u-haul

Today we helped Joel and Stephanie move to the house they bought.

sanding 337

Several hours I've been helping Joel and Steph prep 337 N. Mary for moving in. Everything is about sanding and painting. I'll let you guess what's what. Wearing same shirt was not planned.

Memory day and bikes

The Russian iris beside a soft focus candle at one end of the table. Stephanie and Joel at the other, discovering their birthday gift of a bike rack. Their gifts to each other involved bike gear, too.

Menu at their request--Mom's chicken corn soup from scratch (not the chicken's) and a new entry from the Miller tradition-- short cake with ice cream and strawberries and milk. A big hit.

Philosophy--what direction will volunteerism in church take with some women not employed and others over-employed.

Local details--are strawberries usually ready by Joel's birthday (the 22nd) or by Steph's (the 26th)?

New being--Brutus the dog, Ryan and Sarah's. Then, the men played boccie and the women walked to Red Lane and all went to bed happy.

Memorial Day to me is memory day--memory of the sweet spots in life and memory that organized civic and national life, including war, if it is an absolute allegiance, is one sorry god. iris pic by Joel.

wisdom by the generation

Like mother, like daughter. Thirty years separate Dorcas' receiving an MSW and Sarah's. They were virtually the same age when they received them.

If we take the mother-daughter line back another generation, I don't know that the number 30 would yield anything, but it would result in Grandma Miller who did lay social work as manager of the Fresh Air program in Garrett County for a good 30 years.

photo by Joel.

May 22 double celebration

In the Philadelphia subway system the sign says May 22. That's a big day for both Joel and Sarah--his birthday and her graduation day from Temple University where she was awarded a master's degree in social work.

Here we are waiting for for the 15th street train at 6:20 p.m. From there it was the 30th street station where ten of us ate at Cosi's.

With us all day were the Schrocks, Ryan's parents and sister Carmen and Grandma Lichty.

record company

Saturday Joel sent off this art which he created to San Francisco. I sent the music by Fedex air on a hard copy CD.

Part of what I do is produce CDs. It used to be only sounds I arranged and made. Once you figure out how to do it you add albums of other provenance realted to your niche.

This music was available only on reel to reel until now. While the EMU archives did a transfer to CD it was from a cassette made from a reel to reel and had skips and jerks.

Milton owns the reel to reel. Never played it. I might be in the photo. More and a link when it is released.

what I do--Monday

Let go of that stress. Borrow the neighbor's rototiller and do the garden. Call my son. He bikes by and we have an ancestral-agricultural moment. Photo by Joel.

arm's length from history

At least arm's length from Hillary. That's her in the center, umbrella in her left hand.

Photographer is Joel, who walked by the Lancaster Brewery and grabbed this shot on his cell. She was on her way to Millersville U where she addressed a gym full of 3,000 and maybe half that many more who couldn't get in.

Her stop at the downtown Lancaster eatery was not announced to the public. Joel found out about it through his newspaper contacts. Thirty persons knew about it (not counting the body guards) and greeted her when she left the place.

On her route to Millersville, my brother, Milton, saw the motorcade pass his house on Charlotte street. He did not see her since the vehicle windows were darkly tinted

waiting in line

The Gordonville Fire Co. hall is lined with glass cases filled with trophies and memorabilia. Two sides of the hall groaned with tables stacked with food.



Sarah, Joel, and Steph are still patient after thirity minutes of wait. About fifteen more feet to go, ten minutes at the most.

New light in time for solstice

In time for the shortest day, the winter solstice, a new light started to shine between the driveway and the house. On this frosty day baby icicles hung all four sides.

With this being December 13, there are only 7 more days until the shortest day. One father with two small children told me that he loves this time of year. It's dark when the kids go to bed and dark when they get up. Somehow that makes it easier.

The lamp was made in Hanover, Pa. It sits on a cedar post. The electric wire goes up a hole in the center the length of the post. I'd like to know how to drill such a long hole.

This is really outside light four. My parents had an electrician put up the high light at the corner of the house. Joel and I made that into a double light about 1997. When we put in the office at about the same time, we installed a light outside the office door. I forget when we put a light at the back door. It could have been in preparation for Sarah's graduation party.

wedding rehearsal

Time stopped at Monterey last week. Part of the world stopped.

A major building block was to be laid in the edifice of life.

That was the matrimonial union of Joel and Steph. Big, fun, seismic events don't take place with the stroke of a pen, a punch of a key, or the mouthing of a word with just one or two witnesses.

Something real happens. Camels and goats change fields. Servants flock around the families and prepare food, set up meeting places, make music, write documents, prepare rituals. Civil servants at the town hall write this up for the official record. Newspapers print it. Artists skilled in beauty, mirth, culinary arts, and dance are summoned by the leaders of the clans.

The evening before the final event, all the major players gather and walk through the ritual. That's what a wedding rehearsal is. And here is Dorcas checking the rehearsal dinner tables.

By 6:30 p.m. the 30 persons came together and had Thai food here in the foyer of the East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church, Lancaster, Pa.

Special couple at wedding shower

These are important and exciting days. Joel and Stephanie are getting married Nov. 10. It's kind of like building a new pyramid, a new Rome, a new civilization. You don't do it in one day.

Bible scholars point out that the wedding at Cana was probably a five-day shindig. The point is not being an extravaganza. The point is the rock-bed deep foundations.

Last week friends threw a wedding shower. I put up a pic of the gifts. Here's the couple having the first piece of cake.

Wedding shower

Here you see the gifts brought to the wedding shower for distinguished Monterey citizen Joel and his beautiful financee, Stephanie. The brunch event was held at a restaurant in Leola last Sunday, hosted by friends of Stephanie's family.
The wedding will be held November 10. We are in the count-down last 30 days. Table cloths, candles, silverware, menus, music, guest list, clothes--it's the current conversation and work.
We're all really excited for this.
Family and friends will come from Oregon, Ohio, New York, Virginia, Deleware, and many points in between.