Happy Birthday, Mother Angelica!

Today is Mother Angelica's 83rd birthday. God bless you Mother A!

Thanks to Catholic Light for the link.

Wednesday night I attended the last of the 3 Portland Symphonic Choir Summer Sings. This one was less well attended than the previous two, but still a good crowd. We sang:

• Ralph Vaughan Williams, "In Windsor Forest" (skipped one movement)
  
• A Brahms selection
• Haydn, "Mass in Time of War" (up through the Credo, I think)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams, "Dona Nobis Pacem"

The Dona Nobis Pacem is the reason I went. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece; the texts are some poems by Walt Whitman as well as some Biblical texts. I sang it with the Ventura County Master Chorale in the late 80s. It's one of the most moving pieces I know.

Today marks the 37th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. It's sad to see how stagnant our space program has become -- so many hopes and dreams of those days are still unfulfilled.

Today was kind of a tough day. It was the anniversary of my brother Greg's death. My brother Gary had sent an email yesterday, sharing stories about Greg; I sent him some remembrances of my own. He was on my mind a lot today.

God works in interesting ways. One of them was that (just as last week) I attended the Summer Sing that the Portland Symphonic Choir has been sponsoring. Believe it or not, it wasn't until I got there that I realized that we would be singing the Mozart Requiem on this special day for me. I had to smile at the way God's plan works out sometimes. As it turned out, the Requiem was beautiful and really helped me be more at peace with Greg's loss.

Interesting quotes on abortion.... John Allen interviewed an Ugandan theologian, Fr. John Mary Waliggo, and got this excerpt:

What about abortion?
I identify with the victims of suffering, and no one is more speechless, more voiceless, more silent, than the unborn child. To me, it's like defending the blind. If I see someone attacking a blind person, I will beat him with a stick. This is my attitude to attacks on an unborn child too.

Maybe if we in the US were so committed we wouldn't have abortion in our society.

Local news makes national news -- a plane participating in the Oregon Air Show crashed as it was leaving for home. A house in Hillsboro (the town I work in) was destroyed, but it looks so far like the only casualty was the pilot.

It's been a fun weekend. Saturday morning we got Marie a car. It's a '97 Ford Taurus we got from an ad on Craigslist. It's a beautiful car! It's only got 68,000 miles and it's in immaculate condition. We bought it from a nice older professional couple. They were a real pleasure to work with. We had a mechanic check it out before we bought it and he concurred -- it's in great shape. It's a very pretty maroon color and it's got a 3.0L V6 -- Marie loves it.

Saturday night we went bowling with a bunch of friends and I had a lifetime best (I think) game of 119. I had two games where I actually managed to bowl back-to-back strikes! What a good feeling! Of course Marie bowled a 158 :-).

Intel is making news, but not in a good way. The company announced today that it's laying off 1000 managers.

July

July is a troublesome month for me. It's the month of my sister's birthday, and my stepmother's birthday, my Dad's birthday, and my brother Gary's birthday. It's also the month my mother died, and the month my brother Greg died. It's a difficult month.

Today's the 22nd anniversary of my mother's death. I miss you Mom, and I love you.

Happy Independence Day

I've had a quiet day. Marie is off visiting family so I'm by myself. I was off from working yesterday and today so it's a been a 4-day "mini-vaca". Nice! I've done some stuff around the house and just relaxed a bit.