Fall Villa at Omena . . .

. . . was pretty low-key this year, providing a badly-needed opportunity for relaxation in the middle of a frenetic fall semester. I accomplished most of the goals I had set for the weekend: I made it to Spike's (twice, in fact - once on the way to Omena and again on the way back), I attended Sunday Mass at Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha Church in Peshawbestown (Franciscan Father Andy Buvala, the robust octogenarian pastor, was in particularly good form this weekend), I picked up some new shoes at the G. H. Bass outlet store in Traverse City, and I got a lot of reading done (on one of my rare forays into fiction, I read most of Jeffrey Eugenides' Detroit epic Middlesex over the course of the weekend). On Saturday evening, several of my companions and I watched as USC beat Notre Dame 34-31 and as U-M managed an incredible 27-25 victory over Penn State on the strength of a touchdown in the very last second of the game. Driving back to Loyola House Sunday afternoon, Tim McCabe and I unexpectedly came across the Pere Marquette - the locomotive featured in The Polar Express - which happened to be making a history-making stop in Grayling. As I commented to Tim at the time, seeing the Pere Marquette proves again that Jesuit influence is omnipresent. All in all, another great experience of villa at Omena. AMDG.