Category: Church

Vampire, pass by

Paul and I gave blood yesterday. (I drained in 8 minutes, a new personal record!) He was joshing with the phlebotomist and she turns to me and asks if she can trust him and I said, blandly, “He’s my ex so I’m the wrong person to ask” which triggered much hilarity. Paul clots so fast he literally does not have to put pressure on the sticking point, and the vampire didn’t believe him. I bruise like crazy so I follow the instructions.
 
I know it sounds kinda weird but I think of giving blood as a kind of communion; it connects me to strangers who need my help, and it connects me with John, who gave a lot of blood over the course of his life, and it connects me to the rest of my family; Katie and I and Paul and Keith all give blood when so able, and mOm gave gallons when she was a nurse.
I drove both ways.  Traffic was good, traffic was good.
Around 7 I felt like all the air had been let out of my tires so I crashed; looks like I got a solid 8 hours of sleep.
Sue and I had a lovely (and for me, hobbitly) breakfast at Ricky’s on Lougheed Coquitlam yesterday.  We noted a side room which might work okay for pub night although there’s no good transit close by; she’s going to advise the minister.
Just learned that South Fraser is being kicked out of their home.  I light a candle for them finding space cheap, fast, painlessly.
I have a song that the Conflikt folks really like in this year’s songbook, so even if I can’t go (money…) I will still represent.
Archer’s back!

At last a deadline

I am going to try to complete a couple of songs in Songwriter so I can export them as PDFs and get them into the Conflikt song book.

Much as it pains me to say it, I can’t afford to make trips to the US and otherwise spend the income I have, so I am going to go to $15 worth of church event as opposed to the $500 con.  Yes – I could spend less but I don’t like going to a convention if I have to bunk in with anyone else for the usual reasons, like my privacy requirements now I’m no longer a live in parent are rather absurdly high.

So I’ll be sending the songs along instead.  I’ll send Gateway and Dishing with Joyce, since Fred Pohl’s stuff is going to be commercialized over the next couple of years (I believe it’s going to be a tv show, which would likely work fine, helmed correctly) and Buffy never stops being popular with certain crowds and the Scoobie gang have dozens of songs and Joyce not so much. I find it amusing that I have repurposed a song with was a song about a crush on a coworker into a filk, but one of the great appeals of filk is how it mashes things together into a great media pulp.

Saw Mike yesterday, and he popped by later, after he fed me a light supper at the Oliver Twist, and I will be seeing Sue for brekkie this morning to feast her for her birthday.  She is so wonderful, I am sure we will have a lovely earflapping. For she is the Great She-Elephant, and I am her dear chum.

Okay, enough demonstrating that I left the house yesterday (I did twice, and with all the cat commotion with Buster and his collar Jeff did three times) and I have friends, I gots work to do, coffee to make and songs about Giant Squids (words) (music) to listen to for its inspirational effect on my opus.

Homily number almost 20…

I should count them up, although I think one of them has gone missing. Edited later: There are actually 21 but I can’t find the text for Garbage Day.  Drat.  I thought mOm sent it to me.

This morning’s homily, enlivened by 4 newcomers and Alex and Katie (Alex smiling and babbling in a simply enchanting way) went very well.  You can find it here. It was so cute watching Rob W in his Viking hat, being the uncleybear.

In particular, people liked the comment about the draft horse, and they loved the children’s story (different to what you’ll see, but Marilyn did a superb job of cutting it down without cutting it out AND she got participation from the chillums.)

I am going to take the rest of the day off (except for the usual snacks and laundry and whatnot) and fling myself at the novel again starting tomorrow morning.

 

Mist in my vision

The Drop, James Gandolfini’s last performance, was wonderful, a neatly crafted, beautifully shot gangster movie.  Tom Hardy veers between lyrical romance and brute physical menace with such restraint that he can use virtually the same expressions to convey them both.  Noomi Rapace is not quite wasted as the utility grade girlfriend, and my ranting pants are at the dry cleaners so I’ll skip to the next part… it had a good score.

