Update

Intensely cold outside and the car is blanketed in snow.   

 

I've heard of orphans turning up on doorsteps in driving snow but when I opened my front door to look out this evening, I found my neighbour's missing cat, who has been AWOL for days, mewing pathetically and trying to skirt round me to come in (what does she think I'm running here, a hostel for homeless cats!!)  

 

I think said neighbour Donna had me on top of the suspect list - and admittedly me and my partner-in-crime, Jay, did once contemplate finding a good home for Chaos - but failing me Donna became convinced that Chaos had been kidnapped by a gang from OK City, and was holding her against her will, otherwise Chaos would have found her way back to her home and Donna.   I refrained from pointing out that gangs from OK City are too busy ferrying drugs up the north/south interstate from Mexico for distribution in OK City, they don't have time for kidnapping cats.

 

Anyway I rang Donna and told her Chaos was on my porch.  I'm not sure how escaping her captors and making her way to my front door went down with her.   I hope she came and got her and Chaos isn't wandering about in the snow.

 

Last night, or Thursday night, Bruce and Rosalyn invited me to the local Little Theatre which was very kind.   It was a musical 'La Cage aux Folles'.    This is a synopsis of the plot -

 

 Renato is the owner of a Saint Tropez nightclub, where the main attraction is a nightly drag act performed by Renato's lover, Zaza.     Renato had a son, Laurent, who became engaged to his girl friend, Simone and he lied about his father's profession and "persuasion" so as not to offend Simone's father a member in good standing of the Union of Moral Order.    When Laurent announces that both his fiancee and her father are coming for a visit, Renato and Zaza desperately try to "butch up" their relationship.

 

I enjoyed it, and thought it was a very brave topic to stage in as conservative a place as Shawnee which might account for the fact that the theatre was barely half full.

Friday afternoon

It  has been a rather concerning couple of days.  My friend Louise has congestive heart failure, and I noticed she has been even slower than usual lately, but she took a sharp downward turn yesterday and was admitted to ICU.   I visited her yesterday afternoon, and again this morning when I was at the hospital for my chaplaincy round.   This morning she was moved out of ICU but is still looking very frail.   I can't imagine she is going to be back to turning out all the cakes she used to make for Kiwanis.   I think I chose a rather bad time to bail out of Kiwanis, and wish I'd hung on a bit longer.  I will ring the President shortly to see if there is anything I can do to help.

It is intensely cold here.   While I was having lunch with Bill just now at the hospital it started snowing, so I hope it doesn't get too bad.

Wednesday 25th February

The weather has veered from freezing to summer.  Lovely blue sky, sunshine and in the 50s.  That doesn't sound very warm, but it feels warmer than that.

 

Finished the crochet project this afternoon and took it to the Senior Centre.  Kate was very appreciative, she is not sure whether to raffle it, or have a silent auction.  I think she would like to have it herself and has a greater chance of getting it in a silent auction.  But someone who also liked it and could afford a raffle ticket, but probably not a silent bid, walked off looking rather disappointed at the notion of a silent auction.  I don't get involved in that, I just hand it over to Kate and leave it to her to decide how best to raise some money with it.

 

I like to crochet in the evening when the light is not good enough for cross stitching.   But the Mother's Tree is coming on.   I think the end is in sight, I've done the outline and am just filling in the tree.

I was off the hook tonight for dessert as it was team Taco, or team Mexican.   Speaking of which - they have outfitted themselves - if that's the right word - with their own special tee shirts.

And this is team Mexican.   On the far right of the picture is Beth, the associate minister and youth leader, she's a lovely person  (well they all are really).  Next to her is my friend Jack who is very kind to me.  Jack's wife, Tiffany, is on the far left of the picture.

And if you didn't get the pun - and it took me a few moments....here is another look

Then I snapped an informal shot when they weren't looking...

Tuesday - update

Well, the snow melted off the car by the afternoon, I think tomorrow the temperature will be in the 60s, then go back to freezing.

You have probably heard the verdict in the American Sniper trial.  I was riveted to the television waiting for the verdict.  As the guy was undoubtedly guilty the only two verdicts were either 'guilty' or 'guilty by reason of insanity'.    It just took the jury a couple of hours to bring in the guilty verdict, which means he will be in prison for the rest of his life, with no possibility of parole, and that was the verdict everyone wanted and seems to be satisfied with.  The 'by reason of insanity' means he would have gone to a mental hospital and at some time in the future could be released.

