It's so cold in Alaska.

So I went home, saw the kids, discussed manners, picked up my grandmother, saw my mother's opera [Carmen]. The kids were all right, the manners impeccable, the grandmother almost blind, and Don Jose a little tight. Today was a Soul Saturday, only six people at liturgy. For some reason S. thought we needed three altar servers, so I did that. The other two people were the choir. I guess it's better than just standing there, 'cause I wouldn't've joined the choir. The newly-illumined doctor is annoying when he reads like he's talking. Fr. S. read St. Gregory Nazianzus' sermon for the day. At lunch, my grandmother jokingly asked what the sermon was about so she wouldn't have to go the church tomorrow, and I told her the sermon really isn't the point. Partly because it just washed over me, it was typical talk about theosis and the resurrection and being partakers of the divine nature, blah blah blah, but also because it's true. She asked if we believed in the Bible, and I told her we wrote it. I don't see how one can believe the Bible and not be Orthodox.

My parents will be going to San Francisco for vacation for a couple weeks, so I want to ask them to drop by the Cathedral and pick up an icon of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, maybe check out his incorrupt relics, but I don't know when it's open to the public and if they have icons for sale there or the other logistics.

Funny thing at lunch on Friday: my grandmother was going to introduce me to the waitress because she goes to my grandmother's church and it's my cousin's restaurant, so she talks for like 5 minutes about who I am and why I'm in town and why I don't live there anymore but never mentions my name. That's, like, the key component of an introduction. I really didn't care about meeting her, though, so it's all good.