Rice O'Bill

My parents are here for a visit and dammit if it ain't going pretty well.  They have gotten quality time with the lil' Dude, the kind of QT they did not really get when we were in St. Louis in June.  So that's been nice.  They've also gotten to busy themselves with doing little projects around our house, which they have also enjoyed (although my dad has been chagrined that his chainsaw wouldn't start and thus he was not able to cut up the 4 branches in my yard that are too beefy for the loppers). 

The Jeanners has been real busy at work this week.  Getting home and eating dinner and spending a little time with the boy and then going to bed. 

Oh, and Sam made me so fucking crazy last night at 2am when he wouldn't go back to sleep that I wanted to throw him out the window.  Instead of throwing him out the window I instead went in and woke up my poor wife and asked for her help, and she was very nice and gracious to me and didn't get mad at me for waking her up despite the fact that she has been working very hard at work and doesn't get enough sleep.  A couple of redundancies in that last sentence.  Sorry. 

I am in the midst of reading the new DFW biography.  It's OK.  He has, up to the point where I am in the book (which is right around the time when he's starting IJ), come off as a bit of an asshole and a pretty complete fuck-up.  Somebody that just had no idea about how to create a balanced, happiness-conducive life.  I'm interested to see whether this changes as he gets older, as it seems like later in his life he might have been more able to get his shit together.  Anyway, reading the bio makes me want to go back and re-read everything, especially the Girl With Curious Hair stuff that I haven't read in awhile. 

That is all for now.  You may go back to your desk now. 

Dumplings? Yes.

I think that Dumplings? Yes. would be a pretty good album title. 

Anyway, I'm about to eat a ginormous plate of leftover chickn' n' dumplins' sitting atop a fluffy bed o' mashers.  Probably about 1.5 pounds worth.  The C&D were made by Jeannie's Mom while she was staying here (she left this morning), the mashers were made by moi. 

So yes, the Jeanners' mother has been here for the last 12 days, and it's been great, as her visits usually are.  Great because for the last 12 days we haven't really had to worry about dishes or laundry or childcare, and great because some days we got to sleep in until 7 or 8, and also great because Jeannie's Mom is a really easy person to live with, and we're able to be comfortable and be ourselves and everybody I think enjoys it all very much.  As an example of the comfortable-ness:  yesterday I was outside working in the yeard, and Jeannie and her Mom were in the back bedroom with Sam, and I peeked in the window and Jeannie's Mom said, "Look, a burglar!" and then Jeannie said (to me):  "I'll burgle you right up your butt."  And then I had to assure Jeannie's Mom that Jeannie was only joking and that my butt had never actually been burgled.  Anyway, just the type of interaction that we're able to have that we wouldn't be able to have if, say, my parents were here. 

While J's Mom has been here, both Jerns and I have been working a lot.  The Jeanners will probably be pretty busy at work through the end of next week, and maybe a little longer -- it's her busy season.  I should be relatively un-busy at work for the next month or two, right until we start getting into the deep shit for Christmas. 

I wonder what we'll do for Turkeyday this year?  I wonder what we'll do for Christmas? 

Sam-o is sleeping. 

3 AM Eternal

For some reason I thought that "3 A.M. Eternal" was a PM Dawn song (even though, now when I think about it, I remember the lyric "KLF is gonna rock you").  I'm glad I googled it before posting about it in this blog because if I hadn't I would've looked like a sucka. 

Well, it's a little after 3 in the morning and I'm sitting up on the couch eating a protein bar and it's not even baby-related, dammit.  (Meaning that the sitting up isn't baby related, not that the protein bar isn't baby related.  Although the protein bar isn't baby related, either, now that you mention it.  But the fact that I'm sitting up at 3 AM and it's not baby related is what's bothering me.)  Thinking about work.   Not really worrying, just replaying stuff in my head.  It's been a busy week, I've been working as an MOD by myself for the first times this week, and on my very first day as a solo MOD we had a 4 hour visit from a group of head honchos including the VP of loss prevention for the company.  I think I came off as a little bit harried at times but pretty well at other times.  Ugh.  It's sad to care about a job that you don't care about. 

Jeannie's Mom is visiting right now, and it's a great time for her to be here because work has been so busy this week.  Then my folks are coming for a visit in early September. 

MOD, in the context I used earlier, stands for Manager On Duty.  After googling it, I see it can also stand for Minister Of Defense.  Just wanted to add some clarification. 

I should go back to bed.

Tharty Fahve!

Today's my 35th birthday.  I passed the day thusly:  going to work in the morning, coming back home at around 9:00am, opening cards and presents from Jeanners and Sam, farting around on the computer, napping, going back to work at around 5pm, coming home, talking with the Jeanners, feeding Sam, trying to get him to go to sleep, getting him to fall asleep on the living room couch, getting a fucking cricket out from under the radiator in our rear bedroom because it (the cricket) was driving me fucking crazy, putting the cricket outside, carrying Sam into his room, settling down to record all of this wonderfulness for posterity. 

