We can’t help it. We just sometimes fall in love with some especially adorable part of him. Lately, it’s been his irrisistible little feet, particularly the toes.
Apr 172006
Apr 172006
There’s a meme floating around that I’m going to consider myself "tagged by Jen" to answer.
The idea is to post 6 unusual or little-known things about you. This is an interesting challenge because I have a pretty large number of real life friends and family members who read this blog. I may give myself an easy out and give 3 unusual and 3 little known things about me. 
- Both of my parents are currently elected officials. Both of them were public figures for most of my life.
This can be really hard when you’re a kid, especially around the onset of puberty. There’s no way to be just like everyone else around you under those circumstances.
On the other hand, I learned so much growing up — without knowing I was learning anything — that has helped me as an adult. I think my ability to connect with a lot of different kinds of people, the breadth of my general knowledge, my comfort in new situations and meeting new people, and my political skills are all the result of the environment in which I grew up. Maybe not exclusively the result of that, but that influenced them to a very significant extent.
- I still know my oldest friend.
Katie and I have known each other since I was born; she’s almost 4 months older than I am, and when we were born, our families lived in the same duplex. We attended attended the same schools for roughly a third our preschool-high school years, but no more than 2 years consecutively. (Ages 3, 5, 6, 9, 16, and 17.) We periodically lose and regain contact, but she reads this blog. Unfortunately for me, she lives abroad, and it may be that I haven’t seen her 13 or 14 years (I think). I did catch up with her sister when I was stuck in California after Sept 11, 2001.
- I was stuck in southern California after September 11, 2001.
At the time, I lived in DC, and was in California for work. By myself. For the first 3 days, I thought I was going to get a flight home "tomorrow" and when my Friday flight was canceled, I decided to drive home instead. Also by myself. Without a real map. (The people who decided to drive home earlier in the week bought all the maps. I had an 8.5×14" map of the US.)
It was the best decision I ever made. I wound up being talked into picking up a friend of a friend who was stuck in Colorado, who became a very close friend and the person who introduced me to the love of my life.
- I love water, and I miss it terribly.
I’m more of a lake person than an ocean person, but what I really love are the Great Lakes. Basically, I like a body of water that you can’t see across, but that doesn’t taste horrible when it gets in your mouth when you’re swimming. But any kind of large body of water is nice.
What I really love is being able to sit and stare out towards the horizon line, just being with the way the water moves. And floating in it, peacefully spacing out and moving around in the water.
One day, I will have a house on a lake.
- I believe that people can have anything they truly want.
It’s hard to figure out how to say this without sounding like I blame people for their own unhappiness. That’s not what I’m trying to say.
What I mean is that if a person is truly committed to having something happen in their life, they can usually make it happen, even if it isn’t "realistic." Sometimes it takes time, and usually it takes work, but if you really want it, and you acknowledge that you really want it, and you let other people and the universe know that you really want it, life often aligns with your dreams.
For example, I spent many years refusing to admit that I wanted to be in a "happily ever after" relationship. In December 2001, I finally owned up to exactly what I wanted. I even declared that I wanted to be in love by June 1, 2002! In January 2002, I met Jill; in February we started dating, and on June 1, she proposed. Later that year, she told me that she had a dream of being a professional actor. We came up with a plan that let her quit working for a year, to really pursue that dream, and 11 months after that, she had her professional stage debut. I have more examples, but I’ll restrain myself.
- I want to travel more.
When I was a broke grad student and early in my career, somehow I managed to travel a ton, including internationally. But since that epic road trip after September 11, I’ve traveled a lot less, and almost exclusively to places that I know. I can’t even remember the last time I went camping.
Apr 162006
Don’t I have an adorable family?
I’m full of hopeful and happy Easter sentiment this morning. How can you not feel that sense of renewal and a wide open future looking at those faces?
I hope you have a wonderful Easter too!
Apr 152006
Congratulations to Jen & Cait, on the birth of little Natalie Claire!
Apr 142006
We’ve been at war with the short-term apartment people in the neighboring county. The place we need to move in order for Jill to adopt Noah, giving him 2 legal parents. It’s completely ridiculous, and we finally raised the white flag of surrender and gave notice.
Here’s what happened: We rented a fancy apartment in a cool downtown condo building. We’ve never lived in a place like that, and the next time it’ll even be an option will be after Noah and his future hoped for sibling finish college. So why not? He’s small enough it still works. And it would be incredibly convenient for both of our jobs!
Because we now live in a metro area with a traditional real estate market, instead of the insanity of the DC area, things go on the market for awhile before people buy them. So there is a niche business of "staging" houses and condos to make them appealing to buyers. Our lease was with such a company; the actual owner has moved far away.
