Not too much originality, but quite a bit of humor and a happy cadence. Here is a clever selection from Tom Hall's collection "When Hearts are Trumps," first published in 1894.
"The Abused Gallant."
Two lovely maidens (woe is me!)
Play tennis with my heart;
And each is wondrous fair to see,
And each is wondrous smart.
In learning, money, beauty, birth,
None can surpass them—none.
But each receives my "court" with mirth,
And tells the other one.
My "court"! The term is fitly used—
A tennis court, you see.
And I know well I am abused,
By the "racket" they give me.
Maud strikes my heart a brutal blow,
And Mabel cries out, "Fault!"
And back and forth I undergo
A feminine assault.
Maud asks my age. Alas! I hear
Sweet Mabel say, "The goose
Is very nearly forty, dear."
Maud answers, "Oh, 'the deuce'!"
And so my poor heart with their wit
Is volleyed oft and oft,
Till Mabel cries, while holding it,
"This heart is far too soft."
And firing it into the net,
She says, with girlish vim,
"Although he isn't in our 'set,'
We're making 'game' of him."
And making game they are, I swear
By all the saints above,
With all the terms of tennis there
Save but the sweetest, "love."
Read More......
December 27, 2009
December 17, 2009
The Christmas Cathedral
Since I'm leaving Ecuador early Saturday morning, I might not have a chance to post for a while. Next week I'll be busy pounding beach sand with my family, and doubtless you all will have enough activities to keep from missing my updates.
I leave you with a story I wrote when I was a bit homesick and Christmas-sick. Living in the season opposite to what the calendar says can do that to one. No snow, no evergreens, few lights ... the sensory deprivation is to blame for my overindulgent description. Heavy dealings with death and God are to blame for my sentimentality. I hope it's not too cloying after the delightfully satirical sketches by Beerbohm.
“The Christmas Cathedral”
The lights attracted him. Gold, red, green, and blue, they twisted around the bottom of the pillars all the way up to the bell tower. The spire at the top was decorated with white lights that outlined a star above the cross.
Clumps of snowflakes fell in front of the lights. One alighted on Peter’s cheek until he brushed it off with a glove. It was so cold it didn’t melt at all.
If you had asked him how he pictured the world, he would have said it was mechanical rather than magical. Man made laws and churches because society needed order and hope to survive, but that was all.
What then was the attraction of a cathedral clothed in Christmas lights? It was something that should have drawn his wife, not him. Cathy cooed and cried over Thomas Kincaid paintings, Anne Geddes photographs, and sentimental songs. She was worst during the holiday season, and Peter thanked the stars that she was with her family now while he continued a case at the law firm.
His case bothered him, and he wanted to walk it off. But here he was, motionless, staring at an overabundance of lights. He didn’t like waste. The company he represented was trying to streamline costs and personnel, and he should have agreed with the board’s strategy completely. They had the legal rights to repossess a home, and they would do so on Christmas Day.
The resident of the house, the company’s former employee, had given them ample reason for the action. He had boycotted their changes in policy—simple things like working Sundays instead of Saturdays and changing investments to support larger, more stable corporations.
In Peter’s mechanical world, people had to be flexible as the gears of finance and career turned round and round. Otherwise they became extraneous irritants, to be spit out before they affected the cogs.
The man, Jonathan Kelly, hadn’t gained anything by his conscientious objections. Instead, he had lost his job and was about to lose his home. It wouldn’t surprise Peter if he lost his wife as well. At the preliminary hearing, she seemed a solid, sensible type. He had overheard her tell a friend that she was going out to find a job that afternoon. No more “waiting around for her husband to provide.”
He hoped she’d found a job by now. He couldn’t get the face of the Kellys' two children out of his mind. A boy of seven and a girl of four who looked like a doll come to life …
What was it about the cathedral that made him pause and thrust his hands into his pockets? Maybe it was the over-bright sign announcing tomorrow’s Christmas Eve service.
“Those who dwell in the darkness have seen a great light.”
It was silly, really, what people would believe to feel better about life and death. If there were a God, which Peter doubted, why would he lower himself by becoming an infant who couldn’t even speak? A God who hid his own glory and came in such an unobvious way couldn’t want people to be saved, despite words to the contrary.
But now he felt himself pulled towards the entrance. White lights rimmed the windows on the front doors. Forest-green garlands spun with red and gold lights wreathed the iron rails. Peter scraped off his boots and reached for a handle. The great oak door swung open, and a draft of warm air breathed across his face.
The entryway was dark except for a spotlight over a rack of brochures. Peter walked past the conspicuous display without glancing at the pamphlets. Ahead of him, two lines of blue lights led into the sanctuary. On either side were evergreen trees lit with the same color. The dim blue lights glinted off silver ornaments and tinted the wrapped gifts underneath with azure.
The decorations were smarmy and designed to operate on people’s guilt and sentimentality. Peter didn’t know why he kept walking. If Cathy had been with him, she would have clutched his hand like a giddy child. He would have disentangled himself from her clutch and her emotions and made her go in without him. He would have waited outside, estimating the temperature and the church’s electricity bill.
But when he entered the sanctuary, it wasn’t cynicism that caused him to stop, it was the beauty of the scene in front of him.
Red bows with gold bells decorated every other pew. Boughs with white lights ran across the top of the other pews. On the front stage, a gigantic Christmas tree with red and gold balls and yellow lights rose nearly to the ceiling. Beside the tree was the nativity scene.
Mary and Joseph’s faces were illuminated as they bent over the manger. Mary’s arms encircled the Christ Child, who looked out from his bed of straw with an expression of wisdom and innocence. Crowding around were shepherds, farm animals, and the kneeling magi. A glittering treasure spilled out from one of the three coffers.
Golden angels, looking sterner than Peter would have imagined, hung suspended from the walls. Above them was a cross fashioned of chained lights like a constellation of stars.
The light, the rich colors, and the absolute stillness of it all held Peter in suspense for a few minutes. Then he noticed with a shock that a single figure sat near the middle of the sanctuary. Peter nearly left before he realized the person hadn’t heard him enter.
He moved soundlessly down the central aisle until he was a few rows behind the person. Then, quite without a reason, he sat down.
The man in front of him began to speak. His voice was low and full of pauses, but Peter understood him clearly.
“I pray for my wife, Lord, and for my children. It is no gift to tear them from their home on Christmas Day. We could go to Edna’s family, but they do not love you. There are no lights in their home, only a fake tree with tidy, unbreakable ornaments and practical presents, which they open during Winter Solstice.”