Sam got me $50 for my birthday, to put towards my purchase of an Onkyo TX-8050 stereo receiver.  What a guy. 

The other night (last Sunday night), when I went out with my co-workers for drinks after work, I had 3 beers at the bar and 1 beer at home, for a total of 4 beers.  Spread out over about 3.5 hours.  And I woke up on Monday with a pretty substantial hangover, and the hangover was mostly gone by the end of the day on Monday, but a piece of it still lingered for the rest of the damned week.  What gives??? I can only surmise that someone must have slipped me some sort of drug, probably because they wanted to have their sordid little way with me.  I've narrowed it down to Jeannie or Brian G. 

The Jeanners got me The Koran for my birthday.  I'm spelling it the way it's spelled on the book, so if you don't like it direct your complaints to the book, please. 

Jeannie's mom is going to be coming out this weekend and staying for about a week and a half.  I'm looking forward to it.  It means that the Jeanners and I will get to go on some dates, and also I might be able to get some stuff done around the house. 

It's been a good year.  Weird to think that right around this time last year we were starting to figure out that the J-Dog was preggers. 

Ok, I'm gonna go now. 

ATL

Just got in from Atlanta this evening, where we spent the last 3 days.  The Jeanners had to go to a bit of a conference for the Habitat, and I was able to take the days off so I tagged along. 

Stayed in a very nice, very tall hotel.  We were on the 43rd floor of like 75 floors.   The view from our room looked like this:

I liked it.  Made me feel like Scarlet Johansson in Lost in Translation.  Especially when Bill Murray kissed me. 

Yesterday I spent the day with my Aunt and Uncle, which was fun but much too long of a day. Today I hung out around the hotel and drank a chai latte that made me a happy boy. 

Other things that happened:

I said these things to either my son or my wife.  You make the call:  "Are you choking on that?"  and  "Let's stick that in your mouth rather than your eye." 

I watched an adult male on the plane home tonight work his way through a book of word searches.  Seriously?  Are word searches for adults?  Are there other adults out there that work on word searches?   Also, he was using a highlighter to do the word searches.  Strike two. 

Our plane was a bit delayed and we sat on the runway for 2 hours.  Not a fun thing to do with a baby.  He used up all of his nap on runway sitting.  Luckily we were sitting next to a very chatty, nice, baby-lover.  

The cool kids trash the hotel:

Bedtime for Bonzo!

Go the _____ to Sleep.

Hmmm.  Sam's schedule seems all messed up the last day or so.  Not eating real well, not sleeping real well.  Which makes him get hungry like every hour, and then fall asleep as soon as he starts eating.  Ugh.  Tough on the Jeanners.  She's trying to catch a few more ZZZ's before she gets up to head off to yoga class at 10:45 this morning.  Will she go?  I think she probably will.

I'll be heading into work this afternoon, maybe going out for a drink afterwards.  Haven't had drinks with any work folks in quite awhile (since January), mostly because there are a lot of lames working at the Nobes these days. 

The Jeanners and I will be heading to Atlanta in a coupla days.  She has to go for work, and I am travelling as child care.  We will only be there from Tuesday to Thursday, but it will be nice to get away for a little while.  I've got an aunt and uncle living there that we'll be meeting up with.  I am now going to google the hotel and check out the amenities.  Hoping for sauna or steam room.


(...)


I get the impression no sauna or steam room.  But that's OK.  It looks like a snazzy hotel.  I can (sniff) make do without a sauna or steam room.

I cut the grass the other day and did one hell of a trimming job.  I feel much better about myself.

Reading the Carolyn Cassady book is making me feel like I'm going to go on a Kerouac binge next.  But I'm also jonesin' for a re-read of Infinite Jest.  What to do?

I've been enjoying the new Bobby Womack album, even though it's pretty weird.  90's beats, a kinda nasal old-ish black man singing, and sparse piano.  But it all adds up.

This page has been redesigned to better meet your banking needs

That's what was at the top of my online banking page today.  And in my head I said to it, "Fuck you, you don't even know me." 

Today I stayed home with the boy and then went into work this evening, came home and had a few minutes chatting about the day with the J-Dog on the bed, and now she is asleep and I am in the living room checking my shit and drinking a G&T and eating crackers.  It was a good day.

Tomorrow:  meeting about theatre-building stuff, hopefully cutting the grass.  Our yard has gotten to be a bit disgraceful this summer:  garden is a complete overgrown mess, grass has gone unmowed for too long several times, and weeds are running rampant in all of the planting beds. 

Watched a funny episode of CHEERS yesterday.  It was the "Woody, I'm going to steal your girlfriend," one. 

Jeannie and I are going to Atlanta next week.  Oh, and we're bringing the baby with us.  It is weird now that I cannot properly describe our plans by saying, "Jeannie and I are going to __________."  That I now have to include a third person in that sentence.  Not sure I like it yet.  I like having a baby, though.  He makes me very happy. 

