Skip to main content

Kinda LaMorinda day


After depositing the child at a school in Orinda to take her Scholastic Aptitude Test or the SAT we decided to use our Sat as in Saturday to good use.  Given this part of our bay was relatively new to us we set about first on foot, then by car to browse the towns of Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda also known in the hood (or this part of the bay) as LaMoRinda for short.

Since the school where the kid had to write was in Orinda we strolled its green leafy streets taking in the absence of any sort of retail.  That was then followed by a drive to a Catholic educational establishment called St. Mary's College situated in Moraga.   Situated on 400 plus lush acres it is a scenic setting on some prime real estate.  The church certainly has good taste.  A private liberal arts college surrounds the central church building, which rises on the green plateau surrounded by rolling hills.






We visited the church, which always is a treat since the interiors are pleasant and cool and you can admire the architecture and the hardware inside.  This one has a fairly impressive organ which stood mute at the time of our visit.  The nave also highlights a scaled version of a chapel in Sicily.



After this visit we drove for some chow by way of a farmer's market and then fed the soul at the local library which happens to be situated in a WW II era building that housed a grammar school.  These digs were renovated and also house some art galleries in its surrounds.  All in all impressive, both inside and out.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...

Greasy Dra'ch'ma

With all the furor in the media around Greece for the past couple of years I thought it would be good to list all things Greek that people use in common parlance - 1. Some of us are familiar with Greek history as being where the world's largest organized scam was born - called the Olympics. At the time this courier delivered a message by running a large number of miles and that got converted into a spectator sport. Nobody thought about what this implied? Fedex does not use any of the marathon runners instead relying on bio diesel trucks so not sure where we went from courier delivery to extracting money for tickets to watch people balance themselves on a pommel horse - which by the way is quite different from a Trojan Horse - 2. which brings me to the next invention from Greek mythology that finds use today - except used in the computer virus arena. This innocuos program is accepted by a computer since it looks friendly only to unleash undesirable effects leading to loss of s...