Posted Entries:

Month's Mind Posted on Dec 2, 2024, 2:12 pm
The whole idea of Holidailies is community celebration and fun, and this seems quite somber for that. But it affords me the opportunity to try to get back to where I once belonged, as a writer, a friend, a “minder” of this one wild and precious world we share.

SAD Posted on Dec 5, 2023, 8:12 pm
In case you can’t read the words on the image, it says: This is your reminder to stop stressing to “finish the year off strong.” You can finish it off grateful, relaxed, slowly, peacefully. The idea that we always need to “be doing” and “achieving” only creates cycles of anxiety. Rushing will not solve your problems. Rest will.

Make a List, Check It Twice Posted on Dec 4, 2023, 8:12 pm
Ever since we were married (forty years now), Ron has made a game of using “creative” spelling for internal (family) communications. When he emails our daughter, whose field hockey number was 11, he addresses her as “Leben.” Our check register contains so many variations on the place where he often gets gas (“Hickenlooper,” “Flickenflager,”) that one time when I needed to know the actual name, I couldn’t remember it. (It’s Hugendubler.)

Hello To Your Name Posted on Dec 3, 2023, 1:12 am
I'm starting a new Advent prayer series sponsored by the app Hallow that uses the work of C. S. Lewis. It's presented by Liam Neeson. I took the title of the piece from a memory of how my daughter said "hallowed" when she was about three. That gave me a chance to give her a shoutout and maybe drive traffic to her site, which is all about cookies right now.

Jingle All the Way Posted on Dec 1, 2023, 9:12 pm
Here are some things I am grateful for as Holidailies/Advent/the rest of my life begins: My pesky tire pressure light is staying off, even in this cold weather. I have every resource I need to achieve the Six Goals of a Quality Life. My mobility is improving. I haven’t used my cane in a week.

Not One Iota Posted on Dec 5, 2022, 8:12 pm
It's the feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra. For fun this morning, I put this picture up on my Facebook news feed. It sent some to Google, and elicited a wink and a nod from others whose classical religious education is similar to mine. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

Yes! No! Posted on Dec 1, 2022, 8:12 pm
This is my first post to Holidailies 2022. I move into this latest iteration of it with hope and joy, and a little trepidation about my ability to follow through on my intentions. Come with me, pay attention with me, for “to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

It's Four in the Morning, the End of December Posted on Dec 24, 2021, 5:12 am
I can do no more this morning than repeat verbatim my mostly annual repost of the essay I wrote some twenty years ago for my church newsletter. And I can do no better this morning than say to everyone who reads this, thank you, thank you for reading, for being part of my life, or not part of it for reasons that you have chosen. May we have strength, and resolve, and love, to step into 2022 with joy, however cautious.

Sort, Stack, Sacrifice Posted on Dec 6, 2021, 10:12 pm
I made a list of [decluttering] tasks that only I could perform (and that would be necessary before seeking paid professional services). I labeled them “Sort, Stack, Sacrifice,” and created an order of eight areas of concern (including “#7 Lynn’s room: someday” and “#8 Dining room: hopeless.”)

Speak It Once Again Posted on Dec 5, 2021, 8:12 pm
Speak your love. Speak it once again.

Unexpected Posted on Dec 4, 2021, 10:12 pm
On the fifteenth anniversary of an unexpected friendship.

Sometimes I Wonder Posted on Dec 3, 2021, 11:12 pm
I found myself in two prickly Facebook discussions yesterday, one with someone I truly care about, whom I have actually known since about 1988, and the other with someone who comes up on my news feed because we are “Facebook Friends,” with a significant number of mutual friends, and although I can identify the circles in which we move together, I do not recall that I have ever met her, or who friended whom.

Regret Posted on Dec 2, 2021, 9:12 pm
A meditation on some lines by poet Lawrence Raab: Every day there’s something old to feel sorry about— what I should have done and didn’t, or what I did, and kept on doing. ***** We want to forget until we start to forget. We want the past to change, and we want it back.

Still Jingling Posted on Dec 1, 2021, 10:12 pm
"But then the brain fog came back, worsening over the summer and then into the fall. I took an online class to further my novel that I couldn’t keep up with because I kept misinterpreting the weekly assignments. One evening, Ron asked where the colander was, and I said, “It’s in the . . . the . . . the box for laundering the plates.” The dishwasher, a word I could not retrieve, though I was looking at the appliance at that very moment."

Same As It Ever Was Posted on Dec 2, 2020, 8:12 pm
I’m here for Holidailies. The great joy of this is that it’s always been an online activity, a virtual community, an Internet phenomenon. Something normal, something familiar, something done the way we’ve always done it.

The Advent Kitchen Posted on Dec 2, 2019, 8:12 pm
This kitchen, this beloved vista, is where my Advent and Christmas will take place. I did my habitual C&C yesterday and this morning, and then spent the hours I would have been at school taking up the work I abandoned in September. I wrote 500 words of new fiction, about a girl who is forced, kicking and screaming, to church one otherwise quiet Wednesday evening in the summer of 1964.

When I Woke Up This Morning Posted on Dec 1, 2019, 8:12 pm
So here I am again, without much explanation for the long absence. As The Escribitionist Formerly Known as Shmuel says, what the heck! Let's do this!

