random ruminations

Jan is drying her hair and soon we’ll be taking the train into Boston for the annual Gay Pride parade. The First Unitarian Society in Newton always has a presence, and is usually padded out with a few members of the Boundless Way Zen crowd. It is gratifying to hear that Duval Patrick will be the first sitting governor of the Commonwealth to join in the parade. As we’re coming on the Constitutional Convention that will decide whether marriage rights will go on the ballot here, it is a significant gesture. Me, I’m decked out in my clericals for one of the one or two times in a year that I wear ’em. Sadly, even with my weight loss it turns out I have a waddle hanging over the collar. Sigh. Still, it’s part of the job, show the flag, or at least the clerical support for this event, hanging fat or not…

Later this afternoon the congregation will be gathering to celebrate the forty-five year tenure of our music director. Quite an accomplishment! And going out at the top of her game. An even greater accomplishment, I think.

As this is a monkey mind column I’ll throw in a brief rant on the current state of television advertising. This morning for the upteenth time I’ve seen the ad where someone steals a friend’s coffee drink, but because of satisfaction with the drink, common civility not to mention legality all go out the window. Perhaps I’m feeling slightly curmudgeonly, but this sort of ad where people step on others in order to get the commodity, whether stranger, friend or relative, is a sad comment on our current state of affairs.

I’ll end with on a positve note. I’m now about a quarter of the way into John Dunning’s The Bookwoman’s Last Fling. It’s the fifth installment of the Cliff Janeway Bookman mysteries, and is a genuine delight. If you like the idea of a hardboiled detective who is also an accomplished rare book dealer, you can’t go wrong with this series which begins with Booked to Die.