Peter stirred. He recognized the voice and the wife’s name. With the recognition came a stab of bitterness. There was nothing wrong with practical gifts and ornaments! They were the only kind to have, if one had to have them at all.
“Truly, Lord, you too had no home when you were born. Not even a hotel room. You showed yourself weak so that the weak could have your strength. You showed yourself humble so that those who are humbled would love you. The proud and the rich, they want no part of you. They do not understand your love, your riches past this world’s understanding.”
It was the kind of double-speak Peter had heard growing up. Give away your money, make yourself small, and God will reward you. But one could never make it in the world without money, and people had to promote themselves to get anywhere. Besides, this was Jonathan Kelly speaking. He thought so much of himself and his beliefs that he had stood up to a board of directors. Was that humility?
“I pray that my family would understand that they are imitating you this Christmas. Prepare for us a place where we can celebrate your birth. Bless Edna and give her faith. Bless the company that is repossessing our house, and do not count it against them. Bless their lawyer who is only doing his job in this case. But also light up their hearts with your truth and your mercy.”
Peter stood up. He didn’t want to hear anymore. How dare Jonathan Kelly pray for him! He didn’t need light or truth or mercy—Jonathan did. He strode past the red bows and the greenery and didn’t stop until he stood between the blue-lighted trees.
Surely a church this size had a family to take in the Kellys until they found another house. Jonathan Kelly didn’t even need to pray to take advantage of the congregants’ Christmastime generosity. People always gave during the holidays, whether it was out of guilt or so they could feel good about themselves.
Peter tore his gaze from the twinkling, silvery ornaments. He marched past the ghostly gifts into the foyer and again ignored the brochures. Then he was outside. The clean, cold smell of snow cleared his mind.
Turning his back to the cathedral’s lights, he hurried down the sidewalk. His house was just a few blocks away, and he slipped once or twice in his haste to be home. Bush nets with blinking lights grated his aesthetic tastes. Red-and-white Santas and candy canes tackily planted in yards made him shake his head.
On his block, he passed his neighbor Bob Brandy. His mansion was lit up with white icicle lights. Every bush, tree, and garden statue was outlined with a different color of large-bulb lights. A sleigh with a full complement of reindeer and a fat Santa had apparently landed on his roof, and a crèche had sprouted in the snowed-over berm. At the moment, Bob was replacing a burnt-out strand of multicolored lights on his arched entrance.
“Evening, Peter,” he said as Peter rushed past.
Peter slowed out of politeness. “How are you, Bob?”
His neighbor leaned a ladder against the arch and tested its grip on the ground. “I’d be fine if these darned lights hadn’t chosen tonight to blink out. The Christmas Light Committee will be in the neighborhood in half an hour to choose the best-decorated house.”
He climbed up the first rungs of the ladder and threw down the dead lights. Carefully he wrapped the other strand around the arch. “No lights for you again this year, huh?” he asked Peter.
Peter shrugged. Normally he would have said something about the energy deficit or about the holidays being overrated, but something held him back. He watched the ladder. The legs dug through the snow. He couldn’t tell if lawn was beneath or icy pavement.
“Well, at least I don’t have competition,” Bob said with a laugh. He couldn’t quite reach the top part of the arch, and he stepped up another rung. As he balanced himself to wind the last of the lights around the entrance, the ladder legs slid back an inch.
Bob chuckled nervously. “I’d better get down before—”
And then the ladder shot out. Possessed with unknown speed, Peter jumped into its path. The legs banged him on the shin, but he stabilized the ladder. He held the sides firmly while his neighbor climbed down.
“Thank you, Peter,” Bob said unsteadily. “That would have been a nasty fall.”
“I’m glad I was here.” The thought flashed by that his delay at the cathedral had made him pass at the right time. To shrug off the coincidence, he turned to his familiar pragmatism. “Next time get your wife to hold the ladder for you.”
Bob smiled, but his face was white. “Sure thing. Hey, you want to come in for some eggnog? Jean makes the best spiked nog in the county.”
“No thanks,” he said out of habit. But then he noticed Bob’s own discomfort. Surely giving in to a holiday tradition to allow his neighbor to thank him wouldn’t brand him sentimental.
“How about for New Year’s instead?” he suggested. “Then my wife can join us.”
Bob’s face cleared, and his typical, almost clownish smile reappeared. “Jean will make a fresh batch for the occasion.” He shook Peter’s hand and then picked up the ladder. “See you then.”
Peter glanced once more across the Christmas light extravaganza that was Bob’s property. As he walked up the path to his own house, he marveled at how dark the yard seemed. Only the porch light and sidewalk lamps relieved the night. He made his way up the path to the Greek-style porch, leaving tracks in the powdery snow. He’d have to sweep the sidewalk again.
He unlocked and opened the door and switched on the light. As he placed his shoes on the shoe rack, he glanced at the beige walls and the bare banister skirting the stairs. To the right was the dining table beneath the iron chandelier. The centerpiece, red candles surrounded by a wreath of gold leaves, was his sole holiday concession to Cathy. Otherwise the house retained its soothing colorings of sage green and tan.
In the living room, he flicked on the fireplace’s switch. Fake gold flames sprang to life on the ceramic logs. He sat down on the couch and looked at the cactus on the coffee table. He picked up the Popular Mechanics magazine next to it and put it down immediately.
Why was his house suddenly so empty, so bare? The wine rack was full. The bookcase was neatly organized according to court cases, biographies, and Cathy’s fiction. A few afghans and pillows added splashes of color to the neutral tones.
Then in his mind’s eye, Peter recalled the nativity scene. He saw the Christmas tree with its ornaments. He saw the holy family together with their guests and gifts. He saw red bows and white lights and deep green. Whatever it was that had drawn him to the cathedral, he wanted it to fill his home and hearth.
He flipped his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and stared at the front. Then he dialed a number.
“Cathy, it’s Peter. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Of course.” A little more slowly, she added, “But I miss you, darling.”
He waited a second, then said, “Come home. Come home for Christmas.”
“I thought we decided I should be here. Aren’t you going to work tomorrow?”
“I’ve decided to take it off. Tell your family you’re leaving right away. We’ll decorate the house together tomorrow.”
“That sounds wonderful! Are you sure?”
“Yes. And we’re going to have guests,” he added. “A family of four. They might be with us for a few weeks.”
She gave one of her squeals of delight. “Peter, what’s gotten into you?”
