Over the Stone

 

I forgot to mention that on Sunday at Pax Christi Church, the singers were unbelievably good. You would think you were listening to a professional group, not a random church choir. Apparently they expected all the congregation to be musically literate as well, because the music for everything we sang was projected onto screens at the front of the church. I didn't care for most of the music, except the psalm setting, which was minor key and had an ethereal descant.

Yesterday was extremely hot. I worked on campus, and since everyone I walk with at lunch was working remotely that day. I just walked in the shade on the third floor and prayed a rosary, until I got too hot and walked around inside. Neither view was very interesting. After work Travalon and I went swimming, and a boy of around seventeen swam under the water toward me. He had the whole width of the pool, but as I moved over, he kept coming toward me, until I was backed up against the edge of the pool. Then he started to come up between my legs, so I did what any normal woman would do - I kicked him, and when he emerged to the side of me, I said, "Jerk!" Now I hold no illusions of being sexy, but this was more of a power thing - despite my being his elder, he wanted to show that he was more important than I am because of his gender. It's an ugly trend I've noticed among young guys, especially in religious circles. This kid obviously didn't expect me to fight back; he meekly said, "Sorry," and left the pool, chastened. I will never back down and allow a man to feel superior to me just because he happened to be born male. That's ridiculous.

Today I worked from home. It was also a very warm day, so during my lunch break I went over to the nearby woods across from the bluff and took a vigorous walk, according to my FitBit. This may have been because I was attempting to avoid the mosquitos. The shade was wonderful, but it always seems to come with bugs, so pick your poison. After work Travalon drove me to Adoration, and as we were heading there, we saw a train on the bridge over Troy Drive. We kept trying to find places to pull over and watch it, but the roads are narrow there, and every place we found, someone came up behind us and we had to move. It was a very short train anyway, and we didn't get a video of it. But Travalon was very happy because he had never seen a train on that bridge.

While I was at Adoration, Travalon walked down to the Union Terrace and saw this coot very close up.

You can see that it's a cousin of the gallinule. He came back and drove me to St. Andrew's, the little Episcopal church on Regent Street that often hosts early music concerts. Tonight a local recorder ensemble played mostly folk music; I was invited by one of the recorder players, a former choir buddy who now sings in the choir at that church. Pete the Sailor Man came too, and afterwards we all went downstairs for ice cream sundaes: Pete, the choir buddy, her husband, and eventually my husband too. This was all free. The concert was enjoyable, and while they are definitely an amateur group, the pleasant sound of the recorder forgives a lot of sins. My favorite was a Welsh tune called "Tros Y Garreg," which Google Translate says means "Over the Stone," but I also enjoyed a tango called "La Paloma," which I don't need Google Translate to tell me means "the dove" in Spanish. One of the recorder players put down her recorder and played the maracas for that one. A lot of people think of the recorder as a simple instrument used to teach children music, but I am in awe of really good recorder players, who will say things to each other like, "Play this piece on a soprano but use alto fingering," and they seem to be able to read every clef. At one point I could kind of play the alto recorder, but that was years ago. I also used to be able to drive stick shift, but if I were called on to do either thing today, you probably wouldn't enjoy the results. 

Famous Hat