119 days.

Friday, September 25, started with correcting a misprint in the bulletin for the Sunday service that was discovered during the choir practice the day before. That meant that the middle page and insert had to be removed from all 170 copies and the new one along with the insert put back in. I was ready to do that all by myself but to my rescue came Veronica, a second year Langara College student--her family has been with the First Lutheran for many years and recently she started volunteering in the church on Fridays. Between the two of us we were able to finish this job before noon.

After 4 p.m. I went to the kitchenette to cook dinner for Irina and Dmitri. I expected them shortly after five, but they had to stop by in a couple of places on their way here, including Blockbuster to pick up some DVDs for the weekend, so they showed up around 7. We didn't waste too much time on eating and cleaning, so by nine o'clock we made ourselves comfortable to watch State of Play. It was going all right until suddenly at the very end the plot fell apart. Next morning I had a pleasure to make exactly the same breakfast as I used to do at our home and then we continued the movie night, which technically was morning, with He's Just Not That Into You. Those who like Sex and the City franchise may find this movie worth their time, although it's just yet another one. After lunch, Irina and Dmitri went home and I spent the rest of the day between practicing Handel's Thanks Be To Thee for the piano-organ duet performance with Jeanette on the Thanksgiving service and working on the computer. My last event for the day was a cell-phone-over-PA virtual visit to Donald Grayston's jubilee party which had been scheduled to be held in the First Lutheran but due the the flooding was moved to St. Thomas Anglican church (with whom First Lutheran maintains very close friendly relations) just four blocks away.

Sunday morning turned out abnormally busy for me. Half past nine, June started giving me a training in preparing the altar for the service, then I needed to run to the kitchenette to set up coffee maker for the after-service fellowship time--thanks to Jason and Elina (they didn't bring their cats this time) who took it over--and by ten I was supposed to be dressed in alb, the white gown, and ready for the last choir rehearsal. Later I was told that the service went with flying colours, the choir sang extremely well, the song I Feel The Spirit (this link gives only an idea what this song sounds like; I am not bragging, but our choir sang it much faster, in 3-4 parts and much, much better) was very uplifting and energetic and nobody applauded only because it is not normal to do that in the church. The only thing that concerned me a bit was that no matter how hard I tried to sing quiet several people said that they still could hear my voice really well. I hope I won't be punished for that by being promoted to a cantor--I promise, I'll never do that again. Late afternoon and early evening I devoted (hard to use any other word) to reading The Precise Definition of a Limit chapter from Dmitri's textbook--I didn't study calculus in high school or university, but now that he is taking it I don't want to be behind him. Way behind... Anyway, math is fascinating!

Today for the most part was a gray, quite a dim day, but for some reason I felt like taking photographs for the First Lutheran's website--it'd been a while since we agreed that it was lacking a proper visual presentation. It was a very interesting project and in the result, even though some pictures are definitely asking for more light and much better equipment, there are several good shots that can be used for now and serve as ideas for the site's future design.