“Christmas. Light. Beauty. Something I’ve never felt before.”
“Don’t change!” she all but shrieked. “I’m coming right away. Don’t change a thing!”
Oh, but there was one thing he wanted to change before she arrived. In his first solemn act of keeping Christmas, he peeled off his socks and hung them above the fireplace. The flames caught their gold tips and made them glow.
Read More......
I leave you with a story I wrote when I was a bit homesick and Christmas-sick. Living in the season opposite to what the calendar says can do that to one. No snow, no evergreens, few lights ... the sensory deprivation is to blame for my overindulgent description. Heavy dealings with death and God are to blame for my sentimentality. I hope it's not too cloying after the delightfully satirical sketches by Beerbohm.
“The Christmas Cathedral”
The lights attracted him. Gold, red, green, and blue, they twisted around the bottom of the pillars all the way up to the bell tower. The spire at the top was decorated with white lights that outlined a star above the cross.
Clumps of snowflakes fell in front of the lights. One alighted on Peter’s cheek until he brushed it off with a glove. It was so cold it didn’t melt at all.
If you had asked him how he pictured the world, he would have said it was mechanical rather than magical. Man made laws and churches because society needed order and hope to survive, but that was all.
What then was the attraction of a cathedral clothed in Christmas lights? It was something that should have drawn his wife, not him. Cathy cooed and cried over Thomas Kincaid paintings, Anne Geddes photographs, and sentimental songs. She was worst during the holiday season, and Peter thanked the stars that she was with her family now while he continued a case at the law firm.
His case bothered him, and he wanted to walk it off. But here he was, motionless, staring at an overabundance of lights. He didn’t like waste. The company he represented was trying to streamline costs and personnel, and he should have agreed with the board’s strategy completely. They had the legal rights to repossess a home, and they would do so on Christmas Day.
The resident of the house, the company’s former employee, had given them ample reason for the action. He had boycotted their changes in policy—simple things like working Sundays instead of Saturdays and changing investments to support larger, more stable corporations.
In Peter’s mechanical world, people had to be flexible as the gears of finance and career turned round and round. Otherwise they became extraneous irritants, to be spit out before they affected the cogs.
The man, Jonathan Kelly, hadn’t gained anything by his conscientious objections. Instead, he had lost his job and was about to lose his home. It wouldn’t surprise Peter if he lost his wife as well. At the preliminary hearing, she seemed a solid, sensible type. He had overheard her tell a friend that she was going out to find a job that afternoon. No more “waiting around for her husband to provide.”
He hoped she’d found a job by now. He couldn’t get the face of the Kellys' two children out of his mind. A boy of seven and a girl of four who looked like a doll come to life …
What was it about the cathedral that made him pause and thrust his hands into his pockets? Maybe it was the over-bright sign announcing tomorrow’s Christmas Eve service.
“Those who dwell in the darkness have seen a great light.”
It was silly, really, what people would believe to feel better about life and death. If there were a God, which Peter doubted, why would he lower himself by becoming an infant who couldn’t even speak? A God who hid his own glory and came in such an unobvious way couldn’t want people to be saved, despite words to the contrary.
But now he felt himself pulled towards the entrance. White lights rimmed the windows on the front doors. Forest-green garlands spun with red and gold lights wreathed the iron rails. Peter scraped off his boots and reached for a handle. The great oak door swung open, and a draft of warm air breathed across his face.
The entryway was dark except for a spotlight over a rack of brochures. Peter walked past the conspicuous display without glancing at the pamphlets. Ahead of him, two lines of blue lights led into the sanctuary. On either side were evergreen trees lit with the same color. The dim blue lights glinted off silver ornaments and tinted the wrapped gifts underneath with azure.
The decorations were smarmy and designed to operate on people’s guilt and sentimentality. Peter didn’t know why he kept walking. If Cathy had been with him, she would have clutched his hand like a giddy child. He would have disentangled himself from her clutch and her emotions and made her go in without him. He would have waited outside, estimating the temperature and the church’s electricity bill.
But when he entered the sanctuary, it wasn’t cynicism that caused him to stop, it was the beauty of the scene in front of him.
Red bows with gold bells decorated every other pew. Boughs with white lights ran across the top of the other pews. On the front stage, a gigantic Christmas tree with red and gold balls and yellow lights rose nearly to the ceiling. Beside the tree was the nativity scene.
Mary and Joseph’s faces were illuminated as they bent over the manger. Mary’s arms encircled the Christ Child, who looked out from his bed of straw with an expression of wisdom and innocence. Crowding around were shepherds, farm animals, and the kneeling magi. A glittering treasure spilled out from one of the three coffers.
Golden angels, looking sterner than Peter would have imagined, hung suspended from the walls. Above them was a cross fashioned of chained lights like a constellation of stars.
The light, the rich colors, and the absolute stillness of it all held Peter in suspense for a few minutes. Then he noticed with a shock that a single figure sat near the middle of the sanctuary. Peter nearly left before he realized the person hadn’t heard him enter.
He moved soundlessly down the central aisle until he was a few rows behind the person. Then, quite without a reason, he sat down.
The man in front of him began to speak. His voice was low and full of pauses, but Peter understood him clearly.
“I pray for my wife, Lord, and for my children. It is no gift to tear them from their home on Christmas Day. We could go to Edna’s family, but they do not love you. There are no lights in their home, only a fake tree with tidy, unbreakable ornaments and practical presents, which they open during Winter Solstice.”
Peter stirred. He recognized the voice and the wife’s name. With the recognition came a stab of bitterness. There was nothing wrong with practical gifts and ornaments! They were the only kind to have, if one had to have them at all.
“Truly, Lord, you too had no home when you were born. Not even a hotel room. You showed yourself weak so that the weak could have your strength. You showed yourself humble so that those who are humbled would love you. The proud and the rich, they want no part of you. They do not understand your love, your riches past this world’s understanding.”
It was the kind of double-speak Peter had heard growing up. Give away your money, make yourself small, and God will reward you. But one could never make it in the world without money, and people had to promote themselves to get anywhere. Besides, this was Jonathan Kelly speaking. He thought so much of himself and his beliefs that he had stood up to a board of directors. Was that humility?
“I pray that my family would understand that they are imitating you this Christmas. Prepare for us a place where we can celebrate your birth. Bless Edna and give her faith. Bless the company that is repossessing our house, and do not count it against them. Bless their lawyer who is only doing his job in this case. But also light up their hearts with your truth and your mercy.”
