Yesterday was a gift of small pleasures and brief beauty, enamelled and jewelled and assembled with unhurried care.
I awoke early and started my rushing around for a very busy day at church and promptly forgot the single most important thing. As I stepped out of the house, a scene of surreal beauty met my gaze: in New Westminster all the tall buildings were outlined by the effulgent glow of the sun through a wall of cloud. The effect was enough to stop me in my tracks and call for Jeff to come and see.
I then went to Thrifty’s to buy meat, bread and cheese for sandwiches for ‘afters’, and then went to the church where I tried to help with setup and then realized I’d forgotten all the Stewardship Drive materials. D’oh! Back home to collect them and then back to church in time for everything to start.
I gave a several minute ex tempore speech on the subject of pledging and was congratulated by no fewer than three people afterwards. I never seem to have an accurate sense of how I’m doing, I thought I sounded ill-prepared and merely attempted to connect emotionally and practically to my church siblings.
Please imagine that I was dressed as a steam punk vampire during these shenanigans, as I was. Somebody else took a picture.
The minister preached a mighty sermon on giving, and used the potlatch as the central idea. The notion that gracious giving and gracious receiving is part of our human heritage was posited; the emotional calculus of feeling shamed or lorded over when we receive gifts was examined in the light of our materialistic culture. I must admit I teared up toward the end. The minister called me on it, asking what happened as I started out smiling and started not exactly scowling but getting more and more serious and I said sheesh if I stop smiling maybe it’s because I’m very moved.
Short talk with Rob W about a specialty item of clothing he may feel inclined to sew up for me. Planning is.
The sandwiches went over (and down) very well.
Tom and Peggy invited me to supper.
The minister helped finish the washing up. (one of us, one of us!)
I returned home at 1:30 (told you it was a hectic morning…) footsore and tired, and no sooner cleaned one pan and changed that Paul rang. “Walkies?”
I looked out the window. With his inerrant attention to the weather, he had picked the one portion of the day wherein we were likely to get direct sun. Although my feet were already complaining, we did a circuit of Oakalla (aka Deer Lake Park), and saw:
A beautiful sky, filled with cirrus and nimbus and cumulus clouds
A VERY LARGE and unidentifiable raptor soaring in the same skyfield as a gent flying his glider at the model airplane field,
A chickadee chasing a moth (I had never seen such a thing) apparently for pure sport (the moth put on an incredible burst of speed)
Dragonflies catching the last of the sun
Many happy dogs who really should have been on leashes but were well behaved anyway
Sleeping kids in strollers.
Then home, where I relaxed with ER and SG1 until it was time to haul myself upstairs and make biscotti to take. I made pumpkin spice biscotti out of my own head’s recipe; they were well received.
I supped with all of the local Lunder-males, grampa, boys and grandbean, and it was a delicious meal of inadvertently caramelized butternut squash, roast chicken breasts, taters, broccoli, home made cheese sauce and pumpkin pie. It was all edible and choice. Bean-pie is so adorable as he falls asleep it was most charming.
Then home, to sleep; woke at 1:30, forced myself back to sleep and up again at 7. A windy nasty day, but I have coffee and biscotti and the world can go hang until I watch Treme.
Today – renew car insurance (I folded – I feel like I can’t live without a car as long as church is so time consuming and then there’s the issue of job hunting), church business have to leave the house for, more church business, another bit of church business, contact the folks in Pemberton to arrange transport of the furniture, and, if the fates are kind, some practicing and writing.
I light a candle for all those in Hurricane Sandy’s way.
I light a candle for the folks at Pennzoil who topped up my brake fluid without charging me.
