Also not an approved greeting.

"Good morning, how are you, and did your team do well yesterday? This is not a part of the opening rite. If you find a lectionary with that opening rite, I'll give you a turkey."- (a butchered-from-memory-quote-by) Cardinal Arinze

ALSO not approved: "Good morning! I'm Monsignor So-and-so and I retired last year but I'm still in residence here at the parish and I help out saying the mass in Latin. All you children here today are going to get an introduction to what the mass was like a long, long time ago when it was said in Latin. Please, all of you who are over 50, try to remember how to sing along and say your "amens" and your "et cum spiritu tuos" You may have heard that the Pope has now given permission for the Latin...the Tridentine rite to be said where ever there are enough people who want it, but we are going to say the New Order of the mass...(rest of lecture redacted because, trust me, it went on). So, now, if you will turn to page four in the booklets, in nomine patri, et fili..."

This wouldn't be so bad, but he does it every week. Every time I've ever been to this parish-which-shall-go-unnamed, (but-which-is-right-across-from- Yerba-Buena-and-next-to-the- future-Contemporary-Jewish-Museum), this priest has given this same introduction. And priests wonder about a lack of interest in Latin masses. Well, maybe if you stopped apologizing for them.

Ze Garcon Haberdasher'd was quite surprised when I informed him, against his assumptions, that the readings from Hebrew scriptures at Mass are not done in Hebrew.
"Nobody would understand it," I said.
"They could learn it," he replied.
Um, yeah. We're having enough trouble with our own liturgical language. Once we teach the higher-ups enough Latin that they're not translating "et cum spiritu tuo" as "and also with you" and cutting out parts of the Gloria with a machete, we'll start pushing for Biblical Hebrew.*

ALSO NOT OKAY: Stopping before the Eucharistic prayer to tell people to "turn to page 25". Honestly. This is why parishes use song sheets. God made photocopiers for a reason.

*Deep Breath* I'm okay. Honestly.

LookLookLook

Did you know that there are people who do latte art?

Seriously. Because what I needed was a way to combine my addiction to making things with my caffeine addiction...

The kubuki mask is my favorite.

(Confidential to Carolyn: "You can stir the jam into your pudding, but you can't stir it out...")

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* Some readers may remember the RCIA textbook I was given, which translated "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" as "I am sorry, I am sorry, I am heartily sorry."