yesterday's adventures...

In which the Old Grey Rambler triumphed over modern technocracy in two happy respects -- first, in that she picked out FROM MEMORY the correct make and size of ink cartridge for her itty bitty printer -- and installed it -- and didn't hurt herself or blow up anything.

And then, second, no doubt only because previously fortified by Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberry Jam, she assembled a couple of IKEA tables directly descended from the beloved three-prong two-slot blivet of our youth:

"THE THING"

The results of all this fine work with the little Allan wrench and a couple of screwdrivers are two comparatively sturdy bench-like objects on which to foster houseplants in the light from the living-room window.

We are abolishing the little tilty spindly toothpick boot racks formerly supporting our horticultural efforts. We have decided that the Fourth Horseman of the Domestic Apocalypse is "Rickety Provisional." The first three, as you remember, are "Dirty, Dark, and Broken."




Just sayin', but this was also accomplished with the paws-on assistance of Nefertiti the Wonder Cat, who instantly recognized the Great Big Screws, the Weird Half Screws, the Nubby Bits of Dowel, the Twiddly Plastic Gizmos, AND the Allan wrench, as God-sent cat toys.

Oh yes. In between the Blivet Benches and the Swedish Meatballs, the Rambler passed a big bin full of ... stuffed toy ... rabbits. And they actually looked like rabbits, you know? And so, well, heck, Annie didn't yet have any stuffed toy rabbits... Don't laugh, I passed up the stuffed toy Golden Retrievers...

hello again

...now blogging from home base.
I think perhaps I may blog a series on "temptations of the newly retired" -- starting with the temptation to surge back onto the scene of former glory (or of the crime, depending on one's POV), and slap into righteousness all the folks who are taking action at this point to put to rights ... various trivia.
And I am hearing about it, in my little inbox, yes I am.
It isn't the S4B crowd, it's when the intelligent and kind are overcome by "teh dumb" in their dealings with each other, that one is tempted to rise up and blaspheme.
Or just play another round of Bejeweled Blitz.
Which is its own kind of blasphemy.

blogging later about the leave-taking, which was a good, good day.

more about books and other "stuff"...

The Rationale

Philip Slater
To own or possess is to monopolize the use of something permanently. Hence the need to possess betrays a degree of insecurity. Possession is a way of ensuring access to whatever it is we want to use or enjoy: we are so anxious that the object be there when we want it that we are willing to insist that it be there even when we don't want it. Thus we have food on our shelves when we're not hungry, clothes in our closets that we're not wearing, cars in our driveways that we aren't driving, and so on.

The rationale is that when we do want to eat, dress, or drive, we won't have to waste time looking around for the food, clothing, or transportation. This time saving is questionable, as we shall see, but it expresses the sense of urgency that lies behind the compulsion to possess.

Source: Wealth Addiction

I think this has a lot to do with "books on the shelf that I'm not reading -- but tomorrow or next day I might just want to"...

frustrations...

the project this morning is to find a parishioner...not just any parishioner, you understand, but Mrs. N.
Mrs. N is a widow. She is all but completely blind. She has no siblings, and only one child who lives in another country.
On the weekend she suffered a fall in her assisted-living seniors' residence. She MAY have fallen as a result of a mild stroke.
Or, of course, vice versa.
Her two most attached friend-households were both out of province at the time. One of them was reached by phone and persuaded her to let herself be taken to hospital.
We know which one.
We are told that she was discharged from the hospital.
We are told that she has not returned to her apartment.
We have no idea whether she was transferred to an auxiliary facility (this is our fervent hope); or whether she was simply ushered out of the primary-care hospital without follow-up.
Getting this simple piece of information, "What have you done with Mrs. N?" is unbelievably obstructed by a piece of legislation, referred to unlovingly as FOIPP.
(which stands for "Freedom of Information and Personal Privacy")
The institutional cry becomes, "we can't tell you that because of FOIPP." One of the things that "they" can't tell is whether a patient has been transferred to another facility, and if so, which one. No, no. That would be a breach of FOIPP.
So this morning I shall commence calling all the auxiliary-care hospitals I can think of, enquiring, "do you have Mrs. N there, by chance?"
The rationale for FOIPP is personal protection. It doesn't work that way.

***Late Breaking News~ FOUND HER, FOUND HER, FOUND HER. TBTG. Still at the acute-care hospital where she was first taken.

Sometimes the problem is FOIPP.
And sometimes the problem is D.U.M.B.

oh the difference...