Enjoyed Knights of Badassdom, although the overarching conceit of the movie is that if a woman wants to be a meretricious poser and dump the insanely hot Ryan Kwanten that means she should be transformed into a succubus, tortured and summarily killed while Summer Glau looks fondly on. Boys, take your relationship problems a little further downwind before you next write a script.  Bechdel test oh come on now Allegra you’re being oversensitive.  No, I’m not, and neither do I need to belabour the point.

I LOVED PRIDE.  It was a lovely, cheerful, excruciatingly funny, tear-jerking, heartbreaking YA MY PEOPLE movie, and I wouldn’t change a thing about any of the performances.  The music was so good all I can say is anybody in their twenties when this music was the bee’s knees will think they died and woke up listening to CFNY.

Sue upped and back from church one congregant viz me, plus she brought cookies so bonus hit points for her.  I hope to feast her for her birthday. I love my little church. Marilyn’s been laid low with a cold for two weeks and only just struggled back to civilization, so taking on leading the service was much appreciated given her challenges.

Briefly saw Brooke and her Beancat, whose grasp of rhetorical artifice firms apace, and in whom I see alarming signs of possibly becoming an insanely highpriced lawyer.  Dood be smart.

Back to the grind of a mere 2000 words.  A bagatelle, if you can’t see the anchor tied to my ass!

The title of this post is taken from today’s homily, and is about a beautiful moment, not a sad one.

All is merry and bright

  1. Paul gave me and Jeff motion detector lights; the upgetting to pee is now a lot easier.  Paul’s approach to Christmas gifts is to buy a bag of useful objects and let you pick which one you like – this year the theme was light, so it was headlamp, motion detector light or keychain flashlight.
  2. I was really resentful about ‘having’ to do Christmas dinner, and then I asked myself what it would take to be less resentful.  I immediately thought “If I don’t have to buy the turkey and lug it home!”  To which Paul happily agreed, and Keith lugged it over here.  Resentment vanished, I went to Granville Island with Tammy for the rest of the veg and happily lugged that home.
  3. I made vegan squash soup – there wasn’t enough for everybody and it was damned good.
  4. so much good beer – pumpkin ale, winter ale, shipwreck IPA! Tammy brought some nice wine.
  5. The turkey was good – the meat delicious, the skin like an advertisement – but what was really amazing was the gravy. I ended up eating it cold as a side for leftover pie, and it was SO GOOD.  It was pan dripping gravy.  I stuck the pan drippings in a blender, added a tablespoon of cake flour and about half a cup of milk, blended the shit out of it and then nuked it for a minute.  From such pedestrian beginnings came a voluptuously smooth gravy with a meaty and almost nutty flavour.
  6. Mike and Tammy and Paul and Katie and Keith and I sang and played afterwards, and Alex grooved along.  He really really likes music, and he is most fabulously strong.  He apparently likes his Christmas present, which was a stuffed T Rex. Paul introduced Tammy to Never Set the Cat on Fire, which was wonderful.
  7. Wine was spilled on Granny’s linen tablecloth… horrors! and it came out again the next morning with some Amaze.  Tablecloth is clean, folded and ready for use.
  8. Earlier this week I got the lobster dinner I have been drooling for, except it was lunch, and it was with Tammy, so it was pretty much perfect.
  9. Although the kitchen is once again the habitation of orcs this morning, I HAD cleaned up and ran a dishwasher and got rid of the empties and straightened out the living room the next morning and returned some sanity to the proceedings.
  10. Today I hope to get cat litter.  With two cats, more shit.  It is the law.
  11. Autumn is a boy.  He is now Buster.  Jeff and I are fine with this, but not fine with not noticing earlier.  He will be snipped in a week or so.
  12. He has been to the vet for suturing because he’s already gotten in fights. Margot was disturbed by him before, but with a cone on his head she is Miss Hissy each time he approaches.
  13. I am really enjoying everybody’s pics of how happy their Christmas has been.  The various traditions from around the world and around the various ethnicities of my friends and flist make me happy in their variety and conviviality.
  14. I am sad to have missed Christmas Eve service because it was the last time a certain church member will ever provide music for us, because he is awesome, but also sick.  As sad as I am about this, I made happy memories in my own home with my loves and kin.
  15. Keith was sober, and he was Mom’s taxi.  He: ferried Tammy to and from Edmonds, drove his sister home, drove Rob to Church and drove Mike and his Dad home.  As happy as I was to see Alex, Keith did a lot to make the evening perfect, and I am now considering (which I can do here, since he never reads my blog, haw haw) how I shall appropriately reward him for his service.
  16. A car was stolen from in front of our house at 3:30 am Christmas morning.  I spoke to a Burnaby RCMP officer about it… Jeff and I were asleep at the time, or in no position to see what was happening.  I thanked her for working Christmas Day and wished for her to stay safe out there.
  17. I made chocolate cake.  I am thinking perhaps cinnamon rolls later. The turkey soup is made and in the freezer.

