There was a second wedding this week: one of Michelle’s classmates from the University of Michigan got married in Berkeley yesterday.

And so Michelle’s recent roommate flew out for it and she stayed with us for two nights, taking off early this morning. A second classmate had a red-eye flight home late tonight: so he would have, it looked like, nothing to do all day in a strange city.

Hey.

And so Michelle went to church while he rode BART over to our side of the Bay; having him a lot closer made it a lot easier.  She picked him up from the train station and took him to the Rodin sculpture garden at Stanford, art dealer’s granddaughter that she is. They hiked The Dish (and saw no mountain lions). He came to dinner; he exclaimed over the ataulfo mangoes in the salad, he loved her lemon-from-the-tree meringue pie, we had a great time. By the end of it we were all rooting hard for him to take a job here–there is a transfer offer in his future with an office here, so it’s a possibility. We talked up the place, hoping.

It was hard for me to see both of those good young people go and I’ve only barely met them. The day had me remembering when my own friends all split up at the end of our college careers, when the costs of long-distance telephone calls could easily wipe out a student’s paycheck and it was that or mail without the word snail yet but that often didn’t happen.

It’s great to know your kids have friends who are just the best. I wish them every blessing in their journeys ahead.