Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Thursday, April 28, 2005
Note to self: When bald, take extra care pulling a shirt over your head. The tiny stubble on the back (5 o'clock shadow, basically) catches on anything and won't let it pull forward. Also, my head hurts all the time cuz I can't stop playing with my scalp, rubbing it, slapping it, etc. Smack! It makes a funny noise when ya smack it.
If you want to see me bald, here you go. Warning: Being a skinhead did NOT improve my already-marginal looks. Heh. I was in charge of dinner last night while B was at her jazzercise class. I asked the kids if they wanted fish sticks or scrambled eggs, and they got all excited to have scrambled eggs and toast. I even made breakfast sausages. Isabel grabbed my chin (her way of ensuring I pay close attention) and said, "Hey Daddy, how about if the KIDS help make dinner TOO!" Well no shit sherlock. They had a great time cracking eggs, and they each ate a TON. With all the Star Wars stuff in the media, the kids have been going nuts for Star Wars, so I was a bad parent and let them watch half of the original Star Wars. "Look Daddy! Darth Vader! Alex at preschool has Darth Vader shoes!!" This morning we had to get up early to make a 7:30 appointment for Harry to get a CT scan on his head. He did great, he looked terrified but they let me in the room with him and he froze and didn't move, so they got a good scan of his head. Unfortunately, while the doctor told us to come over with the scans immediately afterwards, his office isn't open until 9am. We were waiting for a bit to see if anyone would show up there, and all of a sudden Harry started horking all over the place. Scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast from last night was flying out that kids mouth. Poor guy. B got a little freaked so we cleaned up and left. When reason prevailed, we figured he must have just choked on too much phlegm. The doc called later this morning to say that Harry's CT looked great and confirmed he just has a doozy of a sinus infection that the antibiotics aren't reaching, so he's getting steroids as well and has an appt with the ENT surgeon who did his tonsils and adnoids two years ago. Hopefully we can clear that boy's sinuses out! Wednesday, April 27, 2005
On Sunday I couldn't sleep so I got up with the kids and let B sleep in. During the morning we went for a drive to visit the new location (and renamed) Iguana, a "Amerimex" style mexican furniture store. Unfortunately, now they do lots of imported furniture that's mostly Asian. Lots of very pretty things, just not our style. They did have a fancy Indian carved door/wall thingy for $18,000. Uff-da. After lunch it was time for B to take the kids to see the Wiggles in concert. She asked me what I was going to do while she was gone and I told her flat-out I was going to take our TV back to Costco and get one with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Our 4:3 ratio TV wasn't auto-letterboxing HD feeds, so everytime the channel changed from an HD channel to SD (standard def), I would have to find the TV remote and press it's aspect ration button twice. Totally annoying. Anyway, she told me not to, but as soon as she was out the driveway I was on the phone with my brother, since the TV weighs 175 pounds I needed some assistance. He answered from Cannon Beach, OR, so he wasn't able to help, my other local brother was off camping. Next I called my not-brother-in-law, he wasn't home, so I called my friend Parker, I knew he was home alone since his wife and daughter were at the Wiggles with my wife and kids. It was just him and his 4 month old boy. Fortunately, he was up for it, and I went and got them, then we loaded the old TV up, found the remote and manual, and were off to Costco. They took it back no problem (they take anything back no problem) and I bought the new one, a Phillips 16:9 34" HDTV for $900, $100 more than my old one. Set it up, and man oh man is it awesome. Always the right aspect ratio, and the available screen space for HD is about double what I had before. SO pretty. I can't wait for football season. On Monday we had another fun meeting of our drinking club, err investment club. It was way the hell down south in Auburn at one of the guy's office, he runs a shit-sucking company with 3 pumper trucks. We happily have hornswoggled a new treasurer, but one of the members had a brilliant suggestion. If we ever reach a point where we no longer have a treasurer, we can continue meeting like the first two years of the club (I wasn't part of it then) when they met and discussed things, but no money was exchanged and nothing was bought or sold. Yesterday after