A change of plans

Justin's department chair called him yesterday to ask if he'd like to be a TA for Greek Civ this fall. This is a class Justin has wanted to teach for a while. He was scheduled to receive his normative time fellowship for completing his exams on time this fall and spring, but she said he could defer the funding for a semester to teach this class. So we decided to stay here another few months and bump back our planned trip to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

I feel pretty good about this, not least because we hadn't, um, made any actual plans, besides buying a gazillion travel guides and talking about it a lot. I have a few more months to find Phoebe and Sabina a good home for the duration of our trip (very important). We can get some work done, and Justin's committee will be more sanguine about him gallivanting off to another hemisphere if he's gotten something written by then. Everywhere we want to visit is cheaper (if ickier) in January than in August. There are one or two weddings in Ithaca we might be able to attend, and we won't be bolting straight after my cousin's wedding in August.

Of course we're both also thinking, "If we keep putting it off, we will ever do this?" and now that Justin has persuaded me I need to go to Tunisia, I want to be there, dang it. But this also feels like the responsible, adult thing to do, and now that I'm 30 (!) maybe I should starting acting like an adult. You know?

Bodo's and the eschaton

The dispensation that began lo so many years ago back in 1993 (so Andrea, who would know, has told me) is about to end. For many years this storefront on the Corner has looked like so...



Soon, but not yet. Nobody shall know the day or the hour, etc.

But now it seems they are going to open, really and truly. The sign behind Andrea and Laura says "Hiring."



In a matter of days, or weeks at most, you will be able to get a lox and cream cheese bagel on the Corner to go with your Frappucino. I say "you" because I will not be there for the parousia, having already been raptured to the paradise that is Berkeley.

Pange, lingua, gloriosi corporis mysterium

Yesterday I went to Incarnation, where I spent three years as a parishioner and where Justin and I were married. It was great to see everyone again--or nearly everyone; anyway, I answered the same questions a dozen times, but I also hugged a bunch of people, and the sign of peace at a church where you know lots of people is nice when you've been away from your husband for a week. (sigh) I sang with the 11:30 choir, and the music included The Name of God, which I think is my favorite psalm setting (not the one we used for our wedding, though it probably wouldn't have been as appropriate for a mixed gathering at a wedding anyway) and other songs suitable for the feast of Corpus Christi.

Three years ago, I spent my first Corpus Christi as a Catholic in Ravenna, and I was smugly proud with myself (didn't have anyone else to brag to) that I knew it was Corpus Christi because I understood the gospel reading (John 6) and the homily with my limited knowledge of Italian. This year, at Incarnation, I participated in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the church and into the chapel dedicated to it, and sang Thomas Aquinas' Pange Lingua along with the rest of the choir. I love the arrangement we use, which has a beautiful descant Peggy sang--on the third verse I think there's an alto part too, which I'd like to learn someday.

Since the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is one of those crazy but sublime paradoxes that drew me to Catholicism, I like the feast of Corpus Christi almost as much as Holy Thursday, when we also sing Pange Lingua, and wash one another's feet. I had tears in my eyes when I was going through RCIA and we celebrated Holy Thursday, because I started out washing other people's feet, but then other people took over, and I saw the Campbells, who've been married at least thirty years, wash one another's feet. Justin is a little squeamish about the idea (not about feet per se) but I'm looking forward to washing his feet one of these years. But now I'm getting off topic. Oh well.

Four days in Charlottesville

I'm staying with Chris and Heidi and mostly hanging out here, watching TV, eating junk food (it's so bad for you, but so good--I'm making up for ten months of a diet of crunchy organic fiber-rich everything), and of course getting to know eleven-month-old Madeline as honorary aunt. She took to me quickly. A baby likes me. I am cool.

Went to graduation (which apparently is called Finals? UVA has to call everything differently, like Grounds for campus and first-years for freshmen): the big ceremony on the Lawn, where I couldn't see anything anyway, so got a glimpse of the procession, grabbed a Frappucino at Starbucks on the Corner (mobbed), and sat in the Pav X garden, where I could hear the ceremony; then the religious studies ceremony, where I couldn't really see anyone because my contacts were swimming from tiredness. But I did see Andrea, and Mat Rose, and Don Polaski, which was enough to make me happy before I decided I was tired and there wasn't much point in being someplace where I might offend someone by not recognizing them at close distance.

