Feelin' Groovy

Much to your surprise, possibly, I'm feeling aw-right today. I've got a hell of a life right now. Not much expected of me at all. And that suits me really fine. There are things I should be working on, but somehow it all seems less important than...well...resting.

J and I are having these awesome prayer times together, and we're reading For the Life of the World by Schmemann (it's all about food as a metaphor for humanity's relationship with God throughout history) and several sermons by Augustine. That man can preach. He had his faults, and he thought I was the root of all evil, but he does say some wonderful things about "singing our lives."

Anyway, one of these days I must get working on these potentially-publishable papers. And next week I start organizing the national Interfaith Council conference for USC. And I have a couple papers and a final for Systematics. But it's all extremely manageable. Oh, and one of these days I've GOT to make a movie out of our footage from cota. It's too good to waste. Wish I were a real editor.

I'm extremely happy because we had cancelled our 4th of July trip to Vegas, and when that day actually came, we were both totally depressed. We missed out on our vacation and it brought us both down more than we expected - I guess we were just really looking forward to going away together. J spent the day trying to convince me to jump in the car and go. Which would have been a great story to tell. But the money situation prevented it.

However, we've now determined that money's not worth never having any fun. And we needed stuff to do with his folks when they're here. So we're going again! Not over the 4th, of course, but we booked a couple rooms at Rio for end of the month. We'll eat at lots of buffets and we plan to go see "Xtreme Magic" (I kid you not). I can't think about Xtreme Magic without hearing the Gob theme music in my head. Let's see who gets that reference first.

Anyway, I have to shower (note to friends: if you switch to natural deodorant, prepare to be stinky) and get ready to have dinner with a dear friend tonight at the sweet new bistro in town. I couldn't be happier about it. I love walking to my wine shop for a bottle then over to the cafe. Last night we walked up to the library and got a bunch of movies (including Ken Burns' docu on Shakers which was really interesting). We've pretty much been walking every day, either to the video store or the farmer's market or the library or wherever. What a great little town we live in. The daily walk to someplace (or noplace) is a very important part of The Good Life.

So are organic foods and meat from happy cows.

I leave you with this amazing post about adoption. Thanks to this guy for summing up how I feel. I couldn't have written it better. And it's just exactly true.