Recent Events Roundup
Kasia July 9th, 2008
Mmm, where to begin…
I never told you how the sangria turned out. It was actually pretty good, and for a first effort I think it was outstanding - we used a recipe we found on the ‘net and modified it slightly to suit our tastes and what was on sale.
We used white wine - I didn’t even know you could use white wine for sangria, but there you have it - a big bottle, with a shot or two of Bombay Sapphire (Canuck’s gin of choice), some sugar, and a whole mess of fruit: strawberries, raspberries, lemons and limes. We’d bought oranges, but there wasn’t room in the pitcher for anything more. We let that marinate overnight, and by the next day, it was a yummy fruity treat!
One note - I strongly do NOT recommend adding club soda or tonic to the sangria for fizz. It was revolting. By the way, what IS the difference between the two? If I want fizzy sangria, I’ll add ginger ale or Seven-Up, thanks.
We went to see Wall-E, and it lived up admirably to all the positive reviews I’d heard about it. I highly recommend it.
The parishes in Chatham just had a massive personnel turnover - the Diocese of London is clustering, merging and closing parishes just like Detroit has had to do, and this July was the big change-over. The small Czech/Slovak parish we’d visited so many times, St. Anthony, is finally being closed; and of the five remaining parishes in town, there are now two clusters of two plus an ethnic (Polish) not-quite-a-parish.
Much as I’m sad to see restructuring, because of what it means more broadly, so far I’m pretty happy with the changes. We’ve only visited one parish so far since the changeover (obviously), but the priest seemed OK - didn’t set off any warning flags - which is especially nice because he’s the pastor of the closer cluster to Chez Mère de Canuque. I was dismayed to see that the parish was using GLASSWARE (ok, maybe it was crystal, but it’s still NOT acceptable as far as I know!) to distribute the Precious Blood, so I only received the Host and walked past the Blood. However, it was this pastor’s first week, so I can understand even if he sees the issue he probably hasn’t had a chance to take care of it yet; I am hoping that he will address it on his own. If it’s still going on by the end of the summer, I will write him a letter asking about it. The other cluster is now being pastored by a priest who worked with Mother Teresa at some point, so I do want to check them out…
In other news, my car turned over 260,000 miles today. Forty thousand more before my pride will allow me to replace the car. Hopefully both the car and my budget cooperate. 
