I Want to Be Big Like You, Okay?

Title's a recent favorite Franklin quote. Happening pretty quick too, though maybe not from his perspective...


Just a few bits of the last couple weeks:

Playing at his favorite park, Hiawatha:

Hard to spot with all the action, but note that as he's kicking the soccer ball he's also holding a tennis ball, ready to throw it :)

Snack break:


Followed, as you may have heard, by a tasty dinner at Circa:

Tasty, and diaper-free! Exciting times!

Calmer moment at home last week:

He's really into matching lately, so here he's trying to replicate the block towers on the box—glad we hung unto the box long enough for him to enjoy it on this level!

Less calm moment at daycare last week, as he and his classmates invited us (and Grandma, per Franklin's request) to a potluck and a play:


Goldilocks, with the kids trading off parts. Franklin ended up in a lead role, but as you'll see he missed a cue:

Or was he hamming it up for the crowd? Hmm...

Lest this end up being Franklin's blog, here's a bit from a couple of weeks ago:

Cocktails at Vito's (cool place!) before hearing some Baroque music at Town Hall.

Fun night, and I saw my first theorbo, so that's cool:


Otherwise, well, as you probably know the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl, and Franklin is excited:






And the Jayhawks are looking great lately too. Fun time watching them beat Texas today with Wendy and Roman and the rest of the Seattle KU alumni crew:



Rock Chalk, dear reader.

It covered everything as far as he could see

Thanks to Emily B. and Pete for a great weekend in a snow-covered cabin!

(And a belated thanks to Ezra Jack Keats for the amazing book that I'm quoting in the title of this post.)

I was glad that Franklin's snowsuit (which was pretty roomy last year) fits perfectly this year. He was pretty happy too:


What? A river, with rocks for throwing? Yes, someone had a fun weekend.

In the Teanaway River Valley. Read about it here: friendsoftheteanaway.org.




Pete, Emily, Franklin, and Emily, looking for ice to crunch through.



And just like magic (just like a picture book?), it was snowing when we woke up Saturday morning:




Of course, the only thing he liked wearing more than the snowsuit was the KU jersey he got in his stocking on Christmas morning.

In his stocking Christmas morning, and on him for the next four days straight :)

The only time he wasn't having fun at the cabin was when he remembered that we didn't bring the dinosaur puzzle that he got for Christmas. This is within five minutes of returning home:

Thanks Magen, Dave, Braxton, Amelia, and Evan!

Oh, and if you want to brush up on dinosaur names, here's the online Picture Legend.

Speaking of Christmas presents and whatnot, here's a quick look back at the holiday:


Working on gingerbread cookies, mostly as a gift for Franklin's teachers at daycare:








Mostly:


And then it was Christmas morning:



One of his favorite presents, a forklift from Nana & Papa.



And for dinner, eye round roast, Moroccan Sweet Potatoes, deviled eggs, and more!


Hey, so did anyone happen to read that New York Times piece about Religion Without God? It hit almost exactly how I had been feeling, especially this bit:

... two anthropologists, Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw, go so far as to argue that ritual isn’t about expressing religious commitment at all, but about doing something in a way that marks the moment as different from the everyday and forces you to see it as important. Their point is that performing a ritual focuses your attention on some moment and deems it worthy of respect.

I had in fact been considering asking Emily to bring us to mass on Christmas, but couldn't quite get there. And the logistics were tricky...

Anyway, we settled on singing some carols together, just to make the point a little clearer:


I hope you won't mind one more quote from that article:

Atheists trust in human relations, not supernatural ones, and humans are not so good at delivering the world as it should be. Perhaps that is why we are moved by Christmas carols, which conjure up the world as it can be and not the world we know.

May the spirit of Christmas be with you, however you understand what that means.

A Fragmentary Experience of Love, Beauty, and Joy

The last few days have been, let's say full. And look at these two:

Amazing.

Not sure, by the way reader, that I can hold all the pieces of this post together, but maybe I'll just accept their fragmentary feel.

On Thursday I was again impressed with my employer. They explained, before hundreds of employees—who'd gathered to renew their commitment to the school's mission of promoting a just and humane world, on a Mission Day focused this year on environmental justice—that they've decided not to divest from fossil fuels. And then in such a great SU moment, they turned over the microphone to (among others) one of the students leading the divestment campaign. He stood in front of the University president and others, and expressed his disappointment. And then he announced a rally to protest the decision. (That's today by the way, see the Facebook event for details.) He received the only standing ovation during the three-hour event.

Back home, I'm loving being able to hang out with Franklin more lately. Finally had the chance to show him part of the 2008 championship game:

I mean, he keeps asking to watching a Jayhawk basketball game: what choice do we have?

No, we haven't made it to the end of the second half yet—to "the shot": he likes to start shooting baskets after watching for a few minutes, so we're saving that and savoring the suspense a little longer.


Also enjoyed a nice walk through Washington Park Arboretum with grandma. Not sure how we managed not to get any shots of grandma or the beautiful flowering trees, but here's a little more of Franklin enjoying the playground near the north end of the park:




Speaking of climbing, I am in way over my head with reading groups and book clubs right now... but I'm really glad I stuck with the second-year Arrupe Seminar on Jesuit education. Last Friday we discussed Karl Rahner, the influential 20th-Century theologian. The reading assignment (a short biography and overview of his work) was interesting, but I was totally blown away by an excerpt of one of Rahner's books that the discussion leader brought for us.

It's Rahner giving examples of where to find divine grace. I'm tempted to quote the whole thing, but here are just my favorite bits:

There is one man who does his duty where it can apparently only be done, with the terrible feeling that he is denying himself and doing something ludicrous which no one will thank him for.

There is a woman who is really good to another woman from whom no echo of understanding or thankfulness is heard in return, whose goodness is not even repaid by the feeling of having been "selfless," noble, and so on.
...

There is a woman who is absolutely lonely, who finds all the right elements of life pale shadows; for whom all trustworthy handholds take her into the infinite distance, and who does not run away from this loneliness but treats it with ultimate hope.
...

There is one who suddenly notices how the tiny trickle of her life wanders through the wilderness of the banality of existence, apparently without aim and with the heartfelt fear of complete exhaustion. And yet she hopes, she knows not how, that this trickle will find the infinite expanse of the ocean, even though it may still be covered by the grey sands which seem to extend forever before her.
...

One could go on like this forever...

—where the fragmentary experience of love, beauty, and joy is experienced and accepted purely and simply as the promise of love, beauty, and joy, without their being understood in ultimate cynical skepticism as a cheap form of consolation for some final deception,
...

—where we entrust all this knowledge and all our questions to the silent and all-inclusive mystery which is loved more than all our individual knowledge which makes us such small people,

—where we rehearse our own deaths in everyday life, and try to live in such a way as we would like to die, peaceful and composed,

—where... (as I have said, we could go on and on):

—there is God and God's liberating grace.


I don't know about you, reader, but I just love that. Now of course that very last sentence takes things in a direction I wouldn't go, but still. Just beautiful thinking.

It's from this book (pp.230-1), which I haven't read but just might need to get a copy of.

Okay, anyway, back to work. Here's hoping for the promise of another weekend soon.

Oh, but here's one more fragment of beauty: Franklin with June, our upstairs neighbor:

Matters of Taste

I have to say, that West Coast Plato Workshop really hit the spot. Restful, restorative, challenging, and fascinating. Wish I could do that in the middle of every term of teaching!

(Yes, even though it meant coming home to over 200 items in need of grading...)

And the folks at Stanford played no small part in making it such a success. Well done all!

Also enjoyed that my hotel was, by sheer coincidence, north of campus, so I walked through this handsome entrance each day:


All of it was made extra fun when Geoff came up from Oakland for dinner after the Workshop was over.

Hopefully next time won't be quite so many years!

If I have one regret about the trip, it's that I didn't notice Coupa Café sooner. I'd never heard of a marrón before, but apparently it's like a latte but much stronger and, perhaps as a direct result, much better :)

Also loved the breakfast arepa:


Later this week, once I was finally home with Franklin, I had the pleasure of learning that he's a huge fan of the pastries at Than Brothers:

Thanks to Pete for the great photos!



Finally, many of you have probably already seen the awesome video Emily took while I was in California, but I think it's worth at least one more look:

A Spring in His Step (That's Right, I Said Step!)

And let me just say right off that I think it was such a great birthday present from Franklin to save this for spring so we can go outside to play!

Obviously that was taken inside, but really the main advantage of putting a mobile baby in a small apartment is the ample video opportunities ;) ... Playground footage coming soon I'm sure.

Also had some fun while we were watching the Kansas game with the alumni group on Sunday, as Emily documented:


Speaking of, not to take this too far off topic, but how about that game? Woo! Rock Chalk!

Highlights are here.

As Wendy pointed out on Facebook, whatever Franklin and Roman said to each other during halftime really worked:

Meanwhile, we were lucky enough to be given tickets to a concert on the same night as some friends offered to hang out with Franklin. So, thanks again everyone!

Saw some very pretty Haydn trios and sonatas performed by the Seattle Baroque Orchestra.

I found a version of our favorite piece of the night on YouTube. Not the version we heard of course, but still not a bad way to spend fifteen minutes...

And although Franklin's at an age where us leaving is a little trickier than it used to be, he seemed to hit it off with Michael, which was awesome and a big relief:

All right, we're on our feet and off to cheer for KU in the Sweet 16!