The problem is that NO ONE has a key for the mailbox, and apparently, NO ONE can get one!!! We’ve been trying for 6 weeks? How are we supposed to function in a place if we can’t get any mail there? Gee, judge, we didn’t mean to miss the hearing, but we didn’t get the notice in the mail. Gee, mortgage company, we’d like to pay your bill but we didn’t get it in the mail.
First, Jill asked the staging company for the key to the mailbox.
They didn’t have it. They said they’d look into it. Then they told her to contact the post office to get it.
What? This is the condo building’s mailbox we’re talking about — not a PO Box.
They’re sure.
OK, we call the local post office. Yes, they deliver to that building. And yes, some very old buildings operate like that, but we have to speak to Mr SoAndSo to find out if our building is one of those. (Since it’s a renovated modern loft, we are doubtful.)
No, Mr SoAndSo is not there now, call back tomorrow morning between 9-11 am.
At 10:15 am, I call. (Well, first I dial a wrong number, because sometimes Jill’s handwriting is a little unclear. Fortunately, the man whose cell phone I called and left a message on called me back.)
I call again the next day. No, Mr SoAndSo is not there. He’s never there this late. I should call back between 6:30 and 8:30 am. Yes, he’s the only person who could deal with any kind of mailbox key issue.
Jill calls Mr SoAndSo around 7 am the next morning. He doesn’t think he has any key responsibility for that building, but he’ll double check while he’s on his route that day.
Nope. He doesn’t have any individual keys for that building. Try the management company.
Jill eventually gets directed to the temporary resident manager of the building. The real resident manager is away somewhere for several weeks.
Nope, they don’t have mailbox keys either. We should get the key from the unit owner.
Back to the staging company. Can we get the key from the unit owner, your client?
We’ll see and get back to you.
<insert the sounds of crickets chirping for at least a week>
Staging company, about that key to the mailbox?
Gosh they’re sorry, but they’re still working on it.
Gosh, we’re sorry, but we NEED TO GET MAIL. We need to live somewhere in which GETTING MAIL is no big deal.
Fortunately, once we realized what a problem this mailbox key was becoming, we quit moving stuff over there. We may celebrate Easter by shlepping stuff back and leaving it in our garage until we begin this cycle all over again.
Are those not some of the ugliest words in the English language? "Until we begin this cycle all over again." Arggggghhh!
Noah had his 2 month doctor visit today, and to my surprise — and that of the medical assistant — he’s not QUITE as big as we thought. She estimated his weight at 15 lbs!
In fact, he only weighs 13 lbs, 10 oz (90th Percentile);
His height is 24.5" (95th Percentile); and
His head circumfrence is 16" (75th Percentile).
So he is big, but not quite as big as we thought.
He hated his shots, so I’m going to go snuggle with him again.
In the spirit of the late Senator William Proximire‘s Golden Fleece Awards, which mocked pork barrel spending by highlighting ridiculous government-funded projects, I am creating The Big Dipper Award.
The Big Dipper Award will be granted to people who do extremely dippy things, as judged by me. (But feel free to make nominations.) I don’t mean just silly things, or Darwin Award type-things, but public displays of grand dippyness. Maybe like a more generalized version of the Ig Nobel Prize. I hope to grant these monthly, but we’ll see.
The first Big Dipper Award goes to Laura Mallory of Gwinnett County, Georgia, for her efforts to have the Harry Potter series removed from the county’s school libraries.
Now, Mallory isn’t unique in attacking Harry Potter. Radical religious right wing zealots have been attacking the books for awhile now. (Long enough to have been satirized in The Onion for it more than 5 years ago!) What brings Mallory to the level of winning The Big Dipper Award is that she hasn’t read the books.
According to this morning’s Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Mallory, a mother of four,
said she hasn’t read any of the Potter books in their entirety. She
read portions of a few of the books, she said, and was offended by
descriptions of demonic activity." She further explained, "My personal religious views don’t agree with these books."
That’s right. She hasn’t read the books, but she knows that she doesn’t agree with them. Furthermore, they should still be removed from ALL of the school libraries in the largest school district in the state of Georgia.
Apparently she hasn’t read much about American history either, so she missed the part about separation of church and state — her "personal religious views" aren’t supposed to determine what can be read in public schools.
Congratulations, Laura Mallory, on winning the FIRST Big Dipper Award! And while I fully support your right to raise your own children as you see fit — even forbidding them to read the Harry Potter books — I secretly hope that they sneak off to the library to learn about the dangerous activity of critical thinking.