The weather's been kind of snotty. When I called Justin a few days ago he said quite melodramatically that it was 90 degrees in Berkeley, which I doubt, because it rarely is, especially in May, but evidently it's decided to be extremely pleasant now that I'm not there.

Justin is getting along fine. Only ordered pizza once so far.

On my way to Charlottesville...

I haven't been back since we moved right after the wedding. I'm excited to see Andrea graduate in her cool hat, and to see Chris and Heidi's daughter Maddie, who is almost eleven months old and sounds like a very happy baby. Yay!

I'll be away from Justin for a week and a half, which is sad, but we're used to separation, and after nearly a year of being around each other almost constantly, a break probably won't hurt us.

Angel Island

Andrea and Laura have already written about our trip to Angel Island yesterday. We all had a blast. I love to get out into something resembling wilderness, even if it's wilderness with a view of San Francisco a few miles across the bay.



More pictures here.

A view of Marin from Lincoln Park

This is what Dad, Sidnee, and I saw when we walked out of the Palace of the Legion of Honor. "Is that real?" Sidnee asked. It was.



Laura, that's what we missed when the weather was nasty.

Andrea, this is why you need to visit us!

Cab drivers are cool!

I love cab drivers. When Dad and Sidnee were here this last weekend, we took a lot of cabs around town. Cabbies are great because they're the ultimate entrepreneurs and they come from all over the world, so they summarize the American immigrant experience.

The first interesting cab driver I met in the Bay Area was a couple of years ago on one of my first visits to Berkeley, when Justin and I took a cab from the Oakland airport to Justin's apartment. We were having a great conversation with him, and then we asked him where he was from, and he said, "Afghanistan." Awkward silence. (This was not long after the military action there.) Then, "Um, how long have you lived here?" Seventeen years, as it turned out.

This weekend we had several interesting cabbies. One was Asian--Dad asked him where he was from, and he said, "Saigon." "Not Ho Chi Minh City?" Dad asked (probably smirking, but he was in the front seat, so I couldn't tell). "No, Saigon," the cabbie answered (definitely smiling).

Another was from the Philippines. We talked about the pope's death and the prospects for the new pope. He was hoping the next one would be more favorable toward embryonic stem cell research, because his brother is a paraplegic--he was shot in a bar just a week after he arrived in San Francisco, just accidentally ended up in the line of fire in a brawl. He also said his beard intimidates people and his customers are less mean to him now than when he was clean-cut. (One thing I absolutely love about my dad is that he has no pretension whatsoever, so he's really comfortable talking to all sorts of people. Being a cabbie must be a thankless job most of the time; I'm glad my dad is nice to them.)

The Filipino cabbie took us to the Palace of the Legion of Honor. The only Anglo cabbie we had took us back downtown, and my stepmother nearly got into a political argument with him. Eek. (If you have ever gotten into a political discussion with her, or any sort of discussion, you can understand why I was frightened.) But fortunately they didn't get too into whether corporations should run the government or vice versa, so we made it all the way to our destination. Close shave.

Go Dad!

My dad swore in public. Cool. Read this post by Ron Hebron (Heidi's dad) about a town hall meeting in the Seattle area to discuss the results of the gubernatorial election. My dad is the Usually Quiet Guy sitting next to Ron.

What do you get when you combine three of the best things in the world?

That is, cats, Legos, and interesting sacred architecture.

This is what you get. Phoebe and Sabina would be so jealous if I told them.

Spam, spam, spam, spam!

I didn't know this till my dad and stepmother, who are visiting us this weekend, brought it to my attention, but in my increasingly amusing home state of Washington, Senate Democrats want to impose a tax on canned meat. Yes, a spam tax. Isn't that kind of regressive? Seattle did try to impose a ten-cent tax on espresso drinks a couple of years ago. The initiative failed. If it had passed and been statewide, a spam tax would be only fair, as it targets precisely the opposite demographic.