This concludes my report….

Sleepovers and trash

Keith and Paul and Mike dropped by last night for pizza, movies and conversation, and it was wonderful to see them all.

I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life, but picking my friends hasn’t been one of them.

Keith slept over – I put a bunch of Woly shoe creme on his work shoes, which are so trashed by salt water that the leather is starting to come apart in layers. There must be six bucks worth of it on there… I hadn’t even opened it and I’ve had it three years, so I’m glad to be using a resource.

One of my fave Beaconites, Dina Davidson, local midwife extraordinaire, got some press time on her favourite subject.

Katie cut her dad’s hair yesterday.  Given that she and Paul hadn’t spoken in the best part of a month – immediately after the birth of the first grandchild – I will leave you to parse that as best you may.

I am doing coffee at church tomorrow.  I think I’ll make a cake, but make something else to leave here so Jeff doesn’t come looking all expectant with no treats.  So I have to remember to immediately put on bread dough the instant I get up tomorrow, because if I do it today, it will be gone tomorrow. Treat Logistics.

I am learning to my horror that the second section of the book is in disarray, and the timelines are all squidded up, and I appear to have TWICE written the same scene twice without incorporating the necessary elements from the other draft.  It’s ugly and I’m frustrated.  I think I’m going to need another writing week without the siren song of Agents of SHIELD to fix this mess (although we are close to the end LOL) so I’ll be checking in with the mOmster to see when would or might be convenient.  Won’t be until after my homily January 4 though.

Autumn, who may really be Peaches, loves Agent Coulson.  She sits on the back of the sofa and gazes at him adoringly.

I have laundry.  I’m doing it, I’m not digging it.  I have to ditch a whole bunch of my clothes because they are not meeting my needs, but that in itself makes me sad.  I should just take a picture and move on.

I’m also hoping to walk over to 6th and do a mini shop.

We’ll see what happens when Keith gets up… he may want a late brekkie.  I can definitely help out with the coffee.

There’s been an update to wordpress, the engine that runs this blog, and it allows me to have an empty screen when I’m typing, which is actually kind of cool and gives you a nice electronic typewriter feeling.

Haunting

I find this haunting. Someone has tried to reconstruct Babylonian song.

Yesterday I saw Sue in Little Women the Musical.  Unfortunately the book was not as good as the actors and musicians.  Fortunately I was able to argue my points with the actors afterwards without being dishonest or unkind, and it widened into a broader discussion of the challenges and rewards of musical theatre.  Ten years ago I would have said, Oh it was great, it was great.  Now I have the brains to respect people enough to be honest and the social intelligence to be honest without being a cad.

It was in Granville Island.  I had half an hour to Christmas shop.  I got an Alexosaurus (stuffed T Rex) and a kazoo.  Strangely, that is what I wanted.  I have rarely had a briefer and more pleasant Christmas shop.  The weather was crisply glorious and I likely won’t get to Granville Island again until Tammy comes.