I'm reading a book right now that I really like a lot:  Off the Road, by Carolyn Cassady.  She was Neal Cassady's wife, and the book is basically an autobiography of her time with Casssady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, and it's really interesting to hear the stories of these adventurous men from the perspective of the wife who continuously got left behind with the kids.  And yet who was also a definite part of the group, and a part of the writing and the letters and the scene that kept the whole thing going.  If you're a Kerouac fan and have gone through all of his stuff, it's definitely worth a read. 

I should go to bed.  If this meeting tomorrow is anything like the last one, I'm gonna have to get up early just to try on all my different outfits before I find one I like. 

Does anybody actually read this thing anymore? 

Our Flow is Always in Escrow

For the last few months, I have been going folder by folder and removing files from a damaged 500GB external hard drive.  The hard drive is what we used to back up all of our stuff - pictures, music, all the tracks from songs I'd recorded for myself and others, etc.  So the hard drive is broken but I found a trick on the internet where you put your drive in the freezer, and then take it out and try to get the files off of it.  It will work until the drive heats up too much and stops working again.  Then you put it back in the freezer and repeat the process.  It's all very fascinating, but it only lets you dump a couple of GB at a time, which is why this process has taken a long time.

ANYWAY,

Yesterday I was finishing up getting the files off of the hardrive, and in the process of putting it all on fresh drives I was organizing it and looking through old pictures and songs and stuff.  What fun!  The highlight of the day, I think was digging out the Steinmetz Family Rhymin' and giving it a couple of spins.  It has stood the test of time.  Lyrics?  Tight.  Flow?  Never defaults.  Production?  Kickin'.   I still give it an A+.  Just in case it's been awhile for you, here it is:



(p.s.  If any participants in the SFR wish me to take it down, just let me know and I will)

Also great to look through old pictures.

Sam's 3 month birthday was yesterday.  He spent it eating, pooping, sleeping, and attempting to stand up.  He recently decided he doesn't really like laying down anymore, but what he REALLY likes to do is stand up with somebody holding him under his pits.  Anyway, here's what he's looking like:

BTC's

What the hell's going on?  Not much.  I got home from work tonight (work which was very boring, and stupid, and pointless) and watched a couple of FRIENDS episodes with my ladyfriend, while our offspring slept and dreamt, and we ate chips and salsa.  And my ladyfriend added cheese to the salsa, which was the best idea that anybody had all day. 

All of the vowels on this keyboard are having problems.  Well, at least E and O.  I've had to go back and re-type like 50% of them in. 

Also, gin and tonic from a jar. 

I think Sam is getting to the point where he's so cute that it's becoming problematic for Jeannie and I.  Or maybe we're getting to the point where we think he's so cute that we start becoming big pains in the ass. 

Are you having problems figuring out what to get me for my birthday?  Easy.  Get me an Onkyo TX-8050.  You're welcome. 

I should really go to bed. 

They're gonna have to dust your chin for groin prints.

Tonight was boring as hell at work, so I read a little bit from a lesser-known Kerouac book and thought about travelling.  I thought about one day in the future, maybe when Sam is 6 or 7, taking a trip up to Alaska and seeing Spifferoo and recording some songs.  I thought about taking another bus ride up to New York to see the Schluetermetz' show this fall (maybe a coupla times).  And I thought about a time on Spring Break during my senior year of college, when Sean and Misty and I were on some very windy, mountainous road in the Blue Ridge Mountains that had a posted sign that said 'avoid this road in icy weather' (or something to that effect), and we were driving around in ice and snow and fog in my little 4-cylinder Dodge Spirit.  I miss that car.  Gordon.  El Gordo.  And we thought we were going to die on that road.  And then eventually we got to this little town at the bottom of the mountain that was pretty and snowy.  And I still have a picture of that town in my head and I have no idea if it's a real picture or just a made-up memory. 

Tonightat work I decided that I was going to have a G&T in a ball jar when I got home.  I have a G&T out of a glass when I just want to unwind, out of a ball jar when I want to get silly. 

Anyway, I look forward to travelling with Sam.  Of course I'd eventually like to get to Europe, and part of me is glad that Jeannie and I haven't been yet, and now when we go we can take the boy with us. 

What's been going on?  What do I want to remember? 

Jeannie and I headed over to PFI last night to see Pride and Prejudice.  Took Sam with us.  It was a little tricky, because we had hoped to have him fed and asleep by the time the show started, but he was just finishing eating when the show started and it took most of the first act to get him to go to sleep.  So it wasn't as stressless and relaxing as we hoped the evening would be, but at least he wasn't making a lot of noise or fussing or anything. 

The recent house projects have involved putting up doors and door jambs.  We have to put up a door and jamb on the linen closet, and then all the doors will be up except for bedroom closets, which is pretty exciting.  And then once the doors are all up, we can start putting up trim and the house will start to look pretty again. 

Life is good.  That's all for now. 

