Daily Office: Monday

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¶ Matins: This afternoon, I’ll be spending tea-time at Ruptured and Crippled: it’s time for an infusion of Remicade.

¶ Tierce: A very strong story, by Andrea Elliott in the Times, about the demonization of Debbie Almontaser, founder of the Khalil Gibran school in Brooklyn.

¶ Nones: Even without the April showers, we’ve got plenty of flowers. But we’ve got plenty of April showers, too — today, anyway.

Oremus…

§ Matins. Is that not the greatest name for a hospital? Even though the name has been updated (can you imagine!), the staff wear the old “Ruptured and Crippled” seal on their white coats,  encircled by the more up-to-date “Hospital for Special Surgery.” However, I’m sure that everyone has an experience or two with “Human Resources” that might make the older name seem, on balance, the preferable one. We all know enough about “ruptured” and “crippled” to know that it’s not good to be either. But what’s “special surgery”?  I always wanted to know, until….

But that’s another story. If the weather were more promising, I’d plan to walk along the river to the hospital. But we’re promised rain and general gradu. Taxi!

§ Tierce. The villain of the piece is Daniel Pipes,  although he of course does not see himself as a villain at all. I only wish that Americans were not as vulnerable to sly, “fifth-column” infiltration as he thinks it is, because then no one would pay attention to him.

§ Nones. Now, who knew that the Velvet Fog played drums? Everybody but me, probably.

I surely wish that I could stay in this afternoon. I don’t really mind the rain, as long as I’m not going anywhere. If it were a sunny day, I’d walk down First, and get a haircut on the way. But that can wait until tomorrow.