O Lord,

...now lettest thou thy servant start her CAR, and her mouth shall show forth thy praise -- also great clouds of vapour.

Minus Thirty C this morning, friends, something colder than twenty-below F...great clouds of exhaust-mist in the streets and ice on the inside of the windows at home extending several inches above the sill.

To these expedients in measurement are we driven, after the windstorms of last fall blew the thermometer off the side of the house. (Getting into Al Sleet territory here, I figure -- you remember the "hippy-dippy weather man," God rest him?)

However, Harriet the Echo started after minimal preliminary groaning (mem to self, replace extension cords for plugging in block heater) and we are HERE at MH & U awaiting baptismal candidates for rehearsal at noon. Baptisms tomorrow, huzza!

Wonder Secketry very busy this week with Christmas prep and seasonal prep and the purchase of a new vehicle, the timing belt having "gone" on her car this week, and not quietly either, apparently in its death throes it flailed the snot out of the rest of the "works" -- I use these technical terms for the automotive engineers out there.

Dropped in on a dermatologist yesterday VERY early, oh-dark-thirty, to receive good news that the "place on my face" isn't anything and isn't going to be anything, but we'll just have it off anyway, a little liquid nitrogen clears us of this deed, so to speak...so I have a temporary and totally painless blister.

Which may preclude the determination of the Wardens to have a valedictory photograph taken (for the Wall of Rectors) before I depart at the end of the month...

And with the mercury where it is...I reach into the other end of the coat-closet for my Mom's mink coat, PETA be damned. My father loved my mother very much for over 70 years, and my mother did not want me to be cold in the winter of my years, and that, to my mind, is justification sufficient for this politically incorrect wardrobe choice.