Rats!

I am posting this early because if I don’t get it done before 7 PM, it shows up with the tomorrow’s date on it.

Yesterday was Pentecost, which is always fun at our church. The service booklet is printed out in two columns, one English and the other whatever. The first lesson was read in Swahili, and the second in Hindi. The Epistle was done in Japanese (we don’t have two people who speak the same language, so we just skip the psalm), then I sang the first verse of the gradual hymn in Cherokee. Fr. Matthew read the Gospel in Italian (He says good news always sounds better in Italian – but then, so does bad news.) and I did the second verse of the gradual hymn. The sermon was in English – aha! – and then the Prayers were done in Spanish. The anthem was a Zulu hymn, and the Lord’s Prayer was read in Danish, German, and English.

Anyway, you don’t often get Episcopalians speaking in tongues, and I don’t think any other parish in the diocese does this.

Good old Don called Saturday to say he would be down yesterday morning. The Squire told him we go to church on Sundays, and please come after 1 PM. I don’t suppose it would surprise anybody if I told you he never showed up at all. Lowe’s called us not too long after we got home to say the new dishwasher is in. We could come get it, or they would call back to arrange delivery today – for free. They called about 9 PM, and the dishwasher arrived at 1:00 today. The delivery man carried the dishwasher all the way down the driveway on his back all! Our drive is the better part of a tenth of a mile! And then he carried off the old machine the same way. The Squire will start that tomorrow.

When the fellows from Sears dismantled the stove base, the pipe to the cook top was damaged. The Squire got the cook top back in place, but we can’t use it because gas is leaking; could be the pipe is indeed damaged, or just that a connection is loose. At any rate, it’s a job for a professional. The Squire called the Gas and Electric company this morning, and the soonest they can get here is Wednesday.

This all might make a lot more sense if I explained that we have a gas stove top, and an electric wall oven, which belongs in the currently disassembled pantry. Heaven only knows when THAT will get put back together. We wanted to replace the oven with a self-cleaning model, but I could have gotten an entire new stove for less than they want just for the oven. Don’t ask me to explain it.  At the moment, I’d be content to have running water and my gas stove.

We are leaving here very shortly to go to the viewing for our grandson’s father-in-law.  Eldest daughter recommended we go between 3 and 5, because the later viewing (I keep wanting to say “late service”) will be crowded; they are having a Coast Guard ceremony, and chances are they will do Eternal Father. We followed my dad’s coffin into the cemetery to that hymn, and fourteen years later I still come unglued every time I hear it.

We have discovered that the sound of nails being pulled out of the wall makes the lady who lives in the alarm system say “Kitchen glass break alert”. Between hearing that a thousand times, and her constantly telling us the kitchen door is open, I’m even farther along the road to insanity than I was before. I think she’s the sister of the lady who lives inside the GPS and keeps saying “recalculating, recalculating”.

Because I bake a lot, I buy my flour ten to fifteen pounds at a time. I keep it in a well-scrubbed kitty litter bucket under the cook top, and stack my frying pans on top, out of sight. When we dragged everything out of the kitchen, the bucket ended up on top of a pile of stuff – I think maybe the old base to the cook top. Because the top wasn’t pushed down tight, the raccoon decided last night to see if the flour was edible, so I woke up this morning to find flour all over the carport, and the bucket knocked over. Apparently, the silly thing fell in head first, and then shook himself and sent flour flying.

Some days, all you can do is laugh.

The Squire went out to get the mail while I was taking my nap, and asked me if tulips ever had anomalies. He showed me this picture; the foliage certainly does resemble tulips leaves, but I had to tell him it wasn’t an anomaly, it was an allium.

I really do love that man!