Had a nice Skype chat with Sarah in England yesterday. Eileen did most of the talking. I dozed in a nearby chair and listened in, occasionally chiming in with comments.
Church went well yesterday. Since I use this blog to vent my inner thoughts, it probably seems like I’m sort of a gloomy gus in real life. I don’t think this is so. Activating groups of people like congregations and choirs takes energy. I almost always rise to this kind of thing.
My piano trio did a lovely job on the Gershwin piece. The added carols for the lessons and carols went well. The choir anthems came off well especially the one we had prepared for the day which combined the melodies of “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” and “Lo, How a Rose.” The fiddle tune rendition of Psalm 24 with which we began communion was kind of cool. We finished off with a closing hymn that combined the tune of “Good Kind Wenceslas” and a text about Mary, Joseph and Elizabeth. The Andrea Gabrielli postlude which sort of mimicked the first few notes of the closing hymn tune went fine.
One parishioner told me that he had a friend who was an “Organist-Choirmaster.” This is the old Anglican lingo. It’s almost as though part of the ethos was dressing up in cool robes and calling yourself by cool titles appealed to the people involved (sarcasm).
This guy would always schedule the Sunday after Christmas off because he found the Christmas season so draining. I sympathize.
Mine isn’t that bad. But I did tell the man relaying this story that I crash on Mondays each week but can usually find the energy for the Sunday after Christmas.
I’m working my way through the NYT annual Ideas of the Year Magazine (link)
Since I have been an avid reader of the NYT for years I’m pretty sure I haven’t missed one of these. I usually read through them and share with Eileen the ones I think she might be interested in.
So far I thought that these were pretty cool:
This is a video of Chen Jianjun’s idea of a train that doesn’t have to stop to get passengers. Money and time saver.
I also liked the improved wind power machine that Cornell U is working on:
[Link to article I googled on this]
Eileen has today off. It’s her Christmas time off work since she is already scheduled to be off on Saturday. We plan to try and get a package off to England for our family branch over there. Also romantically plan to go over submitting receipts to her Flex plan at work so that we can get reimbursed and then spend that money on more health care stuff (both of our teeth and other upcoming fun stuff).
Finished this book last night:
I like Martin Amis usually. But this book felt contrived. He does language well. But the plot wasn’t that strong. Maybe I just had trouble with the contemporary Brit slang.
Started this book:
I interlibrary loaned it. I was wondering what the series was like. Got sucked in.
Also today we go looking for a Christmas tree.
We have always put up our tree later than other people.
Part of this was due to my stubborn resistance to early commercialization and also having a brain dead liturgical notion that it’s not Christmas, it’s Advent.
Now I could give a fuck. I just haven’t gotten around to it.
As usual we wonder if we can find a tree at this late date. For most people around here (both merchants and religious types) Christmas is practically over by now.