Yesterday was intense.

Fifteen hours from arrival at MH & U in the morning to pulling out of the parking lot en route home in the evening...

Saturday was spent MOSTLY at the church as well, on the periphery of madly energetic cleaning-up going on indoors and outdoors. Most of it pretty good work, but some of it pretty mindless. "Let's clean up the chancel, and let's start by unplugging everything and leaving it that way." "Let's clean up the narthex, and let's start by gathering up all the little church-front portable easel signs, and HIDING THEM SOMEWHERE." Somewhere remote from the front door, which of course is where they're deployed.

I didn't sleep very well Saturday night, and arriving at church to find these...anomalies...produced something close to a clerical meltdown, I am embarrassed to say. Running about of churchwardens, "It's OK, Rambler. It'll be all right. We'll just ask the congregation at announcement time, where the signs went. Just be calm. You're OK."

The assistant preached in exemplary fashion... it is such a blessing to have the stimulus of another preacher on the premises...especially when his work evokes the "yes-indeed-but-on-the-other-hand" Anglican response. Leading me to reflect on the difference between statements of fact and statements of truth. (not wanting to think about statements of cornmeal mush, which constitute most of the preaching one hears.)

Got through the second service. (Signs were duly produced at announcement time, expressions of injured innocence all 'round.)

Lined up to get invitation/ticket from Ticket Maven. Accosted in line-up by Exemplary Laywoman reminding me that the "youth" were awaiting me for their confirmation class. Came "this close" to biting said laywoman right in the goozle for asking me to be in two places at once...she retreated, prudently.

Got ticket, had confirmation class, worked through prayer of consecration with little children while big children looked on. We have NINE, count'em, NINE confirmands for the service in October, and at least a couple of baptizands, it's all delightful.

Co-ordinated perceptions with Ticket Maven Lady and sent her off to phone Chronic Stayers-Away lest they show up the Sunday AFTER the royal hoo-hah, and then the screaming begins, again.

Worked on paperwork all afternoon barring quick dash out for a lunch/supper pizza.

Back to computer at 6:35 and wrote sermon for Evensong (Choral) which happened at 7 pm, attended by members of Prairie Metropolis and Hinterland Council of Churches, and a few parishioners, and, God bless and reward them, a solid phalanx of choir.

There was chanting, Anglican chanting, big time.

Preached on Jeremiah 31:1-13, Ephesians 5, and ecumenism with reflections from John 17 (from the morning services).

Sang lovely Anglican evening hymns too..."O Gracious Light, Lord Jesus Christ" (Tallis), "Light of the World, in Grace and Beauty" (Rendez a Dieu), and "Day is Done, But Love Unfailing" (Ar Hyd Y Nos). MOST satisfying to one and all.

Then convened and chaired AGM of Council of Churches, which went well despite no-shows and no-replies (and no minutes -- my fault)...and wrapped up evening with "whining and cheesiness" supplied by the Very Forgiving Laywoman who had narrowly escaped being Rambler-bitten earlier in the day.

And so, as they say, to bed.

All in all, a good day.

And, I'm happy to say, a good night's sleep, which made all the difference today!

The Friday Five...

With thanks to Singing Owl, over at RevGalBlogPals, we have a Friday Five on the subject of Labor Day. Or, if you prefer, Labour Day. And we do. Prefer. (It's one of those Canadian things.)


1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.

Well...there was a certain amount of merry "Let's all go and shovel out the sheep barn" activity in the first couple of years of my married life. My mother-in-law had a flock of sheep. It wasn't a job exactly.
On another plane, although shovelling was also involved, I was a marker-of-freshman-essays for about 10 years at Colourful U. That was frustrating...I kept thinking (wrongly) "If only I could get into the classroom, I could EXPLAIN these matters and then THEY WOULD UNDERSTAND."

2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.

Well...other than this one...there was my curacy at 'Tother Purty Church in Town; and there was the "adjunct faculty" position at seminary which gave me an office and faculty privileges while I was still a student, also an honorarium, in exchange for a 3 credit English course every year. That one was definitely full of joy. I could assign all kinds of reading without having to begin by fist-fighting the students over the Basic Assumptions, e.g. Christianity...

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.

I guess it would be, would have to be...... THIS. Or possibly, THIS, in a different geography...with more pointy bits and more water.

