Tomorrow's FRIDAY, all day long

Well today I actually got a few nagging tasks OFF my plate, hurray. Not all of them, but enough that I don't feel totally futile this evening.

Holy communion at ten this morning with the "usual suspects" and reading the Luke account of Jesus in the temple among "the doctors," we got to telling stories about losing track of our children in shopping malls, etc., and what that feels like, and then talked about the whole business of "tacit bargaining" -- how do you reach a consensus with people you can't see or hear or communicate with, e.g. on where you'll gather in hopes of meeting up. And why did it take them THREE WHOLE DAYS to think of looking in the temple, anyhow?

I answered or forwarded or filed -- AND THEN DELETED -- something over 50 messages from my inbox.

I sent two invitation messages to other Christian groups, reminding them about the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

And with the help of a STERLING parishioner, who also sits on the same Board, I managed to reconstruct the minutes for the November meeting which I had ENTIRELY LOST. What a sick sensation. Especially as this is all but the very last go-round of this job that I'll do...I'm coming OFF the Board as of Wednesday next. And to have "lost the minutes," right at the end, did feel most ignominious.

Our unequalled secretary-bookkeeper finished up the 2007 accounts, and decided we could invest ten dollars in a courier to take them to the accounts-examining firm. We had freezing rain overnight, followed all day, more or less, by snow. It is Not Good out there on the roads, so for that trifling sum we got somebody else to drive downtown on our behalf.

And I went and found myself a nutritious and inexpensive lunch, topped off with a little bag of nuts. Going to try the MUFA route to weight-loss. Stay tuned!!!

One more tiny photocopying job, and away I go home with some hope of accomplishing more than the daily collapse in front of the television.

...and tomorrow...is a DAY OFF. Well, at least until 3 pm when I have a Budget Meeting with my Wardens.

In the background all day yesterday and today there has been "fixin'" going on. The good ol'boys who do the "fixin'" here at Most Holy and Undivided, have just taken it into their heads that the small, apartment-sized, upstairs kitchen adjacent to our offices, needs renovations. This is not the Monster Institutional Kitchen DOWNstairs, with the 10-burner gas range, you understand. This is just the little kitchen where the rector and her secretary make tea, refrigerate their sandwiches, nuke their mac'n'cheese, etc.

The process of the "fixin'" entailed finding out why the (quite modern) electric range was deader than King Tut...despite its dedicated electrical circuit. We've had some electrical adventures here the last wee while, and yesterday the Fixer-in-Chief found out (at least in part) -- WHY. He appeared triumphantly in my office, brandishing the most appalling fistful of charred wiring and half-melted connectors... This will now all be put to rights. I try not to think about what else may be lurking in the walls, unrevealed.

In my last parish I was told that every church goes through at least one "One Big Nail" period in maintenance and upkeep: "what we need here, to mend this, is just...One Big Nail..." I think this ideology has cycled several times in this parish...with analogies in the electrical department: "just jam'er in, and make'er fit."

subjects for midnight reflection! not to mention prayer!