blessings

As always, there are worries and fears and aggravations. But there are also pleasures and joys:

One of my favorite older men turned 84 today.

Overheard, from the row behind me:

"Even if we had twelve sopranos, it wouldn't be enough."
"Dayenu!"

My church's Green Team was in charge of our food table today, and someone had supplied extra-garlicky hummus. Oh, bliss.

Catching up with friends Friday night at Siam Cuisine and Saturday night at Margot Cafe. At the Thai place, we shared steam dumplings, spicy eggplant, chicken curry, and chicken pad thai; at Margot's, the BYM tried their sazerac and declared it the best he had had away from The Court of Two Sisters, ordering a second for dessert. The appetizers included fried green tomatoes, chips with aioli, and scallops with mushrooms. Two of the guys ordered chicken breast with dandelion greens (plus other sides), and S. and I both opted for the cotechino sausages (one of the chefs home-cures meat as a hobby) with roasted fennel, white beans and cipolline onions: in essence, it was like a very rich stew, and I only finished half of it (am noshing on the rest right now as part of a late lunch). For dessert, two of the guys split a "Baked Hawaii" (like Baked Alaska, only with a pineapple-sorbet filling instead of ice cream) and I had walnut gelato.

My friend Scott sold eight paintings last week. Woot!

The proposal for updating my church's board + council + committee structure looks really good. (I've chaired the Administration Committee the past three years, and the restructuring is definitely needed.)

From the closing words of today's service: "Liberal theology is not for the faint of heart. It refuses to make our commitments for us, but holds us accountable to the commitments we make." - Paul Rasor

Collected checks from two clients this weekend, and just received the corrected address list I needed from a third. Heigh ho, heigh ho, to ink and nib I go...