in response to a dream

last friday night, i had an incredibly vivid dream about fr. mychal judge:  i was in new york city, visiting a pub that father judge frequented.  i remember seeing nuns sitting in booths at the pub.  then, i found myself walking down a crowded city block to fr. judge's home.  many other visitors were there, looking at his personal items, reading, talking, and hugging.  i started sobbing.  and then i was awake.

i have absolutely no idea why i was dreaming about fr. judge.  many of you know how much i admire his compassion, especially towards those he saw as disenfranchised.  (by the way, if you have not seen the documentary on judge's life, "saint of 9/11", please feel free to borrow it from me.)  at any rate, when i woke up saturday morning, i felt compelled to google fr. judge's church, st. francis of assisi in manhattan.  while researching their programs, i found the breadline for the poor, a ministry of the franciscan friars there since 1929. 

i'm not sure if this was the reason for my dream, but...in the right-hand column of my blog, i have posted a photo of st. francis of assisi church with a link to the breadline, if you are interested in making a donation. for more information, please click on any of the links i've provided. 

more one-hit wonders

according to feedjit, people from various places around the world have arrived at my blog by typing the following into search engines:

• bathroom swinger (Mexico)
• snow and fun swinger (Sweden)
• swingers daddy blogspot video (Poland)
• my parents took me to a swingers party (United Kingdom)
• 100 ways you know you’re a swinger (Connecticut)

okay.  so swinging is pretty popular, i'm guessing.  one of my darling co-workers, who shall remain nameless, didn't know what a "swinger" was...or what couples who "swing" actually do.  we explained it to her at lunch.

oh.

of course, "swinger of birches" comes from robert frost's beautiful poem birches.  which i love.  little did robert or i realize that utilizing the term "swinger" in writing would elict illicit searches.  (elicit illicit...impressive, eh? hee, hee, hee.)

here are a few more hits that i thought were rather interesting:

• team name panties (Arizona)
• how to judge corn (South Dakota)
• football player bathroom (Thailand)

not sure what the individual from arizona is searching for or how my blog could be of any assistance with that one. 

jules, i thought you and the folks down at the extension office would appreciate the hit from south dakota.

and phyllis, that my parents took me to a swingers party has a children's services referral written all over it, wouldn't you say?  :)

abby

yesterday, dan and laura sweetly invited us to abby's first birthday party. abby's my girl. there. i said it. she's mine. i will only share her with her parents. that's it. the rest of y'all are just out of luck.

dan and laura are wondefully kind and generous and fun. i'm so honored they asked us to share in abby's special day.

look at her. she's just so ridiculously adorable...

big rog's birthday

nothin' says lovin' like the cincinnati reds, baby.

muy delicioso

a big thank-you to my sister jill for emailing me this clip. taye diggs, john krasinski, and patrick dempsey...oh my. next time, jimmy needs to have chairs available for hugh jackman and george clooney.

enjoy.

why i love joey

"i wanna love people"

i just wrapped up a six-week unit in my reading class on the civil rights movement.  my students analyzed primary sources and informational texts, and then completed an in-depth analysis of martin luther king, jr.'s "i have a dream" speech. my dear coworker, suzanne, and i have been amazed at the children's responses to our discussions on discrimination and brutality, segregation and justice, nonviolence and perseverence.  we kept having those teaching moments where we looked at each other, our eyes wide, thinking, "oh my gosh. they get it.  they MORE than get it."

i concluded our unit with this video (which many of you probably saw last year when the event occurred).  in it, john lewis, now a congressman from georgia and a former leader of the sncc, has an emotional reunion with elwin wilson, a former kkk member. the discussion it gave birth to in our classroom was beautiful.  i hope you find the video beautiful as well.