Flower Friday : : Star Magnolia

We woke up to the sun this morning for the first time in a month! Well, we actually woke up in the dark because Tim and Owen, delivering Olive into our care for the weekend, decided to spend the night and drive back this morning at 5:30. Olive has quickly transferred her affections from Tim to OilMan and has been following him around the garden all day.

Knowing that we'll be back to clouds tomorrow, it was even more glorious to see the sun. It wasn't transferring much heat and there was a chilly wind, but it was still a treat to have a dry, sunny day.

My friend Fran and I are taking another class at Sonoma State University...a wonderful program that operates at a number of universities in the Bay Area called the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. We went to the preview of offerings in which each professor has five minutes to pitch their class. Although neither Fran nor I was particularly interested in the subject, the professor, Dr. Bruce Elliott, arriving in full costume as a medieval scholar sold his class on 500 Years of The Great Divide: Protestant Culture v. Catholic Culture. he sold us on his class, the one we showed up for today.

It turns out, Dr Elliott must have a room full of costumes not to mention a wardrobe master, because he showed up today in a bishop's mitre and white robes. There was a glitch in the slideshow technology which took three different people and numerous phone calls before the right person arrived to sort it all out. It was quite distracting, but he even managed to rise above all that and keep our attention until he could illustrate his talk with medieval art and maps.

He eventually took the mitre off and replaced it with a white beret. I really think the costumes simply illustrate his infectious enthusiasm for his subject.

There was something vaguely familiar about him...he taught at Cal but probably not when I was there as we seem to be more or less contemporaries. Perhaps he lived in Berkeley and I knew his wife or saw him at Peet's, although I'm not sure I would recognize him without a costume...I wonder if he will wear a different one to every class?

The star magnolia tree was in full, almost, ethereal bloom as we walked back to my car.