, I’m generally not a fan of Vox, but this is an excellent explainer on the issue, giving great historical context and taking the religious faith of the organizers very seriously. Go, read it. (Today is the deadline for voting)

Educating: How about a new category? To cover the “homeschooling” of the high school sophomore? He had an actual spring break last week, that involved going to the gloriously mask-less land called Flo-ri-da with a bunch of friends (and one set of parents). So now, it’s back in business, to make the most of the next two months.

Science: Chemistry is done, and I’m pleased with how it went. Math: After a break, continuing with Algebra II this week. Latin: A bit of a break, meeting again next week. He has translation to do in the meantime. Spanish, history: The usual, self-guided. Literature: He’s supposed to be reading Ethan Frome. This coming week, we’ll read some material from the Norton anthology about the Gilded Age and read some Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Next week, talk about Wharton, read her story Roman Fever and probably do some Willa Cather. After that, we’ll be in the 20th century and he’ll start reading The Great Gatsby.

At the end of April, we’ll take a jaunt down to Montgomery to the Fitzgerald House.

Religion: Lots of Holy Week of course. As a church musician, he gets a close-up view of it all, and this year, his second year in the job, there will be a congregation. He’s also reading Signs and Mysteries by Mike Aquilina, and then for the Easter Season, we’ll do a close reading of the Gospel of John.

Cooking: What with him gone last week….not a lot except for several lovely big salads.

This morning, though, I have this Cuban-style Pork Mojo in the oven. It’s been marinating since yesterday, and will be roasting in there for five hours total. I’ve never done it before, and I hope it turns out.

Listening: Various jazz piano trios and quintets in the evening, as well as various Mendelssohn chamber music pieces that I’m obsessed with.

And now – if you want to, you can watch/listen to liturgies from the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham. They last week installed a professional system for livestreaming and recording and introduced it this weekend. Saturday evening’s Mass has only organ music, but the Sunday liturgy – as with all liturgies of Holy Week – will have the small, expert schola, providing music. Here’s the YouTube page for the videos and livestreaming, and here’s the page with the orders of worship.

So if you or someone you know is unable to attend Mass right now, this is another good resource for them.

Watching: Hit the movies last night. In a theater. For, what, I think the second time in a year? The first time was Tenet, which I didn’t like very much.

This time…more violence! Nobody, starring Bob Odenkirk and screenplay by Derek Kolstad, the creator of the John Wick series.

While not an aficionado of the genre, I’m not against it, and I, of course, like Odenkirk a lot and was looking forward to this.

I liked it! It’s nonsensical and of course, brutal, but it’s short (90 minutes), with enough character work to keep you interested and elderly Christopher Lloyd getting into the action.

Clearly set up for a possible sequel, but interaction with the John Wick universe? I guess people are being coy about that. I don’t know. Haven’t seen any of those films all the way through but we did have an intense discussion in the car on the way to the movie in which I was convinced I remembered one of the early scenes in the first John Wick movie and when I could finally reconstruct it, my son sighed “Mom, that’s the opening scene from Inception.…”

Then all it took was a reference to Attack on Titan as a “cartoon” and I achieved my first Okay, Boomer of the day! Late in coming, though.

And no, I won’t be going to the Godzilla/King Kong movie. It’s not rated R, he has access to a car and plenty of friends to see that one with….