"Quelli che hanno usurpato in terra . . .”

Last classes of the semester for Justin today. In the morning he and a handful of comrades helped Sander and Bianca load the U-Haul for their haul down to Washington D.C. A penchant for exactitude borne of the hard experience of a thousand Elders Quorum moves led Justin and Devan Bennett to perform a massive rearrangement of the truck’s contents about midway through the move. Perhaps they performed their task too well, and the crew ended up filling only a third or so of a 17-foot truck (Bianca said they filled one on the way up to New Haven two years ago). But the workers were proud of their handiwork. The only downside of the day was that Justin got a parking ticket, which Sander graciously paid for (thus mitigating whatever blessings in heaven Justin might have won by his morning’s efforts).

In the evening the law school held a “community picnic,” which meant hot dogs and hamburgers and other healthful culinary wonders in the courtyard. Eli, a prodigious trencherchild when she wants to be, ate her own hot dog rapidly (leaving the bun) and then demanded, at the point of a cry, that she be given her father’s frank as well. Justin, piqued, consented, then navigated the perilous route back to the food line, which Associate Dean Mike Thompson regulated with draconian severity. The girls had fun romping around the courtyard, reliving the glory days of their photo-shoot and making new friends with the other children present.

On the way home, Lia ditched the rest of the family and went to the church for enrichment. The lesson was on gardening, and Lia, predictably, returned home all ablaze with the fires of horticultural ambition. She reissued, for the thousandth time, her demand to Justin that the family own a garden in the fullness of time—a requirement which, for reasons unknown, will go unmet on an estate smaller than twenty acres in a state more urban than Virginia.

Lia’s horticultural aims take the place of her recent sartorial spree, lately concluded with the completion of Eli’s adorable sundress. Lia thus made a dress for every female in the family in less than a month’s time. Perhaps now the apartment will look moderately less like a sprawling sewing room. At least until the next project.