Angel Wing

When the sun came through the window this morning, this is what we saw. Our window cleaner calls them 'angel wings'. They're caused by birds flying into the windows. We've had a lot of them recently,  despite out attempts to discourage them with stickers, clear stickers that only birds can see in color and streamers of foil like they use in the vineyards to discourage birds from eating the grapes. It must have something to do with the angle of the light. Fortunately this one lived to fly away.

I have been cleaning out drawers prior to welcoming the dog/house sitter tomorrow. We're leaving for Los Angeles on Friday for Claire's high school graduation. Last year when Julia graduated from the same school, Campbell Hall,  Claire as incoming student body president carried the cross. This year, as outgoing student body president she will be giving the opening speech.

All three of our kids graduated from Berkeley High School in the Greek theatre, an outdoor amphitheater on the Cal campus. Despite the august setting, many of the kids planned ways to 'personalize' what was supposed to be a  dignified walk across the stage to receive their diplomas empty folders with their names on. One boy broke his leg when he did a flip and flipped right off the stage into the well.

Will and Peter both personalized their mortarboards with the name of the college they planned to attend in the fall, but they walked in a dignified manner across the stage on the football field at the high school they both attended in Santa Rosa, Maria Carillo  

I remember being quite sick with something, pneumonia perhaps, when I graduated from high school. We graduated in the Rose Bowl along with the other high school and the junior college in Pasadena. Not too intimate. I graduated from Cal in the football stadium...a cast of thousands. My graduation gown pretty well concealed the fact that I was six months pregnant with Dana, but nobody would have noticed me anyway in that mob, not even OilMan and my parents who made the valiant effort to attend. 

So many high hopes...it's a time of high spirits and nervous expectations.