On Saturday, after an awesome run through our neighborhood with Julie, Casa DK parted ways for a girls lunch and boys football session. Cara, Julie, and I drove to UCLA to meet Monica, a friend of Julie’s professor from GW, for lunch. Monica is just about our age and also new to the area. We walked from her hours to The Village, an area of shops right next to UCLA’s campus, and had lunch at Barney’s, a sports bar that would make any fan drool. There were dozens and dozens of TVs, playing every possible college football game, as well as an enormous menu! I really enjoyed getting to know Monica. She just moved to LA from Manhattan, where she spent two years working as an event planner and studying with Opus Dei to be a numerary. I knew next to nothing about Opus Dei before lunch, except what I had read in The DaVinci Code years ago, and even those details are foggy now. Talking to Monica, someone could easily relate to, gave some insight into the order. Basically, Monica explained to us, Opus Dei is an order within the Catholic Church that teaches that we are all called to holiness and sanctity in our ordinary lives. She is a layperson who lives at a residence for women right next to UCLA’s campus and helps runs programming and retreats for the women who live there and other local women who are involved. Monica was really open about her vocation and work, which was really neat, especially given how close in age we are. I appreciated the opportunity to learn about another order within the Catholic Church, especially one that I had only read about in novels.
After lunch, Julie, Cara, and I went on a little self directed driving tour of UCLA’s campus. WOW...It is absolutely beautiful. There were no students around yet so we just explored in Barney (that’s our casa’s 15-year-old purple Toyota 4Runner) since the campus was so big. Later that afternoon, after reuniting with the boys after their afternoon of football-watching, we walked down to USC’s campus to check out the tailgating scene. Now, I previously thought that BC tailgating in the mods was out of control and just about as good as it gets. However, USC fans are serious, and the university is WAY more relaxed than BC about the pre-game parties on campus. There were people on every square inch of campus, starting as early as 9am…for a 7:30pm kickoff! We saw alumni of every age, the Trojan himself, students, senior citizens, families, Virginia fans, DJs, grills, kegstands, flip cup & beer pong, dance parties, tents, flags, cheerleaders, and ticket scalpers all over the place. It was so fun to walk around and see all the crazy fans.
On Sunday morning, we went to East LA to Dolores Mission Parish, the parish where Father Greg (see G-Dog post below!) got started with the Dolores Mission school and Homeboy Industries. We ran into Victor, a Jesuit novice who works at the Verb, and another JV casa. The mass was radically different from last week at Holy Name (read: one singer/guitarist (white), a mostly Latino community, and a building 1/3 of the size) but was just as uniquely beautiful: a beautiful baby Mexican/Samoan girl was baptized, the celebrant had visual aids for his homily about the prodigal son, and he even gave us “new JVs” a shout-out when they asked all visitors to stand at the end! (I guess when two young gals from New Jersey and one tall blonde boy from South Dakota introduce themselves in the Jesuit parish, it’s a fair guess that they’re new JVs.)
In other news, my students started school today so Theresa, Wil (the part-timer who works with the kids in the afternoon) and I went over to 112th St. School to pass out Urban Compass applications at the end of the day. It was so overwhelming to see hundreds of little kids and anxious parents lined up. I got to meet a bunch of students (many of whom pointed at me and asked Theresa, “Ms. G, who’s that?”…Theresa’s answer: “Oh, that’s the new Ms. P!” There were many sad faces when the kids realized that Ms. Powers, last year’s JV, is gone!). Urban Compass finally starts tomorrow! More on how the first week with students goes coming soon…
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