I got home I figured the kids would love having a picnic, so we threw the thawing steaks back into the fridge and pulled out a wicket basket, grabbed the kids, and went to the store to buy some fried chicken, beans, jo jo potatoes, and apples, and went to the park. The kids didn't eat that much there, they mostly did a lot of playing. B and I sat on the blanket and used the splitter cable I bought to hook 2 headphones into my iPod while we watched the kids play. Of course, when we got home, the kids were starving again (easier to concentrate on eating when you don't have a playground beckoning) so they had another dinner. Next was haircut time. My friend Chuck started his chemo, so it was time to shave my head. B used the clippers on zero to buzz everything off, and we used a #4 to give Harry a half-inch crew cut. His hair works much better with a nice short summer trim. Afterwards I took my electric face razer and polished my head up nicely. I should probably post a picture. B isn't really happy with it, according to her I "don't look like her husband anymore". Monday, April 25, 2005
Saturday was lots of fun. When I got up, the kids had escaped the child-proof latch on the door to their room and were waiting quietly on the couch in the family room. (I specifically lock the kitchen before going to bed so they can't get into as much trouble.) Isabel smiles at me and says, "Daddy, I knew you weren't at work because your iPod is still here!" Damn, how's that for smart? After breakfast we loaded up and went over to my friend's place out in Fall City, aka the Sticks. He lives on 6 acres, of which about a third is swamp, another third is yard, and a third is hilly forest. Him and his wife have some goats to keep the blackberries down, two alpacas, a llama, and lots of chickens/ducks/geese. The kids had fun with the critters, Isabel was too scared to pet the alpacas but Harry wasn't, she was also too scared to let the chickens feed off her hand but Harry loved it. "Chickens peck me Daddy!' Later Isabel was in the back of the van saying "Harry, I am SO impressed with you petting the alpaca! You weren't scared at all! I'm so PROUD of you!" I swear kids saying things like this nearly kill me. After we got home and had lunch, it was time to take Isabel to ballet, then a rush back home because the kids wanted to go to the Husky spring scrimmage. Unfortunately we got there too late, but they had fun playing in the bleachers at Husky Stadium and having a snack. After that I took off and picked up my Not-brother-in-law and headed back out to Fall City for the adult part of the party, namely a massive bonfire built partially out of his slash pile and partly by moi. I loaded up his chainsaw and he drove his lawn tractor up the hill, and I started chopping up bits to add to the fire. Man oh man are chainsaws fun. Loud, powerful, cut through all sorts of things, what could be more fun? Maybe a couple of double-barreled shotguns... OOoo! Or a flamethrower! Anyway, the accellerents used on the bonfire this year included a gallon of used cooking oil I'd saved, and another gallon of old skungie gasoline left over from Y2K in my friend's barn. Mixed they did the job nicely, not too insane. The fire got to it's usually impressive 20' column of flame, but fortunately a thunderstorm an hour earlier had soaked the surrounding area so the fire danger was nil. We normally have a 8' piece of pipe named "Pipey" attached to the blower side of a shop vac we use to add air to the fire and make it burn hotter/faster/prettier/etc, and an improvement this year was putting the shop vac under a 55 gallon barrel to mask the sound a bit. Nothing like a big-ass bonfire, a tasty cigar, and a wax paper cup of good ruby port to make a boy happy. Saturday, April 23, 2005
Okiedokie. On Tuesday we got a coupon in the mail for 10% off anything at our local Safeway. They've been remodeling and were having their grand reopening, not that they were ever closed. The place was packed, they'd shipped in about one zillion employees from other local Safeways, and they had a ton of free samples. A BBQ outside was cooking up NY strip steaks and cutting them into bite-sized tasters, and there were people offering them everywhere. I probably ate an entire steak worth of free samples. MmmmmM! We bought a bunch of stuff that was massively on sale, and a bunch of staples that experience has taught us never go on sale, like campbell's healthy request cream of mushroom soup. (It has no MSG unlike the regular kind, and we cook with it often, but it's NEVER been on sale). We ended up with over $300 worth of groceries for under $200. Wednesday I woke up slammed with Harry's cold. I spent