We honor today Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest (died 1775). Born at Ovada, Piedmont (northern Italy) as Paolo Francesco Danei, the son of a merchant, he was a pious youth. After receiving a vision, and while still a layman, he founded the Congregation of Discalced Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion (Passionists) in 1721 to preach about Jesus Crucified, and changed his name to Paul of the Cross. He was a preacher of such power that hardened soldiers and bandits were seen to weep. He was ordained a priest in 1727 by Pope Benedict XIII. At one point all the brothers in the Order deserted him, but in 1741 his rule was approved by Pope Benedict XIV, and the community began to grow again. By the time of his death, the congregation had one hundred and eighty fathers and brothers, living in twelve Retreats, mostly in the Papal States, and a monastery of contemplative sisters in Corneto. He is the Patron Saint of Ovada, Italy.
First up, last night before I went to bed I took a bath and finished reading Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.
Work today was very undemanding; it was a slow day, and we put in our eight hours despite being enticed with going home early. On my breaks I started reading The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould, and got a voice mail from the office supply store on Second Street telling me that they had gotten in the full-page label paper. After work, we stopped by the casino employee pharmacy where I picked up a prescription, then headed home.
Once home, we gave our daughter the debit card (and the PIN, with instructions for her to eat the piece of paper she wrote the PIN on so she could remember it, after she was done using it) so that she could go to the store to get cat food and the Halloween candy. I then proceeded to eat my lunch salad and to read the paper; when I mentioned that I had to take my National Parks Passport Book to the office supply store to get the copies made, my daughter offered to take it for me, as the office supply store is directly across the street from the bar where she works. So, while Richard mowed the back yard (even in October, one still must mow in SouthWestCentral Louisiana), I gave my daughter the National Parks Passport Book, and then went into the bedroom, where at 2:00 pm I took a nap that lasted until 5:00 pm.
When I woke up, my daughter was gone (having left for work at the bar, via the office supply store), and Richard was gone (he had woken me up briefly at 4:00 pm to tell me he was going fishing). At 5:30 pm I left for Lafayette for my book club meeting, bringing with me copies of the printout of the books we will be reading in 2010, my copy of Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, and my copy of The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould. Once at Barnes & Noble, I purchased the October 2009 issue of Natural History magazine (the issue we never got in the mail), then got a sourdough pretzel and some overpriced water, which I had while reading in The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould before the other members of the book club arrived. At 7:00 pm we had the Third Tuesday Book Club Discussion of Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, with a good crowd (there were nine of us), and I passed out the 2010 book list.
I got home at 9:15 pm, and did my book review on this weblog and on my Goodreads account of Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Richard then went to bed (he never took a nap today), and I spoke to my daughter, who told me my National Parks Passport Book copies can be picked up tomorrow morning. (She said the office supply store started working on them right when she dropped off the book, but she had to get to work at the bar across the street.) And, as it will be past 10:30 pm by the time I finish with this Daily Update, I think once I am done I will go to bed as well.
In the Tropics (aha! you thought I had forgotten about The Tropics, but there hasn’t been activity down there for awhile, till now) a broad area of low pressure over the southwestern Caribbean Sea is producing a large area of cloudiness ad showers. This system is expected to remain nearly stationary for the next couple of days, and there is less than a 30 percent chance of this system becoming a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours.
Tomorrow in the late morning I will go pick up my copies and my National Parks Passport Book; then I will spend some time putting the copies into my new National Parks Passport Explorer Edition Book. Additionally, tomorrow I need to do my laundry, to do the monthly filing, to watch some television, to put the latest operating system on my BlackBerry, and to do the preliminary work on the next week’s worth of Daily Updates. And, yes, I might actually get a chance to do some reading.
Our Tuesday Night Parting Quote comes to us from Anne Sullivan Macy, American educator. Born Anne Sullivan in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, she began having trouble with her eyesight as a result of the eye disease trachoma. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was eight, and after her alcoholic father abandoned the family she and a brother ended up at the Tewksbury Almhouse. After several unsuccessful operations to cure her vision problems, in 1880 she entered the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind in Boston, where she underwent surgery in 1881 and regained some of her sight. After the improvement of her eyesight, and graduating as class valedictorian in 1886, Michael Anaganos, the school’s director, encouraged her to become a teacher for the deaf and blind Helen Keller, whose parents had applied for help from the school, and she received special training to do this. In 1887, Sullivan had an additional surgery which restored more of her vision. When Helen was six years old, in March 1887, Anne moved in and acting as her governess started teaching her. Sullivan began by teaching her nouns using the sign language alphabet signed into Keller’s palm that had been developed by Spanish monks in medieval times. Keller’s big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of “water”; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. Sullivan then continued to teach Keller and to serve as her companion into adulthood. On May 2, 1905, Sullivan married a Harvard University instructor and literary critic, John Albert Macy, eleven years her junior, who had helped Keller with her publications. The three lived together, as Anne Sullivan Macy and Keller were inseparable; however, within a few years, their marriage began to disintegrate. By 1914 they had separated, though they never officially divorced. In the early years after their separation, John Macy wrote and asked for money; however, as the years progressed he appears to have faded from her life. Anne Sullivan Macy and Keller were lifelong companions who lived, worked, and traveled together. In 1932 they were each awarded honorary fellowships from the Educational Institute of Scotland. They also were awarded honorary degrees from Temple University. By 1935, Anne Sullivan Macy became completely blind. She died after a coma at age 70, with Keller holding her hand. When Keller herself died in 1968, her ashes were placed in the Washington National Cathedral next to Anne Sullivan Macy’s ashes (died 1936): “I cannot explain it; but when difficulties arise, I am not perplexed or doubtful. I know how to meet them.”
From The Recamier 