Geotagging

Evidently, I’ve installed a Geotagging Plugin. This is a test. I’ve also signed up for a new service called Outside.In so that I can get news about Buffalo…

To get my posts included, I need to Geotag. So I’m tagging from home…

Show on map

Life on the Frontier

I begin to feel I’m the only person in the world (certainly in Buffalo) who had no idea there was a man named Tim Russert. Increasingly I sense this was a good thing.

To listen to the news or read the local paper, you’d think that a plague had swallowed everyone’s eldest child or something. The man’s passing threatens to be the October Storm of 2008 - the Horrid Thing that God Did to Buffalo™ about which natives will talk until non-natives can’t stand to hear about it any more.

Evergreen

My little corner of the Biosphere is chock-a-block with all kinds of throw-away greenery. It seems there are tomatoes growing rather like weeds in several corners of the front area. The side yard has been rather nicely gardened by the landlady’s son. But the back yard - which isn’t mine, really, just what’s outside the kitchen - is filled with what appears to be rhubarb!

I can’t imagine a more interesting place: wild tomatoes and rhubarb. Let us see where the summer takes us.

Rainbows!

Buffalopride0814.jpg

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.

After Church, this AM, and the noon-time sermon discussion, I spent the day at the Buffalo Pride Fest, hanging out at the Trinity Church booth/tent and socialising. The Mayor showed up, along with several hundred folks who took our flyers, several kids who played with out bubbles and balloons, and not a few attractive sorts. I’ve a galore of pictures on the flickr site.

The Weekend’s Pics (Pt 1)

Photos-23.jpg

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.



I went to the Hellenic Festival today - as well as the beginnings of the Buffalo Pride festival. I’ve uploaded today’s pictures in a flickr set called, “Gyros and Homos“.

This picture is of the Annunciation Orthodox Church. I’m certain it used to be some other denomination. I love the way they have merged Western Architecture with just enough Eastern Elements - kind of an essay on the GOA liturgical tradition, actually. It’s disconcerting to see (from another angle) huge organ pipes behind the iconostasis, but I want to attend a liturgy there before I say anything critical about it. The space was beautiful - and fully restored - the ceiling painted, etc. I’m no fan of pews, of course, and, oddly, the floor slopes down to the altar, like stadium seating.

The festival, itself, was very fun: there were many vendors and LOTS of food. But I took advice from our locksmith at work and didn’t pay the extra money for food I can get at several eateries around town.
The Parish Bookstore was amazing - filled with books from Byzantine, Russian and other Orthodox traditions. The staff was positively welcoming. There were very few books at all not in English and while, yes, there were a few Greek cultural things for sale, there wasn’t a predominantly “ethnic” feel to it at all. This is unusual considering the parish styles itself an “Hellenic Orthodox Church” - which I expected to mean “ubergreek”. It actually made me want to visit.

The photoset also has quite a few images of local buildings.

Lesbian Coincidence

Events for this weekend in Buffalo:

Hellenic Heritage Festival

Buffalo Pride.

My calendar runneth over.

Weather Report

So, I hope I’m not speaking too early… but this may be the first spring I’ve ever been through without allergies. In SF, there was mould and some un-known pollen. In A’ville there was something for about two weeks every season that nearly killed me. In NYC & the Catskills, there was pollen, in general and, in Georgia, it was pine pollen.

Here… Nothing out of sorts in my breathing yet.

Glory to God for all things.

I am wearing an Hawai’ian shirt here - it’s supposed to be hot and humid this weekend. Been told it’s not usually that way a *lot* in Buffalo. We’ll see: I dread East Coast Summers (which we didn’t have, so much, in A’ville). Granted, Buffalo is on the west coast of NY (on the Lake). We’ll see…

Chick-Fil-A

Chick-Fil-A

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.



Nate and I took a road trip to Erie PA,
there to partake of Chick-FIl-A.

Some things have changed since last I was there: you can now get cheese? and lettuce? OMG. I got the traditional pickle and nothing else. Waffle fries and, of course, the lemonade. YUM.

Then we went shopping. They have a mall for Teh Gayz there: on one end, the Shoe Store, then a Bear Store (ie, Camping Gear) then a Linen and Housewares store, then an Arts and Crafts Store and finally a Borders. It was most enjoyable.

Nate walked to my boarding house this morning, announcing as he got in the car, that his company had recently moved to the neighbourhood and so he needed to learn how to walk into this part of town from his apartment. Then he said they had moved to a rented office at Virginia and Niagara, which is, lo, my own office: they are renting from us! Starting tomorrow they are tenants in the new co-working space, sort of a boarding house for small, incubating companies.

Corpus Christi Desktop

Corpus Christi 2008-4.jpg

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.



The Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christie was observed at St Andrew’s Parish with adoration, a procession and mass in the garden behind the Church. (In Buffalo, the minute it gets warm, nearly everyone and everything moves outside.) We will probably be in the garden for much of the next few weeks. There is a complete set of pictures posted on Flickr. I will be adding these to the parish website.

Normally we are a chatty bunch: any time before service all spaces are filled (as at St Gregory’s church) with people chatting and reconnecting after the week. The garden this AM was no exception. Eventually the conversation drifted to Hillary’s recent Kennedy gaff. And the tone became decidedly edgy.

Into the midst of us walked Father Steve who went up to the altar and busied himself. Suddenly, he turned around and, rather loudly, announced, “My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the blessed sacrament is now exposed on the altar for our meditation and adoration.” He bowed and stepped aside and, lo, there was the monstrance, as you see here.

Total silence descended on the garden and the gathered faithful and it stayed so for the next 20 minutes or so.

I was reminded of one of the saints who said that the difference between us and God is so vast that, when standing in the presence of God, to point out the difference between one human and another would simply be rude.

And so there is the solution, I think, to Lambeth, General Convention and the Schism. Perhaps, even, of Vestry or Parish Council meetings.

A Family Affair

family

Originally uploaded by w.wabbit.

A little guilt trip never hurt anyone. These two statues are on the street… they look rather like altar images: I wonder if the inside of the parish has suffered a V2-Redo.