Assume nothing

So today is evidently Assumption Day, which I knew nothing about until my Aunt Fran, who teaches religion at a Catholic high school in Boise, very patiently explained a bunch of the Catholic holidays to us wayward Protestants after seeing the Issenheim Altarpiece at the Musee d'Unterlinden in Colmar, France. I'm guessing a lot of "Hail Marys" are being said around here today. So anyway, near as I can tell, Assumption is not a holiday in Basel (which I guess is more or less evenly split between Catholics and Protestants), but it is in some of the more Catholic surrounding areas. For some reason, they decided at work that this made it worthy of a holiday, but not a whole day, so instead we're here until lunchtime and then we get to go home. That kind of seems like a cop-out to me...I mean, if you're going to have a holiday, don't go halfway--give us the whole day off. But I guess I'll take what I can get.

In other non-Virgin-Mary-related news, Gretchen flies home from Wisconsin this afternoon and arrives tomorrow, so my bachelor days are numbered. Which is good...not only do we miss her, but Grady and I are getting on each other's nerves, and you can only eat so many calzones from Coop in a three-week period....