Funky Dung

The following is a re-post from my old blog, originally posted March 6, 2006. – Eric

On the first day of Lent we heard these words (adapted from Genesis 3:19) spoken as a priest dipped his thumb in ash and made the sign of the cross on our foreheads. They served as an outward sign of an inner penance and a symbol of mortality. We wore those ashes for the remainder of the day, or at least until they rubbed off. Wherever we went and whatever we did, we were witnesses to the faith. Those who saw us know that we have been baptized into the death of Jesus Christ and hope to share in His resurrection.

More people attend Ash Wednesday mass than Christmas or even Easter, the holiest day of the year. That alone is ...

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Snowmageddon. Snowpocalypse. SnOMG. Whatever you call it, we knew it was coming, and we knew it would be bad.

If you ask Mayor Ravenstahl, though, he and the rest of Pittsburgh’s government aren’t to blame for the painfully slow plowing process.

“Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who left town Friday to celebrate his 30th birthday in the Laurel Highlands and got stranded there, told reporters that forecasts that morning called for 4 to 8 inches of snow. Soon after he got back in town Sunday he was at the city’s Emergency Operations Center talking — he noted pointedly — to the same people he had been talking to all weekend by computer and phone while at the Laurel Highlands.”

Technically, he’s right that the morning prediction wasn’t for a blizzard. My memory is that the prediction in the ...

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Over Christmas break, my niece and nephew were watching a kids’ show during breakfast. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be memorable, but the moral lesson of the story bothered me a little.

Super Why is advertised as “a breakthrough preschool series designed to help kids ages 3 to 6 with the critical skills that they need to learn to read (and love to read!) as recommended by the National Reading Panel (alphabet skills, word families, spelling, comprehension and vocabulary).” If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering why a show about teaching skills has moral lessons at all.

“In every episode, one of the friends encounters a problem with another Storybrook Village character (For instance, Jill from the Jack and Jill rhyme is not being nice). As in real life, the problems require preschool social skills ...

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Were you at the Pittsburgh Oratory on Sunday morning? That fire alarm during the processional hymn was great, wasn’t it?

I set it off. You’re welcome.

It wasn’t entirely my fault, though.

Alex usually sits still for about half of mass before needing to be taken to the back of the church. This week was different, though. For reasons unknown he started fussing before mass even started, so I took him back. The back of the Oratory chapel is really outside the doors, though. By the time I usually get back there, though, they’re open and there are other “exiled” parents crowding the hall. Since mass hadn’t started, though, so the doors were still shut. If they stayed shut, we would be unable to participate in mass, which I could hear begin as the organist began chanting something appropriate for Epiphany. I figured someone had to open the doors, ...

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Witnessing the growth of my son’s vocabulary has been, on the whole, a blessing and a source of fascination. One recent and fun development involves one of Alex’s favorite books, one that he has access to both at home and at daycare. It’s “Moo Baa La La La“, by Sandra Boynton. He has it pretty well memorized.

• Me: “A cow says…”
• Alex: “Mmm”
• Me: “A sheep says…”
• Alex: “Bah”
• Me: “And three singing pigs say ‘La, la, la!’”
• Alex: “No, no, no, no!!!”
• Me: “‘No, no’, you say. ‘That isn’t right, the pigs say oink all day and night.’”
• Me: “Rhinoceroses snort and snuff, and little dogs go…”
• Alex: “Ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh.”
• Me: “Some other dogs go…”
• Alex: “Bowawawa.”
• Me: “‘Quack’ says the duck. The horse says…”
• Alex: “Ni” [ala Monty Python]
• Me: “It’s quiet now. What do you say?”
• Alex: “Aboo!”

I don’t know how well it ...

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