Peter stood up. He didn’t want to hear anymore. How dare Jonathan Kelly pray for him! He didn’t need light or truth or mercy—Jonathan did. He strode past the red bows and the greenery and didn’t stop until he stood between the blue-lighted trees.
Surely a church this size had a family to take in the Kellys until they found another house. Jonathan Kelly didn’t even need to pray to take advantage of the congregants’ Christmastime generosity. People always gave during the holidays, whether it was out of guilt or so they could feel good about themselves.
Peter tore his gaze from the twinkling, silvery ornaments. He marched past the ghostly gifts into the foyer and again ignored the brochures. Then he was outside. The clean, cold smell of snow cleared his mind.
Turning his back to the cathedral’s lights, he hurried down the sidewalk. His house was just a few blocks away, and he slipped once or twice in his haste to be home. Bush nets with blinking lights grated his aesthetic tastes. Red-and-white Santas and candy canes tackily planted in yards made him shake his head.
On his block, he passed his neighbor Bob Brandy. His mansion was lit up with white icicle lights. Every bush, tree, and garden statue was outlined with a different color of large-bulb lights. A sleigh with a full complement of reindeer and a fat Santa had apparently landed on his roof, and a crèche had sprouted in the snowed-over berm. At the moment, Bob was replacing a burnt-out strand of multicolored lights on his arched entrance.
“Evening, Peter,” he said as Peter rushed past.
Peter slowed out of politeness. “How are you, Bob?”
His neighbor leaned a ladder against the arch and tested its grip on the ground. “I’d be fine if these darned lights hadn’t chosen tonight to blink out. The Christmas Light Committee will be in the neighborhood in half an hour to choose the best-decorated house.”
He climbed up the first rungs of the ladder and threw down the dead lights. Carefully he wrapped the other strand around the arch. “No lights for you again this year, huh?” he asked Peter.
Peter shrugged. Normally he would have said something about the energy deficit or about the holidays being overrated, but something held him back. He watched the ladder. The legs dug through the snow. He couldn’t tell if lawn was beneath or icy pavement.
“Well, at least I don’t have competition,” Bob said with a laugh. He couldn’t quite reach the top part of the arch, and he stepped up another rung. As he balanced himself to wind the last of the lights around the entrance, the ladder legs slid back an inch.
Bob chuckled nervously. “I’d better get down before—”
And then the ladder shot out. Possessed with unknown speed, Peter jumped into its path. The legs banged him on the shin, but he stabilized the ladder. He held the sides firmly while his neighbor climbed down.
“Thank you, Peter,” Bob said unsteadily. “That would have been a nasty fall.”
“I’m glad I was here.” The thought flashed by that his delay at the cathedral had made him pass at the right time. To shrug off the coincidence, he turned to his familiar pragmatism. “Next time get your wife to hold the ladder for you.”
Bob smiled, but his face was white. “Sure thing. Hey, you want to come in for some eggnog? Jean makes the best spiked nog in the county.”
“No thanks,” he said out of habit. But then he noticed Bob’s own discomfort. Surely giving in to a holiday tradition to allow his neighbor to thank him wouldn’t brand him sentimental.
“How about for New Year’s instead?” he suggested. “Then my wife can join us.”
Bob’s face cleared, and his typical, almost clownish smile reappeared. “Jean will make a fresh batch for the occasion.” He shook Peter’s hand and then picked up the ladder. “See you then.”
Peter glanced once more across the Christmas light extravaganza that was Bob’s property. As he walked up the path to his own house, he marveled at how dark the yard seemed. Only the porch light and sidewalk lamps relieved the night. He made his way up the path to the Greek-style porch, leaving tracks in the powdery snow. He’d have to sweep the sidewalk again.
He unlocked and opened the door and switched on the light. As he placed his shoes on the shoe rack, he glanced at the beige walls and the bare banister skirting the stairs. To the right was the dining table beneath the iron chandelier. The centerpiece, red candles surrounded by a wreath of gold leaves, was his sole holiday concession to Cathy. Otherwise the house retained its soothing colorings of sage green and tan.
In the living room, he flicked on the fireplace’s switch. Fake gold flames sprang to life on the ceramic logs. He sat down on the couch and looked at the cactus on the coffee table. He picked up the Popular Mechanics magazine next to it and put it down immediately.
Why was his house suddenly so empty, so bare? The wine rack was full. The bookcase was neatly organized according to court cases, biographies, and Cathy’s fiction. A few afghans and pillows added splashes of color to the neutral tones.
Then in his mind’s eye, Peter recalled the nativity scene. He saw the Christmas tree with its ornaments. He saw the holy family together with their guests and gifts. He saw red bows and white lights and deep green. Whatever it was that had drawn him to the cathedral, he wanted it to fill his home and hearth.
He flipped his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and stared at the front. Then he dialed a number.
“Cathy, it’s Peter. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Of course.” A little more slowly, she added, “But I miss you, darling.”
He waited a second, then said, “Come home. Come home for Christmas.”
“I thought we decided I should be here. Aren’t you going to work tomorrow?”
“I’ve decided to take it off. Tell your family you’re leaving right away. We’ll decorate the house together tomorrow.”
“That sounds wonderful! Are you sure?”
“Yes. And we’re going to have guests,” he added. “A family of four. They might be with us for a few weeks.”
She gave one of her squeals of delight. “Peter, what’s gotten into you?”
“Christmas. Light. Beauty. Something I’ve never felt before.”
“Don’t change!” she all but shrieked. “I’m coming right away. Don’t change a thing!”
Oh, but there was one thing he wanted to change before she arrived. In his first solemn act of keeping Christmas, he peeled off his socks and hung them above the fireplace. The flames caught their gold tips and made them glow.
Read More......
December 16, 2009
Christmas Program
Through a series of wonderful but personally disappointing circumstances, the kids' Christmas program in Papallacta was moved from Monday, Dec. 14, to the following Monday. Consequently I will miss it. I had been helping with the choreography and was providing a much-needed harmonic line, both of which duties have been passed on to other teachers.
Besides the program in Papallacta, the children are also preparing for Sea La Luz's Christmas program and feast in the school building, set for Dec. 23. The workers moved around the furniture so that we have a large stage taking up almost the entire width of the building. Everything else was compressed, and my piano "classroom" was relocated to the opposite side.
Anyway, morning song practice has now been extended, and we've been running dress rehearsals with costumes. Here are a few photos of the action.
Kindergarten provided the angels.
