Well, this weekend was most awesome. Maria came down on Friday night and spent the night at West Grace Street. Saturday morning we got coffee at the place on Cary Street and headed sixty miles west to Buckingham. We were "officially" celebrating our friend Chris Tabilloux's birthday. Since we usually have a summer party, this kind of took the place of it. Joe and JoLauna came with Leigha, Jonathan, and Geneva, who was naturally very happy to see Maria. In fact, Maria didn't get to talk much with Joe, JoLauna, Chris, or his wife Carolyn, because Geneva had a monopoly on her attentions. We had dinner outside underneath the mimosa tree and after everyone left Maria and I went on a little walk down the driveway and back.
On Sunday, we went to lunch at Yogaville. I don't remember if I've talked about Yogaville on here or not; it's kind of a Hindu-commune-meets-Las-Vegas, as my brother Joe has described it (they use lots of big neon lights in their main shrine). Basically, it's Hindu Lite; they use all the big Sanskrit names and prayers and stuff but most of the people there have no clue about Hindu theology or anything. They call their..."discipline" Hatha Yoga, but mainly it's sort of a hippy-dippy new age place for people who toked up a bit too much in their youth and need a place to stay safely secure against the modern world in their foolish youthful ideas.
However, they usually have really nice meals (vegetarian, of course, which is why I thought Maria would like it). She got to meet my old piano teacher, Mataji. Mataji is a practicing Catholic Nun who obtained special permission to live and teach and worship at Yogaville. She was ordained as a swami (Hindu priest) some time ago, so she is involved with two very different spiritual disciplines. She's a wonderful lady--very kind and gentle, and an excellent teacher. It's hard to believe she's in her late seventies sometimes. Anyways, we had a nice lunch and then went home for a walk in the woods behind my house.
Naturally it took Maria and me a long time to get ready to go, so we got to Richmond for dinner pretty late in the evening. It always makes me feel a little sad to watch her go, even though we manage to see each other just about every weekend.
[insert insipid rambling here]
At any rate, it was a wonderful time. I'm glad she got to meet everyone, and she's talking about how she'd like to come down again. She does have to meet my nephew at some point, anyway...


(There'll be pictures at some point, as soon as I transfer them to my laptop.)