Running Mix

So now this is what runs through my head while I'm at work.  (Sigh).  It always makes me tear up a little bit when I watch it.  I am becoming a sentimental sap (I guess I've always been a sentimental sap [it's why I like the sad, slow Tom Waits songs better than the loud brawlers], but I am now less able to hide it.  Or less interested in hiding it.), but I don't mind too much.  I really love the dude, and I really love Jeannie, and I really love this time of us all being together and happy.  And, weirdly enough, having a kid has made me feel younger rather than older.  I really thought it would make me feel older.  But things seem fresh and new in a way that they haven't for quite awhile. 

Anyway, this is the video I will watch when he gets older and he stops listening to anything I say. 

Jeannie's heading to work today for the first real time. 

I am crafting the perfect running mix.  It's not quite right yet, but all it needs is a few tweaks. 

We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave.

So we had a big storm on Friday night and luckily, did not lose power.  Unfortunately, we lost power at 4pm on Saturday, about 14 hours after the storm had passed.  Ugh.  I probably shouldn't have gloated about my A/C to all of those homeless people I passed by yesterday.  Stupid karma.  Anyway, power came on in the middle of last night after some very hot laying in bed.  And not the good kind.

I think my son is trying to take a shit right here next to me on the couch.  Rude little bastard, isn't he?  One day when he's older and can appreciate it I'll pay him back by taking a shit right next to him on the couch and see how he likes it.  0i-o-i-o-0iikppokpkjjjjjjjjjomp=[-----------------------------------------------------------kljiuikm

I just went to heat up a bottle, and when I came back, something (or someone?) had typed all of those weird letters and symbols.  Hmmm.  Sam's first blog post?  Poltergeist? 

I went for a run this morning, as I have found that running seems to help the lung condition that I was experiencing (the one where my lungs don't seem to actually move air), and I haven't had to use my inhaler since I started running regularly again.  Hopefully that will keep me running regularly and help get rid of my belly, which is comprised mostly of turkey sandwiches cooked in butter, IBC Cream Soda, and chocolate chunk cookies.  Anyway, since I got back from my run, I have been sitting on the couch and now the couch is sweaty.  Don't worry, we've been planning on laundering the couch cover anyway.

Jeannie and I like being parents so far.

Today, we actually have a house project!  We're going to try and put up a door and jamb on our rear (guest) bedroom.  So the next time you and your significant other come to visit, you can have sex!  Unless you're not married, in which case your romantic activity will be limited to heavy petting.  Either way, it'll be nice to have a door. 

Trying to Find Those Stupid Nipples

We are back from a week in St. Louis.  All in all a good week, although I would've liked to have seen Rico Rico and I also would have liked to have seen Wes Anderson's newest movie with Ricky Elz, with whom I have had the pleasure of seeing several Wes Anderson movies.  Oh well.  I guess we don't always get what we want. 

It was good to take Sam around and introduce him to family and friends, and it made leaving especially hard, cause who knows who will still be around the next time we make it home and who won't.  Ugh.  Don't even like thinking about that stuff, but there it is. 

It has been very hot, both here and in St. Louis, but our house has stayed remarkably pleasant.  God bless insulation and ceiling fans. 

Apparently, all ears of corn have 18 rows of kernels. 

Wait, I just looked it up and that's not true. 

I think this might be my favorite music video of all time:




How can anyone not like Lionel Richie? 

America's Dumbest and Deadest

Took the Gasman on his first roadtrip today.  It was a small one, to see how he did.  About 3 hrs away, although with him it took about 3 and a half.  Had a wedding to go to up in State College, Pennsylvania.  Home of Penn State.  When I was a kid I decided, for no apparent reason, that I wanted to go to Penn State.  Well now I finally have. 

'America's Dumbest and Deadest People' is the name of a television show that the Jeanners came up with today.  Sort of a companion show to AFV.  AFV stands for America's Funniest Videos. 

One time when I was a freshman in high school, I called the first girl I ever kissed on the telephone, and she said, "Can I call you back, I'm watching America's Funniest People."  I knew instantly that she did not like me.  I don't remember if I ever spoke to her again.  The kiss was not very good.  It was my second kiss that I really remember as being indicative of what a kiss should really be like.  That kiss happened at a mixer (also my freshman year) during the song 'Brown Eyed Girl.' 

Sam did fine on his roadtrip, by the way. 

Off to bed. 

Morning Constitutional

Sam's morning routine seems to have settled into this:  from about 4:30 until 7am he rolls around, half asleep, grunting and huffing, and then takes 3 shits spaced out about 15 minutes from each other.  DO NOT change his diaper after the first shit; you will regret it.  Anyway, on mornings where I am off work, I usually bring him into the living room in his little rolly bassinett so's the Jeanners can get a few hours of uninterrupted snoozles.

Not much to write about today.  I'm off work and I have a list of things to do - little things, mostly, because the Jeanners will be gone most of the day and I'm gonna be watching the Gasman.  Oh, I'm trying out Gasman as my nickname for Samuel.  I haven't really liked any of the nicknames that start with S, but I do like the way Gasman sounds. 

Had a dream the other night that Widitz had died and nobody had told me about it.