the day in bed, sleeping most of the time. I finished "Ghost Soldiers", about a rescue at the end of WWII of 500 Bataan Death March survivers in a Japanese prison camp deep inside enemy lines by a small group of 120 Army Rangers and some brave Philipino guerillas. They were worried (with good reason) that the Japanese would execute all the remaining POWs before they could be recaptured and reveal the atrocities they experienced. Very intense true story. Amazing that a bunch of the POWs and Rangers are still alive today, in their 80s. Great book. Yesterday we had an appointment to take Harry to see an allergist. He got a bunch of pokes in his back to test for various allergies, and came through that clean. The next step was a blood draw to test his immune system and see if his vaccinations took, since we're trying to figure out why he keeps getting sinus infections. We decided to go back to our regular doc for the blood draw, so I took him alone, B doesn't handle things like that well. When we got there the nurse explained that they needed to fill 6 freakin' tubes with blood for all the tests. Holy cow, they were going to drain him! Sheesh. Anyway, the nurse and a lab tech laid him on a table and couldn't believe how fat and juicy his inside elbow veins were, much easier than most kids. I had him look at me as the needle went in, and he didn't even flinch. They got most of them filled on one side before that vein gave up so they needed to tap the other side. He didn't mind that either, laughing if I tickled his tummy or making roaring sounds if I asked him what a T Rex says. The lab tech and nurse both have kids his age and were amazed at how good he was. They gave him 6 stickers at the end, one for each tube, and he was VERY excited. On the way home he was explaining "That was GREAT Daddy!" I'm sure his only thought process was 'I just lay down for a minute and I get all these stickers!!' What a trooper. As a reward we took him to his favorite place to eat, Johnny Rockets for hamburgers. He's been totally fine, no reaction at all to losing all that blood. Monday, April 18, 2005
Theoretically, we're going to Cabo San Lucas in late April next year. Isabel has her pink backpack all packed and waiting near the door. I tried to explain that it'd be a full year from now, but she just says, "I know Daddy. I just want to be ready".
Ok, the cassette tape adapter for my iPod kicks ass for listening in the car. I was going to get a FM broadcast adapter, but after reading about them, they basically suck compared to the tape adapter if you have a cassette player. Both of our vehicles have both CD and cassette, so for $10 I get better signal strenght, better battery life, and no chance of FM interference. Woo! Good thing my new mini has an 18 hour battery life, I failed to bring the USB cable that charges it with me, so I had to go the whole 3 days on one charge. It made it just fine. Sunday, April 17, 2005
The hotel was merely OK, the pool was freakin' cold, but the kids loved it anyway. We really need to get Isabel into swim lessons. This morning we met up with one of my old high school PE teachers. He's an old friend of Bridgets, so we met him for breakfast. It was a fun time catching up with him. Harry was very excited to be in a restaurant, and he sucked down his apple juice, but didn't eat anything. Isabel had wolfed down half her pancake without breathing, and tossed the second half down with only occasional breaths, but Harry didn't even really play with his food. He came over and sat on my lap, but was acting distracted, looking around, squealing, pointing out things, just being his normal self. Then, he got off my lap and walked partway around the table and WHAMMO, started puking like a fire hose. Jets of liquid vomit were going everywhere, and chunks of the pineapple he'd had for lunch the previous day. I was mostly laughing, I mean, my kid is technicolor yawning all over a crowded restaurant. I hustled him into the bathroom, where he prayed to the procelin gods a few more times, shocking this poor teenage kid who was trying to wash his hands at the next sink. I had to strip his barf-soaked shirt off, and he was feeling better enough to yell out his standard undressed quote, "Naked Boy!!!". I put his jacket on him and took him back to the hotel room. He yells out, "Our hotel room! We MADE it, Daddy!" Heh. He was mostly better. B thinks it was the antibiotic that made him zook, and I'd tend to agree. As an aside, I love how many synonyms for hurling there are. The drive back across the state was fine. Harry started to get starving after a while, and seems fine now. Saturday, April 16, 2005