4. Did you get a break from labo[u]r this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?

Yes...eight days driving about in Adjacent Province; a flying visit to Big Fat Eastern Province for a family gathering; a "working break" at a church conference centre in Adjacent Province. And so far that's it. Not enough. And no, I DON'T know what I'm going to do about it.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?

Everybody chirps brightly about "when things pick up in September" and frankly, my heart quails as I have been running flat out, just ahead of the wolfpack, all summer.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labo[u]r and delivery (LOL)? If you are a guy pal, not a mom, or you choose not to answer the above, is there a song, a book, a play, that says "workplace" to you?

I can't tell L and D stories here, my offspring read this blog. Workplace songs, h'm -- "Sixteen Tons"???

Updates...

Just a whole lot of fine things this week already under the general heading of the goodness of God etc.
A couple dropped by yesterday to arrange for their youngest daughter's baptism on Sunday. Two older children (girl, 6 maybe; boy, not quite 3) were in the party. To my complete amazement, the older children greeted me, introduced themselves, settled without to-do on the office steps (leading into the chancel) and were instantly immersed in...BOOKS... Later I took them on a walk around the inside of the church; they solemnly and politely observed from a distance while our substitute organist practised...and they went away very happy each with a copy of "Life in the Eucharist." Which the little girl promised to read to the little boy. You could have knocked me down with a stone block of wood... Children! Reading! I thought they were all extinct!

Then I decided to SPEND my birthday gift card for a very high-end stationery store, so I had a lovely self-indulgent time perusing all, but ALL, the merchandise ("Would you care to fondle some pens?" was the proprietor's sympathetic question). Found some nice Monet water-lily note-cards, notes for the Daughter Unit and SIL, and an utterly chi-chi little pad of monogrammed purse-notes, in a fancy gilt cover with JOOLS on it, and a magnetic clasp.

And then I took myself to lunch (hedonism being the order of the day at this point). There are a number of high-end eateries in the same neighbourhood as the stationer. Most were busy, so I opted to try Il Violino, a recent replacement of a former favourite in a big old house, hoping it might be good...


AHHHHHHHHHHHH. "La gastronomia Italiana," indeed. Elegant, elegant, elegant, and sufficient in quantity, and not unduly expensive, even without the Seniors' 10% discount (next year, next year)...and with a lovely glass of Pinot Grigio...and I read ALL of Sinners Welcome (Mary Karr), over my lunch, including the essay on Poetry and Faith. I had been given her childhood memoir, The Liars' Club, by one of my wedding couples, with the encouraging review, "This book makes ALL our families look NORMAL." Loved it...and so ordered the poetry collection. My, my, my. I started "Delinquent Missive" --
"Before David Ricardo stabbed his daddy
sixteen times with a fork..."
and I thought, "Mary Oliver she's not"...but oh there are such interesting points of contact even so.

So one way or another yesterday was a bit of an ORGY. (We were due for one.)

And this morning the secretary/bookkeeper, safely returned from her vacation (in itself no mean blessing), reports that we are eighteen thousand dollars IN THE BLACK...and it's still only August, folks!!!

I have about six little tasks to do here and then I am skibbling home to do housework and call it a day off...funeral tomorrow, wedding Saturday, baptism Sunday...and it's going to be hot again this weekend too.

Ancient Lore

...as befits a crone, I guess...

I was at dinner last night in a very very fancy venue with a Trusted Henchwoman, and in one of the intervals of henching, we tackled the dessert buffet, upon which we found an array of delights, including a platter of tremulous multi-hued wondrousness. Debate ensued upon the correct nomenclature for this marvel, and from the darkest recesses of my memory (using the term loosely), I dredged -- "That's BROKEN GLASS, that is; alternatively, especially north of the World's Longest Undefended Border, CROWN JEWELS."

And what it is, is, an unconscionable amount of Jell-O.

Herewith the recipe, if you've never had it, or if you've had it and can't remember how it's made.

The book I found it in calls it Mosaic Mold, but that's just WRONG. So pay no attention.

1 3 oz package lime gelatin
1 3 oz. package cherry gelatin
4 cups boiling water
1 cup cold water
1 6 oz package lemon gelatin (NOTE larger package, here)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup pineapple juice
2 2 oz packages of whipped topping mix.

