The Children’s Choir sang “Go Tell it on the Mountain” for the prelude this morning. I’m sitting in the back thinking that we are going to get the usual weak children’s voices, with half the kids off key, while the other half are “out of compás”, but when the kids started singing, belting out out the song in parts, on key and in compás, I remembered I was at Central United Methodist Church, where they get the best music out of everyone, regardless of age. All the kids were great, and the soloists sang like they were pros. It was so refreshing to see kids full of life and spirit, making an effort to deliver their performance.  All the music was fantastic today. The old hymns were fun, the Chancel Choir performed “For unto us a Cild is born” from Handel’s Messiah, and the Hand Bell Choir performed a piece that was out of this world. They get sounds and music out of those bells that you wouldn’t think possible.

Stretch was shifting around in his box he was curled up in, basking in the sunlight, when the box slid off the edge and wedged itself against the heater. Like a captain who won’t abandon his ship, Stretch stayed in the box and patiently waited for one of us to come over and put his box and him back in place. Laurie when to his rescue while I photographed him going down with his box. After Laurie got the box back in place, Stretch resumed his position, curled up in the sunshine, as if nothing had happened.

I find coffee sludge dried and cracking like clay on the bottom of a dry riverbed to be quite artful. It also reminds of the time when Laurie was going to pre-op and I unintentionally dribbled thick, black coffee that looked like motor oil with a couple hundred thousand miles on it along the floor from the elevator to the first bed in pre-op. The staff at the desk started swarming like ants that had their hill stepped on, while doctors and nurses tiptoed around the line of coffee like it was some type of infectious, black ooze. I really wanted to photograph the whole thing, but I felt I would have been pushing it to get out there and start clicking away — instead I cowered in the corner and tried to look like I was sorry for dribbling sludge on the floor (actually I was really sorry, not for their sakes, but because I didn’t get to drink the coffee). Even though I didn’t get photos, it was really great performance art. Luckily, all that came of it was mad dogs from the Hazmat crew who were brought in to clean up my offensive sludge — I’m not so sure I’ll get off so easily next time.