After we got home from lunch yesterday, the kids played for a while. Isabel tried to take a nap but that didn't work. Around 3:30 my brother Johnny called, we drove out to see him and his family. They live about half an hour east, and about 5 seconds after the car started both kids were racked out. Harry woke up when we got to my brother's house, but Isabel was out cold. They both were a little startled at my brother's new dog Hunter, a Rhodesian Ridgeback aka African Lion Hound, and a large one at that, I'd guess at 100lbs or more. Big dog, but friendly. Johhny and his wife were going turkey hunting today, so he was excited to show off his new turkey calls. Very funny. Harry and I had some pizza with my brother's family, Isabel was too busy doing crafts with her cousin Shelley. B called from the hospital to say that Annie had her baby, everything went easy and everyone is fine. We drove down to visit them at the hospital, and then we visited my mom (who is a labor-and-delivery nurse at that hospital.) Mom gave her grandkids some ice cream. We then drove out to my brother Steve's house, to visit with him, his wife, and his kids. It was great seeing them. My niece Steffi has her driving learner's permit now, uff-da. My brother had bought a used 2002 Celica, and one of his co-workers had had one get totalled so he offered my brother about $3000 worth of 17" rims and low-profile tires for $750, Steve countered with $500 and they had a deal. As it was getting late we got back to B's sister's house, put the kids to bed, and I left to go visit my friend Nate. He was supposed to hook up with some car-club friends of his at The Rainbow Room, about the sleaziest bar imaginable, in the sleaziest part of town, east Sprague, aka Hooker Central. We headed down there, it turns out the Rainbow Room is sorta a strip club. Washington State law prohibits combining booze and nudity, so it was something I didn't know existed, pasties and g-string stripping with beer for sale. Bizarre. Anyway, very VERY scummy, but Nate's friends weren't there so we didn't stay, and drove back over to the Viking, my favorite Spokane bar, and got a pitcher of Thor's Thunder Imperial Stout. Wow that was one heck of a good beer. MMMMM! This morning we woke up to Isabel yelling at Harry to wake up and play with her. Poor guy. B and her mom went to the hospital to visit Annie and her new baby Faith, so I took the kids to pick up Harry's new prescription, he's got a sinus infection. Next door was a Walmart, so I went there to buy a cheap cassette adapter so I could use my iPod in the car (both our cars have both CD and cassette), and since it was only $10, I also bought a headphone splitter ($3) so either the iPod or the DVD player can have two people listen, as well as a extra set of headphones ($6). Damn that place is cheap. Then I took the kids to the mall, B called me and caught up with us there, we had lunch, came home, and now we're packing to go to a hotel with indoor pool for the night, since Annie is on her way home and this 2 bed 1 bath house is too small for this many people. Friday, April 15, 2005
So far today, I took the kids to the local park, we played for a while. Its in the mid-50s and overcast, but while it's plenty warm outside the house, over at the park there is enough open space for a breeze to get going and it feels quite a bit cooler. Right before noon we packed up to head downtown. I stopped for gas at the Safeway gas station on the way since I have a bunch of 6 cents/gallon discounts racked up on my racial purity card, err Big Brother discount "club" card. We picked up my Dad outside his office, picked up some $1 double cheeseburgers at McDs (shudder), and went back to Dad's apartment with my laptop to see if there were any open wireless networks he could leech off of. 3 were within range of my G4s built-in antenna, but none were wide-open. Well, one was called "SpokaneHotZone", which now that I have a net connection, turns out someone is providing a 100 block area of downtown Spokane with 2hrs/day free wireless network. Spiffy! After we let Dad get back to work, we went to Riverfront Park, site of Spokane's World's Fair back in 1974. They have a giant red Radio Flyer wagon, about oh I'd guess 15 feet tall and 60 feet long, to scale, with stairs up the back and the long handle sticking out the front is a slide. The kids LOVED it. Afterwards we wandered around, watching people feed the flying rats (aka ducks, geese, gulls), got some mini donuts, and rode the restored 1909 carosel they've got down there. On the way home I laughed hard, the gas station now wanted $2.41/gallon, up 2 cents from a couple hours earlier. Glad I topped up on the way instead of waiting like I almost did.
