"Pretty Enough to Frame"

 

I saved this New Yorker cover all these years, and finally got around to putting it in a frame. Also posted it on Facebook.

Jennifer had a doctor appointment today, so Dave brought his friend Mike to help clean up the house. They really did a good job. Mike also helped him paint my kitchen about a year ago. Dave cleaned and "combed" all the carpets in the house, and it's a shame to have to walk on them and mess them up again.

Mr. Reed's guys also came today, mowed the grass (mostly clover), and cleaned up the yard.

We're going to Cullman on Saturday, "we" being Jed and I, and maybe India, Pat, Reed and Kylie, if nobody backs out. Susan remembered she and Andy had a date to go to a movie and lunch Saturday, so we'll miss them. The Ave Maria Grotto is what we'll visit in Cullman.

"Known throughout the world as 'Jerusalem in Miniature,' [the Ave Maria Grotto] is a beautifully landscaped, four-acre park designed to provide a natural setting for the 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous historic buildings and shrines of the world. The masterpieces of stone and concrete are the lifetime work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey. Begun as a hobby, with various materials he could find, and infinite patience and a remarkable sense of symmetry and proportion, Brother Joseph re-created some of the greatest edifices of all time."

The Wikipedia article about Br. Joseph states that he was not accepted as a priest because of a rule, at that time, rejecting any candidate for priesthood who had a major physical deformity, and he had a stooped back as the result of an accident when he was young.