camwyn | Jul. 13th, 2003

ladymondegreen, and another friend of theirs RL rehearse.

Wish I could sing. I'd have to take the tack of Cyril Ritchard and talk my way through most songs to avoid sounding like a teenage boy in the middle of the voice-cracking phase. They've got gorgeous voices, though.

Spent most of today in New York City. I went to Mass at Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken this morning; the new pastor there is an old family friend, and I wanted to see what the place was like. You don't find many churches that not only post the names of Armed Forces members that parishioners want to pray for, but also post the local newspaper's list of children known to DYFS who died of child abuse despite being known to DYFS with a request to pray for those children, their families, and all children in similar danger. For all that the Catholic Church has its problems - and they are terrible ones - there are times and places and people who recognise when something needs to be done... Praying is only a beginning, of course, but if I know the pastor at all, there'll be more direct service opportunity somewhere eventually.

That aside, I got to chat with the pastor after Mass for a bit. He told me I could leave my car in the church parking lot while I was in the city. (I should probably go home relatively soon, so they don't lock it in or something, but I don't know if they do that or not.) I got myself some chick pea salad at lunchtime along with a bottle of green tea with mint and honey, then settled down by the river to eat and watch the dragonflies play. Yes, there are dragonflies in Hoboken, and they circle in gracious plenty over the green park grass. You can see the place where the Twin Towers used to be from there...

I started working some more on my sock (I am knitting the second of a pair) after I finished eating. I was using a row counter, because the heel panel in my pattern calls for 'repeat these two rows thirteen more times', and at one point I dropped it. Ducking to look under the bench where I sat, I found a silver die with a rhinestone pip for the dot on the 'one' face. The row counter was sitting on the bench next to my yarn bag. It seemed like a reward, and I tucked it into my dice bag and went on with my knitting.

The PATH put me out at the usual station - 33rd street and 6th Avenue. I was not aware that 6th Avenue had broken out in street fair, or I might not have eaten lunch in Hoboken - there were gyros at the fair and I love them. Then again, the chick peas/spinach/lemon juice combination was very nice and probably better for me than the gyros, so oh well. I settled down in Greeley Park and knitted some more until

cadhla called and let me know they'd arrived in Manhattan. I headed up to the rehearsal/recording session and have been hanging about with the group since, working on my sock and listening and wishing I could sing.