What will happen now? Will Eastern Washington secessionists throw a Spokane Spam Party? Will Fat Tuesday revelers find they can't afford to participate in Seattle's annual spam-carving contest? The potential fallout is mind-boggling.

Go to Gizoogle, yo

It is REALLY fun if you type in your dissertation adviser's name. Try it.

Also try Googlism. Did you know the sixth satellite of Uranus is named Juliet? I didn't. Doesn't every woman want a celestial body named after her?

A stroll to Fourth Street

Yesterday's weather was marvelous, finally. Is it March that's supposed to go out like a lamb? It did, a very gentle, Mediterranean sort of lamb. I had to buy cat food, and figuring Justin wouldn't mind a couple of hours to play on the Internet uninhibited, I went the scenic route.

The pet store I've been frequenting is one of those chain PetSmartSuppliesPlusExpress kind of places, so they are probably evil corporate whores, although they do support shelter adoptions. I decided to go to a different store I hadn't visited before, because I wanted to see if they had wild bird feeders (we need a window hummingbird feeder). They didn't, but they did have an aggressively friendly cat, and the brand of pet food I was looking for, and they even sold it to me for less than the marked price, though I'm not sure why. I also discovered a little Mexican grocer nearby.

With only five pounds of cat food and a liter of water in my backpack, I decided to continue to Fourth Street, which has a two-block boutique shopping area. It's oddly placed near the marina and train tracks in the light-industrial section of Berkeley; on neighborhood street corners, Latino men congregate, perhaps in wait for a day's work.

My favorite store there on Fourth Street is Sur la Table, which, like other good things, started in Seattle's Pike Place Market (brag!). They have cooking classes I'd like to try sometime, and plenty of Le Creuset and Emile Henry to ogle, even if we have way too many expensive toys crammed into our teeny kitchen already. I also went to a pasteria/gourmet food store and sampled so many things that I felt I ought to buy something, and the luscious olive oil I tried, at $20 a bottle, was a little steep, so I bought pomegranate molasses, which I'd like to try and would rather buy than make.

There's also a bookstore just for home building, renovation, and decorating, which is an expensive habit in Berkeley, but it's fun to browse. I paged through (and at $5, should have bought) a book of walking tours through Berkeley. I noticed a number of buildings that date from the late nineteenth century. The East Bay in a way is older than San Francisco, because it didn't have the devastating fires that followed the earthquake of 1906 over in the city. I like old things. So I walked back along Channing to catch a glance at a block of bungalows a century old.

Things I like about Berkeley

I'm shamelessly copying Laura. Sometimes I need to think positive thoughts about Berkeley, because I like it, but not as much as the other places I've lived.

There is something in bloom every day of the year. There's hardly ever frost, so all sorts of things can grow. I love walking around the neighborhood just to see what people have in their gardens. Plants I used to grow with effort flourish in people's gardens: huge rosemary bushes, nasturtiums with eight-inch leaves. We don't have outdoor space for plants, but I can grow plants on our windowsill. I have an orchid I got for eight dollars at the farmer's market and haven't killed yet. It's on its second bloom.

The restaurants are fabulous. I dragged Laura to Ristorante Raphael the first day we got together here (it didn't actually require force). It is a kosher Italian restaurant. I bet you've never been to a kosher Italian restaurant. Everything there is absolutely wonderful. Whatever kind of food you want, it's here. If you want sushi, there are lots of options. Thai? Lots of Thai. I might even finally persuade Justin to like Thai. Burritos are the best fast food ever.

When I want to cook (since we can't afford to eat out all the time), there is plenty of fresh, inexpensive produce, at the farmer's market and at Berkeley Bowl, which is a great grocery store even though it's always mobbed. There are two dozen kinds of granola in the bulk bins.

Even when the winter weather is awful, it's still less depressing than Seattle's winters. The autumn was sublime.

We don't have a car. I had a car for nine years before I moved here. I don't miss it at all. We can walk just about everywhere, and the BART to San Francisco is twenty minutes. No car maintenance, no gas (which is really expensive here!), and no insurance.

This is the highest concentration of good bookstores I've ever seen (though for single best bookstore Powell's still wins). Same for music stores.

There are lots of nice people in Justin's department. We hosted a visiting student last weekend and ate out for free at several great restaurants (see above).

We have Hare Krishnas next door, and they sing their Hare Krishna songs every Thursday night, with an accordion and tamborines. It's very charming.

I like the houses. Lots of cute Arts and Crafts bungalows. It makes me sad we couldn't possibly afford even to rent one, but they are fun to look at.

Come and knock on our door!

I lived in Charlottesville for three years. In all that time I had a modest but functional sofa bed, yet nobody except Justin visited till I got married there and made our families and friends travel from all over the country to our beautiful little town. I told everyone (and I was right!) that it was a great place to visit, but I wasn't that persuasive, apparently.

One of the great things about living in the Bay Area is that everyone wants to visit us, although we're not always the main attraction. Justin's dad comes to San Francisco frequently on business. My friend Laura is spending the semester at the Graduate Theological Union just a mile or so from us. Justin's friends Joe and Charlie, who live in San Diego, visited a few weeks ago. My dad and stepmother are visiting in a few weeks. My friend Andrea's planning to visit a bunch of us who live out here in California. We hosted a prospective Berkeley student this past weekend. Our smarmy couch is seeing a lot of traffic.

And my sister and nephew flew through SFO on Monday on their way back from my nephew's great-grandmother's funeral (it was a Buddhist ceremony, which is why Ronel's head and eyebrows were shaved).



It's nice to have visitors.

If you write it, they will come

I originally puttered around with this blog a long time ago, but it never really occurred to me until recently that people might actually want to read the thing. So here it is. But right now I don't want to write anything, I just want to look at pictures. Maybe you do too!

After more than six months as a permanent resident of the Bay Area (as permanent as my residency anywhere is likely to be in the foreseeable future, anyhow), I finally saw the Golden Gate Bridge up close when Justin's friends were visiting us from San Diego. Note how patriarchal his beard has become (he hasn't shaved since the honeymoon).



Here's another view of the beard, although it's a little less full because this picture's from our visit to Chapel Hill over Christmas. Interesting beard facts: Did you know beards can have parts, like regular hair? And dimples?



An old picture of Phoebe watching the presidential debate. My cat is an informed voter! (She's even registered in Florida.)



Sabina is ready for another adventure.

Evidently her name is "Dancer with a Flat Hat," by Phil Levine. I like "Girl With Flat Hat" better and that's what I've always called her.

I just changed the URL to girlwithflathat.blogspot.com. Previously macrina.etc... (see first post) but I decided I liked girlwithflathat better. The reference is deliberately obscure, but those of you who, like me, spent seven years at the University of Washington traversing the skybridge between Schmitz and Meany Halls, you'll know what I'm talking about. (Well, the skybridge was out of commission when they were renovating Meany during my junior year, but, you know.) I do not often wear hats and those I do wear are decidedly poofy. In fact, I am pursuing a PhD so I can get that really poofy one with the robe and all.

Last Sunday was the annual How Berkeley Can You Be parade. Although I live less than a mile from the parade route, my only experience of HBCYB was walking straight through it on the way back from mass. I didn't see the naked men but later saw pictures on the Internet (it's never the ones you want to be...). Justin and I cannot ever hope to be that Berkeley, at least outside our own home.

When I was received into the Catholic church at Easter vigil two years ago, I chose the confirmation name Macrina. Father Gregory asked "Elder or Younger?" I think we were impressed with each other for knowing there was more than one. I chose the fourth-century saint because although she was never formally educated, she taught her brothers Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa everything they knew--or a lot they knew; Gregory didn't have the fancy Athenian education either. I'm a grad student studying early Christian thought and it seemed appropriate. Also appropriate at the time was that I was single and could identify with a virgin saint. But then I met my very non-Catholic husband-to-be.

My fiance is really the one who should have a blog (I keep telling him) because he has opinions about politics and things, whereas I just blather about myself given the space to write. He deserves more than a blogspot--his own server, his own talk show, a regular spot on the McLaughlin Group--I'm biased, of course, but really, he can freestyle on this all day and night, and does, especially under the influence of certain substances...but this is my niche, for what it's worth.