Happy Feast Day, Olivia!

When the little girl with the intoxicating smile pictured on the left was born, I quipped that the family martini finally got its olive. My mother-in-law thought I was being flippant. Then she realized I was just being unfunny. Anyway, today is one of the many days that we celebrate around here because today is the feast of Blessed Olivia.

Below is her entry on catholic.com's website. I don't know exactly how much about this Blessed is "pious fictional legend", but we're going to celebrate anyway. Our little lady does some pretty unbelievable stuff herself, so maybe it's something that goes with the name...

Bl. Olivia
Feastday: June 10

Olivia is a derivative of Olive whose feast day is June 10th. According to pious fictional legend, she was a beautiful girl of thirteen, of a noble Palermo, Italy, family who was carried off to Tunis by raiding Moslems. They allowed her to live in a nearby cave but when they found that her miracles and cures had converted many Mohammedans, she was imprisoned, tortured, and after converting her executioners trying to burn her to death, was beheaded.

When I read that entry to her, Olivia thought it was pretty cool. She said, "It's like the olive tree gets its head chopped off when it gets cut down." That's our Olivia. Very serious, very grave. She is the polar opposite of Sophia in that she has a pretty strong morbid streak. She's always asking to see gruesome things. Once she made us TiVo surgeries just so she could decide if she wanted to be a doctor. (She'd make an excellent doctor or nurse--she always takes care of her siblings and parents when they fall ill.)

Lately, Liva has been sleep walking. She wakes up completely distressed and comes to us muttering "it's just hard...it's just hard." We don't know if she's dreaming about math or Goldilocks' first mattress--maybe she's contemplating the challenges of converting the Mohammedans--but it's pretty entertaining.

On a side note, I can't believe how beautiful this kid is (the picture doesn't do her justice). Even when she's completely delirious, she looks gorgeous. I fully intend to send the names of any of her potential suitors to the vocations directors of multiple religious orders. I'm not sure I can part with her.