Had a dream last night that I'm not sure what the overall plot was about, but one scene involved sitting in a college lecture hall listening to some sort of wizard-type dude sing a song.  While some other dude was trying to get us or prevent us from hearing the song or something.  Oh, and I have no idea who the "us" was, I just know there was an "us."

Dreams are crazy.  The other night after I got home from work I wasn't ready to go to bed yet, and I exhausted all of my usual Internet reading options, so I came here to the blog, did a search for the word DREAM, and read all of my posts over the years where I describe some of my whack dreams.  It was pretty fun.  I think my favorites were this one, where Pat gets beheaded onstage, this one, with Ava Gabor's bush, and this one, where nobody likes Schlueter.  Although I think the best one for general wackiness is this one.

Work has been giving me little headaches lately.  Nothing major, but just enough to be annoying.

Breezy

Tonight at work I was going up an escalator and I had the sensation that my fly was down and that my dongbone was poking out of my pants.  It wasn't. 

Just got home from work, and I'm kickin' back with a G&T.  The Jeanners and the Sam must be asleep, or else they have gone out to some super-awesome underground Mother/Son club. 

The house is quiet.

Two things that I have appreciated greatly over the past few weeks:

1.  The work of Dr. Harvey Karp.  I hope that wherever that man is, he is sitting back with a fruity drink while scantily clad men and women fan him with enormous tropical leaves.  I would be totally willing to pay him $30 a month for the rest of my life. 

2.  All the damned ceiling fans that we have put in this place.  I can't tell if I don't mind the way they look or if I hate the way they look, but Jeez-o I love having constantly moving air. 

I'm gonna try not to eat a huge breakfast tomorrow, but I bet I end up eating a huge breakfast tomorrow.  

Ianic Pentameter

I had a dream last night that my friend Ian (who pronounces his name EYE-uhn, by the way) invented his own verse meter, and he called it Ianic Pentameter.  Normal Iambic Pentameter goes like this:  da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.  But in my dream, Ianic Pentameter went like this:  da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM....(pause)....ta da!

For real.  That's what my dream was about last night.  Does anybody else out there dream about verse? 

Today I realized that I would totally watch a TV show that starred Scott Bakula and Richard Dean Anderson as cowboys.  If only such a show existed.

Little dude's doing fine.

We've made plans to come to St. Louis for a week starting June 20th.  Lookout, St. Louis, yer about to get shat on by my boy!

Been listening to a lot of Lionel Richie lately.  Can you believe he's 62?  Doesn't look a day over 50.

Beefcake

Jeannie took this picture the other day, and yesterday at work I was just thinking about it all day and couldn't wait to get home and hang out with the lil' dude.  And the Jeanners, of course.  Partly because I like both of them and partly because work was pretty boring and my feet were hurting.

Right now it's six-thirty in the morning, and I'm sitting up with Sam and the Jeanners is catching a little bit of sleep until he gets hungry again, and he's over in his bassinet, breathing heavily and farting.  Come to think of it, that's what I'm doing, too.

I'm realizing that I've become one of those people who does nothing on Facebook except post pictures of their stupid kid, but really, I can't help myself.  And I can justify it by saying that it's for out-of-town relatives and stuff, but really it's just because I want people to think that my kid is cute.

Last night I ate 2 hotdogs before bed and it was a bad idea.

Been starting to run a little bit again.  I'm only up to about a mile during each run, but I figured a little bit of exercise might help give me a little more energy during this time of less-than-usual sleeping.  So far it's been good, except that I feel like I weigh about 1000 lbs, 900 of which are in my legs.

We are making some plans for a St. Louis trip sometime in June.  Haven't bought the tickets yet, but we're close.

What else?

We went to a fun party on Saturday with ChesShakesCo folks, thanking Scott and Lesley for their part in acquiring the building.  Took Sam along and he got to meet a bunch of different folks.  He did pretty darn well and was pretty chill the whole time.

Then yesterday Roger and Sammy and Nyoka came over and hung out with Jeannie a bit, and then I came home from work and we played a fun board game called 'Ticket to Ride.'

Thatisall.

Milestones

Hey, this is my 800th blog post.  And I started back on May 10, 2005.  So 800 posts in a little over 7 years isn't too bad - approx. 114 posts per year, so roughly one every 3.2 days.  I think I've kept you all very well informed as to the state of my lower GI.  Actually, I started writing the blog for two reasons:  1)  because I have always had a bad memory for life events, and I could feel it getting worse.  And 2)  because I found myself writing the same e-mail to multiple people, filling them in on the things that were going on.  And so I started writing the blog so I wouldn't have to write the same e-mail 5 times.  And the blog has been successful on both fronts - whenever i have trouble remembering something I can usually go back and check what I wrote about it on the blog, and I definitely send fewer e-mails to people, for better or worse.   The problem with a blog is that it's usually a one-way conversation, so I generally feel more out of touch with people than I did before I started this.  Oh well. 

