Annals of Retirement, continued...

This delight came in the morning email from a friend with the heading -- "too much time on their hands" which must be, I suppose, one definition of retirement. I'm not yet quite reduced to this level of boredom (or exalted to this level of creative skill, whichever).

Reflecting upon the great celebration of T-Fig just past and remembering the principle of NOT preaching outside one's own knowledge...
I was grappling, some years ago (first or second year at MH & U?), with what to say about transfiguration when I came upon or recalled an essay by an American surgeon turned essayist (Google is not helping me to retrieve a name here), who had written eloquently about the medical procedure of "transillumination" as a metaphor for what he hoped to achieve in his writing. This caught my imagination...evoking childhood play with a flashlight -- you know, you shine it through your hand, and if you're very brave you put it in your mouth and peer into the mirror, "OOOO look at that..."

So with fear and without any very specific information, I hauled it into the sermon. And a parishioner, Very Tall Doc, took me aside at the end of the service and with great care and delicacy dealt with my ignorance... explaining that transillumination is used, medically, to examine ONE part of the human body. ONE part of the ADULT, MALE human body, in fact.

It never fails. The only time I made bold to quote a phrase in an aboriginal language, there was a native speaker in the congregation.

Excellent, excellent conversation yesterday with a couple of fellow ecumaniacs -- one local, one "import" ... most encouraging and stimulating.

I have learned a wonderful new word, receiving a bilingual message this morning from Amazon.ca, as befits the True North Strong and Free With, Thank God, an Olympic Gold Medal At Last: "Cher internaute," it began. That's what I am, I'm an "internaut" -- sounds much more intrepid than a mere "user," doesn't it?

And today... I am going to sew two dropped buttons back on my cassock. And then I shall find a suitable container, and some potting soil, and plant my nicely-rooted geranium cutting. Well, geranium "busting," actually, Nefertiti-the-Wonder-Cat having knocked the top out of my big geranium in one of her Wild Hurtles around the living room. But the broken piece did well in a jar of water on the window sill, so I have hopes of two gerania for the price of one.

And then I have a meeting.

And then I am going to attempt to cook my sauerbraten which has been "festering" in the fridge in its marinade since the weekend. I ate pancakes in a ceremonial manner at St. Curious on Sunday so I am exempt from that sticky ritual this evening.

And then I may have to find an apple and a nice sharp knife.....