The next grade up supplied the shepherds.
The three Magos, Carlitos, Carlos Javier, and Carlos.
The "Star" of Bethlehem!
The big kids here are practicing their dance number.
Read More......
Besides the program in Papallacta, the children are also preparing for Sea La Luz's Christmas program and feast in the school building, set for Dec. 23. The workers moved around the furniture so that we have a large stage taking up almost the entire width of the building. Everything else was compressed, and my piano "classroom" was relocated to the opposite side.
Anyway, morning song practice has now been extended, and we've been running dress rehearsals with costumes. Here are a few photos of the action.
Kindergarten provided the angels.
The next grade up supplied the shepherds.
The three Magos, Carlitos, Carlos Javier, and Carlos.
The "Star" of Bethlehem!
The big kids here are practicing their dance number.
Read More......
December 13, 2009
Now and Then
"Now and Then"
People talk of countdowns and days before events,
But in my mode of thinking, their counting makes no sense.
I live with only two times, which I call now and then,
And whether then be close or far, this rule I extend:
That now is what I have to bear, to cling to or contend,
And this I do till then is now and now is then an end! Read More......
People talk of countdowns and days before events,
But in my mode of thinking, their counting makes no sense.
I live with only two times, which I call now and then,
And whether then be close or far, this rule I extend:
That now is what I have to bear, to cling to or contend,
And this I do till then is now and now is then an end! Read More......
December 12, 2009
Papallacta Apartment
On Thursday night, Mr. Injerd drove Kjersti and me to the HCJB Global Radio complex in Papallacta, home to Ecoluz, a hydroelectric power plant. The complex includes apartments for missionaries and workers to use. The Injerds lived there for six years before moving to El Tambo four years ago. Now they go down at least once a month to do laundry. Did I mention there isn’t a washer or dryer at the Injerd’s house? They will have to change their habits soon, for HCJB just sold the plant to a foundation.
Kjersti and I had through Saturday morning to wash, dry, and fold eight trash bags of clothing. In the process, we had our own little vacation. The apartments are U.S. standard and possess one luxury I will never take for granted again—water pressure! There were also couches(!), a real fireplace, a sizeable kitchen, and a native tapestry on the living room wall. I lugged along my laptop so we could watch movies.
On Saturday we toured Ecoluz. I watched the turbines spinning, tried to understand the tour guide’s Spanish while wearing headphones, and discovered that the operators in Papallacta control the power to at least four nearby towns. Can you spot the chickens in the photo below? 
Then Kjersti took me up the old road, which was overgrown with grass and littered with the remains of two rabbits. She showed me where they used to keep pigs. I tasted slightly unripe mora berries, which are seedier and smaller than blackberries, and saw a taxo tree with flowers and fruit. 
Kjersti also took me down to a small reservoir, which was like an enchanted grotto. Still pools sat in carved rock, and vines hung down from the rock walls. With shafts of sunlight spotlighting sections, it could have posed as the subject for a painting. 
Read More......
Kjersti and I had through Saturday morning to wash, dry, and fold eight trash bags of clothing. In the process, we had our own little vacation. The apartments are U.S. standard and possess one luxury I will never take for granted again—water pressure! There were also couches(!), a real fireplace, a sizeable kitchen, and a native tapestry on the living room wall. I lugged along my laptop so we could watch movies.
On Saturday we toured Ecoluz. I watched the turbines spinning, tried to understand the tour guide’s Spanish while wearing headphones, and discovered that the operators in Papallacta control the power to at least four nearby towns. Can you spot the chickens in the photo below? 
Then Kjersti took me up the old road, which was overgrown with grass and littered with the remains of two rabbits. She showed me where they used to keep pigs. I tasted slightly unripe mora berries, which are seedier and smaller than blackberries, and saw a taxo tree with flowers and fruit. 
Kjersti also took me down to a small reservoir, which was like an enchanted grotto. Still pools sat in carved rock, and vines hung down from the rock walls. With shafts of sunlight spotlighting sections, it could have posed as the subject for a painting. 
Read More......
December 10, 2009
Euphemia Clashthought
This is the last of my excerpts from A Christmas Garland by Max Beerbohm. George Meredith, with his flashes of brilliance, inspired me with Diana of the Crossways and The Egoist. Someone, I forgot who, said that reading Meredith was like weightlifting for the mind. Well, Beerbohm's take on Meredith requires even heavier lifting. But it is worth the strain. I would suggest reading it at least twice to get more of the allusions and wit.
EUPHEMIA CLASHTHOUGHT
AN IMITATION OF MEREDITH
In the heart of insular Cosmos, remote by some scores of leagues of Hodge-trod arable or pastoral, not more than a snuff-pinch for gaping tourist nostrils accustomed to inhalation of prairie winds, but enough for perspective, from those marginal sands, trident-scraped, we are to fancy, by a helmeted Dame Abstract familiarly profiled on discs of current bronze—price of a loaf for humbler maws disdainful of Gallic side-dishes for the titillation of choicer palates—stands Clashthought Park, a house of some pretension, mentioned at Runnymede, with the spreading exception of wings given to it in later times by Daedalean masters not to be baulked of billiards or traps for Terpsichore, and owned for unbroken generations by a healthy line of procreant Clashthoughts, to the undoing of collateral branches eager for the birth of a female. Passengers through cushioned space, flying top-speed or dallying with obscure stations not alighted at apparently, have had it pointed out to them as beheld dimly for a privileged instant before they sink back behind crackling barrier of instructive paper with a "Thank you, Sir," or "Madam," as the case may be. Guide-books praise it. I conceive they shall be studied for a cock-shy of rainbow epithets slashed in at the target of Landed Gentry, premonitorily. The tintinnabulation's enough. Periodical footings of Clashthoughts into Mayfair or the Tyrol, signalled by the slide from its mast of a crested index of Aeolian caprice, blazon of their presence, give the curious a right to spin through the halls and galleries under a cackle of housekeeper guideship—scramble for a chuck of the dainties, dog fashion. There is something to be said for the rope's twist. Wisdom skips.
It is recorded that the goblins of this same Lady Wisdom were all agog one Christmas morning between the doors of the house and the village church, which crouches on the outskirt of the park, with something of a lodge in its look, you might say, more than of celestial twinkles, even with Christmas hoar-frost bleaching the grey of it in sunlight, as one sees imaged on seasonable missives for amity in the trays marked "sixpence and upwards," here and there, on the counters of barter.
