The not-so-bleak midwinter

Only 3 more masses at my home parish: 7PM on the Solemnity, and two Vigils (English and Spanish) of this upcoming Sunday. After that it’s full-tilt at St. William; the pastor and I have already been hammering out the next month or two, which will include covering for him while he’s out of the country for a couple of weeks. Practically speaking, this means communion services - Word and Eucharist, but the Eucharist will be distributed from what’s reserved in the tabernacle. A priest will be in for the Sunday masses, so we should be in good shape to keep things going. I’ll do at least one Exposition/Benediction while he’s out and…I guess be on-hand as much as my job allows.

Fortunately for me I’ll have a couple of weeks to settle in there before flying solo. I’ll need them to get a sense of How Things Are Done, which is to say What The People Expect. Fun stuff. I’m excited and (of course) a little nervous. God will supply what I am certainly lacking.

Absolutely unrelated: I’m put Factorio aside for now. The truth is that I haven’t played since about this time last year, so first I needed to apply a year’s worth of updates. Then I opened my last save and stared at it, trying to remember the keyboard mappings, the new things added by the Space Age expansion, and my general state of mine as regards my belts and defenses. Then I gauged how much I’d have to grind to launch the rocket and actually see the new Space Age stuff, and I compared that to the amount of time I actually have and, Reader, the news was not good.

So: off to peruse Steam’s winter sale, and I came away with Megabonk, which is very similar to Vampire Survivors in game-play. I also grabbed Slay the Spire, another rogue-like with deck-building which seemed crazy popular a little while back. Both of these look to fit the bill perfectly. And for, what, a combined total of $11? That’s crazy cheap, even for me.

I’m going to hang up The Book of Disquiet. I’m nearly at the end. The little texts are beautifully written, but the speaker is something of a nudge, and it’s getting a little old. I’ve got other things in the stack to get through and have been eyeballing a revisit to Michael Moorcock, who I haven’t read since…gosh, high school, probably. I don’t know if I ever actually finished the Elric books, but all of them are available in a three-volume set, so really, what’s my excuse?