Pretty soon, the kayaking season will be over and this journal will be covering the winter topics of books and knitting and Netflix and concerts.  But for now, there is no way I am coming indoors.

Getting ready to put in at Barton yesterday:

You can’t tell from any of the pictures, but the Clackamas is splashing white all the way.  It’s just not possible to take pictures while navigating the white stuff so you can only see the odd calm moments.

Most of the interest on the Clackamas is created by huge boulders just under the surface.  Around here if you mention boulders someone says, “Yeah.  Those came down here with the Great Missoula Flood,”  like that was yesterday, when, actually it happened at the end of the last ice age.

But, speaking of books, I did read a great one this week,  The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.  A paddling book of sorts, and so much more.  It’s about nine American boys, the crew team from the U. of Washington, ordinary boys from working-class families during The Great Depression, and their epic quest for the gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  Scholarly folks will love how well it’s documented.  West Coast folks will love the rivalry between Cal and the U. of Wa.  Everyone will love George Pocock, who built the team’s boat from Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata).  Now, every crew team in  the world rows Pocock boats.  Of course, they no longer smell of our beautiful cedar, more’s the pity.

And everyone will love the boys who, against impossible odds, went to Berlin and brought home the gold.

Every week, the SJ runs a list of births at local hospitals, and the names parents choose for their babies are often amazing.  Usually, it is easy to pick the winner (read “loser”), but today, it’s a three-way tie:  Vienna Lionheart, Luna-Atreyu Jolisa, and Zavarrah Areese. And God bless them every one, and their kindergarten teachers, when they have to learn to   write their names.

If by this time we haven’t learned that it’s not all about me — in fact, very little is — we are doomed to become lonely, self-absorbed old folks.

Do We Get Less Narcissistic as We Get Older?

By ANNA NORTH

Researchers have long explored whether using Facebook makes us more full of ourselves. Now a study of Facebook data has found that users actually get less self-obsessed — at least as measured by certain words in their posts — as they get older.

As Mark Liberman writes at Language Log, researchers at the World Well-Being Project at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the pronouns people used in Facebook posts and broke down the results by age. They found that the use of first-person singular pronouns like “I” and “me” was lower among older users.

Actually, it was yesterday, October 4, but we always bless the animals at St. P’s on the closest Sunday.  And it’s always a lovely thing.

I have been to Assisi.  Twice actually.  The last time, 2005, I just headed off by myself to seek out the Chapel of Santa Ciara (St. Claire) which had been closed for earthquake repairs in 2000.  It’s all pink and white stripes.

So much birdsong along my walk back to the basilica.  Made me think of the legends that have grown up about what an animal-lover St. Francis was. Lots of cats there too.  I snapped this lovely Umbrian cat.

And here is the Basilica of St. Francis:

The Giotto frescoes took my breath away. Again.  I sort of wish I could forget that painting of St. Francis cutting Santa Clara’s hair.  It’s just  entirely too freudian and creeps me out.  But I digress.

I bought this plaque there and, though I move it around, it always hangs in a place of prominence at 1880.

Father Lin, after blessing all creatures great and small this morning, preached a sermon mostly to the animals present.  He pointed that, according to the Genesis legend (and paleontology)  the animals were created before humans and the Creator saw that they were very good and blessed them. Fr. Lin said, over the years some people thought having “dominion” over the animals gave people the right to abuse them rather than to nurture and care for them.  And then he said to the animals present, “We are sorry.”  A dog barked “amen.”

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made you all.

And it’s right out my kitchen door.  Sweet.

And there’s plenty of room for a dog and a woman on the chaise, once we snuggle in.