Be sure these goblins made obeisance to Sir Peter Clashthought, as he passed by, starched beacon of squirearchy, wife on arm, sons to heel. After him, certain members of the household—rose-chapped males and females, bearing books of worship. The pack of goblins glance up the drive with nudging elbows and whisperings of "Where is daughter Euphemia? Where Sir Rebus, her affianced?"
Off they scamper for a peep through the windows of the house. They throng the sill of the library, ears acock and eyelids twittering admiration of a prospect. Euphemia was in view of them—essence of her. Sir Rebus was at her side. Nothing slips the goblins.
"Nymph in the Heavy Dragoons" was Mrs. Cryptic-Sparkler's famous definition of her. The County took it for final—an uncut gem with a fleck in the heart of it. Euphemia condoned the imagery. She had breadth. Heels that spread ample curves over the ground she stood on, and hands that might floor you with a clench of them, were hers. Grey eyes looked out lucid and fearless under swelling temples that were lost in a ruffling copse of hair. Her nose was virginal, with hints of the Iron Duke at most angles. Square chin, cleft centrally, gave her throat the look of a tower with a gun protrudent at top. She was dressed for church evidently, but seemed no slave to Time. Her bonnet was pushed well back from her head, and she was fingering the ribbons. One saw she was a woman. She inspired deference.
"Forefinger for Shepherd's Crook" was what Mrs. Cryptic-Sparkler had said of Sir Rebus. It shall stand at that.
"You have Prayer Book?" he queried.
She nodded. Juno catches the connubial trick.
"Hymns?"
"Ancient and Modern."
"I may share with you?"
"I know by heart. Parrots sing."
"Philomel carols," he bent to her.
"Complaints spoil a festival."
He waved hand to the door. "Lady, your father has started."
"He knows the adage. Copy-books instil it."
"Inexorable truth in it."
"We may dodge the scythe."
"To be choked with the sands?"
She flashed a smile. "I would not," he said, "that my Euphemia were late for the Absolution."
She cast eyes to the carpet. He caught them at the rebound.
"It snows," she murmured, swimming to the window.
"A flake, no more. The season claims it."
"I have thin boots."
"Another pair?"
"My maid buttons. She is at church."
"My fingers?"
"Ten on each."
"Five," he corrected.
"Buttons."
"I beg your pardon."
She saw opportunity. She swam to the bell-rope and grasped it for a tinkle. The action spread feminine curves to her lover's eyes. He was a man.
Obsequiousness loomed in the doorway. Its mistress flashed an order for port—two glasses. Sir Rebus sprang a pair of eyebrows on her. Suspicion slid down the banisters of his mind, trailing a blue ribbon. Inebriates were one of his hobbies. For an instant she was sunset.
"Medicinal," she murmured.
"Forgive me, Madam. A glass, certainly. 'Twill warm us for worshipping."
The wine appeared, seemed to blink owlishly through the facets of its decanter, like some hoary captive dragged forth into light after years of subterraneous darkness—something querulous in the sudden liberation of it. Or say that it gleamed benignant from its tray, steady-borne by the hands of reverence, as one has seen Infallibility pass with uplifting of jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush in the gold of them to a cursory tope or harlequin leap shimmering up the veins with a sly wink at us through eyelets. Hussy vintages swim to a cosset. We go to Port, mark you!
Sir Rebus sipped with an affectionate twirl of thumb at the glass's stem. He said "One scents the cobwebs."
"Catches in them," Euphemia flung at him.
"I take you. Bacchus laughs in the web."
"Unspun but for Pallas."
"A lady's jealousy."
"Forethought, rather."
"Brewed in the paternal pate. Grant it!"
"For a spring in accoutrements."
Sir Rebus inclined gravely. Port precludes prolongment of the riposte.
She replenished glasses. Deprecation yielded. "A step," she said, "and we are in time for the First Lesson."
"This," he agreed, "is a wine."
"There are blasphemies in posture. One should sit to it."
"Perhaps." He sank to commodious throne of leather indicated by her finger.
Again she filled for him. "This time, no heel-taps," she was imperative. "The Litany demands basis."
"True." He drained, not repelling the decanter placed at his elbow.
"It is a wine," he presently repeated with a rolling tongue over it.
"Laid down by my great-grandfather. Cloistral."
"Strange," he said, examining the stopper, "no date. Antediluvian. Sound, though."
He drew out his note-book. "The senses" he wrote, "are internecine. They shall have learned esprit de corps before they enslave us." This was one of his happiest flings to general from particular. "Visual distraction cries havoc to ultimate delicacy of palate" would but have pinned us a butterfly best a-hover; nor even so should we have had truth of why the aphorist, closing note-book and nestling back of head against that of chair, closed eyes also.
As by some such law as lurks in meteorological toy for our guidance in climes close-knit with Irony for bewilderment, making egress of old woman synchronise inevitably with old man's ingress, or the other way about, the force that closed the aphorist's eye-lids parted his lips in degree according. Thus had Euphemia, erect on hearth-rug, a cavern to gaze down into. Outworks of fortifying ivory cast but denser shadows into the inexplorable. The solitudes here grew murmurous. To and fro through secret passages in the recesses leading up deviously to lesser twin caverns of nose above, the gnomes Morphean went about their business, whispering at first, but presently bold to wind horns in unison—Roland-wise, not less.
Euphemia had an ear for it; whim also to construe lord and master relaxed but reboant and soaring above the verbal to harmonic truths of abstract or transcendental, to be hummed subsequently by privileged female audience of one bent on a hook-or-crook plucking out of pith for salvation.
She caught tablets pendent at her girdle. "How long," queried her stilus, "has our sex had humour? Jael hammered."
She might have hitched speculation further. But Mother Earth, white-mantled, called to her.
Casting eye of caution at recumbence, she paddled across the carpet and anon swam out over the snow.
Pagan young womanhood, six foot of it, spanned eight miles before luncheon.
Footnote:
It were not, as a general rule, well to republish after a man's death the skit you made of his work while he lived. Meredith, however, was so transcendent that such skits must ever be harmless, and so lasting will his fame be that they can never lose what freshness they may have had at first. So I have put this thing in with the others, making improvements that were needed.—M.B.
Read More......
