Hail Bright Cecilia

St. Cecilia window in the Gallery

Lots to give thanks for today as I head over to Forest Hills for dinner with Laurie and the gang. It's a beautiful, balmy day here in Gotham and things are shaping up for this Sunday's Feast of Christ the King and then at 4pm the Institution of our new Rector, with Bishop Sisk presiding and celebrating. I do hope we manage to get through the weekend without another pipe bursting (thankfully that pipe behind the altar was a replaceable link) or another geyser erupting as it did a couple of weeks ago on Sunday morning in the downstairs bathroom. We were having coffee hour in the Sunday School room because of the massive Saturday night knockdown of vermin that had left the air in the undercroft quite unpleasant. Someone noticed a stream of water issuing from under the bathroom door and I went in to see what looked like a scene from a horror movie, with the water gushing out of the sink but no taps turned on. Luckily it was just a clogged drain which the Sunday sacristy washing finally overloaded, but I had to deal with cleaning that up, finding a plumber and also making sure everything that had been taken out of the cabinets was put back before AA arrived in the evening. Gilberto and I spent the afternoon after brunch at Dean's putting away as much as we could before we got rather ill from breathing the sickeningly sweet minty roach spray that lingered in the air.

As fate would have it, the Health Department showed up to inspect the soup kitchen that Saturday afternoon before the extermination and were quite appalled at the number of roaches openly cavorting in the kitchen while food was being prepared. There were even roaches in the refrigerator, not to mention mouse droppings by the stove. We were given two weeks to improve ourselves so we have to deal with that this weekend also along with putting up the throne and trying to repair the canopy enough to use on Sunday.

More later...