Here I am in a basement in Spokane, my laptop tied into their cable modem. The kids are upstairs eating and watching some TV. B and her sister and mother and brother-in-law are arriving at the hospital right about now. I'm solo with the kids for the rest of the day. I dunno what we are going to do, I'll have to find something. Dang old Isabel woke Harry up at 6am. Ugga. Once the sun is up, if they wake up it's hard to get them to go back down. Thursday, April 14, 2005
Well, B's sister is actually going to be induced tomorrow, so B was going to drive over by herself, but now we've decided to just all go, so I'll be heading over to Loserville, aka Spokane, in a few hours. Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Ok, I laughed walking into work this morning. The copper on the new dome on top of Denny Hall is already corroded. For the life of me, I have no idea why they would bother to polish it. I'm hoping it was just new copper and they'd had to rebuild the whole sucker, but who knows. I'd hate to think they paid someone for the zillion hours it would take to polish it, only to have that last all of 3 weeks. Sunday, April 10, 2005
WoooO! Alls well that ends well. My birthday certainly ended well. My friends know me pretty well, and I got 9 bottles of hard liquor, including root beer schnapps, a bottle of Glen Garioch 10yr single malt whiskey, a bottle of Tomatin 12yr, a bottle of Irish single malt whiskey, and in the great minds think alike dept, I got two bottles of Glenlivet 15 yr aged in single malt aged in French Oak, and no less than 3 bottles of the newest single barrel bourbon to hit our state-controlled liqour stores: 1792. It's 93 proof, but drinks more like 70 proof, almost like melted buttah. Mmmmmm! Oh yeah, I also got a shot glass, a weird little stone cup from Easter Island, a bottle of port, and a four-pack of mini bottles of bourbon. That one will probably go to my desk at work for emergency use. ("In case of emergency sobriety: Drink") (Every since that time last year when my server got hacked the night before I was to fly to Vegas and I was up at 2am rebuilding it with no beer anywhere, I always keep a few beers in my work fridge, but my boss let me know where his stash in in case of emergency as well) The dishwasher in installed, and works! Man, that dang old thing. At like 4pm, we had everything hooked up and the dishwasher was put into place. We fired it up, and the pigfucking water supply line had a slow leak where it attaches to the dishwasher. FUCK ME! Gah! The way dishwashers work is down on the bottom near the front is where the hot water line attaches. There is a little brass L that screws into an upwards hole, and you crank it until it faces the back of the dishwasher. The hot supply line then screws into that L. You can't install the L with the dishwasher installed, nor is there room to tighen the hose that attaches to the back of that L. The worthless poxy whoreson was fucking dripping. I was about ready to just end it all. I finally decided to try giving it a 45 degree turn, one eigth of a rotation, and it worked!! Holy shit!! The hole had plenty of room to fit, but I couldn't have gone 15 more degrees. Man, what a relief! I'd forgotten to buy a power cord for the dishwasher, and it needed 16 gauge wire, and all the computer power supply cords I could find lying around used 18 gauge wire. Gah! Finally I sacrified an old power strip to the cause, it had 14 gauge wire, more than enough. The sink beaver is just a dream come true. It works, it installs totally easily, and I got this nifty pneumatic button that fits into one of the holes in the sink where the faucet mounts, and has a little air line to a relay that controls the garbage disposal. Easy as pie, and I'd rather have the switch on the sink than my best option which was a switchbox under the counter. While I was working on the new electrical, my dad was installing the new faucet. He's got bad eyes for detail unless he puts on his reading glasses, and the instructions were all pictures anyway, but in one step it had you install a washer. Dad didn't see a washer, so he just skipped that step. Gah! Dad! What were you thinking?!!? Not good!! Anyway, we dropped the sink in, hooked up the supply lines, turned on cold, and SPLOOOOSH water was going everywhere. FUCK! Turn off the water, take the sink out, slowly figure out what he