Jeannie's Mom had been here since May 10 (the anniversary of the birth of the blog, by the way, which you'd know if you've been paying close attention), but left last night to head back to St. Louis.  It was a really great trip and I think everybody enjoyed it and was a little sad that she was leaving.  I truly lucked out in the Mother-in-Law department (and she doesn't read this so I'm not just saying that to suck up).  She's always been very cool to me, and for the last week and a half she's been a really great housemate.  So hopefully it's something she can do again in the future, because it was super-helpful for us, and I think she really enjoyed getting to spend time with Sam, and I know that as Sam gets older he'll benefit from time spent with his Grandma. 

Yesterday the insurance company paid us the 700+ dollars that they owed us that I've been hounding them abour for the last 4 months or so.  The sweet taste of victory.  Just in time for us to start fighting with them about the hospital bills for Sam's birth.  Ugh. 

I'm officially back into the grind at work and it is both more painful and less painful than it was before I left.  More painful because I care even less about being there, and less painful because I care even less about being there. 

Hmmm.  What else?  Jeannie's going to physical therapy today because her shoulder has been bothering her from feeding a burping Sam, and she's had shoulder issues in the past that PT has helped.  So her Mom and I took over as much of the burping duties as we could.

I think that's it. 

Shoots Poop

Well, I just gave Sam his Native Aerican-style name, and it is Shoots Poop.  My guess is that that's a fairly common Native American baby name, kinda like John or James or Mary or something.  The dude's new favorite activity seems to be to wait until we are changing his diaper and then shooting his poop either on the changer, he new diaper, or the wall.  Oh well.  There's something very bond-forming about seeing the poop shoot out of someone's butt. 

Happy 1st Mother's Day to the J-Dog!  She's a great Mom (so far), everybody would be proud if they could see her. 

Today we Skype'd with my parents for the first time.  It was fine and relatively uneventful.  Thanks to my nephew for walking my Mom through setting up a Skype account. 

I went back to work yesterday, which was painful at first but then not too bad.  It seems like right after I got back, the first thing that happened was that everybody told me all the stuff that went wrong while I was gone, so I spent the first few hours dealing with all of that stuff, and then after awhile I was able to settle back into a more normal work day. 

Off to the grocery store!

KKK Duck

Hey folks.  Just sitting here hanging with Sam, who is sitting on the couch next to me, loading his britches repeatedly.  This kid has some supremely loud farts and poops, like hear-them-from-the-other-room loud.  I doubt that this factoid surprises anyone. 

Tomorrow we will be picking up Jeannie's Mom from the airport.  She'll be staying wth us for about a week and a half, which is pretty awesome because I will be heading back to work on Saturday, and it will be nice to have an extra pair of hands around to help with stuff, and nice for Jeannie to have some adult company at home while I am at work.

Right now there's a song out that I am enjoying:



I heard them yesterday on the 'World Cafe.'

Tonight we gave sam a bath, and he has this little hooded towel, and Jeannie said he looked like a 'KKK Duck.'

That's all I got for now.

Big News

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company closed on this building today:

Pretty darned exciting.  Congrats to all involved.

Morning-time (or, I Love This Jong)

It feels earlier than it is.  Which is 8:30.  Feels earlier.

Sitting on the couch, Sam is sleeping/gurgling/chugging/sighing over in his little rolly bassinet, The Jeanners is sleeping in the bedroom, the birds outside are singing and the world seems to be waking up, although the traffic out on Walther isn't very loud yet.

Yesterday we had a really nice visit from Aimeeudio, The Beej, and Abby.  They came over to meet the lil' guy and hang out and then went and picked up some Chipotle for lunch.   Very nice to chat and see the Beej and get to know Abby a little more.   And, of course, it's always good to see the A-Train.  This is my hope for her:  that she finds another job but does not decide to move.  Note - the last part of that hope is purely selfish. 

My stomach just growled and it made me remember that we're out of bacon.  And biscuits.  Ugh.  And the morning takes a sinister turn.  Then for breakfast it shall be:  eggs, fauxsage, potatoes, cheese.  Cooked in a scramble.  Perhaps pancakes. 

Had a dream last night that I moved to Chicago.  Also had a dream that I was at a park with BJ, Pat, Ian, and Lesley and that I was playing basketball with a 7-foot-tall basket.  Awesome dunks. 

Ugh.  Tummy growls have become intolerable.  Sam sounds asleep.  Time to start on b-fast.

Milk

J-Dog and I just got done watching the movie Milk with little Samuel sandwiched between us on the bed, so I guess you could say it was his first movie, although he slept through most of it.  Already taking after his mother's glorious propensity for falling asleep during movies, plays, etc.

It seems this week has been all about milk, really.  Our schedule has revolved around it and not much else.  Which has been kinda nice.  I don't know when the next time that Jeannie and I both have 3 weeks off work with not much to do will happen, so we've just been trying to enjoy each other's company, and enjoy getting to know the little guy, and enjoy taking care of each other.

What else?

Been transferring files off of a faulty external drive, been wrangling with my insurance company over an old bill for which they owe us $700 (and actually wrote a complaint to the Office of the State Attorney General!), mowed the lawn, did a little minor plumbing repair.