Jeff and I walked to IHOP and back for breakfast.  It was very pleasant.

I think Riddle Number II is a cloud.  What do you think?

Work on the trilogy continues. Kima is pregnant – with more than 100 zygotes  by three fathers of two different morphs. This presents any number of social, emotional, physiological and ‘race’ issues.

I had a pleasant recent conversation with Dave JD.  He has joined the ranks of the unemployed.  I tried to get Facetime to reduce the expense of talking to him and repeated and lengthy attempts to purchase it were fruitless.  I really loathe anything to do with Apple customer service.  When I want an Android app or book I press a button, and free or not, it appears on my phone in about five minutes.  (I’m still on the first chapter of the Piketty book -if anyone wants to mock me… go ahead).

I can’t really deal with heeled shoes any more so I took two pairs of Fluevogs into church yesterday (the bus DIDN’T COME at 10:03, or even five minutes earlier according to the guy I ran into so I was 25 minutes late for church, screw you translink).  Anyway the teenaged co-congregant who had admired my steampunky shoes got about 300 dollars worth of footgear in a little bag, and if I did nothing else yesterday I made her very happy.  Her socks MATCHED the second pair of shoes, in a most gratifying way.

How do you detect an extrasolar planet? With objects found in hardware stores and Nikon lenses and software and a little something something to remove blur.

Yesterday morning I awoke to a dream in which Hitler’s mustache was crawling up my door frame.  I woke up for real and spent a disoriented couple of seconds looking for it.  Very odd, and not a little disturbing.

Breakfast of writing champions! Peanut butter cookies warm from the oven and fair trade coffee with real cream.  Ha!

We think Autumn may be knocked up.  It’s always something.

Delightful time

I had a simply wonderful time at the fOlks’.

I made biscotti.  I wrote about 300 new words and deleted about 500 old ones.  mOm and I completely worked our way through the edits for the first 112 manuscript pages.  (She read, I typed…. goes very fast that way).  I plan at least one more pass to ensure that I’ve incorporated all of Diane’s suggestions.  We laughed A LOT and it was like a fantasy come true.  I’m in my favourite room in the whole world WORKING like a RENTED MULE on something that will hopefully make people laugh, think, and maybe if I’m really really really lucky, influence the course of a scientific investigation (the highest praise for SF, screw the awards.  mOm knows I am not in it for fame, or awards.  I’m doing it for her. I’m writing SF for my mother, and so if she likes it (and she does) I’m okay.  (Diane occasionally provided editorial evidence that she was enjoying it.)

I got 600 words into my January homily.

I taught mOm how to cook neeps without them disintegrating.  (Starfit fry cutter and then steam for two-three minutes).  I cooked some beef tenderloin for pOp so that it was neither burned on the outside nor underdone in the middle.

We went to Dan’s, and saw the swans, and the million dollar properties up the hill in Saanich.  I saw Diane and got a sense of when I’ll be able to get the next batch to her. We laughed at the antics of the birds – pogoing Mountain Jays and pugnacious hummingbirds.

I had a dream where I found $50 folded in half and blown up against some weeds on a sidewalk in a town I’ve never been to.

We got a network cable run into the guest bedroom (Alex has already indicated her approval of this message.)  The cable is long enough to run out to the gazebo.  Happy days of writing with the birds, bees and a pan-pipe playing piggy are now in prospect.

We went through mOm’s Narnia-scale wardrobe of fabrics and I got a 25 cm tall stash of various kinds of fabric for baby and steampunk projects.

Katie’s quilt was ready, so I brought it back across the Salish Sea.

It was good and productive and I’ve written 500 words since I got back and tightened up some of Part II.  I am much less afraid of the editing process.  I am not a perfect writer.  Perhaps I shall learn to be a consistent one.