It's Comin' On Christmas Posted on Dec 24, 2018, 8:12 pm
I have been absent from this space since my brave resolve to mount another holly jolly Holidailies. For a lot of reasons, that didn’t happen. I spent Advent pondering life questions and searching for hope.

Object Lessons Posted on Dec 1, 2018, 9:12 pm
The idea came to me this morning — a theme for my Holidailies posts: Advent in Twenty-Two Objects. I signed up for this annual blog fest as soon as registration opened, aware that I’ve been absent from the blogging community for months, that I probably don’t have much of a readership left, that the platforms and the techniques I’ve always relied on to maintain my presence have changed dramatically and I have much to learn. As I have changed as a writer and a reader. But as everyone’s first piece

Bring the Light. Be the Light. Posted on Dec 13, 2017, 9:12 pm
Hello again! Since my cheery post on the first day of Holidailies, I’ve been jingling, but not writing. I’ve been x-rayed, scanned, ultrasounded, EKG’d, and had a cardiac catheterization. No hidden anomalies in the structure of my heart have been revealed. I am now waiting for a date for my surgery to be determined.

Jingle All the Way Posted on Dec 2, 2017, 9:12 pm
I spent today getting evaluated, scanned, tested, and counseled about my options regarding my severe aortic valve stenosis. Decision: I will be getting a new aortic valve made of bovine tissue (call me Lady Beefheart).

Living Out Loud Posted on Jan 1, 2017, 10:01 pm
Thank you for one more year of Holidailies, and for accomodating me as a shadow member.

Joey, Wait Till You See This! Posted on Dec 24, 2016, 11:12 am
The annual reposting of my essay about the True Meaning Of Christmas as revealed by the 1953 Christmas episode of Dragnet.

The Beginning of All Things Posted on Dec 14, 2016, 9:12 pm
My grandson, Joseph Angelo April, pictured below, turns six months old today. Thank you for all the joy, all the hope, all the possibilities you have brought to our lives. I love you.

Keeping Track Posted on Dec 12, 2016, 9:12 pm
A mediatation on keeping a journal.

The Trees Were Balding Posted on Dec 5, 2016, 9:12 pm
[I] was drawn to the word “quotidian” in the title of Caille Millner’s story. “Don’t put in so much quotidian detail,” said one of my classmates at Bread Loaf last year. Elizabeth Berg’s work has been described as dealing in quotidian details, an observation that has been meant as a compliment and as a criticism by different reviewers. I hated Safe at Home, the last Berg title I read. But I think my eye for quotidian detail is one of my strengths as a fiction writer.

This Is My Life Posted on Dec 4, 2016, 2:12 pm
In which I make a writing exercise out of a passage that captured my attention in an audiobook version.

Bottom Drawers Posted on Dec 3, 2016, 12:12 am
There was a lot of weird shit in bottom drawers. — Smith Henderson, b. 1954, from “Treasure State,” in Best American Short Stories 2016

Begin with a Change Posted on Dec 1, 2016, 9:12 am
. . . Blue sky lolling/ beyond the window/ frame — eyes open./Just a way of looking./ Begin with a change. — Marci Rae Johnson, American poet Happy Holidailies, in medias res, where everything happens.

The Ninth Annual Dragnet 1953 Commemoration Posted on Dec 24, 2015, 8:12 am
One More Time with Paco, his wagon, a statute, a down-and-outer, a priest, and two detectives.

And Again I Say, Rejoice! Posted on Dec 13, 2015, 8:12 pm
Lynn DeAngelis April as she looked on this day in 1990, and this morning.

God Light Posted on Dec 8, 2015, 8:12 pm
No mystical message -- just a phot, and alittle poetry

The Journey Begins Posted on Dec 5, 2015, 12:12 pm
I have fallen into the habit of regarding this process as something “we” are doing: “our” appointments, “our” oncologist, “our” prescription regimen. I have to remind myself, and sometimes others, that I am not the patient, Ron is. I am, in this endeavor, the companion, the keeper of the schedule, the traffic manager. Though this requires a lot of my attention, I am not the one who is being pushed, prodded, shot through with poison and bombarded by beams of light designed to kill. . .

What Lasts? Posted on Dec 2, 2015, 11:12 pm
I spent some time today wondering what objects in my life now will still be here in 150 years. I have a cedar chest that dates from the early days of my grandparents’ marriage in 1901. It is in need of repair. I have the Story and Clark console piano my parents bought for me in 1948 (I was one year old). It needs to be tuned and has a G two octaves below middle C that sticks. Of things I actually made, I have a dishtowel upon which I embroidered a stamped design in about 1956.

Hail and Blessed Posted on Dec 1, 2015, 12:12 am
What do I want this Advent season? Mild weather, through the middle of January, so that travel to and from Ron’s daily therapy sessions will not be made difficult or impossible, and reconciliation with a number of people with whom I have experienced either an outright estrangement or a distance born of complacency and neglect. As it happens, two of those people called me today. - See more at: http://www.silkentent.com/Trees/?p=5722#sthash.mcmeoUIB.dpuf