The Crimson Rambler

of Robert Wolfall, vicar of West Harptree, Somerset, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, who on this date celebrated the mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection in the rite of Holy Communion on Winter Furnace Island, just off Baffin Island, in the Canadian Arctic.

Vicar Wolfall was chaplain to the third voyage of Martin Frobisher to the Arctic.

This celebration was the first Anglican Eucharist on Canadian soil...

A very therapeutic Monday I spent...

Nearly all of it recumbent, either [re]reading Julia Spencer Fleming or watching NCIS, or sometimes in my ambitious moments, both.

Ready for the new week, and greatly relishing all the very good things that have happened amid the chaos and Anfechtungen of the last week.

Appearances on Sunday by a) clergy colleagues on vacation; and b) adult children of clergy colleagues...I find that so affirming...especially a comment by the latter..."Oh wow, as soon as Dad retires, we'll be here full-time; and we're bringing Dad, too..."

Dear good thirty-year friends are coming by in half an hour to take me for lunch also.

And thank YOU to the Gals'n'Pals for all the "stren'thening remarks" you posted on the blog since Saturday. I do feel greatly "stren'thened."

Discouragement is of the devil, always, and without exception -- right?

All right darlings, thank you for your kind and affectionate remarks on yesterday's disasters...

I am happy to say that things are better. Or perhaps, as they used to say where I grew up, "Pas trop pire" -- "not too worse." (Very Canadian, that.)

Daughter Unit and Wonderful SIL drove back to my house and collected spare car keys and brought them to me at MH & U, and I went home, abandoning the Monteverdi concert because I was just so sad and disgusted, and also apprehensive that whoever had stolen the handbag would put driver's license and keys together and get into my house in my absence.

And I was thinking with much chagrin and reluctance that I was going to have to get both house and car "re-keyed," and probably do something about changing church locks...and get new cards for vehicle registration and vehicle insurance, as well as driver's licence

And then the sad broke out in a new place when I reflected that my handbag also contained my journal, AND the most excellent fountain pen that I bought in Rome at the Cartoleria behind the Pantheon (wail softly), AND my most excellent pocket knife that I bought at the Visitors' Centre at Agawa Bay...

So I was in full pity-party mode at home, when the phone rang...and it was Daughter Unit...two of the young ladies in the visiting choir had been attending to their pre-concert needs in the women's washroom when one asked the other, "What's the priest's name, in this church? Cuz I think I've just found her purse..."

And except for the wallet -- money, credit cards, and driver's licence...the contents were all present and accounted for. ALL my keys and the fob that lets me into the church, and my registration and my insurance, and my cheques...altho' I'd already closed both those bank accounts.

It has just lightened the psychic load immeasurably.

Thank God, thank God.

And today hasn't been too bad at all. I fell asleep early, got up and sermonized between midnight and three, slept some more...

There is a golden wedding party here this afternoon and after that I am going home to have a nice, quiet evening, and tomorrow an altogether quiet day...

And then Tuesday, frontal assault on the financial institutions and the motor association!!!

And some new protocols and procedures for financial management including cash under the mattress!!!

I do wish y'all a most happy and restful Labo[u]r Day.

So this was one of those maniacal, super-maniacal weekends: funeral yesterday, with a reception, long unbloggable story attached to that.

Then a wedding rehearsal -- at 7:30, why did I ever agree to such a late one? -- with musicians practising for a recital a week hence right until the very last minute. About 50 people turned up for the rehearsal, some of them even on time. It was basically our modern-language wedding service, with South-East Asian cultural embellishments. After an hour and a quarter of rehearsal, "Oh, we forgot the candle part, we have to do that too..." An inter-cultural compromise of sorts is forged.

Meantime our new cleaning persons had decided this would be the week they would strip and resurface the Upper Hall floor, assuring one and all that it could be accomplished in the twinkling of an eye.

Well, no, because the scratches and gouges turned out to be much deeper than they thought, and long ineffably boring story made short, it meant that TODAY, with this very large wedding at 12:30, they had to resort to the old-fashioned drum sander...so the Upper Hall is off limits, and the upper corridor is impassible with stacked furniture, and everything, but everything is covered in sander-dust.

Picture, if you will, a bridegroom and four groomsmen in black suits. Yes.

In the meantime there are complications with the wedding families' post-wedding lunch set-up in the Lower Hall;

And just to keep the pot a-boiling, visiting choir is in intense rehearsal mode for their Monteverdi concert tonight.

They swoop back into the church as the last notes of Mendelssohn are dying away, neck and neck with the Altar Guild who need to change all the paraments back to GREEN; for tomorrow...and here come the wedding party, "it's too blusterous out there to take pictures, can we take them in the church???" Halt the taking down of white hangings.

