So, Pale Male has a standing invitation to join him at Dive Bar following Bible class on Wednesday evenings. Today, we were joined by someone new to the congregation, a friend of the teacher named, Mike. Mike is a mathematician with a gig in the near future teaching statistics to a bunch of Columbia business school students. About half-way through ( Read more... )

I hosted my first Super Bowl watch party in seven six years last Sunday and, I have to say, it fired on all pistons. It helped that Ruth made a return visit to Brooklyn and, just like the last time, she was probably the most well-informed person in the room.  Pale Male joined us, and by virtue of his presence, doubled the attendance from last time ( Read more... )

It's been almost two weeks since my prostate was removed and the second worst week of my life commenced. Only Pale Male and Cody knew anything about it. Haven't even told Big Bro' and Sis. What would have been the point? I was in the hospital exactly one night and it wasn't worth the logistics involved in getting three elderly people (including my ( Read more... )

Yesterday was a good day. The travel gods delivered me to church in plenty of time despite the weekend subway changes. There was a man with a deep, baritone voice seated in the pew behind me, so it was nice to have someone else singing besides me. I was looking forward to going to Dive Bar afterward with Pale male, but we all got the surprise of ( Read more... )

Holy Week has come and gone and I have to confess (no pun intended) that it ended almost literally with a whimper. I volunteered to come in the Monday evening after Palm Sunday in order to do the Intercession prayer. It was a simple, stripped down service adhering closely to the Book of Common Prayer and very much like Morning Prayer, held in the ( Read more... )

This was another early morning dash to the Upper West Side, hoping that the subways system would hew to a half-way predictable weekend schedule. Miraculously, it did and I landed in one of the back pews at Si. Mike's even before the CrossTeam had assembled. Join Us beckoned me to move my seat further to the front, but I had a small agenda in mind. ( Read more... )

Back at the beginning of the month, Pale Male played hooky from work and we headed out to Queens - of all places - for a nature walk. It turns out that the grounds around the old Jamaica High School complex mark the place where a continental movement of polar driven ice came to a stop a gazillion years ago (y'all can look up the exact years ( Read more... )

Despite everything, I found myself spending a good deal of the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday secretly bemoaning the fact that the Mass received what I considered short-shrift in Mr. K's blog a day or two later. It was puzzling because he tarried far longer after the so-called, "Postlude" than I'd ever seen him ( Read more... )

I haven't had one f these dreams in a while, the Make-Believe-Friend dream, he kind of dream that cobbles together a bunch of aspects fro differfent people in the real-world, into a single amalgam. I had them frequently when Crosby was younger. I don't thnk I had them at all during the pandemic. And, certainly not since I started raising fish ( Read more... )

So, it is my understanding that, if we are talking about "Christ the King", then it must be the end of the Church calendar year; it means, next week we start all the way from the beginning with Advent. Oh, yes. the Advent candle. It all comes back to me ( Read more... )