A. I’m not much of a comics guy, but this idea sped unbidden into my head: Graviton – a superhero no one has ever seen, but whose existence is required by theory. His nemesis would be Dark Matter. They battle over who gets to hold the universe together, and taunt each other with jabs about how the other one only exists because some math shows he must exist, even if nobody has ever seen any direct evidence either does exist.
I suppose it would be kinda hard to draw. Probably should leave this sort of thing to the pros.
B. Today is my first official day on the new job as Headmaster, but since the school’s lease doesn’t start until 7/15 and we have to move out of our AirBnB today and tomorrow, I’ll be working from home in between moving stuff to…
C. …the house we rented in Sacramento. For the next year, we will be living an 8 minute walk from a much-beloved parish, and a 14 min drive from my work, because…
D. …our house in the Bay Area has not yet sold, AND the housing market here in the Sierra Foothills is both insane and showing signs of a steep correction. The kinds of properties we are looking at have typically increased in price by 50% or more over the last 2 years, from prices we could afford to prices that are frankly stupid. IF we can sell our house soon at something near asking price, AND the market her calms the heck down over the next year, we should be OK.
E. Yes, we own a cat. So sue me. I like dogs just fine, but I like cats more, and they’re less trouble in general. BUT – when you’ve been house hopping for going on 2.5 months, a cat is not trouble free. We have been very blessed with people who have been willing to cat sit him for us. He seems to be doing well:
F. We will miss Auburn. Very beautiful country. Here are a couple shots from a tiny (40 acre) privately-funded nature reserve with walking trails:
Now, this isn’t Yosemite or the Grand Tetons or anything, but for a suburban brat, being able to take walks in the woods instead of along some paved street or path is very nice. God willing, in a year or so, we will back as permanent residents in Auburn.
OK, back to work. The world continues to burn; pray that God’s loving correction is as gentle as possible.
Yard Sale of the Mind 
We are on the same boat. A good job offer hanging fire. Dogs about to go into hock. And in a couple of days no place to lay our heads.
Love the furry dewberries, but this’d be miles easier without them. Ah well.
Good luck and prayers!
I’m sure God’s loving correction will be merciful. As merciful as possible. Those of us who attend Novus Ordo Masses heard yesterday something about sowing winds, and reaping whirlwinds.
Heh. That could very easily be a photo of our younger kitteh: same breed, same coloring, although she’s not quite sofa-sized. Yet. She sprawls like that in my lap most evenings.
I actually got a job offer at the classical Catholic school, which I promptly turned down the same day, since it was further away than I realized and the salary they offered, which not at all bad for a Catholic school, was not enough for me to move and certainly not enough to justify an hour and a half commute every day.
Wow. Sorry it didn’t work out.
Turning the job down makes me sick to my stomach, but what can ya do.
Since NJ is basically “CA East”, you can imagine what prices are like. To entice me over, they offered me 40k and lodging at 1k a month.
Note how bad things have gotten. 1k – previously premiere rent – is now considered such a good deal that they’re trying to use it to entice me to take a job. I have a friend in Missouri who was complaining he might have to pay 600 dollars a month in rent. It is to weep.
1k a month while a comparatively good deal is, of course, impossible, because that would leave me with 30k for everything else – car insurance, 250 dollars a month to pay the lease on my current car, health insurance, not to mention paying for a cell phone, internet, food, heat/air, electricity, and, oh yeah, the hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month I spend on student loans. MAYBE I can support it, but I’d be paycheck to paycheck, I wouldn’t be setting myself up for the future AT ALL, and right now my parents are willing to support me…so I write out, knowing all of this is right, but still feeling horrible about turning the job down. Sigh.
That is tough.
Regarding (A), should I be worried that, in my own private legendarium, all the best and wisest people in the space-time continuum are made of the villain and scoff at the very existence of the hero? (And of his sidekick Photon, for that matter. “Glory isn’t made of particles, you silly,” as I believe one of the Masters of Cliffside once put it.)
One does whatever one does in one’s private legendarium, or else, what is the point? Perhaps all are in another’s puppet show? Dark Energy is pulling the strings…
That’s what I loved about living in Connecticut, for about 2-1/2 years, 30 years ago or so. It was a semi-rural area of the state and you could buy a book of hiking/walking trails which gave you a never-ending supply of gorgeous places in which to get your exercise. You just had to decide how far you wanted to walk, how hard a walk you wanted it to be, and how far you wanted to drive to get there. Happiest time of my life — excepting of course every year of my life since I met my wife, who did not nor does she live in Connecticut. : )