Obviously he had mental health issues but didn't meet the criteria for legally insane.  Just after his arrest he tried to pretend he was insane, asking if he was going to an insane asylum, but apparently no genuinely insane person would say that.

At first the reporters were referring to it as a capital murder verdict, as capital murder in Texas is two or more persons murdered in the same crime, but I was thinking it meant he would get the death sentence, and I think I read somewhere that there are more executions in Texas than anywhere else in the nation.   But I suppose because of the element of insanity - even though not legally insane - they can't execute him.

Chris Kyle is - quite rightly - a major American hero at the moment, and someone said that when the other inmates of the correctional facility  discover his killer is among them he is going to have a hard time.   I didn't think convicted criminals were so patriotic.

So all that has been an education for me this evening.

Tuesday - current situation

Still snowed in.  I suppose I could get out if I had to, if I scraped the snow off the car.  But I'll let it melt instead, the sun is shining outside so it might.   In the meantime I am back to the telly - and the computer, and Bubbles curled up keeping an eye on me.

Monday morning

It is BITTERLY cold at the moment.   Definitely freezing season.   I took this picture a few minutes ago.

Yesterday, Sunday, I was just so lethargic, I didn't make it to church.  I wouldn't have gone anywhere were it not for the fact that I needed to stock up on some milk, so went to Walmart in the afternoon and I don't think I have ever felt so cold.  It was 33 as I drove through town.  I was surprised I wasn't scraping ice off my car.   

I sometimes think, looking down the road, that if I ever won the lottery I would give cash handouts to the neighbours to do their houses up.  Even - and perhaps especially - them next door who called me an effing British bitch and told me to go back where I came from.  They're not bad people, and they are really struggling in a dreadfully dilapidated house to get by.

So I am sat in front of my tv with my needlework, nice and warm, and watching the evil Fox News. It was said recently that people who look at Fox News are 'News Junkies' - yeah, that's me.  The people looking at the news on the other networks are just listening to it in the background, while they're cooking their meatloaf.

And this is what is currently on said news.

Oh My!!!   Mall of America is the largest in the nation and is in Minnesota.

 

 

 

I know this forecast is Wednesday morning but it is pretty much the current situation.  Oklahoma is there between Amarillo in the Texas panhandle, and Little Rock, the state capital of Arkansas.

So that is my world this Monday morning.  Back to the telly and the needlework.

Saturday 21 February

I left  St Crispin's and the Popcorn Theology Retreat just after lunch. 

 

It was very good indeed, we saw two movies, last night it was The Hundred Foot Walk, which I had already seen but didn't mind seeing again, and the Monuments Men this morning, which I hadn't seen.    The first movie involved a lot of pausing and discussion, the second we watched without interruption.   The facilitator, I thought, was an Episcopal priest from Tahlequah, and she certainly is a priest, she celebrated Communion and is from Tahlequah, but looking her up tonight on the internet I was surprised to find that she is a practising psychiatrist.  Not that I am casting any doubts on her professional abilities, I just didn't realise that was her day job.   I can't find much - hardly any in fact - information about the Episcopal Church in Tahlequah. but perhaps it is too small to support a full time priest.    Anyway, she is a very warm, pleasant person and loves movies.  

 

The Retreat started with dinner on Friday evening, but a group got there in the morning to make pillowcases again for the children of incarcerated parents.   I was going to go and help, but didn't make it, mainly because I was at the hospital Friday morning and by the time I got home and packed a bag and pottered about it was the middle of the afternoon by the time I arrived.

 

I settled in a lounge/dining room and was soon joined by others who cracked open bottles of a fruit flavoured champagne, and opened bags of snacks, followed by a very interesting cheese board, so it was quite a lively pre-dinner cocktail party.

 

The pillowcases, are'nt they colourful.    I was telling  Bill and another chaplain about them on Friday morning and said I would have thought that there would be something else children would rather have,  but they said that poor people just don't have pillows, and for a poor child to have their own is a big deal. 

 

So that has been my weekend thus far.