Baptism of Jesus

All right, here we go.  

Nothing so stimulating as getting up to write the sermon at seven in the morning -- that would be, SUNDAY morning.  Just a little more of the Evel Knievel atmosphere about this than I quite like, but it's done, it'll preach...

And I've responded to that by concocting the ham/onion/jalapeno two-egg omelette, with home-made tomato ketchup on the side, and 1.5 home-made lattes, and a palmful of rattly pills -- time to find a clean black shirt and be gone.

No printer in this house -- at least, no printer that is on speaking terms with the laptop -- so the sermon is in longhand scribbles for a change.

Away we go.  Weather not too fierce for once.  Church, and a brief meeting, and then home and another clutter-clearing task for the afternoon, I think.

Green lights, everybody.

Friday again.

Not going  to look at the Friday Five -- or at least, not just now.

After a week enjoying ill health -- ill health at the beginning of the week, enjoying towards the end -- it is a day for putting the next few days in some kind of order.

Three calendars are involved: the briefcase day-timer; the fridge-door "Things This Week"; and the on-edge-behind-the-piano four-month monster.  And there's a small fistful of scribbles to organize onto these three ... the trick is to ensure that they all say the same thing about the same activities on the same day.

I spent time -- probably more than was wise -- sorting received Christmas cards into Meaningful Categories...hand-crafted ones, works-of-art ones, cute-animals ones (to share with the granddaughters on Important Projects with scissors and glue sticks), religious ones (for the friend who paints Christmas scenes on windows) and the eternal MISCELLANEOUS --raw material for the Great Recycled Christmas Card Little Tiny Boxes project.

In the course of this Great Sorting I filled the shredder and a waste-basket...and found (inevitably, comically), the sensible boxful of unused cards, labels, stickers, address book and other Yuletide Papergoods from last year.  These, with the sensible boxful of etc. etc. from THIS year, are all now arranged in a Rational Drawer, with a label on it... so I have some hope that come November 2014 I may, just may, be able to find them again.

All this working, and being retired, and working, and getting old, and living alone, and stuff, is a constant juggling of logistics and ergonomics, What?  Where? When?

And perhaps if we focus on those, we can defer dealing with Why??

 

Reflection in the middle of the night...

I had a long conversation with myself, interrupted, the other night. 
For professional reasons, I was a guest at a local Conference/Retreat Centre (formerly, a very very large convent). 
For epidemiological reasons, I found myself on my knees shortly after midnight.  Not, alas, in any of the beautiful, tranquil, inspiring chapel spaces on the premises.  But in the little ensuite bathroom assigned to me.
I had extended opportunity to examine the furniture of that bathroom, closely.
And midway through the seance, it occurred to me: that the misery of gastro-intestinal upset is very materially lessened when all the porcelain ware within reach is as clean and shiny as your grandmother's bone china... as when you just have to rest your forehead on that rim...and you do so in the perfect tranquil confidence that you're not going to catch anything.  Else.
"Self," I said, reflecting..."how about we keep this moment in mind, the next time we decide we'd just rather  defer scrubbing the bathrooms at home, yet again?  How about we re-visit the Nasty Jobs, now and then, as welcome and easy opportunities to look after us, better?  H'm?  Instead of just Sordid Ordeals?"
And Self couldn't think of a single smart-aleck thing to say.
Believe me...if you get to pick the venue in which you're going to "hug the bowl," all night--hard to beat a NUN-CLEAN convent bathroom.  Just sayin'.