EUPHEMIA CLASHTHOUGHT
AN IMITATION OF MEREDITH
In the heart of insular Cosmos, remote by some scores of leagues of Hodge-trod arable or pastoral, not more than a snuff-pinch for gaping tourist nostrils accustomed to inhalation of prairie winds, but enough for perspective, from those marginal sands, trident-scraped, we are to fancy, by a helmeted Dame Abstract familiarly profiled on discs of current bronze—price of a loaf for humbler maws disdainful of Gallic side-dishes for the titillation of choicer palates—stands Clashthought Park, a house of some pretension, mentioned at Runnymede, with the spreading exception of wings given to it in later times by Daedalean masters not to be baulked of billiards or traps for Terpsichore, and owned for unbroken generations by a healthy line of procreant Clashthoughts, to the undoing of collateral branches eager for the birth of a female. Passengers through cushioned space, flying top-speed or dallying with obscure stations not alighted at apparently, have had it pointed out to them as beheld dimly for a privileged instant before they sink back behind crackling barrier of instructive paper with a "Thank you, Sir," or "Madam," as the case may be. Guide-books praise it. I conceive they shall be studied for a cock-shy of rainbow epithets slashed in at the target of Landed Gentry, premonitorily. The tintinnabulation's enough. Periodical footings of Clashthoughts into Mayfair or the Tyrol, signalled by the slide from its mast of a crested index of Aeolian caprice, blazon of their presence, give the curious a right to spin through the halls and galleries under a cackle of housekeeper guideship—scramble for a chuck of the dainties, dog fashion. There is something to be said for the rope's twist. Wisdom skips.
It is recorded that the goblins of this same Lady Wisdom were all agog one Christmas morning between the doors of the house and the village church, which crouches on the outskirt of the park, with something of a lodge in its look, you might say, more than of celestial twinkles, even with Christmas hoar-frost bleaching the grey of it in sunlight, as one sees imaged on seasonable missives for amity in the trays marked "sixpence and upwards," here and there, on the counters of barter.
Be sure these goblins made obeisance to Sir Peter Clashthought, as he passed by, starched beacon of squirearchy, wife on arm, sons to heel. After him, certain members of the household—rose-chapped males and females, bearing books of worship. The pack of goblins glance up the drive with nudging elbows and whisperings of "Where is daughter Euphemia? Where Sir Rebus, her affianced?"
Off they scamper for a peep through the windows of the house. They throng the sill of the library, ears acock and eyelids twittering admiration of a prospect. Euphemia was in view of them—essence of her. Sir Rebus was at her side. Nothing slips the goblins.
"Nymph in the Heavy Dragoons" was Mrs. Cryptic-Sparkler's famous definition of her. The County took it for final—an uncut gem with a fleck in the heart of it. Euphemia condoned the imagery. She had breadth. Heels that spread ample curves over the ground she stood on, and hands that might floor you with a clench of them, were hers. Grey eyes looked out lucid and fearless under swelling temples that were lost in a ruffling copse of hair. Her nose was virginal, with hints of the Iron Duke at most angles. Square chin, cleft centrally, gave her throat the look of a tower with a gun protrudent at top. She was dressed for church evidently, but seemed no slave to Time. Her bonnet was pushed well back from her head, and she was fingering the ribbons. One saw she was a woman. She inspired deference.
"Forefinger for Shepherd's Crook" was what Mrs. Cryptic-Sparkler had said of Sir Rebus. It shall stand at that.
"You have Prayer Book?" he queried.
She nodded. Juno catches the connubial trick.
"Hymns?"
"Ancient and Modern."
"I may share with you?"
"I know by heart. Parrots sing."
"Philomel carols," he bent to her.
"Complaints spoil a festival."
He waved hand to the door. "Lady, your father has started."
"He knows the adage. Copy-books instil it."
"Inexorable truth in it."
"We may dodge the scythe."
"To be choked with the sands?"
She flashed a smile. "I would not," he said, "that my Euphemia were late for the Absolution."
She cast eyes to the carpet. He caught them at the rebound.
"It snows," she murmured, swimming to the window.
"A flake, no more. The season claims it."
"I have thin boots."
"Another pair?"
"My maid buttons. She is at church."
"My fingers?"
"Ten on each."
"Five," he corrected.
"Buttons."
"I beg your pardon."
She saw opportunity. She swam to the bell-rope and grasped it for a tinkle. The action spread feminine curves to her lover's eyes. He was a man.
Obsequiousness loomed in the doorway. Its mistress flashed an order for port—two glasses. Sir Rebus sprang a pair of eyebrows on her. Suspicion slid down the banisters of his mind, trailing a blue ribbon. Inebriates were one of his hobbies. For an instant she was sunset.
"Medicinal," she murmured.
"Forgive me, Madam. A glass, certainly. 'Twill warm us for worshipping."
The wine appeared, seemed to blink owlishly through the facets of its decanter, like some hoary captive dragged forth into light after years of subterraneous darkness—something querulous in the sudden liberation of it. Or say that it gleamed benignant from its tray, steady-borne by the hands of reverence, as one has seen Infallibility pass with uplifting of jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush in the gold of them to a cursory tope or harlequin leap shimmering up the veins with a sly wink at us through eyelets. Hussy vintages swim to a cosset. We go to Port, mark you!
Sir Rebus sipped with an affectionate twirl of thumb at the glass's stem. He said "One scents the cobwebs."
"Catches in them," Euphemia flung at him.
"I take you. Bacchus laughs in the web."
"Unspun but for Pallas."
"A lady's jealousy."
"Forethought, rather."
"Brewed in the paternal pate. Grant it!"
"For a spring in accoutrements."
Sir Rebus inclined gravely. Port precludes prolongment of the riposte.
She replenished glasses. Deprecation yielded. "A step," she said, "and we are in time for the First Lesson."
"This," he agreed, "is a wine."
"There are blasphemies in posture. One should sit to it."
"Perhaps." He sank to commodious throne of leather indicated by her finger.
Again she filled for him. "This time, no heel-taps," she was imperative. "The Litany demands basis."
"True." He drained, not repelling the decanter placed at his elbow.
"It is a wine," he presently repeated with a rolling tongue over it.
"Laid down by my great-grandfather. Cloistral."
"Strange," he said, examining the stopper, "no date. Antediluvian. Sound, though."
He drew out his note-book. "The senses" he wrote, "are internecine. They shall have learned esprit de corps before they enslave us." This was one of his happiest flings to general from particular. "Visual distraction cries havoc to ultimate delicacy of palate" would but have pinned us a butterfly best a-hover; nor even so should we have had truth of why the aphorist, closing note-book and nestling back of head against that of chair, closed eyes also.
