[Magdalen] Advent and Christmas

[Jim Guthrie]

Suzanne will be coming to Scranton on the 27th to meet with our new PIC at St 
Luke's to discuss "eventualities" with us.  I refused her Advent harangue last 
year because I was not going to discuss this with a plethora of supply priests 
<g>. I think I have most things under control (will, living will/advance 
Directive/instructions for banking and investments, passwords, organizations to 
donate to coal and railroad collections and hospice plans as needed and when 
needed. My overall health is currently pretty good. I feel fine, and  all my 
blood work is normal and so far the CT-Scans indicate tumors the same or 
smaller -- and they are all less than 2 cm. But I do have to make sure Albert is 
taken care of so that's a big part of the meeting. My oncologist says the 
outcome might be another 4 years -- and in rare cases longer. I'm planning on 
longer -- maybe breaking a record at this point.

In the meantime, I found a cheap rate $129, including tax (cheap for Midtown 
Manhattan <g>) for Christmas Eve. For the past dozen years, Albert and I have 
gone to St Bartholomew's for Christmas Day and Easter Day, meeting up with Toni, 
the former Treasurer of Christ Church Bay Ridge, She succeeded me, and quit in a 
(n understandable, I think) huff when the Senior Warden wrote a check for 
$13,000 (to pay the down payment on a new Rectory) without telling her or even 
getting a Vestry vote.

In any case, she has a family obligation on Christmas this year, so Albert and I 
agreed to go to Trinity Wall Street for Midnight Mass (Concert begins at 10 PM 
so we'll get there by 9 to get decent seats).  She's much better than she used 
to be on this -- one year at St Bart's she didn’t get there until 10:45 for an 
11 AM service, and we ended up sitting on an elevated wooden platform that was 
built for cameras for Walter Cronkite's funeral.

We've also done Christmas and Easter Dinners together but that seems to be out 
this year. There's a nice steakhouse on 8th Avenue that I like that I know is 
open Christmas; Toni prefers Ruth's Cris. The restaurant in St Bart's former 
parish hall has been closed both Christmas and Easter, un fortunately.

Additional possibilities might be the afternoon service at St Paul's Chapel --I 
always liked their Good Friday service, though the Christmas afternoon service 
seems to be geared to Kids, so maybe not so edifying <g>. Then there's 4 PM 
Lessons and Carols at St Thomas Fifth Avenue and a 4:30 PM Concert and Sung Mass 
at St Mary the Virgin,  We'll probably go to St Thomas so I can get my required 
dose of M&B Choir <g>.

Malcolm's Mass at the Crib is scheduled for both TWS and St Bart's, so I’ll get 
my dose of that properly (Christmas isn’t Christmas without it for me). And St 
Bart's will give me a goodly dose IDE-O-O-O, too.

Cheers,
Jim

"The enemy isn’t liberalism;
the enemy isn’t conservatism.
The enemy, is baloney." - Lars Erik Nelson