Make lime and cherry gelatin separately, using 1 cup boiling water and 1/2 cup cold water for each. Pour each flavor into an 8-inch square pan. Chill until firm or overnight. Combine the lemon gelatin, sugar, and remaining 2 cups boiling water; stir until gelatin and sugar are dissolved. Stir in pineapple juice. Chill until SLIGHTLY thickened. Cut the firm gelatins into 1/2 inch cubes. Prepare the whipped topping mix as directed; blend with thickened lemon gelatin. Fold in gelatin cubes. Pour into a 12-cup ring mold or Bundt pan, chill until set; unmold by dipping pan BRIEFLY in warm water; turn out on a dampened plate.
Some folks sprinkle toasted coconut on it. You suit yourself.


I had a nice moment on the way to work this morning. At the coffee-shop drive-thru window, I could see the back of the bakery case, and a note to coffee-shop staff printed on a bit of tape: "PLEASE DATE FOOD." So I said to the bright young lady in the headset, "I like your sign, there; I've been dating food all my life, which is why I look this way," and to my delight it BLEW RIGHT PAST HER. "Oh, it's always a good idea," she said, with a puzzled look on her face. Some days I do love young'uns, bless their clueless hearts.

retrospectively...

Yesterday was one of the better days...

The usual morning routine involves one of Prairie Metropolis's two daily papers: Headlines, obituaries, comics, daily Sudoku, Today's Crossword, NY Times Crossword, and then off to work.

Yesterday morning, all of the above plus the Asimov Quiz, the Jumbles, and the Scrabble words, just one after the other, "bif boum tschrac" as it says in the Asterix comics.

From which it is to be inferred that the Rambler got Enough Sleep the night before.

Under these conditions, the Going To Work/Getting Game Face On music in the car is Carolina Shout (the immortal Thomas "Fats" Waller, who else).


Today, not QUITE so peppy, but all right.

And I hope y'all are all right, too.

Saturday...

Well...we have a SORT of a sermon written for Peter'n'Paul, I guess.

This has been a good day too, lots of sun, HOT outdoors, cool in my office, hurray for Venetian blinds, I say.

And this morning before it got hot, the Rambler went off and delivered the Opening Prayer at the handing-over of NINE NEW HOMES to happy families -- this was the outcome of this year's WomenBuild by the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Three triplexes. Most exciting. They have replaced a dreadful tenement and nest of criminality in an inner city neighbourhood.

And the Rambler wore her Hot Pink Hard Hat -- woo hoo!

A good, good day

..despite having two elderly parishioners in the Coronary Care Unit, and another in a second hospital, none of them doing really all that well. Much sadness in anticipation.

But I have had e-mails today from members of Vestry and other volunteers in the parish of MH & U, and I am gratified and humbled.

New Vestrywoman who is a librarian has run to earth all the specifics of the permissions we need to purchase in order to play and sing (and, naturally, reprint) certain favourites of our praise band. And she has communicated her findings, LUCIDLY, to the rest of us.

'Nother Vestryman, our IT Guy and Sultan of Scrounge, has located a techie friend willing to do some installation of cables, resuscitating our most unsatisfactory door-monitor-cum-alarm system.

Volunteers are surrounding and assisting our refugee family, who have "issues" -- health, education, language...and reporting their doings, clearly and succinctly.

Youth leader, wrapping up the year's work, has written an excellent report for distribution.

Volunteer parents continue to work BY CONSENSUS, without hierarchy, to put together a teaching schedule for Summer Sunday School.

As of the end of May we are in the black. This is unusual, and VERY comforting.

I have a doozie of a wedding coming up tho' -- the couple are just fine, but the friend-of-the-family clergyman they invited to share the service is going to have some trouble adapting his mind to what we'd like him to do. The bride is saying, "If we had known how much we would like your way of doing it -- we wouldn't have asked him AT ALL--but now we're afraid of hurting his feelings"...I had to phone him last night and tell him we'd like him to read the prefatory harangue, and lead the prayers for the couple. Funny dialogue.

Offsite Clergyman: "And...the talk? the address?"
Rambler: "Actually, the couple have asked ME to preach at their wedding."
OC: "Well, but, I have known the bride since she was just a little girl. Didn't she tell you that?"
Rambler: "As a matter of fact, she did."
OC: (huffing somewhat) " I do hope that there will be some opportunity for me to Say A Few Words to the couple."

Do you suppose I have the 'nads to suggest sweetly that he might well do so -- at the reception???

I am keeping in mind that our INTENT here is not to disconcert the bride. I shall practise winking at her, in case of tense territorial moments.

A motto for women...

This came through a week or so ago from a good friend, and it tickled me.

