It was just me and My Teacher in church this morning but that was okay. "Wherever two or more are gathered." Two is a congregation. One alone (as I was the week before last) is just a pathetic, sole priest who has to find a place to go to church and struggle to avoid "go eat worms" depression. It was good to have company and celebrate the liturgy this morning, even as half of a duo. A duo will do? Oh...

So, now I'm home alone. Dr. Strange is at one of the other churches on his circuit of places he attends when not with my parish. When he gets home I'll ask him, "Where did you go?" (Meaning, "which church did you attend?") and he'll say, "Church." Such are the strange ways of Dr. Strange, who manages to reveal very little, even when asked a plain, direct question. After 14 years with him, I'm used to that.

No other news, so...

Sunday blessings and well-wishes,

Rev. Thalia

Here in NYC, we've really been water-logged for the last couple of days. After dinner last night, we drove to Mamaroneck, where we discovered that they were still planning to have fireworks despite rain, but we couldn't find a single spot to park the car within a mile of them. So...we drove back to the city and invited Othello back up to our place, where we spent a patriotic 4th of July night watching "Beverly Hillbillies" DVDs.

Today, we decided to go to the Bronx Zoo despite the fact the the Weather Wizards were predicting lots more rain. It wasn't (yet) raining when we left this morning and we actually managed a rain-free 90 minutes or so, during which we paid (respectful) respects to the lemurs in the Madagascar exhibit. Among the other fascinating creatures were zebras (I overheard a British mum speaking to her son, and pronouncing the word "zehbra" as in rhymes with "Debra." She said, "Look at the zehbra's great bug bum. It's even bigger than mine!") We also saw some gorgeous snow leopards and learned that snow leopards have thick tufts of fur between their toes, which muffle their footseps so they can stalk prey stealthily. I thought that odd because we've always noticed the fact that our Dot has thick tufts of fur between HER toes but they do nothing at all to muffle her steps. Far from walking "like the fog on little cat feet," our large, sproingy Dot galumphs on large cat feet, so loudly that our downstairs neighbors probably think we have a three year old child...a fat three year old child...

It was raining very hard by the time we were ready to leave and we had a LONG walk to the parking lot. Everyone seemed to be trying to make a quick exit from the zoo, even though the Bronx Zoo is so huge, that's just not possible. If you go there, you must be prepared for a major hike. I'd promised Dr. Strange that I wouldn't kvetch if it rained, though, so I didn't. And it was nice to see the ducks looking so happy. As we walked on the path to the parking lot, three very jolly, soggy ducks emerged from the pond and seemed to be doing a celebratory dance in the mud! My umbrella broke fairly early on, so we got home quite chilled and soggy, with no plans to go out again (until time for church tomorrow.)

So, that's been my jolly holiday weekend so far. I hope y'all are having fun and send my usual...

Blessings and well-wishes,

Rev. Thalia

The "adventure" with "Alice" and her parents, yesterday, turned out to be afternoon tea at an Alice-in-Wonderland themed tea shop, around the corner from her acting school. I'd walked by the place many times before (with Alice and by myself) but never gone in. It was lovely; classy and whimsical at the same time. Unfortunately (from my odd point of view) there was no dormouse sleeping in the tea pot. It was all much more dignified than the Mad Hatter version. Very nice anyway! High Tea is, of course, nothing but carbs and the sort of food I almost never eat but, since it was literally a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, I ordered myself not to be orthorexic, and just enjoy it. That I did, though of course there was an undercurrent of sadness to the whole afternoon. After Tea, Alice's Dad had to leave but I went with Alice and her Mom to the mini park we'd de-littered on Tuesday. It was till pretty clean and very peaceful. We lounged and talked there for a while; then I went home with the two of them to give their goofy little dog a goodbye snuggle (Alice thought that was very important) and so I could collect the gift she's made for me (a lovely, shiny green, miniature pillow. I'll have to be very careful with it since it's the sort of thing that's tempting to cat claws).

So, now she's off on her summer adventures and I'm back to school work, church work, theater company stuff; job hunting etc. It's been such a quick four years with her...but at the same time it feels like picking her up from school is just part of my life. It will be weird, come September, to think of her resuming school without me. I'm sure I'll get plenty of reports, though. And she has been so sympathetic and interested in my own academic endeavors. She insisted that I must email her and let her know my grade on the math final, when I get it!