Hmmmm.  That's about it, really.  Life feels really good.  Why do we have to have stupid jobs?

All Apologies

I'm going to apologize right now if every post for the next long while has something to do with Sam.  But he happens to be what is going on right now, so I'm gonna write about him, dammit.  At least you won't have to hear any more about what's going on with the house.

I played him his first piece of recorded music today:



He was fussy, then when the music started he started smiling and paying attention.  He really seemed to enjoy it.

Also, a few minutes ago we were sitting on the couch together (OK, he was sleeping), and The Verve's 'On Your Own' came on, which is a great fucking song, and I love it.  And I've always loved the whole idea of the song, 'you come in on your own and you leave on your own...etc.'  But as I listened this time I realized that it's kind of flawed.  You really don't come in on your own.  Or at least you might not.  You might come in with a whole team of people waiting for you and shouting for you and pushing you and welcoming you and trying to make sure that you come in as easily and pleasantly as possible.

So maybe you don't have to leave on your own, either.

I have to say, this whole experience has totally messed up my emotions.  Blaaagh.

I'm going to go into work tomorrow for a few hours in the morning.  We'll see how that goes. 

Right now Jeannie is making a cardboard mustache to put on Sam.  No lie.

Samuel's Origin Story

So, our son Samuel was born on Thursday, April 26th, at 11:07AM.

The info:

First name:  Samuel (or Sam, or Sammy, or Samsonite, or Samosa, whatever.)
Middle name:  Anderson
Last name:  O'Brien
Weight @ birth:  7lbs, 15.6 oz.
Length @ birth: 20.5 inches

The story (from my POV):

So on Tuesday night at around 11pm, Jeannie and I were just getting into bed after a day of not doing much:  she had a midwife appointment, we ran some errands, we sat around.  So around 11 she starts having contractions, and with each contraction she starts having diarrhea.  And the contractions are about 15 minutes apart.  So every 15 minutes she's getting up to be in pain and poop.  Until sometime in the middle of the night when she starts throwing up with every contraction, too.  So she's starting things off not in a good way, because normally early in labor you should be resting as much as possible, drinking a lot of water, and eating some so you've got energy for the rest of the whole thing.  So she's able to do none of that.  And she's gotten no sleep because everything started happening right at bedtime. 

So Wednesday morning, after a night of getting sleep in 5 minute doses, I call the midwife to check in and tell her what's going on.  She tells me to try and get Jeannie to drink some Gatorade or Pedialyte and call her back when the contractions are about 5 minutes apart.  So we spend most of Wednesday with Jeannie either in bed, in the bathroom, or slowly walking around the house with pots and pans in every room in case she needs to throw up.  Until around 4pm, when the contractions were finally starting to speed up, and were about 6-8 minutes apart.  So I called the midwife again, and said look, she hasn't been able to keep any fluids down, and the contractions are about 6 minutes apart, and can you please just take a look at her.  So the midwife tells me to bring Jeannie to the hospital so she (the midwife) can check her (the Jeanners) out.  So we throw our hospital bag in the car and very slowly walk out to the car, and then very cautiously yet deliberately drive downtown to Mercy hospital. 

We get to the hospital around 5pm, and go up to the delivery floor where they take her into a triage room and run all the normal tests on her, and discover that she has extremely high blood pressure and also is not dialated very much (3-4 cm.  She needs to be dialated 9-10 cm to deliver.)  But, because of her alarmingly high blood pressure (something like 180-something over 120-something), and the fact that her contractions were strong and regular, they admitted her into the hospital.  They told her that because of the high blood pressure, they would need to put her on magnesium to help prevent her from seizing (!!), and also that being on magnesium would make the whole process suck.

So we get admitted to our delivery room, and this is where the whole process got really weird and terrible (for me), and time stopped having any sort of meaning and everything.  So we get admitted to our room at probably around 6pm or so, and because Jeanners has been laboring for 19 hours at this point, and is still only 4-5 cm dialated and has a long way to go, she opts for the epidural to try and get some rest (epidurals basically numb you from the belly down so you don't feel the contactions as much).  So she got an epidural and was able to get a few hours of sleep (again, by this point time had stopped meaning anything, so I have no idea how long she slept or what time it was when we woke up) and rest, which was wonderful, and she woke up later and we talked a little bit about how wonderful the epidural was and how nice it was to be able to get some rest.  Oh, also the epidural helped her to stop throwing up, which was a good thing.  So anyway, after some time, that epidural wore off, and she was still only about 6 cm dialated, and the pain of the contractions was coming through again, but she still had a long way to go.  So they gave her another epidural, and she was able to rest for a little while, and then that one wore off.  And she was still only 6 cm dialated.

So I think at this point it's sometime in the middle of the night on Thursday morning, probably around 3 or 4am.  And the anesthesiologist (Dr. Wu) comes back in and says that she can't get any more epidurals, and he was a bit stymied about why they weren't really lasting very long and said that there was one more thing they could try but that it was something that they rarely ever used for vaginal deliveries, and it was called a spinal catheter.  He said that it was the same type of anesthesia that they used for a caesarean and that it is pretty much going to be 100% effective at stopping any pain.  So the Jeanners gives him a weak thumbs up and he comes back in a little while later and gives her the spinal catheter.  She's then able to sleep for a couple of hours.  I really have no idea how long.

