We made it through all the festivities....David's graduation on Friday night - impressive because they got around 250 kids graduated in about an hour. Older folk are usually distressed in attending modern high school graduations because most of them, despite the administrations' best efforts, can be pretty noisy affairs. In the past ten years I've been a regular at three schools' graduations: a small diocesan Catholic school, a medium-sized Jesuit prep school, and a large public high school. All three were the same in that respect. Administrators sternly remind everyone to keep their traps shut and their airhorns under their seats, and it works...for a while. What happened the other night, I believe, is that the threat to throw noisemakers out of the ceremony backfired, because that particular threat was coupled with the statement (on the tickets) that no one would be allowed to leave before the ceremony was over. So...you want to leave early? Stand up and scream when your kid/friend's name is called, and be motioned out. Not that the "don't come late/leave early" thing was being stringently enforced anyway.

But it's over, and my second offspring has flown away..he's going to Virginia Tech, where his father works, and will be (already is, as of 6pm last night) living with him for at least the first year.

The other great obstacle to calm and peace this weekend was Katie's dance recital, with the added complication of a friend's birthday sleepover Friday night, which began during the 4-hour dress rehearsal, at a high school way on the other side of town....She got everywhere she needed to be, and tapped her way to glory Saturday night just fine.

Yesterday, we all went to Mass together for the last time for a while, and were treated to a visiting, retired priest who gave a fairly focused, straightforward homily - pointing out the dearth of art in our bare-bones church (he had a right to - he was stationed there 40 years ago. It's not barebones in the 1970's hotel lobby style. It's barebones in that late 1950's cool marble, moderne style - The Eucharist by Eames - the same way St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal is), but then taking us to the conclusion that the point of the day (Ascension...sort of) is that no matter what, Christ is present. Simple, uncomplicated, unforced. Thank you, Father.

We spend much of the rest of the day ripping up the carpet from David's room (with me raging about idiots who insist on covering up perfectly good wood floors by nailing and stapling dirt-catching, dust-trapping carpets onto them) and starting the planning for Katie to move in so Joseph can then move out of Michael's study and into his very own room, with an afternoon break for Katie, Joseph and I to go see a local production of Smokey Joe's Cafe which featured Katie's piano teacher as part of the band, which is placed on stage. She liked it, and for the first act, so did Joseph, who sat there stunned by the experience without moving for a very long time (that happens when you're in the front row..)

So now we're here...Katie's last day of school is today, we have to start cleaning her room, Joseph's babysitter is on vacation this week, we're going back to Ca-go next week for the Catholic Marketing Networkshow, and somehow, somewhere in all of that, I do indeed have work to do...