did. Mock him severely, try to find the part. No luck anywhere. FUCK! Off to the hardware store, where for $4 I bought a box of 30 differently sized rubber washers and O-rings. Woo! Lots of spares, and one worked perfectly. I'm going to have to call Moen tomorrow and bitch them out. Also on the list of MIA parts was a little tube of some kind of goop that is supposed to go on this half-assed chickenshit plastic thingamabob. It seems to work without it, but I'd like to have more confidence in it. The kitchen is awesome now. The dishwasher is amazing, very very quiet and cleans things very well. It is the Whirlpool GU2500 in white, cost $540 at Lowes. Well, plus $100 for a sink beaver, $170 for a nice faucet, and about $300 in misc parts. Just over a grand later we have a new faucet, new disposal, and new built-in dishwasher. I need to stick the old dishwasher up on craigslist, and the busted one for that matter. Today I went with Harry, my brother Dan, and his girlfriend Liz to a nursery to buy a walnut tree. I got a beauty 6' one for $35, and four raspberry plants. I can't wait for this walnut tree to get 50' tall. I seem to be in the minority in that I love big trees. Of course, most people don't climb trees like I do. We got it planted, and I've named him Wally. Friday, April 08, 2005
Busy day. I took the day off work to do some kitchen upgrades. B and I effectively swapped birthdays this year, for her birthday I got my iPod, and for my birthday she gets a built-in dishwasher instead of the portable one, a new faucet, and a sink beaver aka garbage disposal. My parents came to town for the weekend and arrived just before noon. After a lunch of grilled cheese sammiches, sweet pickles, and tomato soup, Dad and I took out the panel behind the sink to see what piping we had to work with. My kitchen faucet was the old-school kind, with pipes in the wall coming out of the wall above the sink instead of pipes below the sink feeding a faucet attached to the sink. Gah! They were galvanised iron pipes, with no seams until somewhere below the sill plate. Ugga. Off to Home Despot, where after an hour of talking to a guy who seemed to know what he was doing we bought a new faucet (required 2 calls to B to confirm what she wanted), a garbage disposal, a bunch of pipe pieces, some hoses, etc. $450 worth. Crickey. Get home, find out half of what we need isn't the right size, and half is excessive anyway, and it turns out the drain has a vent stack continuing up, so I need a T instead of an elbow. Trip 2 was to Hardwicks, a local hardware store and swap shop, with narrow aisles but so freakin' chock full of stuff. They have just amazing things there, stuff a warehouse hardware store would NEVER stock, like a 12' post-hole digger. I can't imagine trying to life the dirt out of the hole on that sucker. Plus they sell wierd bit sizes, dental picks, just all sorts of useful stuff. They had the parts I needed, which was awesome. We got the water to the house turned off, and started cutting into the pipes. The compression fittings were attached, and the water turned back on. No leaks! Miracle! For dinner I'd asked my brother Dan down the street to cook, and he made tacos. Yum! To finish that off he'd made a whole wheat crust apple pie that rocked. After dinner we had the second project of the weekend to deal with, upgrading my folks from their 233Mhz 64Mb RAM iMac RevB to something modern. We drove down to the Apple Store in U Village, picked up a $499 (minus $20 academic discount) Mac Mini with a free-after-rebate inkjet printer, and walked next door to Office Max to buy a $260 17" LCD and a $150 Brother laser printer. This will be one nice setup for them. They couldn't belive how small the Mac Mini was. Before bed Dad and I started cutting through the crappy handmade cabinets to make a slot for the dishwasher. I was VERY pleased to see the pipes still hadn't started to leak, I have high hopes now. Tomorrow is my 37th birthday, going to be one busy day. I hope I manage to get things done in time to nap. Thursday, April 07, 2005
