roundup

A few personal points from last week stand out for me here. First, my boss, who got me my job, was abruptly fired on Tuesday for reasons no one knows. He handled it well and was allowed to say his goodbyes to us as he was escorted out. I considered him a friend, and miss him. I will remember him in my prayers, doubly so as he was an atheist.

On Friday we were herded into a meeting in which I made any number of enemies. The current heads wanted us to "discuss" issues we had with the workplace and brainstorm ideas for "solutions". We spent the first half of the meeting outlining problems and took a break before we were to come back and discuss solutions. However, upon returning the managers outlined their solution to our problem, which they had obviously decided upon before the meeting. I made any number of enemies by telling them the plan wouldn't work. It had actually been tried and failed some time ago, but managers don't last long enough to know what happened way back, oh, last week. Plus, key to their plan was maintaining communications with our suppliers, which was the job of the man they had just fired.

As an antidote this kind of nonsense I like to bake with the girls. Younger's favourite thing to make is brownies, and I have grandma's old recipe. It's simple and has absolutely no healthy ingredients, and that's the way I like it. Maybe I'll post it here one day. Younger's favourite part of baking her favourite recipe is licking the bowl. I don't scrape the bowls clean into the pan anymore just so I can see the look on her face as she tucks into a big mess of batter. That, and I get to see the look on Puff''s face when she sees our chocolate covered daughter.

I ended up taking the brownies to one of my two choir practices on Saturday. Both practices were enjoyable. I also feel- i don't know- pity, I guess, for the directors. I could never do it. They have to deal with people far too often for my taste. People, even Catholic people, are stupid. Speaking to people and listening to them pass their opinions on my hard work would drive me spare. I get like Alice from Dilbert: "Must... Control... Fist... Of... Death." The director for the Tridentine Mass Schola constantly gets contradictory messages. "More chant." "Less chant." "I like this" "I hate this" "Hymns!" "No Hymns!" Even the trads can't agree. One fellow the week before last told the priest to fire the director because for Lent he changed the usual Credo (Credo III) to another one (Credo I) which the fellow didn't know. He wanted "his" Credo back. Last week we handed out music to Credo I to help the people along. This fellow asked the director "Which one is it? Mine or yours?" To which the director gave the perfect answer: "It's God's. Here."

The other choir is again having problems. After a few weeks of steady improvement we find ourselves back at square one. Week before last the sopranos and altos again stopped singing in the middle of the Communion Hymn because the EMHC had just come up to the choir loft, leaving me doing the Bass line as a solo. At practice I told them that if they ever strand me like that again they may as well ask the minister to give them Last Rites as well as communion. So they didn't wander off this time. But they still have problems. This week they couldn't figure out wether or not we were actually going to sing a certain hymn even though 1. it was listed on the board and 2. the director was repeatedly playing the opening on the organ while 3. gesticulating with increasingly wild gestures for people to join in. Eventually I started it off and they joined in... but jeez. And I had brought them brownies and everything.

We were also continuing our experiment with singing the antiphons. This was just the men, me and two new guys. Unfortunately, they are inexperienced at this kind of singing and were not doing well. The music director couldn't do it as his voice is shot. So I did the only thing I could: I drowned out the other guys. Hey, a man's gotta do... until someone fires him for doing it. But we'll always have church. And brownies.