I have the names for all three books now.  Midnite Moving Company will be set in the same universe but about Jesse and Michel.  We see much more of Jesse and Michel in Part II.  Since mOm is eager to read even a messed up first draft of that, I should get on it.

aw naw, snaw

As they say in Aberdeenshire.  We got two inches (5cm) yesterday and then 5 lovely local lads banged on my door and offered to shovel, so right now I am EXCEEDINGLY WELL PLEASED with the youth of Burnaby.  The fact that it was a black kid, a couple of Asian kids and a couple of white kids was the wonderment on top of the pleasedness.

Off to Gadget House tomorrow for a week of writing and making mOm alternately furrow her brow, laugh uproariously and say meep.  What pOp will have to say is anyone’s guess but I’m sure he will enjoy me describing to him what prank Paul intends to play on him the next time he has an overnight in Victoria. (It is a wonderful prank, one of the best, actually, but some preparation is likely required).  I may or may not post so worry not, I’ll be back.

Autumn is lovely, lively, noisy and her farts will bang your olfactory bulb like a big brass gong. Margot only hissed at her WHEN I WAS WATCHING, so I think she’s a little busted up still but will figure out she’s not the only cat anymore soon.  We may have left it a little too long after Eddie died, but I can’t complain with the results.  Autumn is everything we wanted in a cat and has already demonstrated that she is lap ready.

Totally loving the Danish Swedish coproduction The Bridge / Bron / Broen. The plotting is nutso but I love the characters.

Sue’s going to pick me up for church in about 20 minutes so I should fix ma hair and change into church duds. I am bringing biscotti to the church lunch and I plan to charge for them for the coffee fund.

It’s been a week since I saw Alex, sadface, but he’s apparently doing well.

 

Reporting from the front РMarilyn Med̩n

Hi, friends, and some relatives.  This is what I did today. (Thursday November 29th)

Up Burnaby Mountain to The Protest

 

Just go! I thought as I tried to find information about where to go, how much walking, what to expect.  Just show support by arriving … somewhere.  But Burnaby Mountain covers a large area, and if I went up it the way I knew, up to SFU, the only satisfaction I might have would be that I tried.  Not much support for the protest against Kinder Morgan.

After much trial and error I found a map.  Park near Curtis and Ayrshire, and just head UP, and UP, on a paved walkway, across Burnaby Mountain Parkway, and UP a little further to an information tent where you are told where the action is.

I saw Karl Perrin [of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver] at the tent.  I had heard he was arrested the day before.  Was he out already?

The drilling had moved, and the gathering was now down a very steep deeply muddy path, slippery, winding, intersected by thick roots and unexpected holes.  People said it took 10 to 15 minutes to get to the gathering.  It took me at least 30 minutes of hanging on to branches, tree trunks, people. The demographic was young.  A guy tore a dead tree limb from the ground and handed it to me for a walking stick. Everyone wanted to help.

I could hear drumming: the First Nation presence.  Speakers. Singing of an adaptation of We Shall Overcome. 

Sliding, slipping, holding on, I reached a place where I could see the yellow ribbon.  To go past that meant arrest.  Gentle arrest it seemed.  The police were friendly.

Someone was speaking.  She was telling of her arrest the day before.  The police carried her to a van.  Solidarity Notes had been singing, and some of them were arrested at the same time.  There was singing in the van.  Singing again in the room they were taken to, and yet again in individual cells.  Kraft dinner was provided.  She signed a statement. I gather that at that point they were released, with trial was set for January 12th.  That was it.  I could have done that!  But what would the arrest mean?  Would one then be a “person of interest”?  Well, if I could interpret it as interest in not having oil pipelines, in avoiding oil, that would be all right with me.

I headed back up the trail.  Home to wash my mud soaked shoes and pants.  Home to warm up.

 

Marilyn

 

 

PLEASE NOTE COPYRIGHT FOR THE ABOVE POST BELONGS TO MARILYN MEDEN

GLD

The Good Little Dood lived up to his moniker, doing the two things he’s best at, being adorable and farting pretty much continuously.

