Saturday wrap-up

Things got a little better today after this morning's bad start:

1. The furnace seems to be working now. The house is gradually crawling back towards 70 degrees. It was strange to pull pots out of the lazy susan and find that they were nearly ice-cold - they seemed to be colder than everything else in the house.

2. Mass (for my father) was nice. But someone decided to bring a squalling child into the choir loft. Unfortunately, this person also took a let-them-get-it-out-of-their-system approach to child behavior, which meant the entire congregation was treated to their child's screaming and repetitive thumping for much of the Mass as broadcast from a part of the church from which sounds are actually meant to carry very well.

3. My cousin's three-year-old daughter was there, and she was a perfect angel. She whispered whenever she needed to talk during the Mass, and as the congregation was dispersing after the Mass had ended she asked, with obvious glee, "Can we talk loud now?"

4. Since our church's manger scene is being dismantled later this week we took my cousin's daughter down to see it, to see the camel and the moo-cow with horns and the baby Jesus and the man with the beard like daddy and the bald head like Pop-Pop and the wooly sheep and the other little sheep that appeared to have found, somewhere, a bunch of bananas. (It might have been supposed to be a bale of hay.) After that we left through the church's side entrance and saw a real live bunny rabbit.

5. The Earth's axial tilt (the true reason for the season) is currently oriented so that the sun is setting later and later in the Northern Hemisphere. So my mom and I were able to stop at the cemetery before it was too dark. (It was already full dark when we got there, but we still had a half-hour before the gates were locked.)

6. After the cemetery I took my mom to one of the local Kmarts to pick up plastic storage boxes and any deep-discounted Christmas decorations that we found worthwhile.

7. On the way home the "Check Engine" light in my mom's car (we usually use her car when I drive her anywhere, since it's more comfortable for her) came on. Oh well.

8. I managed to pick up the scattered books and magazines and catalogs from my bathroom floor. Most of these are in temporary locations right now, but I can deal with this later.

All in all, not too bad. If the furnace makes it through the night I'll be glad.