This evening, Dr. Strange and I will be meeting Othello for dinner at an Italian restaurant in the 'hood. Afterward, we plan to drive to Mamaroneck (suburbs being much more pleasant than NYC for this purpose) and watch fireworks together, if they're not rained-out. It seems likely that they will be, though. It's been raining for most of this morning and the Wizards predict rain for pretty much the whole weekend. Very frustrating. Especially since we also have (now tentative) outdoorsy plans for tomorrow. We want to go to the Bronx Zoo and see the new Madagascar exhibit (yay, lemurs!) but might have to postpone that as well. This is being a really rainy summer so far, and I'm getting very impatient, though I know the rain is needed.

So, I hope y'all are having happy days and that at least some are in places with better weather for festivity (I know My Mama is, anyway).

Blessings and well-wishes as ever,

Rev. Thalia

Wow. I was working on my homily (for July 13th at the Village Church) and actually lost track of time. It's 11:15 and I'm not even dressed yet! I think it was because I got so immersed in the story I was telling. Something inspiring that happened with one of the children I used to teach. Toward the end, I was actually crying as I wrote! (I'm not finished the whole homily yet but that section of it is done). Anyway, I guess I'm predisposed to getting emotional about kids, since this will be my last "official" day with "Alice."

Before going to Alice, though, I have to do Hippolyta's mail and also pick up my new glasses from Cohen's. So, I WILL get dressed now.

Oh. One bit of hopeful news. I have another job interview this coming Tuesday. An after school center on the Upper East Side responded to a resume I'd sent them a couple of weeks ago. I'm being considered as an arts specialist in the three subjects I've taught for after school programs in the past: acting, dance (ballet and jazz) and creative writing. I would, of course, be very glad to teach any or all of those things to children again (though I have to work on getting myself back in practice if I'm going to teach dance, after so many years away from it). Wish me luck, y'all. And I'll remind the Praying Sorts that I need their help, come Tuesday.

Your lazy bum homilist is going out in the world now.

Blessings and well-wishes as always,

Rev. Thalia

LARGE (happy) SIGH. I just got back from Manhattan Cat Lady's place. Third semester finals are done. The math part was actually less difficult than I'd expected it to be and I'm confident that I passed (most likely with a pretty decent score). Whew!

As aforementioned, we had a coffee table liturgy before I sat down to do my exams. We cleared all the communion stuff off the table afterward, to make room for my papers, but left MCL's small Theotokos icon siting there, "to keep an eye on me." I don't doubt that she did!

Tomorrow is my very last day of being "Alice's body guard" but I won't really be on duty. Her parents will be meeting me at her day camp and we're all going to have "an adventure" , to celebrate our four years and just have quality time together. I don't know where we're going to go or what we'll do. It's all a great, big surprise (with Alice enjoying the process of keeping me in suspense). Anyway, I'm sure it will be fun and also bittersweet, even though we'll still be in touch and see each other once in a while. It won't be the same. We know that. Well, y'all know I've always said the only bad thing about working with children is the inevitable endings...

In a couple of hours I'll be heading downtown to meet Lady Lucia for dinner at The Usual Diner. As always (we manage these shop-talk/social dinners together a few times a year) I look forward to that, very much.

Thanks for putting up with me while I put up with college math! You'll probably hear about it one more time (when I get my grades for the finals) and then it will really be all OVER.

I do have four more courses to take, to complete the Associates, and one more set of proctored finals. My next course will be "The Exceptional Child." I'm actually not sure whether that refers to children with disabilities, gifted and talented children, or both kinds of "exceptional." Either way, it should be interesting.

The one not-so-nice thing that happened at today's exam session was that Manhattan Cat Lady told me she's not doing as well, financially, as she had been doing. Some of her investments have lost major money in the last year. She was very apologetic about not being able to help me with tuition anymore (the tuition for my Ashworth Associates degree is all paid up) and I was embarassed that she was apologetic, assuring her, over and over again, that she had already helped me so much and there was no need to apologize for not being able to help even more...

Yes, her help made a huge difference. I do want to continue my education beyond the Associates degree and I'm not sure how I'll manage to afford it. I might have to take some time off before resuming, while I look for other ways to scrape the money together. But it's not her responsibility and she shouldn't feel bad, when she's already been so generous. I do hope I got that message across, in a way that she could really understand and believe!

Blessings and well-wishes of a warm, wondrous Wednesday,

Rev. Thalia