The hotel wake-up call came at 7:30. Larry text-messaged me at 7:31 that he was downstairs eating breakfast and I probably wouldn't have the opportunity to do the same. I text-messaged him back to order me an omelette.

We were at the Hertz counter a little after 9:00. A Jaguar would have been $30/day more than the econoshoebox Larry reserved on the phone, but they had no Jags. They had a Mustang, though. It was $15/day more than the compact. I paid the difference.

It's important to do these things right.

So we drove a red '05 Mustang from the Syracuse Film Festival to Ithaca to hear Gordon Atkinson, a preacher whose blog I read, give a sermon at Cornell. And then we drove back and saw our film.

That's the day's melody. Here's its ornamentation:

The shuttle ride to the airport earlier in the day (the one after the omelette) took about 8 minutes; exactly enough time to have an 8-minute conversation about Aldous Huxley and the nature of faith with the spiky-haired philosophy student in the middle seat. The philosophy student is considering a law career, and we said our goodbyes and went to the Hertz counter.

After the sermon, we were hungry, but we had to get back to the festival for the 2:45 showing of CREDO--and lo, the Mustang sped through a cloud of smoke that smelled like lunch, and we glimpsed two middle-aged women barbecuing on an enormous black cylindrical something in a gas station parking lot.

So Larry parked (I don't have a driver's license anymore) and I walked over and bought two half-chicken meals. The huge black something was a thousand-gallon propane tank sliced along its length and tow-mounted by the entrepreneur's husband. Roadside BBQ in a Mustang after church. They get to use the parking lot because it draws people in from the highway, and they give part of every sale to the station, which passes it along to Katrina relief and a little girl with a help fund of some kind--and which enjoys an increase in soft drink sales.

The CREDO showing was good. It was in an Imax theater with a great sound system. I'd say it was the best screening we've ever had, but that title would have to go to Saturday's, which was in the same venue and had a Q&A session afterwards. Which also went well--though Larry and our new filmmaker friend Xelinda had to explain to me what the woman whose question consisted of "God seemed confused," may have been driving at. I didn't quite get it at the time. She may have been offended.

The preacher made a comment about how fancy the pulpit at Cornell was, compared to the one he usually preaches from, and how happy it made him to be standing in it. They flew him out for this sermon. I liked the symmetry between the fancy pulpit and the Imax theater, and his being flown here with our being flown here, and everybody being happy about it.

And I liked the sermon, which was an elucidation of the rich-man-entering-heaven story.

And there are pictures of little boys on their first toddler museum visit in my in-box, and "Say hi to Daddy!" in my voicemail.

The award ceremony starts in 45 minutes. I'll be wearing my blue barbwire club shirt. CREDO may or may not win anything, and if it doesn't, I won't be in the mood to post about my day.

But at this particular moment, the sun's bright and low, I'm content with who's in my life, and I'll be home tomorrow.

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And it doesn't hurt that then we won the Judges' Award and drove Sir Chief Eddie Ugbomah back to his hotel in the Mustang--and found out he knew the guy I used to play Afropop with in L.A.

Nice day.



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