Today my mom and I took a walk in the hills. It was warm and bright, and interesting fish scale clouds kept drifting across the sun, and the smell of the bay and eucalyptus and such really took me back to when I was a kid.




Me by an enormous bay tree.


The ruin of a Lourdes grotto that belonged to the old Maryknoll seminary on the edge of Rancho San Antonio. (That facility still stands, but it is now a retirement home. It's built in a combination of Spanish and Chinese architecture, having a green-tiled pagoda-like roof on its bell tower. Once it sent missionaries to China, but now... no more.) This desolate shrine is hidden from the trail and you have to walk on a fallen tree over a creek to get to it. But there is a well-trodden path to it, and sometimes you find candles there.


The herb garden at the little farm in the open space perserve.


Here's looking at you, kid!


A lady came into the barn and fed the goats. Her son was asking questions in a piping little voice, and he ended up helping her push a recalcitrant goat back into the pen. Very cute.

Besides goats, we also saw sheep, wild turkeys, California quail, and a barn cat with black fur and orange eyes. I know it sounds idiotic, but someday I'd like to see one of those fabled mountain lions. I'd also like to live to tell about it with lots of dramatic flourishes. So it's a binary wish.


Going to an East Coast College has made me realize just how improbably wonderful California is. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

One of Mark Shea's commenters (A. Nonymouse) submitted this priceless theory after reading about Mark's anti-DVC adventures in Northern Ireland:

Omigod, omigod, omigod!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take "Dan Brown." Mix up the letters to get "Ban Drown." Do the same to "Mark Shea": "Shark Mea," which is really "shark may."

The Ban is a river in Ireland. So is the Shannon.

The real Dan Brown was eaten by a shark in the Liffy!!!!!!!!

Mark Shea is the DIRECT DESCENDANT OF BRIAN BORU!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where's Mark's sceptre? Does the Merovingian know about this? Ah well, no matter! "And the Angelus bell o'er the Liffy swell / Rang out in the foggy dew." Ladies and gentlemen, goodnight.

The Year in Pictures (sort of)



Stephanie and I work on our Medieval Fest projects.



Sarah B. took this picture outside the chapel on a night in February when the whole campus looked like Narnia.



Sarah F. and me, on the same night, acting out a random scene from LotR. I'm Faramir, Sarah is Denethor. What can I say, we were feeling giddy.



The cool people went to Rome...



...and made a sidetrip to Pigeonopolis.



Penguins like Spring Formal too.



Dramatic Productions


There was a performance of T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party.



It was excellent, in an eccentric, Eliotian way. Can you have a chorus in cocktail dresses? Can you make a libation with gin and vermouth? In the world of TSE I suppose one can...



There was also the Scarlet Pimpernel musical.



Percy, help!



Finally there was the Spring Play - A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sepha was born to play Puck!



The play was staged with a charming 20's theme... there were swing-dancing fairies, which was especially absurd and sweet.



Oberon and Titania.


* * *


It was quite a year, but now it's over. Here's to the new juniors, here's to '07, here's to Rome!

Studying for finals continues furiously here at Christendom. Metaphysics final tommorrow... please pray for us!

Essentia tamen materiae non diversificatur sub diversis formis sicut ratio sua: ratio enim materiae non est una et communis sicut sua essentia est: ratio enim formae in diversis materiis est una, licet secundum esse sit diversa...

Aaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!

I wanna go home...