I’m fairly blissed out on Benadryl at the moment so beware of weirdness caused by my antihistamine-induced haze. 😛

The Good
[-] Staying with my aunt and uncle and having two excellent tomcats at my disposal.
[-] Some of the worship music (particularly “Canticle of Turning” from the first night)
[-] Meeting new people.
[-] Conversations with friends (especially those who admit to reading this blog — you know who you are. 🙂 )
[-] Good food at Mackenzie River Pizza Company on Friday night.
[-] Getting some cross-stitching done on my 1st project in 15 years.
[-] Electing an AWESOME new bishop and being able to give her a congratulatory hug.
[-] Meeting friends of my father-in-law and having them figure out who I was by my credentials tag. (All of us had name tags with our name, parish, and geographic location on them. Let’s just say my last name is fairly unique.)
[-] Schmoozing with important people like the president of PLTS. (She sat with us for the Saturday morning plenary.)
[-] The privilege of being asked to be a communion assistant for the closing Eucharist. (I’m not clergy and I’m not incredibly special in the synod so I was pretty jazzed to be asked and gave a BIG hug to the person who asked me.) It was humbling to say the least.
[-] Talking with the college kids on Saturday and asking them what they were going to do with their idealism and energy.
[-] My aunt and uncle’s most excellent tomcats. (They deserve another mention, especially Fredd who has parts of his back shaved for stitches from an owl attack.)
[-] Getting to talk to Bishop Omland and having him actually KNOW who I am and remember the first time he met me. (Let’s just say that the bishop inviting a candidate’s wife to have coffee with him and tell him about herself was a welcome change from the normal ELCA attitude that the clergy spouses are baggage. It’s the reason I trusted him as bishop — I’m an actual person to him, not just a name on a paper.)
[-] My travel equalization paying for my $tarbuck$ habit during assembly.

The Bad
[-] The new worship settings in the ELW — can we say “mass-produced inclusivist crap”?
[-] The inclusivizing of the Psalms in the ELW. See above.
[-] The omission of “Jesus In Thy Dying Woes” from the ELW. You guys suck. It’s THE Tenebrae hymn for Good Friday. Get it right.
[-] The re-writing of the Lord’s Prayer for the service on Friday night.
[-] The serious lack of air-conditioning in the main assembly chamber.
[-] The reflux and gas bubbles caused by dinner on Saturday night.
[-] The orange creme and vanilla bean fraps from $tarbuc$ — the first was over-rated and the second had a nasty aftertaste.
[-] Not giving the youth decent sound for their offertory.
[-] Getting an allergic reaction to whatever pollens were on Loogy’s fur. (Mr. Apex Predator was apparently hunting in some kind of weed or grass to which I’m pretty allergic.)
[-] LOOOOOOOONG days.
[-] Being utterly Laeodicean on the sexuality resolutions. Can we actually STAND for something instead of tabling it until next year?

The “What Did They Just Say???”
[-] The “amending of the amending of the amendment to the resolution”. I’m not even sure what that actually entails and if it’s even possible in the English language.