As by some such law as lurks in meteorological toy for our guidance in climes close-knit with Irony for bewilderment, making egress of old woman synchronise inevitably with old man's ingress, or the other way about, the force that closed the aphorist's eye-lids parted his lips in degree according. Thus had Euphemia, erect on hearth-rug, a cavern to gaze down into. Outworks of fortifying ivory cast but denser shadows into the inexplorable. The solitudes here grew murmurous. To and fro through secret passages in the recesses leading up deviously to lesser twin caverns of nose above, the gnomes Morphean went about their business, whispering at first, but presently bold to wind horns in unison—Roland-wise, not less.
Euphemia had an ear for it; whim also to construe lord and master relaxed but reboant and soaring above the verbal to harmonic truths of abstract or transcendental, to be hummed subsequently by privileged female audience of one bent on a hook-or-crook plucking out of pith for salvation.
She caught tablets pendent at her girdle. "How long," queried her stilus, "has our sex had humour? Jael hammered."
She might have hitched speculation further. But Mother Earth, white-mantled, called to her.
Casting eye of caution at recumbence, she paddled across the carpet and anon swam out over the snow.
Pagan young womanhood, six foot of it, spanned eight miles before luncheon.
Footnote:
It were not, as a general rule, well to republish after a man's death the skit you made of his work while he lived. Meredith, however, was so transcendent that such skits must ever be harmless, and so lasting will his fame be that they can never lose what freshness they may have had at first. So I have put this thing in with the others, making improvements that were needed.—M.B.
Read More......
December 8, 2009
El Paseo
Today Kjersti and I took the 5-7th graders on a “paseo” or field trip to Quito. It cost $30.68 for nine students and two teachers to catch a bus to Quito, visit two museums, and take a trolley and a bus to Cumbayá where Mrs. Injerd picked us up. The two museums we visited were “El Museo de la Ciudad,” the City Museum, and “El Museo Alberto Mena Caamaño,” which was a wax museum.
Photos weren’t allowed in the city museum, which was a shame. The museum building itself served as a hospital for four hundred years, and we saw part of the built-in church, decorated in the ornate gold and scarlet of the Baroque period. Period music floated around the space. I asked the tour guide, Valeria, what was playing, but she had no idea and said no one had ever asked. One man who was also on the tour offered his opinion that it was a Gregorian chant, which was patently false.
The tour took us from Incan and Quichean times to the arrival of the Spaniards with their Moorish influences. Different exhibits represented the different centuries of Quito’s history. We saw Spanish harps, suits of armor, and a manuscript that displayed a psalm in Latin and a melody written in neumes. One room highlighted religious artwork. Another was a mock-up of a medieval town complete with a candle shop and life-sized figures in a festive processional.
It was fascinating to watch the early pagan culture of shamans (which still exists in many villages today) clash, mix, and change under the influx of the European and Roman Catholic cultures. The study of science bloomed in the 18th century, but only Spanish Ecuadorians could study in universities. Others might have been able to get away with it if they powdered their faces so they were light and had a Spanish name (and money, obviously). One model of an old church displayed the problem of racism. On the front dais sat the church leaders and recently arrived nobles from Spain. In aisles below, each group farther and farther from the action, sat the other Spaniards, the criollos (Spaniards born in Ecuador), the mestizos, the indigenous, the mulattos, and the blacks.
The first tour took about an hour and a half, and the kids were tired afterward, but they trooped onward without complaint. The wax museum tour lasted half an hour and was completely different, so they soon forgot their fatigue. Before we reached the wax figures, we were shown Latin manuscripts that so grabbed my attention I almost missed the light-up model of Quito the tour guide was demonstrating.
Then it was onward to the scientist Espejo, a cardinal, a famous political lady, and a dungeon where we relived the massacre of patriots in 1810, also captured in a painting by César Villacrés. Probably the most famous figures we viewed were Simón Bolívar, “The Liberator,” and Antonio José de Sucre, who together threw off the yoke of Spain from Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia.
On our rather circuitous walk to the trolley, I managed to snap a few pictures of plazas and statues. Here is part of “El Panacillo,” so called because the hill resembles a bread roll. The statue emblazoned against the sky is “La Reina del Cielo,” or the queen of heaven, id est, Mary.
Read More......
Photos weren’t allowed in the city museum, which was a shame. The museum building itself served as a hospital for four hundred years, and we saw part of the built-in church, decorated in the ornate gold and scarlet of the Baroque period. Period music floated around the space. I asked the tour guide, Valeria, what was playing, but she had no idea and said no one had ever asked. One man who was also on the tour offered his opinion that it was a Gregorian chant, which was patently false. The tour took us from Incan and Quichean times to the arrival of the Spaniards with their Moorish influences. Different exhibits represented the different centuries of Quito’s history. We saw Spanish harps, suits of armor, and a manuscript that displayed a psalm in Latin and a melody written in neumes. One room highlighted religious artwork. Another was a mock-up of a medieval town complete with a candle shop and life-sized figures in a festive processional.
It was fascinating to watch the early pagan culture of shamans (which still exists in many villages today) clash, mix, and change under the influx of the European and Roman Catholic cultures. The study of science bloomed in the 18th century, but only Spanish Ecuadorians could study in universities. Others might have been able to get away with it if they powdered their faces so they were light and had a Spanish name (and money, obviously). One model of an old church displayed the problem of racism. On the front dais sat the church leaders and recently arrived nobles from Spain. In aisles below, each group farther and farther from the action, sat the other Spaniards, the criollos (Spaniards born in Ecuador), the mestizos, the indigenous, the mulattos, and the blacks.
The first tour took about an hour and a half, and the kids were tired afterward, but they trooped onward without complaint. The wax museum tour lasted half an hour and was completely different, so they soon forgot their fatigue. Before we reached the wax figures, we were shown Latin manuscripts that so grabbed my attention I almost missed the light-up model of Quito the tour guide was demonstrating.
Then it was onward to the scientist Espejo, a cardinal, a famous political lady, and a dungeon where we relived the massacre of patriots in 1810, also captured in a painting by César Villacrés. Probably the most famous figures we viewed were Simón Bolívar, “The Liberator,” and Antonio José de Sucre, who together threw off the yoke of Spain from Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia.
On our rather circuitous walk to the trolley, I managed to snap a few pictures of plazas and statues. Here is part of “El Panacillo,” so called because the hill resembles a bread roll. The statue emblazoned against the sky is “La Reina del Cielo,” or the queen of heaven, id est, Mary.
Read More......
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