Minor illness, LibriVox, and stuff I love in San Diego

A minor sore throat yesterday got worse and worse until I couldn't deny the cold coming on. So I decided I'd take a sick day today and wrote a list of chores I wanted to get done. I then slept for nine hours, got up slowly with a nasty sore throat at nine this morning, ate and went to the noon Mass (I tried not to breathe on anybody...), came back home and slept for three more hours, got up slowly and ate, and surfed the internet for a while. So, not so productive. But I needed the sleep and my throat's better now. :)

I'm really loving librivox.org . In the last two weeks I've heard three books by G.K. Chesterton in their entirety: Heretics, Orthodoxy, and The Man Who Was Thursday. I kept noticing elements that were familiar because I'd run across them in C.S. Lewis' writings. Speaking of Lewis (oooh, nice segue) he wrote in his autobiography that he was a sickly child and learned to make minor illness one of the pleasures of life. "A bed and a book were 'very Heaven'."

Last Sunday I went down to San Diego to St. Anne's, attended Mass for Latarae Sunday, and then drove to my sister's house. We ate her delicious lentil soup and quesadillas and took a walk together (she really has a beautiful neighborhood, but then it would be hard to mess up any place with the perfect climate of San Diego.) I was so happy that we got to talk for a good while; we don't normally see each other much.

After a few hours I left again for St. Anne's, where the San Diego Oratorians were singing Vespers. I enjoy the Liturgy of the Hours chanted well, and as far as I know nobody attempts it in LA County, except probably some monasteries I don't know about. One nice thing about the Oratorians in particular was that they entered singing Lead, Kindly Light and processed out to Praise to the Holiest in the Height-- both hymns I love by Cardinal Newman! He founded the Oratory in England in the 1800's and all the San Diego Oratorians have gone there for formation.

There's a picture of the Vespers here, and after looking at it for a bit I realized that the diehard in the lower left corner is me. (There were a few other people there, but none who sat that close. I actually have a piece of flair on Facebook that says "Good Catholics sit in the back," but I do not approve this attitude except when I share it.) Those who like the traditional Latin Mass will smile to learn that the altar rail in the picture is brand new; probably the first that church has had since the old one got ripped out in the 70's. The diocese of San Diego handed the parish over to the FSSP six months ago and they've been busy with it. I spoke personally with a priest who had assisted in jackhammering out the cement platform in the middle of the sanctuary where the altar had stood, and moving the very heavy marble altar against the eastern wall where it belongs.

My sister had offered me avocados and given me a big bouquet of flowers (she really makes me feel welcome!), but fortunately I had forgotten both in my haste to leave for Vespers. So once it was over I had to go back to her house and fetch them, and that required that she serve me a giganormical mug of tea and sit and talk with me for another hour. Clearly we weren't done hashing through our lives and plans and so on. I love my sister. :)

I last visited her on Palm Sunday 2008, and driving back home I was thinking about that and what life was like at the time and what it's like now and how swiftly some things change and on the other hand, how swiftly time flies while other things don't change nearly as much as they should. More and more I'm anxious not to waste my life.

Oh, but I can waste today at least. I'm fuzzy-headed and legitimately sick!