Tuesday night we went over to a friend's house for a birthday dinner that was supposed to start at 6pm. There were two guests who were late. WOPR, who comments on this blog, was late because he's always late, he can't get anywhere after work before 6:30pm. NotMe, who also comments on this blog, has two states: On time, or he forgot. It struck me at 6:35 that if he wasn't here, it had to be because he'd forgotten. The only thing NotMe does faster than forget things is falling asleep, I swear he's narcoleptic. Yesterday after work I mowed the lawn, and for the zillionth time loathed the dead mower blade I have, so I finally measured it for a new one. I don't have a bench grinder, and the $10 for a new mower blade isn't much more than having one sharpened anyway. Mine had some serious dents and divots from hitting various rocks. Last night after dinner we got my brother Kurt to help us go to Lowes and buy the new dishwasher I am going to install this weekend. When we got back Isabel wanted to take a walk before bedtime, it was dark out but we live in a nice neighborhood with streetlights, and it wasn't cold, so I said "sure". I let her pick the direction, we had fun talking about various things we saw or things she did that day. She ended up going 12 blocks north before deciding she was getting tired, so we turned around and headed home. 24 blocks is a long ways for a 3 year old, but she did great with her LED shoes flashing. I love going on walks with my daughter. Tuesday, April 05, 2005
I finished the 8th Patrick O'Brian "Aubrey/Maturin" book, which ends the second of the five hardbacks, each with 4 novels, that I got for Christmas. For a change of pace, not that I want to stop but rather I want to get some other things off my ready rack, I am reading a book I borrowed from B's uncle, "Ghost Soldiers" by Hampton Sides. It's the true story of the rescue of some Bataan Death March POWs from the Japanese by early US Army Rangers at the end of WWII. Pretty good so far, but I like war stories. Tonight Isabel was explaining to me how the infant swing got moved out of the kitchen and into the living room next to the liquor cabinet. "Daddy, we moved the swing over here next to your BOOZE cabinet". Ha! I laughed out loud. B has been having fun, this week is her first week with four babies full time. Little Alex has been having tummy issues, yesterday he had poop blowouts twice before 9:30am, getting B once. Today he got her again. Gack. Getting pooped on by babies. Sheesh. Monday, April 04, 2005
Friday went well. After dropping Isabel off at preschool, Harry and I went shopping. I'd remembered that B mentioned that ribeye steaks were on sale, and I know the kids love steak, so I got us some big juicy ribeyes and artichokes for dinner. Just because B was out of town was no reason to not have a tasty dinner! I knew I needed to be back home by 10am when Katie would be dropped off, she had a doctor appt that morning which is why she was so late. However, when we got back at 9:50am Katie and her mom were playing on the swings in the backyard, miracle of miracles their doctor appointment was both on time and fast. Katie and Harry played peacefully together for an hour while I baked mini muffins, cut up canteloupe and washed grapes for snack for craft that afternoon, and then we had 15 extra minutes so we used the nearby playground before picking up Isabel. After a quick lunch I put Katie down for her nap as the craft moms started showing up. Quite a herd, 10 kids, 3 moms, and a dad. After craft I put the kids down for a nap and got to watch an hour of TV off the DVR. My not-brother-in-law Bill called to ask what's for dinner. I said "steaks and artichokes". They came over, and we conned or begged my sister-in-law Judy into babysitting while we went to go see Sin City. Her only requirement was we put the kids to bed first and see a late movie. Ok, I got the kids down at 7;45pm, and we took off to catch a 9pm showing at a new theater up north. Holy freakin' glub. This new theater is freakin' huge, had a parking garage at ground level with the theater above it, a grand escalator taking you up to the 2 story entry foyer. We got tickets and got in with 10 minutes to spare, but then figured out we were totally fucked. The only seats left were the front 4 rows, and the screen was SO fuckin' enormous that I had to pan my head 3 times to fit it all in my field of view. No way were we sitting that close, I couldn't even quite focus right. Ugga. Anyway, we called Judy and she said it'd be OK if we went to the 10pm one instead. Sin City was awesome. I knew nothing about this movie two weeks ago, and have never read the comic. So funny, so well done. Very very