Eileen’s train left an hour late this morning. She was on her way to O’Hare in Chicago. But the delay was long enough that she had to rebook a flight to China for tomorrow. She is staying in a motel near the airport. I was sorry to see her go. She is such a good companion for me. I don’t dread being alone, but I do know that I am already missing her.

I had an appointment to see Dr. Howell, my hand guy, today. This morning the driving was very messy. Heavy wet snow. I went directly from seeing Eileen off to find the hand doctor’s office. I got there with thirty minutes to spare so I went to Panera to grab some breakfast. This is the second time I have gone to this Panera where a person behind the counter seemed unfriendly to me. Weird. Nevertheless she sold me some food and charged me to fill my thermos with coffee.

The appointment today was initiated by Doctor Howell’s office. He said my hands looked like they had changed little. One degree he said. I said out of how many degrees. He said that he had determined my dupuytren’s contracture was from 10 to 15 degrees.

It’s been nine months since he first saw me. I made an appointment to go back in nine months. This time, he told me, if I didn’t think it had changed much I could call and cancel that appointment

I came home and waited until about 10 AM. Then I went and said hi to my Mom. I dropped off the car at OK Tires to be serviced. It needs a tune up, oil change, and the windshield wiper liquid reservoir leaks so fast as to render that whole system unusable. Plus there are a bunch of idiot lights that are on. Since the onset of car computers, I don’t think these lights aren’t the dire thing they used to be. Maybe there’s a better name than “idiot lights” in that case.

Anyway, my right leg muscle started hurting last night. I did some stretches today. I will be car-less for a couple of days and walking everywhere. I limped from Ok Tires to the church to do some work. I wanted to choose some organ music for upcoming Sundays. I landed on “Wondrous Love: Five Variations for Organ” by Pinkham for the prelude. And a fun arrangement of “I’ve just come from the fountain” by Richard Billingham.

I decided we should sing this song as our second communion hymn Sunday. I plan to do a little research about the words before then. “Class leader, do you love Jesus?” “Zidh’ elder, do you love Jesus?” Not sure what these mean exactly. The first is probably Sunday School class leader. Hopefully a little poking around and I’ll figure it out.

Then I pushed ahead and decided the next week, I would play a piece by Lynn Trapp, a guy I went to school with based on the song, Pescador, “You who came down to the seashore.” I think the Episcopalian version of this song is weaker  than the Oregon Catholic Press one. Even the Spanish is different and not in a good way. But it is a strong little song about the gospel and Lynn did a good job of making an organ piece out of it. I decided to do a postlude by Buxtehude. His Ciacone in E minor sparked my imagination and I spent some time on it today. It will make a cool postlude that day.

I like the way this guy plays it.

Plus he looks like a young version of me a little bit (who plays a lot better). What’s not to like? He even has a crumpled look I can relate to. Maybe there’s hope for the young generation, after all.

I then limped home for lunch. I have to go back this evening for a Worship Commission meeting. I’m planning to walk. The sun is out now and the temps are rising this week.