St. Tochumra (both of them) and a rant on Cap'n Crunch

Saint of the Day: There are two different saints named Tochumra who are venerated today in Ireland. Pretty much nothing is known about them except they were both Irish virgins, and one of them is invoked by women in labor. There's quite a bit of irony, I think, that a virgin would be invoked during childbirth (unless it's Mary, the mother of Jesus - that would make more sense).

I'm wearing my green summer dress today. For Ireland.

This picture is a few years old, and I don't even have that cardigan anymore, and I don't think I ever actually wore this outfit in public, but I don't want to take a picture of myself today. Anyway, this is the dress.

Reading: I am doubling up on the reading so that I don't have to do any work at all while we're on vacation. It's kind of making my head explode, but I just keep telling myself it will be worth it to not have to worry about anything and just enjoy myself while we're gone. So, I'm plowing through.

Old English: The Seafarer, a 125-line poem about an old mariner who reminisces about his life spent at sea. I'm about 26 lines in, and so far it's a lot like The Wanderer with lots of cold, freezing images and themes of loss.

Middle English: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I'm not a huge fan of the CT. But, I have to say, after all the super-boring plays I've been reading, I had a little squee at the thought of getting to read some Chaucer. Today, I'm reading the tales of the Knight, the Miller, the Reeve, and the Cook.

Contemporary American: The Road, pp. 150-250

Workout: I don't know yet. The double work is kind of taking over. I might do it late at night or something. We'll see.

Food:

Breakfast - cereal, juice, and coffee. Time for a little rant. So, I bought this "healthy" cereal that's all fiber and whatnot and Jon has a box of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch in the pantry. So, I noticed that the calories in my cereal are super-high. Like, 240 calories per serving. Huh? I was like, "Well, at least it's probably less than Cap'n Crunch." Then I looked at the Cap'n Crunch, and it's only 110 calories per serving! How can my healthy cereal be more than TWICE as caloric as freakin' Cap'n Crunch?!?!? So, I bought this Kashi cereal now which at 190 calories per serving still has more than Cap'n Crunch and has the added bonus of tasting like cardboard. I'm seriously thinking about just eating Cap'n Crunch. So defeated.

Lunch - open-faced turkey sandwich, cherries

Dinner - a hamburger and some sugar-free pudding

Margaret of Scotland

Saint of the Day: Margaret of Scotland. One of my colleagues at SMU wrote her Master's thesis and is now writing her dissertation on Margaret of Scotland, so I feel some affection for her since I know she's well documented. Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about her. I know her father was an exiled English nobleman, so she was raised in Hungary. Her family did return to England, but she herself wound up in Scotland where she married King Malcolm III around 1070. They by nearly all accounts were really in love and had several children.

The most popular story I know about Margaret is that she had a gospel book which was her very favorite, and it somehow fell into a river. Now, medieval books were extremely expensive and were all made by hand. No printing presses, no machines of any kind. Just some monks copying text out by hand and hand-painting illustrations. It could take an entire year to make just one book and cost the equivalent of a fancy car nowadays. So, basically, Margaret's limited edition Ferrari fell in a river. Oops! But, miraculously, the book was recovered with no damage! It is now in the Bodleian Library in London. Here is a lovely picture of two of the pages from the book - the beginning of the Gospel of Mark:



I don't have an outfit today. I've started using the pool finally, so I'm just laying around in a swimsuit coverup. Not so exciting and not that cute, really. But comfortable!

Reading:
Old English: The Wanderer, a very sad poem about a man whose lord has died and now he sails the seas looking for a new lord to serve. It's full of imagery of chains and fetters and being constrained by things. It also mentions how good warriors will shut up their grief inside their "breast-chamber" and not let it show so they can gain more glory. Oh, my gosh. Has this "men can't express their feelings" stuff been around for literally more than 1000 years?

Middle English: finishing up the Towneley plays today with "The Ascension," "The Judgment," "Lazarus," and "Judas." I'm trying to get some extra work done before we go to New Mexico, too, so I think I'm also going to read "Everyman" and "Mankynde" today as well. We'll see if that actually happens.

Contemporary American: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, pp. 100-150

Workout: Yes! 45 mins! I bought seasons 2 and 3 of True Blood, so I'm pretty motivated. Season 4 starts in 3 weeks!

Food:
Breakfast - cheese toast, grapefruit juice, coffee
Lunch - left over oven-fried chicken tender, squash, and snap peas from last night
Dinner - grilled shrimp taco salad
Snacks - cherries and grapes