And somewhere in all this FUN...the Rambler's handbag went out of her office. Yes. Again. This time with ALL its contents. Some of them valuable and some of them precious.

I'm tired of this, tired of this work, tired of this place, and frankly, tired of these people. I'm going home.

How the Omnivore's 100 works:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I'm going to put these in double brackets[[]] because I don't think Blogger supports strikethroughs).

4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

MY OMNIVORE'S 100
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PBJ sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes It was made from saskatoon berries...yummmmmmm.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. [[Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper]]
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac [[with a fat cigar]]
37. Clotted Cream Tea
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (assuming oxtail soup counts)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. [[Fugu]]
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV )
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (making sure readers know this is not BREAD) And oh MAN are they good; lamb sweetbreads that is.
63. kaolin - (as in Kaopectate)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain -- I don't suppose that Bananas Foster count here?
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

With thanks to Singing Owl, over at RevGalBlogPals, we have a Friday Five on the subject of Labor Day. Or, if you prefer, Labour Day. And we do. Prefer. (It's one of those Canadian things.)

1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.

Well...there was a certain amount of merry "Let's all go and shovel out the sheep barn" activity in the first couple of years of my married life. My mother-in-law had a flock of sheep. It wasn't a job exactly.
On another plane, although shovelling was also involved, I was a marker-of-freshman-essays for about 10 years at Colourful U. That was frustrating...I kept thinking (wrongly) "If only I could get into the classroom, I could EXPLAIN these matters and then THEY WOULD UNDERSTAND."

2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.

Well...other than this one...there was my curacy at 'Tother Purty Church in Town; and there was the "adjunct faculty" position at seminary which gave me an office and faculty privileges while I was still a student, also an honorarium, in exchange for a 3 credit English course every year. That one was definitely full of joy. I could assign all kinds of reading without having to begin by fist-fighting the students over the Basic Assumptions, e.g. Christianity...

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.

I guess it would be, would have to be...... THIS. Or possibly, THIS, in a different geography...with more pointy bits and more water.

4. Did you get a break from labo[u]r this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?

Yes...eight days driving about in Adjacent Province; a flying visit to Big Fat Eastern Province for a family gathering; a "working break" at a church conference centre in Adjacent Province. And so far that's it. Not enough. And no, I DON'T know what I'm going to do about it.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?

Everybody chirps brightly about "when things pick up in September" and frankly, my heart quails as I have been running flat out, just ahead of the wolfpack, all summer.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labo[u]r and delivery (LOL)? If you are a guy pal, not a mom, or you choose not to answer the above, is there a song, a book, a play, that says "workplace" to you?

I can't tell L and D stories here, my offspring read this blog. Workplace songs, h'm -- "Sixteen Tons"???

I have realized that not everybody even in the notably well-informed and aware world of bloggery recognizes everything that "Canajuns" refer to as a matter of course.

So today's post is designed to clarify what is meant by the term, "TIM HORTON'S" -- the informal variant is "TIM'S."

Tim Horton's is a widely-franchised and very successful Canadian coffee and doughnut shop. The eponymous Tim Horton was -- I think it's fair to say, and if it isn't, my sports-mad offspring will correct me, publicly -- a journeyman player in the National Hockey League. Competent, but not particularly illustrious.

In his retirement, "life after hockey," Mr. Horton went into the retail doughnut business. There are now branches of this franchise from sea to shining sea (and from the River even unto the ends of the earth). Also in Afghanistan; the young men and women of the Canadian Forces overseas have to have their Tim's.

This ain't Starbucks. There is one flavour of coffee (decaf is available). There is tea, also one flavour thereof; much is made of it's being "steeped" (think, "properly made"). There are doughnuts. There are muffins. Of late there are bagels, and even cookies, danishes, croissants, fritters and so forth. In season, there are fresh strawberry tarts. Year-round, there are "Timbits" = "doughnut holes."*

There is a small lunch-ish menu; varieties of soup and sandwiches, not too exotic but quite good and modestly priced. I believe there is chili, from time to time.

One other thing, from time to time during the year there is a Tim Horton's promotion called "Rrrroll up the rrrrim to win." During this outbreak, customers may find prizes listed under the rolled rims of their disposable coffee-cups... There are no public statistics on how many people scald themselves mildly because they are too impatient to finish their coffee before they dismember the cup.

In many places now "Tim's" shares premises with "Wendy's." (Are we clear, on what is meant by "Wendy's"? The Rambler lives to inform......)

*Ecclesiological note: "Timbits" are the staple diet of church youth groups of every known denomination...