grounded, bruised, and happy: that, my friends, is the state of the kate.

on friday night jackie and i left our beautiful downtown campus for the even more beautiful spiritan retreat center in bethel park. as we drove up the winding road ‘neath spreading oaks and past undulating fields, my breathing deepened and my heart happied itself. our group of nineteen freshman quickly bonded — we even became fast friends with the campus ministry staff and upperclassmen through a highly competitive game of taboo, several ice breakers, and a four-hour singalong complete with interpretive dance. together we decorated prayer scarves symbolic of our life journeys and values, lit candles and prayed over each other, and re-enacted parables during sunday morning mass.

i came back yesterday afternoon more sure of who God has called me to be and more excited to be that person; more willing to reach out and make new friends, more content with His plan, more aware of my pride. it was a weekend of joyful moments. i scavenged for firewood in the dark with luci-jo whom i call lj and who calls me bill. tim made me a “seattle special” — a s’more with two perfectly toasted marshmallows oozing all over three squares of milk chocolate. (it took three attempts before he pronounced it worthy of my consumption.) father ray boogied with fran while singing elvis songs in his rich scottish tenor. sara and i savored bite after creamy bite of agonizingly delicious cheesecake.

now then, i sit here typing to you with arms stained brown from iodine and bandaged with cotton balls and surgical tape. nicole and i went to the union to donate blood after lunch. the process was longer than i’d imagined. since eighty-seven percent of the medical history questions concerned having sex with certain people or under certain circumstances, i thought i’d save time by telling the guy i hadn’t had sex, period. go figure! he had to ask me all the questions anyway, so we both laughed throughout the entire thing.

and then my right arm got liberally swabbed with iodine and carefully punctured with a 16 gauge needle. after thirty seconds the nurse said, “oops! it’s bruising. look, it’s not going to fill up the bag fast enough.” darn right it wasn’t — instead of flowing easily through the tubing like nicole’s, my blood oozed down and lazily dripped into the bag. so she tried the other arm, which bled promisingly enough for about five minutes and then quit. stupid vein! i send my thoughts and goodwill to people in need of transfusions, because i didn’t even come close to donating enough actual blood for the bank to use.

yet i’m happy. for one thing, i got free orange juice and cheese crackers and pretzels .. and i got to walk around campus looking like i’d just come out of arm surgery or something. for another, it’s been an all-around happy day, from the potato soup at lunch to the perfectly huge birthday box from home to the evening walk to point state park with jon and blair (we got sprayed by the fountain, discussed how jon and i would both commit suicide by jumping off something, and decided that i can work at the starbucks in market square and take the t back to school).

and now it’s monday night.