You should live so that whenever your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan says, "OH SH**, she's awake."

The Treatise on Bathing Suits (ahem)

The Rambler is home again, all rambled out for the time being...

Car went like a thing possessed, and mileage was unbelievable even at high highway speeds AND at the more rally-like conditions of mountain driving. Some of those roads came awfully close to turning into Moebius strips, I am sure.

And now, anent bathing suits. (No doubt there is some kind of linguistic isobar dividing those of us who say "bathing suit" from those who say "swimsuit" -- but that's a thought for another day.)

YES, sistren, we ARE permitted to have two bathing suits. We after all have two brassieres (each), right? And at least two pairs of big-girl panties? Some of us, rumor hath it, even two pairs of SHOES. So why not two bathing suits?

BECAUSE, it is no more extravagant to have two than to have one; initial outlay is doubled, perhaps, but each suit lasts twice as long before getting all saggy and "picked" and ridiculous-looking.

My thought is not to wait for some longed-for improvement of physical figger before buying the two bathing suits, either. There ARE bathing suits out there for ladies in the Prime of Life...with nice discreet little skirts, some of them, too. ;-)

If the thought is still daunting, I recommend frequenting hotsprings and other such resorts in late spring but BEFORE schools let out for the summer. Not only is everything a lot less crowded before families take to the highways...but those clambering in and out of the pools carry their years with dignity and acceptance...and joy for the temporary sensation of weightlessness as well!!!

Sidelight on the whole question: one of the pools I visited had a "swimsuit extractor" -- a small powerful automatic spin-dryer, which greatly accelerated the drying of the bathing suit en route to the next pool. But apparently these machines are very expensive, and young'uns tend to swing on them and render them unserviceable, so they are not universally distributed.

Which gave me the GREAT THOUGHT of the week...to buy several gross of those handheld salad-spinners, and rent them out to swimmers to whirl their bathing suits in, by hand...Rich and Famous, I tell you, any minute now.

Au revoir...

The Rambler, for the next few days, will be...rambling. W/o phone, pager, or computer.
Catch y'all on the backswing.
Meantime, Beware Impostors:

Yard Work...

Finally, early yesterday evening, I couldn't think of any more excuses not to get out the lawnmower and deal with the dandelion meadow in front of my house. (BEHIND the house is going to take the weed-wacker, some other day).
Getting out the lawnmower means getting it out of the little wooden shed in the back yard.
Now I've known for some time that there is "a squirrel" in my yard. I see him/her racing along the top of the fence to the big spruces in the front yard, and back again with cone in mouth.
I've known for some time that "the squirrel" stashes these cones in the shed.
I suppose from time to time I've surmised that it might even be "two squirrels," not just one...
But candidly, friends, I just hadn't ever thought any more about the ramifications of that.
Until I took the padlock off the shed door...
Lord have mercy, I am the proprietor of a SQUIRREL FACTORY.
There were squirrels sleeping in everything that wasn't already full of spruce cones.
In old hockey helmets.
In old baseball gloves.
In old rubber boots.
In battered toy dump trucks.
In coffee mugs dating from one of the ex's business ventures.
In the fertilizer spreader.
In miscellaneous, much-nibbled cardboard boxes.
And curled up hither and yon in snug places.

And boy, were they mad at me. All of them.

"home again, McGinty..."

One of our pastimes week before last was remembering as many of our father's pat phrases as we could...and this morning's title was one of them. Who McGinty was, and why...is lost in the mists of time.

Back at my desk...in the absence (yesterday and today) of Excellent Secketry...with a heap of phone messages, far, far too many emails, and the same wretched midden of paper that was here when I left. Augmented, a bit, if possible.

The time in Adjacent Province was delightful...good weather, good folks (quite open to hearing about Jeremy Taylor, too, bless them), good food, good beds; my exposure to retail books was limited to 15 minutes (enough to get me some Mary Oliver, though)...and I hadn't known how much my heart yearned for a landscape with some CLIVITY to it (both ac- and de-...).

Two rehearsals today, two weddings tomorrow, and I guess somebody is preaching on Sunday: oh, yes, that would be me...

Developments...

After weeks of saying, "NO I WON'T (and you can't make me)"...I allowed my name to stand for El Supremo of Prairie Metropolis-cum-Hinterland's Council of Churches.

Well, what can I say. I was encouraged. Also pressured. Also I am a Big Wimp.