I held him while the homilist sang Angels Among Us and he smiled at me. He thought very hard about what was appropriate before he unfurled his brow and gave me that “your mirror neurons will go nuts” look.  I suspect he came into the world with a rather solemn but undemanding temperament. Time will tell.

Autumn Cat has landed! Poor Margot.

DSC01373

Yay, it’s an Alexander day!

Alex will be at church with Katie, or so it was arranged and I piously hope will come to pass.  I do coffee today so it’s even money whether or not I get to be upstairs for the homily portion.  Sue is taking me in early and I’ll do an inventory and see if there’s enough of whatnot for coffee etc., then cross the street and pick it up.  Happy daze.  Should be a good homily though. Marilyn asked me to do another homily for January 4 – one of the worst attended days of the year – so I’m going to do what I can to boost the numbers.  If you’re reading this, why not come to church that day!!??

THE GREAT YULETIDE COOKIEPALOOZA happens next Friday.  It will turn into a filk.  A messy messy housefilk, with crumbs and greasy thumbprints on the music.  Yes, indeed.  Thanks to Tom and Peggy for hosting.  We will also have the AMERICAN CONTINGENT, being the uber crafty Jeri-Lynn and the suavely geeky Jeff.  Who are just so awesome.  Cindy and possibly others will attend also.

It’s raining.  After yesterday’s glorious sun (which I got to walk around in, thanks to Paul not understanding that the Brighton Costco parking lot at 11 am is the worst fucking place in the known universe and how long precisely has he been living in Burnaby grumble grumble, but no harm done).  I drove through the parking lot and then drove back to Planet Bachelor and walked home from there, accompanied by Keith who just felt like continuing the conversation, which was pleasant, and made the walk back go in an eyeblink.  I needed the exercise.  I really wanted to pick some stuff up at Costco because there’s some bread there I can’t find anywhere else plus cheap butter and you know, baking, but perhaps I can borrer the car.  Apart from the walk and the abortive Costco trip I basically stayed in bed crying all day, but I’m feeling much better now.  Tammy is coming in December! Conflikt 8 (I can scarcely credit it…) is coming! And I still haven’t registered or figured out how I am getting there.  If I’m staying extra long I may need to like, bus it.  Bleaaugh.

I love my mOm and pOp.  mOm provided the correct stream of unfiltered bubbliness (occasionally going off mike to inform pOp of my responses) to assist with my bad case of the Marthambles – why, she’s better than a dose of Dr. Tufts finest elixir.

Still no cat.  I suspect what has happened is that the daughter has flung herself on the ground and pleaded her mom not to let Autumn go and the mom has been too embarrassed to tell Jeff she’s changed her mind, but perhaps Jeff is right and it’s just taking longer than expected.  Sometimes I think this culture is so indulgent to its children because these are the last good days and everybody’s trying to make them seem extra special.

I removed an incredible amount of hair surplus to requirements from Margot yesterday.  She was not amused.

Day five of Vitamin D, Vitamin C, B6, probiotics and MSM.  I am definitely feeling less achey, except for my hands, which is making me not want to play my Otto.

Jeff’s playing computer games on line with somebody, I assume Andrew – I can hear him talking to somebody on the headset.  “I think we just combined to kill one of our own tanks!” is the latest.

With sadness, I have cancelled the piano lessons.  He wasn’t listening to my course corrections and I’m not paying a man $35 bucks an hour to ignore me when I can have it for free any time I want on the internet.

My most recent painting is an unmitigated disaster.  I am going to paint over it.  I got the colours right but the design has much suckage – I think I’ll paint over it as a zombie heart.

Now to make a chocolate cake for church and figure out what I am going to wear.  And I have to remember to take a tape measure, for I mean to measure some crania, I do, I do, for future hatmaking endeavours.  Hats and spats. Cravats with cats. Fingerless gloves and pleather utility belts. I have to figure out how to make a living, and since there seems to be an inexhaustible interest in the steampunk aesthetic, I shall pursue that hobby for a while.

