Luke's God phone

We had a good trip from NEPA to South Sac yesterday. We left our house at 4pm eastern time, and made it to Fr. Stephen and Sally's house at 12:30 pacific time (3:30 eastern time) without any problems. All in all, we can't complain. We even hit In-N-Out Burger at 11:45pm on the way home from the airport because we were hungry. Mmmm, cheeseburgers and real milkshakes.

On our flight from Chicago to Sacramento, we had a row to ourselves. Luke was sitting/standing on the middle seat playing with an old airplane phone that United has in the back of their seats on older airplanes. I (Matthew) asked him to whom he was talking. No answer. So I asked, "Luke, are you talking to God on that phone?" Then he said, "Yeah. Hello, God."

Of course, I would love to report that he fell asleep whispering the Jesus prayer aloud, but lo, he merely passed out after a few minutes of watching 'Madagascar 2'.

My parents have a golden retriever who came from Australia. Her name is Sydney. Luke was eating grapes on the patio today (in 95 degree heat---NICE!) and after dropping a couple grapes, Sydney came over to help herself to them. Luke started yelling, "NO NO NO! NO Ed!" I told Stasia, "He just called her Ed instead of Sid." (my parents call her Sid). Stasia didn't believe me. Then he did it again, and sho'nuff, he said "Ed." So Sydney has a new name--not only does my brother call her "retard," but Luke now calls her Ed.

Since we missed the vesperal liturgy for Ascension at St. Athanasius (held last night at 6:30pm), I went to liturgy at Holy Cross OCA church about 15 minutes away. Fr. Ian McKinnon knew I was likely to come, as my dad had contacted him on Saturday to inquire about the service time for me. I greeted Fr. Ian just after he started 3rd hour prayers. He welcomed me warmly to the church and said, "So your dad told me that you are preaching today." I laughed and replied, "well sure, if you want me to." At this point I thought he was joking. He said, 'Yeah, yeah, that would be wonderful." I stopped smiling instantly and said, "Really?" He said, "Well, yeah. I guess your dad forgot to tell you." Sooooooo.,..that gave me about 30 minutes to come up with my first ad hoc homily. I hate to brag, but considering that I wasn't ready, I think it was pretty mediocre. At the very least, I didn't stutter or have long pauses, and I think all my points made sense. So as soon as I am finished with this post then I will try to write down some notes from what I said, so as to have an idea of what to say in the future.

I also will give the homily on Sunday morning (5/31) at St. Athanasius. But at least I know about this one.

On my way home from church, I stopped at a roadside strawberry booth and purchased a few baskets of strawberries that were picked THIS MORNING! Eat your heart out Alaskans! YABOY! I was looking at the strawberry field when I bought the strawberries. Mmmmm, they were so good. Luke calls them "Strawbobs" and really likes them.

We also went shopping at Costco with my dad this morning. Luke fell asleep on the way to Costco, during the whopping 7 minute ride (sidenote: he only slept for 3 hours on the plane, then he slept from 1:30am to 5am--yeah, 5am he woke up asking for cake. What?!). So Luke fell asleep in the car around 11:30am. We weren't sure whether to leave him in the car (not alone) to let him sleep or to carry him through the store. We settled on neither. We put a blanket in a cart and then let Luke stretch out in the cart. So he slept in the cart for an hour (he was free when we checked out cuz he didn't have a barcode). Then he slept in the car on the way home, then he slept for another hour in bed. Tired boy. He's having a rough day because he is still so weary from the journey, and he is not adjusting very well to the time change.

It is now almost 5:30 in the evening. Hannah is sucking her thumb, my madre is cooking dinner, mi padre is in the backyard with Stasia talking about plants, and Luke is running around in his diaper out there carrying big sticks. He really likes the heat, yet refuses to play in the pool my parents bought for him. What a goober. (He says "Goooober" really well, by the way).

Anyhoo, I am gonna check out so that I can transcribe some notes from my homily. I'm sure Stasia will post pictures in the near future. In the meantime, I wish all of you a joyous feast day. May we all be uplifted to heaven as Christ was today.

I'm out.
--Matthew