And we have to do something about ecumenism in this neck of the woods -- for years now we have all been "putting the scowl of resignation on the face of stupidity" (that's an approximate quote from George Macdonald Fraser, Flashman at the Charge), and wagging our heads, and saying to each other, "Well, of course this is the Winter of Ecumenism in these parts, nothing to be done, can't be bothered to try anything, let's meet again next month." And wondering why attendance dwindles.

So here we go. At least now the meetings of Council and of Exec will be here at MH & U, and administrative support supplied by Extraordinary Secketry-Person in the next office. I stopped on my way back here from the Council meeting and bought her a boodle of roses to CELEBRATE her becoming Administrative Secretary...without even knowing about it. She was gracious and supportive. There is some remuneration involved, which helps.

[Pause to capture a bumble-bee with a tea-cup and index card, and toss her safely out the window. Bees always remind me of my curacy...and the afternoon that a posse of elderly ladies arrived in my office, full of dismay, and announced, "Rambler! There is a BEEEEEEEEEE in the church!" Plainly in their view of the universe, it was up to the deacon to deal with BEEEEEEEEES in the church. So I did.]

I think I'll do a bit of organization here and then head for home and work some more on my retreat material (on Jeremy Taylor).

It was summer-hot today...wonderful.

goodness of God, continued

A beautiful sunny day, and some of my more pressing obligations today have receded -- others have been MET, good grief, mustn't make a habit of THIS...

The Invaluable Secketry-Person dove into her big cabinet this morning and produced sought-after files, ka-boom. We are wrestling two or three different and separate bureaucracies about funding for our new furnaces/boilers. Thanks be to God in fifteen different positions for my Wardens -- GREAT meeting last night...sorting PAPER and clarifying information and arranging SEQUENCES...the project was threatening to be one that would never get done because nothing could be done until something else had been done? You know the kind I mean? A process designed by Escher, I think. Or the man Moebius. He of the Strip.

But we all came away in good spirits with well-defined tasks and I am getting mine DONE.

And then I had a drop-in visit from Military Parishioner, a doctor home on leave from Kandahar where he works at the Canadian base hospital. Precious time. Dr. Soldier, and his Gorgeous Wife, and their two great strapping affable teen-aged sons, are the kind of family we all DREAM about having in our parishes. Talk about Moral Influence, hoo boy... Please keep them in your prayers. He returns to Afghanistan next weekend for another 3.5 months, and the separation is hard on all of them.

I am going to sneak out and find some lunch at this point. Then hard at it again all afternoon and into the evening.

Sense of Humor, and other inconveniences...

Time wasted this weekend -- I was sent a very brief Youtube video on Facebook -- most of you have probably seen it, it's about 45 seconds of japery about a pipe organ with, allegedly, a 128' register. Some seconds spent watching the organist's hands, then a shot of the 128' "Earthquake" stop, danger sign, flashing yellow light, tremendous bass notes right on cue, and then it cuts away to some long-range shots of the demolition of vacant medium-rise apartment buildings. And that was all. Very simple joke: organ plays, buildings fall down. Huzzah!

So I posted it from my Facebook account to a number of "friends," many of them musicians, not a few of them organists or otherwise church-attached.

The next thing I knew, I had both an email message and a Facebook message from a parishioner and "friend" who had NOT received the video but had seen it listed on her newsfeed...berating me for posting anything so insensitive and frightening ... because she has a family member who lives in New York and the memories of 9/11 were so shattering etc. etc. And I must remove it forthwith.

Pause to reflect WHY so many women who try to be characters by Margaret Mitchell wind up as characters by Tennessee Williams, but never mind that now.

I finally messaged back to say, "don't know why you looked at the video as it wasn't sent to you, good to know what you don't like, won't send you anything of the sort, but doggone it I'll post what I please" -- and pointed out that the pipe-organ video had nothing in common with 9/11 except the law of gravity.

Sat back preparing to abridge the parish list by one household, but fortunately her son came home from college on the weekend, and, apprised by Ma of the brouhaha, said, "Oh for gosh sakes, Ma, you thought Babe was a violent movie, get over yourself..."

And people wonder why my blog is pseudonymous.

thoughts while choosing hymns for Sunday...

And thanks to the good people who supply the daily cup of good news at St. Alban's Cafe, now I have another song I can't shake; you can find it right here. Enjoy.

It's raining here today. Yes, it is. That is rain. All of it. Even the chunky white bits. Rain, do you hear me? Rain.