Church of St. Monica (413 E. 79th St) July 31, 2011

Again, with the last minute mass (I really need to plan better). I did a search and found St. Monica's had a mass starting in 15 minutes. Mad dash to the M15 bus stop! The church is almost right on the corner of 79th and 1st (and only about 1/2 a mile north of the church from last week). I thought that I might be in for another lonely mass, but the mass was well-attended.  No air conditioning, but they had electric fans at the end of every pew, so the temp was comfortable.  The church itself is beautiful. I feel like many of the churches lately all have blue ceilings -- but they were all built roughly the same time, so maybe that is the reason. I loved all the stained glass windows -- and often, I think of stained glass windows as dark, but this church was bright and well light.  There are stained glass windows everywhere you look at St. Monica's -- it is a really exquisite structure.

The best part of the mass was that one of the deacons looked just like Andy Warhol, circa 1970. He had a great voice too --- and led most of the singing. One of the other cool things that I noticed was that one of the altar "boys" was actually an African-American woman in her 50s. When I was in Ireland (and also in Spain, but that was Easter so don't know if that is standard), I noticed that most of the altar boys were actually men. Whenever I think about altar boys, I think of my brothers serving at mass a very long time ago, so I should probably change that mental picture.

I was at mass alone, so just went around the corner to a pastry shop, Anneliese's.  It is just north of 79th on 1st. Very cute....old fashioned. I ordered an almond croissant and ordered coffee. The croissant was fine, but the coffee was delicious. Piping hot and terrific flavor. I do wish they had real coffee cups, since I was eating in, I prefer real china and silverware rather than paper.  The very BEST thing about this place is that they have current magazines available.  I really enjoyed my alone time with my coffee and a new Marie Claire.  The whole experience was nice and relaxing. A perfect way to spend some time after mass.