Friday

  • Customary early-AM routine,
  • Traded emails with the rector of the host parish for next month's annual synod, mostly pertaining to worship details.
  • Edited, refined, printed, and scheduled for posting my homily for this Sunday (St George's, Belleville). The "printed" part of that sequence turned into a black hole, however, as I got sucked into technology hell trying to work out a relatively small kink. I failed, and had to eventually settle for the output I had. 'Twill serve.
  • Then, as I was returning to the apartment after placing the sermon text in the back seat of my car, as is my habit, I noticed a non-domestic mammal scurrying across the kitchen floor. We've had escalating rat sighting in the basement and the back stairwell of late, and were taking appropriate measures, but having one in our living space is another matter entirely. It consumed our attention for quite some time. We made some calls and arranged for an exterminator to come by "sometime after 3pm." We regretted no longer having a cat living with us.
  • So ... while we waited:
  • Lunched on some chicken taquitos that were in the freezer, purchased for just such as contingency as this.
  • Wrote a "friendly" email to the Eucharistic Communities of the diocese that have not yet turned in a Mission Strategy Report for 2019 (which is more than half of them).
  • Corresponded with the co-chairs of the Department of Mission about related matters.
  • Completed a review of my own ministry, using the same instrument that others have been asked to complete about said ministry.
  • Carefully read another in the catechetical pamphlet series from the Living Church Foundation. Two more to go.
  • Welcomed the exterminator, finally, at 4:45. He placed a couple of pro-grade traps in some strategic areas and carefully searched for the intruder, finding nothing. I'm choosing to believe the varmint got out the back door while we left it open all afternoon trying to create that very possibility.
  • Still feeling kind of traumatized, we let Evening Prayer slip through the cracks. Brenda and I ended up walking out for some Indian food. We returned feeling rather better.

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