This evening I actually took my camera to the local supermarket because I wanted to get a photograph of the poor grackle that has been trapped inside the store since last week. It has been flying from one side of the store to the other, above the aisles, above the racks to alight on the signs that are on either end of the store, you know, the big signs that read, 'Fruit and Vegetables,' 'Dairy,' 'Meat,' or whatever (it's funny because I know that's not what they really read). Yesterday, the grapes were covered up because the bird had been going after them.
Alas, to my disappointment photographically, the workers of the market managed to get the bird outside of the store. Somehow, whether it was the manager capturing it in a net, or their just chasing it once the customers were out of the store, the bird escaped into our minus 10-degree nights.
So, you'll just have to imagine a panic-stricken grackle swooshing from one side to the other of the store or perched over the signs (leaving plenty of guano, too... sooner or later, the health officer would have shut the store down).
Instead, you get an exciting photo of the PARISH REGISTER (with a pen attached with year so that it won't walk)!
Fair enough. It's that time of year when everyone in The Episcopal Church is fussing over Average Sunday Attendance (ASA), budget deficits (or for the lucky congregations surpluses), how many members there are or aren't, how many services of Holy Eucharist one had, etc. The parochial report has greatly changed since I first started doing it 13 years ago. It is a much more stream-lined version of what it used to be.
Concurrent with tallying all those numbers is getting ready for annual meeting (this Sunday), an event that always leaves me catatonic afterwards. Thank God there is a clerk who can tell me what we did.
So heigh-ho, here we go.
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