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.