Category: Church

Hello, breakfast

I finished the homily at 8 this morning and went back to bed to warm up.  Then I flew out the door and delivered it.

Just as I stood up to speak, a great blue heron landed on the metal and glass gazebo outside the sanctuary, visible to about a third of the congregation and invisible to me and everyone else.  The way people were pointing and gasping, and the fact I could hear no noise, made me think “A hot air balloon!  How nice.” And then I started talking and got kind of engrossed.  Tom dashed up to me immediately after the service and with a twinkle in his eye told me what had happened.  I had to be home before I figured it out – the heron was using this perch, well out of the way of bothersome hoomins, to case the adjacent pond for koi and other west coast delicacies / breakfast.  There being none, it took off.  See, nothing miraculous or spooky to see here, move along.

Chatted briefly with Patricia the other day, and that was fun. We will fire up the rusty old Cavalcade of Cheese… man she serves good cheese.

Spoke to Catherine today; she confirmed the presence of Sue’s last sock, and once I send her my address she’ll forward it to me.  I don’t want to lose it.  It’s the last thing I have to connect me with Sue Gillespie, of blessed memory.

I’d like to thank Paul for the lift in to both the church and the congregational dinner last night.  In two weeks the church will be closer! I’ll quit bugging people for rides! Beacon is moving to New West!  I talked about that a fair amount in the service today… telling people that we’re doing okay, in fact better than okay, because we can do church on a shoe string.  Did I mention I signed the book again (ie I rejoined)?  I volunteered semi sorta for the Worship Services Committee.  So happily, so cheerfully wacky these days.

I just watched The Man in the White Suit! I loved it!  I am not being sarcastic!

I got a copy of a song that I’ve wanted since the day I heard it.  It’s a live recording (heart heart heart) with Woodhead on bass (heart heart ooo so hearty heart) of Garnet Rogers singing Night Drive, the song he wrote for Stan Rogers, and I thought about John, and cried and cried and cried.  I saw Garnet perform it live.  I cried while I watched it and was still high on emotion when I left the concert.

More tunes…

Walls of my heart is written down (forgive the title, I was oozing a neurasthenic and self-absorbed romanticism at the time I wrote it).

Aiee!  I am back in the swing of things with church, what with the potential move and the satellite service, so I invited myself to the growth committee meeting.    Actually, I hosted it last night.  Keith made himself known to everybody (feeling safe to come out if Peggy and I are in the room) and I (scandalously, for a Unitarian) didn’t feed snacks afterwards because one of our number is fasting for a genuine health reason and I figured we could all get by on clear fluids rather than force her to watch us eat.  That is the first time I ever had a committee or small group ministry meeting at my house without food – and my Mennonite foremothers are rotating like cylinder records in their graves at the very thought.

In the old days, visitors would be fed ‘faspa’ which is the Mennonite equivalent of tiffin, and consists of something lighter than a meal and heavier than a snack, if you know what I mean.  It’s so much part of the culture that it’s a major faux pas not to provide it.  Even though I had a sound reason, I still felt guilty.  Ah, it’s so good to be back in church!

Why the hell does an atheist do church?

Continue reading More tunes…

Dancing

Went dancing with Katie K, aka Kopper.  It was mostly an older crowd so it was all classic sixties R&B with occasional pokes into the 90s.  We ate before the dance at Vera’s, there being no room at the inn at the Raincity Grill.  I had a simply lovely time and only drank two beers.  Laughed my ass off, repeatedly, danced ass off, rinse, repeat, drink more water.

Took a cab from Edmonds to Planet Bachelor to feed Kira; both of the denizens are out of town at the moment.  She was powerful glad to see me.  Said cab, driven by an immaculately mannered young man whose immigration to Canada seemed obvious, but whose ethnicity was not, then conveyed me to my domicile, where Miss Margot waited on the back deck.  She scarcely mewed when she saw me; she’d had no difficulty staying out of trouble in the interim.

Now sleepy-byes.  I hope Eddie and Gizmo, both of whom are out catting, have the courtesy to give me at least 4 hours of shuteye before Eddie starts making Doleful Moan on the back deck.

Church tomorrow.

lily from Cousin Gerald

I love it when men send me flowers 😉

lily

I finished Beloved Coworker – I am Very Happy with the way it turned out.

Keith is here and we’re going to go to the puddle later.

Jeff finished my taxes (I only gave him the last of the missing paperwork this past week) and according to the numbers they owe me money.  This also means, that Katie can get HER taxes in and thus get about 800 dollars back.  w00t, as they say.

Okay, back to the homily.  I will kick ass, in a respectful way, if the universe hangs that way.

ScaryClown wuz here

Jeff and I introduced him to Harlan Ellison (he had never heard of him before) via the documentary Dreams with Sharp Teeth, and ScaryClown howled with laughter in all the right places, along with saying, repeatedly, “This guy is a f*cking lunatic” which of course is a true statement.

We had pork chomps and one lonely chicken breast, stir fried veg (mushrooms, bean sprouts, onyums, red pepper and carrips), little cookies I picked up from a deli, and a lavish amount of beer.  We had an awesome time, and we didn’t even break out the Star Trek game!

