monday's mulling: how the mind wanders

We have been away for most of last month and keeping up with "stuff," particularly blogging and weeding, has been challenging. 

We returned from a wedding in St. Louis last night and my garden on the corner, the one most visible to anyone who passes by - walkers, dog walkers, joggers, parents pushing strollers, the Amazon delivery people, the mailman, people in cars (except for the out-of-school kids who roll through the stop sign or zip around the corner) - mortified me. 

I worked for a couple hours this morning, took a break for a yoga class, and then returned for a couple hours in the afternoon heat of the day. The things you think of while the sun beats down on you.

The flag in the photo was placed by the local Optimist Club in recognition of Memorial Day. It will remain through July 4 to celebrate Flag Day (June 14) and then come down a couple days after Independence Day. While I was weeding, sweating, and grumbling, a breeze blew and the flag opened up. I took a breath, my wandered back to my Spanish teaching days and the first lesson on cognates (words that look similar in English and in Spanish).

Yo prometo lealtad a la bandera de los Estados Unidos de America, y a la república que representa, una nación, bajo Dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos.

Can you figure out what this is?

To make a long and agonizing story short, one mom did not like the fact that her daughter was learning the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. 

"The Pledge of Allegiance is meant to be said IN ENGLISH." Mom was adamant and a bit hateful. 

While the rest of the students learned all about cognates and how to get a rhythm going by reading the Pledge aloud and eventually reciting it from memory, one  student memorized a poem about a little flower, "Tengo una pequeña flor..." Her activities and learning goals were the same, just not with the Pledge of Allegiance. She practiced with her classmates but everyone knew why she wasn't learning the Pledge. It was an elephant in the room.