The Pope Died

And being the good Catholic that I am, I figured I should weigh in on the matter.

As much as I have abandoned catholicism and its strict guidelines over the years, the impact of 12 years of Catholic school made a strong imprint.

This blog's name afterall is based on St. Jude who is seen as the patron saint of hopeless cases and lost causes. We catholics have a patron saint for everything, trust me.

St. Jude was also the name of the parish I belonged to growing up and consquently, the name of the elementary school I went to from first to eighth grade.

Our school field trips were to places like cathedrals and shrines. There were May Processions and Friday masses; First Communion and Confirmation; and lots of confessioning.

I still dearly moved by religious iconography and art.
I mean what is the first thing you see when you walk into a catholic church?
Jesus nailed to the cross.

Like Mardi Gras

So UNC won the NCAA basketball championship last night.

And in predictable fashion, drunken revelry ensued: people flocked to the town's main drag Franklin Street, started bonfires, hung from street signs and trees and stumbled around like freaks on Fat Tuesday in New Orleans.

There are some hungover people today in Chapel Hill.

One of them was a mother of four. Her oldest daughter plays on my son Spencer's soccer team. Her husband is an academic counselor for student athletes at UNC.

Shortly after arrived for the 4 pm practice, she mumbles to me that she has a raging headache.
"I celebrated a little too hard last night," she said.

It's a little after 7 pm and I'm on my second vodka tonic.

No hangovers here my friend.