 

blergh

I have now invested large chunks of many days in a row in Paul and Keith’s move, and I’m finding it rather a trial.  For me a move is something other people get to show up at for one day.  That means you pack everything, etc.

Too much on my plate today – Church, then moving, then cat acquisition, then Katie’s baby shower.  It’s the story of my life, nothing for months and then everything piles up in one day. I have met the cat (her name is Autumn) and she is stunningly gorgeous, exceedingly athletic, and very clever.  Margot’s gonna wonder what hit her if Autumn meets with Jeff’s approval.  She needs to leave where she is because she is one cat surplus to the landpeer’s okay and she really is an outdoor cat, which she can be here, as Miss Margot is an outdoor cat.  She shouldn’t be – you know it and I know it – but she is.

2020 says Autumn was male.

I was hoping to get out for a nice dinner tonight but I will probably curl up in a fetal ball and collapse instead.

My hot water bottle perished and voided itself on me this morning.  I managed not to get any water on my computer or me, by a special mercy of providence.

The nerve of that guy! Jeff won’t take me to breakfast unless I change out of my pjs.  Thank you Jeff for yummy noms.

 

Church & Happiness

Church was very, very good this morning. The homily was on how rationality is not anywhere close to being the most important thing about a person, and how presenting a reasoned argument is no way to win one.    I had a lovely long chat with a newcomer, and did a shop afterward, learning that Halloween candy is GASP 75 percent off.  And Downton Abbey is back so I’m all happy.  I’m happy to hear that Hell on Wheels is getting another season, but they are splitting the air dates out to 2016.  Boo, hiss.  See how frequently my mood swings? My mood swings, let me elucidate their prolix fluency.

The rest of the day included a roast beast dinner and Margot making weird noises and asking prettily for her treat.

I vacuumed the kitchen and washed the rugs, heaven knows they needed it.

No writing today, but much musical noodling.

Margot sad

She isn’t wandering around the house crying, but she’s obviously sad.  She doesn’t even try to resist when I pick her up. Jeff’s on the island.

Church was great yesterday.  Sue gave me a lift to and fro so I helped her set up tables.  Rev Debra’s sermon about Our House (our rental house, but she mentioned that..) was very inspiring, and apart from silent meditation being too short it was a good service.  I cried during Sue’s testimonial.  I never met her equal for being funny and pulling my heartstrings in the same sentence.  I got to talk to Karen, Renée, Glenn, Jean about Jenise’s passing (I bailed or more accurately, quailed, at going to the service but Jean very kindly emailed me to let me know how it was; it was well done and to Jenise’s taste, although I still would have been toast for going), sang my new call to worship for Tom, put tablecloths down (and took them up again) for the coffee hour downstairs.

And watched Dennis make his way to the men’s room.  I didn’t need to help him. He’s 92 and pretty much blind, but one of the great things about Beacon is that it isn’t too badly set up for people with various physical challenges, and he’s just so…. Dennis.  Me Loves Him.  I watched him go along the wall, his white cane tucked into his back pants pocket, because he didn’t need it.  Because it’s His House.  A more beautiful and mundane example of just what the preacher person had been talking about would be hard to conjure.

I know, it’s silly and small, but it just made me feel like the universe was a really good place for about 30 seconds, before I got distracted again.

After I got home I called Rob W to find out how he’s recovering from his knee surgery last week; he’s laid up at his auntie’s place downtown.

Spent most of the afternoon working on Come and Worship on the keyboard, to the point where my SHOULDER started to hurt.  Now I must reset the height of the keyboard so I am in a more relaxed pose at the keys.  I can actually play it in chord mode (there’s only three chords, haw haw) and I am almost to the point where I’m totally keeping the rhythm too.  This will make it much easier to score, too, since there’s a tiny little display on the keyboard which tells you which note on the clef you’re pressing.

Jeff reminded me that it’s garbage day, so I’m off to collect some trash.