Bareld just phoned to ask me to do the homily (The Meaning of Home) on October 25th.  The morning after the congregational dinner, so I’ll be saggy and baggy in the eye department, but oh well.

Watched the Ellison doc last night

Dreams with Sharp Teeth is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  Mike, Paul, Keith, Jeff and I had a glorious evening of pizza, beer, G&Ts, wasps drowning themselves in our drinks (this being August in Vancouver and virtually impossible to avoid), me printing out songs of mine for Paul to put in his songbook, me and Paul hanging the Japanese door hanging in the R. John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour, pinball (Great Finagle, but how much better that thing works when it’s level), bodywork, cheesecake and fellowship.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth is a must see if you’re into Neil Gaiman, BSG, or the English language.  The initial ‘interview’ sequence between Robin Williams and Harlan Ellison is PURE COMEDY GOLD. Also Richard Thompson does the soundtrack.  Once again, how much do I miss sharing stuff like this with John.

Now I am trying to wheedle Jeff into getting milk so I can make waffles.  I haven’t made waffles in ages.

Paul and I said to each other last night how much we missed small group ministry.  You think it’s Newage Nonsense, but it’s not – it’s major amounts of stress relief for your poor ol’ brain.  I remember the group meditations as being just about the only thing that kept me sane during a very trying period of my life.  Earlier in the day Paul came by and remonstrated with me about my lack of a rear view mirror on my bike (as well as to pick up the sewing kit, which is going back and forth between our houses like a sorry assed ping pong ball) and then he went out and not only bought one for me and installed it free gratis he got me a couple of really good bungie cords too.   All demonstrations of interest in my safety and comfort gratefully accepted, thanks.  As soon as the weather cleared in the midafternoon I went to get beer on the bike, and what an awesome ride that was, the temp being perfect, and the only hitch was when I tried to clear the intersection at Mary and Edmonds and nearly got crushed between two cars, and pulled a muscle in my calf.  It still stings – it’s a consequence of my ongoing L5S1 nonsense in my back, with the sciatic nerve pinging like a gas station bell – but I am taking painkillers PRN and otherwise ignoring it.

Also, I watched a DVD about church growth from a U*U perspective (man, it was interesting!) and had a long, interesting conversation with the minister.  Also, I practiced guitar for two hours and worked out the chords for Catnip on My Shoes, which I had never done before, so I can actually perform it in public now.

And here I was thinking I didn’t DO anything yesterday.

The first time I used Speaking Naturally

I said, “Holy Shit!” when it actually wrote down what I was saying.  What it typed was Goalie shipped.  I promptly gave up on speech recognition.

This is pretty funny, and you don’t have to understand computer programming for it to be funny.  Not what what.

1st of 2 parts on NCIS last night… it is a spinoff attempt.  We shall see how lucky the network gets, trying to get that particular piece of tv bonanza to work up some more gelt.

I will be off to Victoria to visit relatives and Dr. Filk, who is also a relative, for part of the weekend. Sometime between now and then I have to finish the homily, and since there is never any time like the present, I will shut this down and see if I can actually integrate Unitarian values with my mother’s garden in some sensible and interesting fashion.

Sundry and various

Mom and baby moose.

A plug for the hilariously named Reifel Bird Sanctuary.

I have learned I can still apply for my FAC (the gun licence thing).  I am going to.  My to do list is growing like a six foot across amoeba while I watch in hor-ror.  So what am I going to do about it? Party!  Jim E.’s stag tonight so he’s invited people, alcohol and musical instruments into his home.  I intend to be there and make a joyful noise or two.

I have substantially completed my May 3rd homily and have forwarded the order of service to the service coordinator. So at least one thing came off the list.  I also picked out a new hymn and ran it through the music interpreter to figure out if I liked the tune or not…

Big dog

Samantha is a mastiff cross, and small, dainty and elegant do not describe her. What she is, is big, although as we slogged through the rain and mud at Trout Lake yesterday there were bigger dogs yet at the offleash part of the park.  My companion was amazed that there could be an offleash park where there were nesting birds, and I asked, somewhat rhetorically, if he’d ever been to Trout Lake in the summer time, when it is a warm green hymn to avian fecal material. Given that human beings also swim there (I have seen it, although you wouldn’t catch me in there unless the person next to me was encouraging me with a semi automatic) I don’t imagine the city fathers care if a few birds get harassed.  The fewer nesting there the better, and none of them are exactly what I would call endangered species.

While we were there, the tree next to the parking lot was full of birds, all singing as loud as they could simultaneously.  The light was crappy, but it sure sounded like starlings and red winged blackbirds having a smackdown.  It was so loud that I just stood gaping in the rain.

Samantha got in the water and got very dirty.

When my companion came to pick me up, we attempted a greeting kiss. We both ended up kissing Samantha’s nose.  I can’t remember laughing that hard in quite a while.  After the park we went to Burnaby Palace (Jeff got the leftovers, so apart from waffles on Saturday morning I dodged cooking every meal this weekend), and had a lovely time.

Church was great yesterday morning, Marci Green did the service, which was about the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign.