This Day in Willow Glen

I have been enjoying being able to hear again.  Yes, I can hear in one of my ears!  It has been this way since Pascha.  Holy Week was so dim for me but now I hear. I am happy.

Today, Bright Saturday, Anselm Samuel, Basil Wenceslas, and I went downtown.  The people my little neighborhood of Willow Glen call it "downtown", which I think is funny, since San Jose, wherein Willow Glen is located, has a downtown with skyscrapers, hotels, and museums, the RC Cathedral, theaters, etc.  It is about a 1/3 mile length of Licoln Avenue stretching from the bridge over Los Gatos Creek at the north end (where we live) to Willow Glen Elementary School at the shouth end.

We set out, the three of us, by different modes.  I was on foot.  Basil was on his scooter.  Anselm was on his bicycle.  This last I want to talk about a bit.  Anselm rode his bicylce on the street (it is four lanes wide and has much traffic), in the traffic, changing lanes, giving hand signals.  I told him, "you have the right to be on that road.  That is the law.  Just obey the traffic laws and don'to not let the cars intimidate you."  At one point, when a woman passed him and yelled, "Shouldn't you be on the side walk?" he just ignored her and went about his business.  He was afraid of all the cars, he said, but he did what needed to be done.  I am proud of him.

The first place we went was the Bagel store.  I thought it would be wonderful to taste cream cheese on a bagel again, for the first time since before Lent, but I was wrong.  You see, I've been eating paskha on kulich all week.  Cream cheese on a bagel just can't compare.  But it was nice just the same. The boys and I read the paper while eating our bagels.  Anslem read the comics aloud to Basil while I read about the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton that happened yesterday.  At one point one of my Cub Scouts came in.  It was his first time to see me outside of a Cub Scout activity.  He just kept looking at my clothes, like he never thought I might wear something other than a uniform.

When we finished the bagels we went up the street to a toy store named Treehouse in the Glen, to buy some more marbles and chalk.  We played some games while we were there.  Basil beat me at this crazy version of Tic Tac Toe in which you can capture your oponents squares.  It wouldn't have been so bad, but he beat me four times!

After that we went to Basil's favorite store, the Willow Glen Collective.  Its a really neat little shop.  You can buy plates stamped "Made in Occupied Japan", carnival glass, old tobacco tins, bakelite jewelry, art decco lamps...   It's really like a little museum and the stock turns over all the time so there is always new stuff to see.  Today they had in an old apothacary balance.  The boys had a lot of fun with that.  And I think I found a Mother's Day present for my wife!

The next place we stopped was the elementary school.  We drew a chalk circle and played marbles.  We played several games.  Anselm won them all.  Then the boys raced around the school yard on their vehicles for a little while before we left to go home.

We stopped at Starbucks and got iced tea, since it is a warmish day, maybe in the mid-70s.  Well, I got iced tea.  The boys just wanted water.  Then we went a couple of doors down to Hicklebee's, the best childrens bookstore I've ever seen.  We looked around there for a while, but I didn't buy anything.  We have many books at home still that have yet tobe read.

We came home after that, and Anselm oiled his bike chain while Basil rode his scooter for a while longer.  While Basil was riding up and down our street he met our neighber, the one with thelemon tree. He came home with two lemons and I made them into lemonade for him and Anselm.  The key to lemonade is having twice the volume of simple syrup as lemon juice.  I think most people don't like home made lemonade becuse they have more lemon juice than simple syrup.

While I am writing this the boys are eating a late lunch of Manhattan clam chowder and french bread.  Well, Basil isn't.  He says he hates it and wants me to make New England clam chowder instead.  Well, he can go hungry.  I'm not a short order cook.  I'll try to make something he likes for supper.

The Semester Is Over, Time To Pack

I just emailed the last assignment of the semester to the professor. Six weeks of staying up till 2, 3, and even 4 in the morning are over. I have earned 6 units in six weeks and am glad it is over. Just in time, too, because it looks like I have to start packing to move.

Athanasia and I are going to be the managers of a 25 townhouses in the middle of Willow Glen. We applied about 2 weeks ago. We interviewed last week. The background check was done on on Monday. Yesterday they called to let us know we got the job. We go in on Friday to complete the new-hire paperwork.

It is difficult to explain how happy I am to be moving to Willow Glen. It is one of the most walkable places in Silicon Valley. We have often talked to each other about how much we wished we could live there. And now we shall.

My son will be able to walk to school (a California Distinguished School, one of the top 5% in the State), we will be a short walk from scads of restaurants, bookstores, including Hicklebee's a fabulous children's bookstore,4 coffee shops, a frozen custard stand, a dry cleaner, and a real barber with a real barber pole and those huge chairs and a couple of old guys who just hang out and talk all day. There is a beautiful park with a bowling green. And there is also an amazing candy store that sells every kind of candy imaginable.

I am astounded by how generous God is to me. He gives me everything I want.

Life in Willow Glen

So far things are going okay. There is one vacant unit that is driving me nuts. So far, five different people have dome to look at it but have turned it down, or we turned them down. I have two appointments to show it tomorrow. Wish me luck. I've met the painter (Ivan), the mailman (Gabriel), and the plumber (Hector).

Yesterday, a water heater pipe exploded in no. 4. The water heater and pipe were repared but not before horrible water damage was done. I'm letting it dry out now, and will do the necessary wood and sheetrock repairs (part of the structure fell off when I opened the door.) on Saturday morning.

My tenant in no. 8 is threatening to call the police about her neighbor's alarm clock going off at 5 in the morning. I'm not going to do anything about it. The way I see it, if she wants to press charges for disturbing the peace she can, but the guy has to go to work and I don't want him to get a quieter alarm clock, oversleep, get fired for tardiness, and fail to pay his rent.

I have at least 4 tenants who have cats. This is supposed to be a "No Pets" complex. I don't know what I am going to do about this. I don't want to serve them all with notices to perform only to see them move out and leave me with 4 vacant units.

I had a pool contractor come by today to give me a bid on re-plastering the pool. It needs it bad. It seems the City Health Department has been "suggesting" it for a couple of years. I'll gather two more bids and present all three to my boss for a decision. Besides needing re-plastering, the pool has a leak. It loses about 4 or 6 inches of water per day. Who knows what kind of shape the gunite is in?

Athanasia is enjoying doing all the paper work (you'd be surprised by how much there is) but we need a file cabinet. I ordered a beautiful four-drawer oak upright (tax deductible!!!) today. It should be here in a few days. Why so fancy? Because the "office" is in my living room and I do not want an ugly metal file cabinet dragging down the mood of the room.

We are still looking for a suitable hall table or console (I'd really like a Bombay chest, but have you priced those recently? WOW!) to use as a home altar. Haven't found one yet, but still looking. I did find a set of gorgeous brass bison heads to use as a gun rack. Now, other than the hall table/altar all we need is a shoji screen to hide the ugly area under the stairs where all the wires for the modem and wifi router live.

Oh, there is one more good thing about living here that is worth mentioning. When my wife first started at Stanford she worked on one side of campus, the side closest to our house in Mountain View. It took her about 20 minutes to get to work. Then she got a new job at the University that took her to the farthest away place she could possibly be from our house. Then it took 45 minutes for her to get to work. Now that we live in Willow Glen, which is actually farther away from where she works, it only takes her 20 minutes because between here and where she works is all freeway. Plus, she is able to ride to work with a co-worker she likes.

Anselm Samuel made two new friends today. They are the sons of the man who lives in no. 15. They are polite boys. Their dad is a skilled tradesman. (If any teenage boys are reading my blog, I'd like to encourage you to not go to university. Instead, become a plumber, electrician, roofer, or painter and then start your own firm. I know many men who work in each of those trades and they all live comfortably.)

Schedules, A Date, Prayers, and Bible Reading

I had been taking the boys with me to church on Saturday nights and then taking them to Pizza on Monday nights.  Pizza night was a tradition from almost as long as we lived in Willow Glen, and I wanted to keep it alive for the boys.  Saturday's were always hard.  My ex-wife always saw other things as more important than the Saturday night vigil: "It's okay for them to miss tonight. They'll be Orthodox their whole life!"  After she kicked me out we decided that I would take the boys with me on Saturday nights, and she would take them with her on Sunday mornings.   But almost every week she would text me and say the boys had other plans on Saturday night, and I would think to myself, "well, at least they are going on Sunday."  But then I would hear that they did something else on Sunday.  It was very frustrating for me.  About a month ago I said to her, "How would you feel if I cancelled yout plans with the boys?" She didn't say anything to me then but about two weeks ago she sent me a text saying that Saturday nights don't work for her because the boys often have Boy Scout or social activities on those nights.  And she asked me if I would like Sunday instead.  So, the boys have been to the Divine Liturgy with me the last two Sundays, and it has been good.

On Monday night Basil Wenceslas and I went to pizza while Anselm Samuel had his first date.  He walked home from school with a girl, stopping at Starbucks on the way.  I was alarmed when his mother told me about this.  I added the girl to my prayer list.  I told Anselm he should invite her to Church and pizza night.

Beginning yesterday, I began driving to their house to chant the morning prayers with the boys, and then drive them to school. Today I added Bible reading.  We each read Psalm 1 aloud to each other and talked about it.  I think we'll read one of the 5 books of the Psalms, then read a Gospel, until we have read all the Psalms and Gospels. 

Trees

We walked to the library today.  Something I love about where I live is that the neigborhood is full of trees.  Most streets in Willow Glen are overarched by branches so that walking or driving along them is like going through a green tunnel.  At oak trees I tell the boys about Abraham and Sarah being visted by the Holy Trinity at the Oaks of Mamre.  At a particular sycamore where they swing on ropes someone has hung from stout limbs I tell them about Zacheus and Jesus.  At the junipers, which are not my favorite tree, they climb high in the branches as I tell them about Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and how after that great miracle he was afraid of Jezabel and ran and rested (hid?) under a juniper.  At the fig tree I tell them about Jesus cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit.  There are some cedars, so tall they are easy not to notice, and at those I tell them about King Hiram supplying the lumber for Solomon's temple.  I live in a good place for teaching my boys about the love of God.

A Long Walk

Today the boys and I walked a long way. We walked over to our little "down town" area of willow glen where I bought us two donut holes each. That was only 300 yards and 10 minutes, tops. Then we walked up Lincoln Ave toward San Carlos. And we saw some interesting things.

This area was once all farms. And for the most part there is no trace of that agricultural heritage left. But as we were walking we passed an abandoned warehouse, and next to that warehouse was a yard with a chain link fence wrapped around it. Inside the fence was rusting old farm equipment. Diskers, an old Fordson tractor, some mechanical fruit sorters, etc. But the neatest thing was an assortment of old nut and fruit crates. If you haven't seen them it is difficult to describe them, but I will try. They are about 4 feet cubed and made of sturdy plywood with metal fasteners along all the edges and corners. Nothing about them would make you thin they are disposable. When I was a boy, when there were still walnut orchards on McLaughlin Avenue, my cousin Bryan and I made forts out of these kinds of crates. The crates Anselm and Basil and I saw today still had the brand names on their sides where they were stenciled 40, 50, or 70 years ago: Libby, JackFrost, Dole, Heart's Delight, Mission, and others.

As we were walking up Lincoln we passed a building that houses a law firm. We've motored past this building hundreds of times but while walking today we saw that there was a historical marker burrieed in the shrubs in front of it. Then I looked at the building more closely and saw that it looked really old, though well maintained, and just barely visible from where I was standing on Lincoln, around the corner of the house, I saw a much older looking building. Then I moved some of the shrubs to read the marker. The building is one of the oldest remaining in the county; the Sunol-Roberto Adobe, built in 1836.

We kept walking north on Lincoln, cut through a corner of a fruit warehouse turned into a furniture store liquidator, and turned toward the east on Auzerais. We walked by what 10 years ago was the last fruit packing plant in San Jose, the big Del Monte plant #3. The location is now a condo development by KB Homes. It is really nice but, unfortunately, it is only residential. There are some other lots around this new development that look ripe for redevelopment. Let's hope they are mixed use with retail/office/light industrial on the first three floors and residential on the top 5 to 20 stories.

We crossed the Los Gatos Creek a couple of times and the Guadalupe River once. At each crossing Basil insisted that I pick him up so he could look over the concrete rail and down to the tree covered waters. I bought the boys ice cream from a man with a push cart. Anselm is still surprised when I talk to people in Spanish. Its funny to me.

We stopped at a taco stand on San Carlos Ave. and had pineapple drinks and flautas de pollo. While there I told some youthful campaign workers that they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to get Prop 8 overturned. They seemed shocked when I told them they were destroying civilization. It was like no one had ever told them that before. What are they teaching kids in school?

When we got into downtown San Jose the boys played in the fountain in front of the Performing Arts Centere. They played in the fountain in front of the Fairmont Hotel. Then we walked up Paseo de something or other to the Camera 12 Cinemas, where we saw "Up" and shared a large popcorn and Milk Duds and root beer. All together we walked about 2.5 miles in 4 hours. We took a cab home.

The boys just got out of the tub. Athanasia just walked in the door from her day at school. I'll end this post now.

Peer Pressure

Last night at the Cub Scout Pack meeting, Anselm Samuel told me he wants to be a Roman Catholic. Really. That is what he said. What prompted this utterance is that Anselm saw me holding the Roman Catholic religious award work books (I'm the pack's religious activities coordinator), and has noticed that most of his fellows are Roman Catholic. (In the whole pack there are only 4 non-Roman Catholics.), and has not yet seen the Orthodox medal or book. (For Orthodox Christian Cub Scouts it is the St. George Award, pictured above.) I can't wait to get that book and the medal so Anselm can get to work on it.

If anyone knows any Orthodox Christian boys (age 6 to 10) in the Willow Glen area of San Jose let me know how to get in touch with them. I'd like to recruit them into the pack.

Christmas, Birthday, the Boys, and the Garden

Christmas was pretty busy.  I did manage to find the time to go up the mountain to get Christmas trees.  It was, probably, the last time Anselm Samuel will do it.  I expect next Christmas he will be off in Alaska or Texas or South Dakota working as a welder.  I didn't find the time to make the Christmas sausage or go to any services at the Cathedral, but I was able to go to the Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas on Christmas morning and the boys went to vespers at St. Stephen with their mother on Christmas Eve.  I was surprised by that.  I didn't know she still went to church.  About the only things I remember from Christmas this year are the party at my sisters house, going to church, and going for a walk along Fulton Street in Palo Alto with Kathleen and her kids.  Unlike the crazy, crowded, loud, over-the-top decorations in Willow Glen or some other parts of the bay area, Fulton Street is quiet and quaint.  You just walk along in the cold, looking at the houses.  It kind of evokes the feeling Rat and Mole had experienced when they were walking through a human village on Christmas Eve.

January is kind of a blur.  All I did was work.  Everyday.

In February I began taking a class on wastewater management.  It is something I have always been interested in but I never knew how to get into it.  I tried to get into it about 10 years ago but the nearest school for it was in Los Angeles.  In January of this year one of my co-workers at Bass Pro Shops told me that her other job is for the City of Palo Alto and that she works in drinking water but knows all the people in waste water.  I mentioned to her that I was always interested in that but didn't know how to get into it.  So she told me.  Then I told Kathleen about the conversation and the next day she emailed me a flyer from the school where she teaches.  The flyer said that at the request of several local governments they were offering a course that meets the legal requirements for someone to take the waste water treatment plant operator test.  So, I signed up for the class and the test.   I am very excited about this opportunity.

My 51st birthday was on the 4th.  Kathleen and the boys threw a little party for me.  I had Rocky Road and Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream from Baskin-Robins.  Those have been my favorites since I was a little boy.

Basil and I went fishing at Lake Amador a couple of days ago.  We had fun but caught no fish.  He is still doing high school and college concurrently.  He got straight As in high school last semester and a B in his college class.  This semester he is taking another class at Evergreen Valley College: intro to philosophy.  So far, he is enjoying it.  I love that he is spending two nights a week with me.

Anselm missed a dead line for Eagle Scout so he won't be getting it.  I don't think it matters to him.  He just likes going on the camp outs.  Him getting Eagle was always more important to me than it was to him.  Besides, he is more involved with his Venturing crew and Order of the Arrow  lodge than he is with his Boy Scout troop.  He has finished his welding training but is still to young to get a job as a welder so he is working full-time at Starbuck's and trying to get into the apprenticeship programs at either the pipe-fitter union or the sheet metal union.

The garden.  Not to scale.

The garden is doing okay.  The garlic we planted in the fall is ready to ready to harvest.  It isn't the typical big-bulbed garlic you see in stores.  It is tender flavorful spring garlic.  I've been cooking with it for a week.  On Monday (today is Thursday) we built a new planter box.  So now we have four 4'x8' boxes and a bunch of pots.  We planted a lot of tomatoes, some bell peppers, pumpkin (from seeds we saved from our favorite pumpkin last year), some early squash, and a lot of flowers.  As soon as all the garlic is harvested we'll plant cucumbers and zucchini.  The garden always makes me happy.  Yes, we still have grubs, but not as many as last year.  And more nematodes are being delivered today.

The Non-Hallowe'en Hallowe'en

Well, this is the first time in decades I have not had a Jack-o-lantern out on this night. All of my kids are adults now, Kathleen's two kids are with their dad tonight, but they are 18 years old in a few weeks so they are practically adults, too, and none of the kids in my neighborhood trick-or-treet in my neighborhood. (We've had a couple of shootings in the last week.) All of the kids in my current neighborhood go to my old neighborhood of Willow Glen for trick-or-treeting. I still have a bag of candy for them if they show up here but I, really don't expect any knocks on my door tonight.

My sister has had a tough year. A broken shoulder, back surgery, a month in a rebab facility, then back to the hospital because of pneumonia. She went home a few days ago. She still can't get around so I made her a lasagna today. It is big enough to last her and her husband a few days. I also made a lasagna that we'll take to church tomorrow.

Well, that is my Hallowe'een. I surely do miss having little kids.

Anywhere But California Dreamin'

I was wondering how is it that my wife and I make so much money (way over the national average) but barely skimp by.  Then I heard a story on the news talking about the extremes of the American economy.  At one end is Detroit where $400,000 gets you a 4 story, twelve thousand sq ft house on 2 acres.  And on the other side is where I live, Silicon Valley.  In my "middle class" neighborhood of Willow Glen $400,000 doesn't buy anything.  In fact, if you want a twelve hunded square foot "starter-house" on a 1/8 acre lot you are going to pay $600,000 to $800,000 for it.

My current situation remeinds me of a movie I saw about 12 years ago.  It was called "The Slums of Beverley Hills"  I won't go into the whole movie, but the important part, as far as I am concerened was that the main character of the movie was so concerend about projecting an image of proserity that he refused to live anywhere but in Beverly Hills.  So, he lived in one ding bat apartment after another, all just barely within the city limits of Beverly Hills, and all just barely out of his budget.  I do not want to be that man.


I love California.  I really do.  From the deserts to the beaches (where I was yesterday), to the fog shrouded redwood forsests, to the high Sierras.  I love it all.  But the prices are killing me.  And taxes.  I had to cash in my life insurace to pay my taxes.   I see no future for my children here.  I think pretty soon, if I can find a job somewhere else, I might be one of the people who leave California.

A Fun Night

The next couple of nights Athanasia is out of town so I am staying with the boys.

When I had that job as a pump and compressor mechanic a couple of years ago I was too tired to go for the nighttime walks the boys loved.  When I was selling cars I was always working at night.  So we didn't get to do the walks.  (Maybe, you remember me writing about them over the years?) Well, tonight, after supper, when Basil and Anselm had cleared the table and washed the dishes, we went on one of our night time walks again.  Much FUN!  Some flowers are blooming.  Snap dragons, cherry trees, tulip trees, but not the jasmine or the honeysuckle.  We walked around several blocks of the Willow Glen neighbor hood.  Came across a giant cork oak.  That was neat.  The boy enjoyed feeling the bark.  They swung on all the rope swings their neighbors have hanging on threes in their front yards.  We looked at stars.  Our old friends Orion, the dogs, and the twins were up in the sky. 




After we got home I thought it would be nice to read some Bible to them.  I thought I'd read that story in II Kings where God gets angry at the Syrians for saying he was a hill god but not a valley god.  I thinks it's one of the funniest stories in the Bible.  It is totally hilarious.  But, I thought, I should do a recap of the OT from creation up to that point so they would know where this story fits in to the history. 



So we started with Creation and Noah and went through the call of Abram, his name change to Abraham, how he had faith that all that land would be his even though he died only owning Sarah's burial plot. We covered Joseph, and Moses, and Jericho and Rahab, and then skipped all the Judges between Joshua and Samuel.  The boys were surprised when Israel said they wanted "a king like the nations around us" instead of wanting God for their King.  And we skimmed over Saul, the witch of Endor, David, Solomon, the Civil War, and eventually made it to the Story of Naaman.




There I stopped and opened the Bible and read to them.  I don't know why, and I wouldn't say it was God prompting me, but I did stop there.  And as I was reading (and I have to say to the guys who edited this part of the Bible, what is up with all the pronouns?  It was hard enough for me to keep straight who was saying what to whom, but poor Basil was totally lost until I broke it down for him.) the boys noticed something: Baptism is the easy thing God asks of us.  Anselm said, "Yeah, God makes it so easy I didn't even have to do it, the priest just did it to me!"




It didn't stop there.  It was like a switch in them had been flipped on and they saw the connection between Melchezadick and Communion and giving thanks. And they saw the connection between Rahab's scarlet cord and the blood on the doors at Passover, and that God didn't just use the Virgin Mary to be his mother but had used Rahab, "the opposite of a virgin" as Anselm explained to Basil what a prostitute is, to be one of his ancestors. And then Basil asked, "are any of these people our ancestors?"  I said, Noah and Adam .  "What about Abraham, is he my ancestor?" I said, "Yes. God makes all Christians children of Abraham.  He is our father in the faith". 




Basil said, " What? That doesn't make sense." and gave me a look like I wasn't being honest with him.  But Anselm said, "It's because of baptism!  'Whosoever has been baptised into Christ has put on Christ' and because Jesus is Abraham's descendant we are all Abraham's descendants!" 


Being a dad is the most fun thing in the world.  I can not describe how wonderful it is to hear my sons talking like this. 




One thing I noticed in our little tour through the OT tonight is how people of God turn down money.  Abraham would not split the spoils of war with the king of Sodom, and Elisha would not accept payment for healing Naaman.  It reminded me of the Didache, wherein the Apostles taught that if a prophet says "give me money", the Church should just send him on his way.  And I told the boys about Benny Hinn, who grew up in the Orthodox Church but became one of those lying prophets who just takes money from people.  I reminded the boys that just because they are growing up Orthodox Christians doesn't mean they can't leave the Church, that every day they must cling to Jesus.  Oh, I hope they do.

I never did make it to the story I had planned on reading to them but that's okay.  It was a good night just the way it was. 

The Beat Goes On

Things have been pretty busy around here and life has been full of changes.  Among the changes are Anselm Samuel being enrolled in Willow Glen Elementary School.  He is in the 3rd grade.  I am worried.  That is the grade I was in when I started to get into trouble.  His diagnostic tests show he is where he needs to be in reading and a year ahead of where he needs to be for math.  I am a little worried about him being ahead in math.  I don't want him to spend a year reviewing stuff he already knows.  I think I will have him do the ACE books I bought him instead of the math homework his school assigns.

So, why did we put Anselm Samuel in a public school?  Because I have to get a new job and that means no homeschooling.  And I have already been offered a job.  I start in a week and one day.  I'll be working for BarNone, a marketing company that puts car dealers who finance sub-prime borrowers in contact with people who want to buy cars but are having trouble getting financing.

Athanasia and I are both taking the semester off from grad school, which is kind of funny since we both made the Dean's List and have been invited to join The Golden Key based on our work of the previous year.  Dean's List is nice, but we don't see a reason for joing The Golden Key.  It looks kind of like paying someone to pat your head and say "good job".  Actually, I'm going to delay restarting the history M.A. program and work on getting a California 5-12 teachers license first.  I'm trying to start work in that program in November if I can get all the papers filed in time.  Then, after I get the 5-12 teacheing license, I'll go back and finish the ancient history degree.  At least, that is the plan.

Today was the first day of the Parish Festival.  It was much fun.  Pickled herring on rye was the best part of the vodka tasting.  I thought maybe if I tasted several "quality" vodkas I'd be able to develop an appreciation for the stuff.  I tried.  Honest.  But, well, unless I've already been drinking for a while, I just don't like the taste of vodka.  You know when vodka is good?  I'll tell you.  Vodka is good when you've just spent an hour or two drinking several bottles of chmpagne and eating several jars of caviar with your wife and your God-daughters' parents.  Once everyone has had their own bottle of champagne, and maybe a little more, then I like vodka.  That's just the way I roll.

I'm thinking about buying one of these beautiful leather slings for my shotgun.  My gun doesn't have hardware for the typical sling, and I am reluctant to pay a gunsmith to put the hardware on the gun.

I've never used a sling like this, called a "slip-sling", and am wondering how easily it might unwantedly slip off either end of the gun while in use. The company that makes them has a great name: The Cowboy and Shooters Supply.  Given what I know about The Cowboy Way, I suspect they have a fair return policy, and if the sling doesn't work I'll be able to give it back to them for a refund.

Well, it is late. Must  go to bed as Divine Liturgy starts in just 10 hours.

Starbucks

I drove by this Starbucks today.  It's in Willow Glen.  When I saw it I was suddenly very thankful.  I don't go to Starbucks very often anymore.  I just drink black coffee made at home, now, but after the divorce I spent a tremendous amount of time there.  I would spend all day nursing a grande cafe latte while using the complimentary WiFi to search for work.  And most importantly, I would take my two youngest sons there.  We would play cards for a couple of hours.  I would drink coffee.  They would drink hot chocolate, or passion tea lemonade.  It was something to do so I wouldn't become a stranger to them.

Breaking Away

We tried leaving once before but failed. Well, this time we are really going to do it. We are going to leave Holy Trinity Cathedral. We've finally concluded that we aren't ever going to move back to San Francisco. (It makes me so sad to say that. It is the only place I have ever wanted to live. At least I was able to live there for a couple of years.) Its been about six years since we moved away from there. Which means it has been six years of spending 1.5 hours (when we lived in Mountain View) to 3 hours (now that we live in Willow Glen) in the car every time we went to church. Sometimes even longer than that if we couldn't find a place to park and hand to circle the block and hunt all over the neighborhood. Often, like last week, we missed church altogether because a place to park couldn't be found.

So, anyway, Archpriest John has given us his blessing to begin a search for a new parish. At the top of the list is St. Nicholas in Saratoga, but we will be checking out St. Basil Church in San Jose and a few others. We are not happy about this change in parishes. The people, the relics of many saints, the clergy, the bells, the icons, the history, even the smell of the building are all dear to me. One of the hardest things is that the last thing Fr. Victor said to me was "Matthew, Don't leave when I die". I hope all he meant was "Don't leave the Orthodox Faith." Athanasia walked around crying for a whole day when she wrote the letter to Archpriest John. There are tears on my cheeks as I type this. But we miss too many services and we worry for our children, they are being deprived of Grace. So, we are saying good-bye.

There is too much saying good-bye in this life; to parents, children, friends, pastors, parishes, even whole cities. This is why Abraham looked for that city who's builder and maker is God. He wanted permanence.