These are a few of my favorite things.

1. our family doesn't *have* to do anything, go anywhere, be anybody on this particular saturday. The feeling of Shalom is deep and rich and beautiful

2. Emily H. gave me my favorite compliment yesterday while stopping by the office to say hey

3. I boiled a chicken carcass and leftovers down to broth for about six hours last night after dinner. Slow food is an even more profound favorite thing in the face of watching SuperSizeMe last night.

4. I found a card from my sister which is my favorite birthday card ever (along with a few others). The cover says: "Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood." This seems like a good summary of a prescriptive philosophy of human relations. Do you remember Schmuel's Big Bouncy Ball from Myerhoff's Number Our Days? He tells this story:

I have a friend. a woman i know already many years. One day she is mad at me. From nowhere it comes. I have insulted her, she tells me. How? I don't know. Why don't I know? Because I don't know her. She surprised me. That's good. That is how it should be. You cannot tell someone. " I know you." People jump around. They are like a ball. Rubbery, they bounce. A ball cannot be long in one place. Rubbery, it must jump.
So what do you do to keep a person from jumping? The same as with a ball. you take a pin and stick it in, make a little hole. It goes flat. When you tell someone, "I know you," you put a little pin in.

5. Thanksgiving in Michigan -- it's my favorite holiday to be with my family...my kids are counting down -- 3 days til we leave...