excellent. I doubt Bridget would like it, but she didn't go. Saturday morning after breakfast I took the kids to Costco to do some shopping. They'd replaced the original first ever Costco down in the industrial district with a new one across the street that's 50% bigger. Store #001. Funny. Anyway, the new one was pretty nice, but still just a Costco. I of course forgot half the things I needed, but I did get pullups, baby wipes, and a case of Newkie, aka Newcastle Brown Ale. Mmmm. After lunch it was time for Isabel's ballet class. One of the craft moms had offered to watch Harry while I took Isabel to ballet and had a beer at the tavern next door, and there wasn't any way I was going to turn that down. BEEEER! Mmmm. All morning I told Harry he was going to Bethany's house to play, and he would say, "NO Bethany's house!!". Isabel would try to talk him into it by saying, "But Harry, Bethany has lots of princess dress-up clothes!" Somehow that argument didn't sway the boy. You can probably predict what happened. He had no problem being dropped off. I took Isabel to her ballet and one of the mom's was drawing a heart on her daughter's hand. She was saying, "Now if you get sad and miss me during class look at this heart and you'll know how much I love you!" Um, I'm pretty sure Isabel has never gotten sad or lonely during dance class, she's always totally excited and euphoric. She loves dancing, and she loves getting dressed up. It's a perfect combo for her. At the Wedgewood Ale House, I wanted to try something else from Baron's brewery. They are a newish Seattle brewery who make very authentic German beers. I'd tried their heftyweasel (heffeweisen) at the beerfest last week, and they had the dopplebock. I normally don't like dopplebocks much, but figured I'd try it. Instead of bringing me a pint, the bartender brought me a half-full schooner as a taster. He said people had been going about 50-50 on that beer, with lots not liking it at all. I was in that half, it was utterly foul and undrinkable. I don't know if it was bad or what, tasted like a bunch of vinegar in the beer. Blech. Anyway, I was thankful for that warning, had a pint of Dick's Imperial Stout instead, and tipped him $2 instead of the normal buck. After class when we went to pick up Harry, he was having the best time. Bethany's folks invited me to stay a while and let the kids play, and since I knew the chances of them napping where slim and none, and slim was on vacation, I figured what the heck. They played for an hour and a half, and Harry *still* didn't want to leave. That little bugger. B was home when we got back, her sister still hasn't had the baby. SIgh. That's the way it goes. Also, after being super for me for a day and a half, they totally melted down that evening. Tantrums of epic proportion. Ugga. Friday, April 01, 2005
Note to readers: Despite it being April 1st, no April Fools Day jokes included. B got a call from her sister last night, they think she might be in labor, so B and her mom packed up and left during poker to drive across the state. Unfortunately she forgot her suitcase, D'OH! Anyway, today that makes me Mr Dad. It's fun to wake up to their laughing on the baby monitor instead of to an alarm. I got a bonus hour of sleep today too. On today's docket: Get kids up, feed them, get them dressed (Isabel dresses herself), take Isabel to preschool, do some grocery shopping with Harry, be back at 10am for Katie's drop-off (she had a doctor appt this morning so she's late), bake a snack for craft group this afternoon, pick up Isabel at noon, feed the kids lunch, put Katie down for a nap, the women and babies arrive for craft at 1pm, (this time I think it's 2-3 women and 5-6 other kids), then after craft is nap time, and dinner time. Hopefully Annie isn't in labor so my other sister-in-law Judy doesn't drive to Spokane today, so she can babysit tonight while me and her boyfriend go see "Sin City"! Woo! Ah kids, they're just one charming weapon away from being homocidal maniacs. Isabel's comment when I took a stick away from her, "But Daaaaaaaddy! I wasn't playing whack-a-mole with Katie and Harry this time!" Katie's dad was in a foul mood leaving the house yesterday with her, and he muttered, "Daddy is going to go on a four-state killing spree." Katie looks up and says, "Can I come too?" |
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