So then at 7am on Thursday morning, a new midwife comes on.  Her name is Kate and she's probably late-20's or early 30's, maybe.  I feel very hungover because I haven't really eaten or drunk much and haven't slept much.  The Jeanners is awake, and the spinal catheter is wearing off, and she's about 8 cm dialated.  The baby has dropped really low (I should add here that the baby has been very low for a long time by this point, and that's part of the reason why there was a lot of pain.  Low baby + not enough dialation = pain.), and Kate decides to try and work some manipulation magic and try and get Jeannie to 10cm so she can start pushing.  I have no idea what Kate did, but she was able to move things around and somehow get Jeannie ready for pushing.  Jeannie, at this point, after 2 epidurals, the spinal catheter, the continuous magnesium drip, and maybe 4 hours of sleep in the last 32 hours, is pretty much just the shell of a person.  She's laying there, and she's getting maybe a minute of rest in between contractions, and they're hurting BAD, and she's is just 100% exhausted.  Nothing left. 

And then it's time for her to push.  And Kate is there at Jeannie's feet, and there's a nurse named Tiffany that's holding her left leg, and I'm holding her right leg, and every time there's a contraction, she pushes about 3 or 4 times for ten seconds.  And I have no idea how she did it, because she seriously had NOTHING LEFT, but for about 3 hours she pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed.  And then Samuel was born.

So that's how he got here.

SAO is ready for action.

He doesn't always have that gunk all over his eyes. They put that on there. I like him.

Let the Waiting Begin?

Today is the baby's due date, although at this time (1:07pm), Le Tigre has shown no signs of wanting to leave Chez Womb de Jerns. Our plan is, if nothing's happened by this evening, we go out for spicy food. Also been trying to do lots of walking, etc. I've been off work since Friday, and I have to say, I'm really happy with the way things have worked out, timing-wise. The last couple of days have been great - getting little things done, walking around, getting a little bored at times, eating a lot, resting, talking a lot. Really been kinda nice, I think. The other day Jerns said she was reading through some old blog posts o mine and they made her laugh a lot and were a good way to remember all the shit that was going on at the time. That was nice. That's pretty much why I still like writing in the blog. Our memories really are so bad, and time has started moving so fast that it's nice to have something to pinpoint dates and events and stuff. Last night as I was laying in bed in the middle o the night, I was thinking about time, and how at a certain point in life it seems to all of a sudden strap you onto the front of a roller coaster and just start moving faster and faster. To me it feels like swimming in the ocean, and for childhood and adolescence and up until my mid-twenties I was just swimming around out there, la dee da, no real sense of movement or momentum, and then all of a sudden a wave starts to build right about the time I hit 30, and right about now I can feel the momentum of the wave pushing me towards the shore, and I haven't started flipping around or tumbling yet but I'm sure that's on the way (probably 40's and 50's and 60's), and really I guess the shore is senility or death or maybe just blissful old age, but the power of the wave is pretty strong and riding it and trying to stay on top of it is really the game of the whole thing. Today I was able to salvage data off of an external hard drive that's been failing by putting it in the freezer. Hmmm. Who knew that would work? Thanks, internet geeks. I'm now off to clean off my dirty body. POSTSCRIPT: So I just published this post and it seems that this new blogger publishing thing has done away with all of my paragraph breaks and everything. Hmmmm. Well, enjoy this post On the Road Original Scroll style.

No News is Good News

No news here. Jeannie told me the other day that my previous post might make people think that I'm homophobic or anti-gayness. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I have some close acquaintances who are full-on gay, and some of my best friends are mostly gay. Drew and Eric, I'm looking directly at you. Oh, and BJ.

Today was my last day at work for a few weeks, which is pretty awesome. I know that once the baby is here I will be willing to cut off my fingers for a good night's sleep, and that when I don't get a good night's sleep I pretty much hate life no matter what, but right now none of that seems to matter because I'm going to get days off of work. So I'm looking forward to being off work. Tomorrow morning the J-Dog and I are gonna start the day off right with a lumberjack breakfast and a nice walk. Then we're gonna put a 2nd coat of paint in the baby's room, I'm gonna clip my fuckin' toenails, and I'm gonna give myself a haircut. Bam! Try and top that for a perfect day.

Well, Jerns is waiting for me in bed, so I guess I should probably go to bed. Good night!

For the Ladies and/or Gays

The baby is due in one week. The bag for the hospital is packed and ready to go.

I am realizing that at any moment the Jeanners and I might have to go to the hospital, and then once the baby's born we'll be busy with learning all the new baby stuff, so potentially there might be a decent stretch where I don't get to update the blog.

During that time, I would like this picture that Jeannie took of me the other day to be the picture you see when you come here.