B-A-A-C-K!

Might post on the vacation some time - some interesting family dynamics! Short of it: Spent the first weekend with my brother, my son, his wife, his son, and my stepmom, nobody got hurt, and we spent an interesting day going through my Dad's and Granddad's mementos. Short of it part 2: Second weekend was supposed to be four days of Kim and me getting off somewhere by ourselves. Due to an ongoing sequence of medical emergencies involving her mom, who lives with us, we scaled back to 2 nights at her mom's (unoccupied) condo instead, and frequent visits to the hospital.

Interesting mass this past weekend - went to Old St. Mary's in Greektown, some serious high churchin' going on. Sang out of Worship III. Beautiful pipe organ, built by my friend Dave Wigton. Saturday mass in Greektown is apparently ALL visitors - people seemed flummoxed by the song selections (melodies included KING'S WESTON and ST COLUMBA, neither of which I've ever used) and mostly unfamiliar acclamations. I fumbled along best I could. Two serious strikes: (1) They kept their altar rail, and use it. Directly against archdiocese directives (which speak against kneeling to receive the eucharist, though maybe forgivable on the weekend St. Paul gave us "...at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow..."), but we were allowed to receive in hand, eucharistic ministers were used, and we were offered the precious blood. In other words, by-the-book Vatican II, except for the rail; (2) we were treated to an organ concert during communion. Partial credit, though, for the hymn of praise immediately following communion. Still puts communion on the wrong foot though. IMO.

Old St. Mary's is a beautiful old church, lots of statuary, stained glass, soaring ceilings. And the organ sounded wonderful! Felt very weird going straight from the mass to the casino, though - so we had a cooling-off time at the New Hellas Cafe first - bread, saganaki, greek salad, THEN went gambling (we cut our losses at $42), then returned to New Hellas for flaming sausage, spinach pie, dessert, and coffee.