Two More Baby Pictures

We had an echocardiogram for the baby on Tuesday, which thankfully went very well. At the end, One-Eyed Willie (just look at the pictures) decided to give us a little wave after smoothing his hair (and no, my phrasing doesn't mean it's a boy. But we have to pick one or the other, as referring to the child as 'it' is unbecoming).

New Things

So...no updates in a looooooong time. Two new things. 1)We are planning to move back to Hillsdale at the end of the summer. 2)We are waiting for the arrival of a new and small human. We don't know if it's a he or she, but we had the first ultrasound this morning and this is what the Hutchling, as Dennis aptly named him/her, looks like at the moment. The first is a profile shot as the Hutchling chills in a warm, dark place. The second is an arm either waving or giving the rock 'n roll horns, and the third is a foot with the toes curled up.

A Poem for Easter

Seven Stanzas at Easter

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Telephone Poles and Other Poems © 1961 by John Updike. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc.

Locks of Love?

More news from Italy. I think Constantine would be...interested.

Lamppost has lock on love on Rome bridge

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 49 minutes ago

ROME - In Rome, breaking the chains of love requires a hacksaw — literally. Sweethearts in the Italian capital have adopted a new ritual as a symbol of undying love: hanging a padlock on a lamppost on the city's most ancient bridge and throwing the key into the Tiber.

The craze has drawn hundreds of couples in the few months since it started — causing city officials to wonder whether the ancient Roman bridge is suited for such an overwhelming display of passions.

"The rite has reached a dimension that will be difficult to cope with. We must guarantee the bridge's decency while preserving this beautiful practice," said Marco Perina, a city official.

Some couples write their names or a message on the lock. They throw the key into the river over their shoulders to avoid seeing where it falls.

It's quite a change of scenery for a bridge that has seen more war than love since it was built in the second century B.C. Ponte Milvio served as the battlefield between rival emperors Constantine and Maxentius in 312; it was the backdrop of the Italians' struggle for independence in the 1800s.

Today the pedestrian bridge is close to the Olympic stadium — a soccer battleground — north of the city's historical center.

The idea of the love locks is not new in Italy. But Ponte Milvio owes its new reputation mainly due to two novels depicting the love of Roman teenagers. The books have sold a combined 2.5 million copies and were both made into movies.

The padlock ritual has spilled into a music video and inspired a prize — "The Golden Padlock" — awarded to the best love message on
Valentine's Day. In the process, it has started drawing tourists to an area that is usually off the beaten track.

Such huge attention also caused some undesired consequences. Hundreds of locks were stolen last week — although they were found the following day and are to be put back in a ceremony expected to draw the city's mayor.

A check ordered by city officials showed the locks posed no threat to the stability of the lamppost. But officials are looking for an alternative site amid fears the bridge may be damaged. One possibility is to put up a "lovers' lamppost" in a square near the bridge.

"We want to keep this tradition alive. It's becoming like tossing a coin in the Trevi fountain," said Perina.

All in the Family

This might be the craziest news story I've seen out of Italy in a while. Guess it's not just Americans who go nuts over grades.

Parents beat up principal over grades

Mon Mar 5, 8:58 AM ET

BARI, Italy (Reuters) - An irate Italian family beat up a principal because they were unhappy with the grades a young relative had received and a ban on cell phones at school.

Three male relatives, including the father and grandfather of the student, punched and pushed principal Ugo Castorina at the Lombardi middle school in Bari on Saturday, police said.

They were angered by grades on the latest report card and by a recent ban by Castorina on cell phones at the school he has run for the past 22 years.

Castorina was taken to hospital and treated for mild contusions. Police escorted him back to the school.

"Some people may not like it but standards must be set and rules must be respected if a school is to function," Castorina told reporters.

Cat Update

As you know, we named our cat Adrian. But: we had some friends over the other night, and when one of them called the cat, we realized we had misnamed her, or, rather, that we had given her an incomplete name. Our friend's beckoning made immediately clear what the cat's full name should be. So now, if you want to address our feline friend by her full and proper name, it is: 'Yo Adrian'.

For example: right now, Yo Adrian is drinking out of her water dish on the other side of the room.

UPDATE: Oh, snap! I just glanced back at the comments from the previous post and realized that Kirk had already preceded all of us with the true name, so give the man some props as well.

Stray Cat Strut

Our landlord decided that he didn't want us to have a dog, but was ok with us getting a cat, so...today we did. The day's journey took us far and wide in the Philadelphia area. We started out at our place in West Philly, went to church out on the Main Line, then drove up to North Philly to an animal shelter (and went by Rasheed Wallace's high school on the way!); their pickins were a little slim, so we drove down to a pet store in South Philly that was hosting an adoption event with animals from that same shelter, and there we found the cat that we're now calling Adrian. Yes, that sounds like a funny name for a cat at the moment, but we're hoping to get a playmate for her at some point in the future and are planning to name him Rocky. She's a sweet little cat, and so far seems to like to be around people. Here are a few pictures of her.