I should probably hold off on saying this for a few more days, until I’ve had a chance to listen through it more, but the best album of the year so far is The Midnight Organ Fight by the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit. I’ve tried to put on my amateur rock critic hat and find some really eloquent words to describe them, but about all I can come up with is that the album is freaking brilliant.
I’d like to preface this post by reminding you all that I’m nearly 37 years old, am married, have 2.5 kids, and have a Master’s degree. Last night, I spent about 45 minutes shooting a water gun at the mother raccoon that lives under our deck each time she peaked her head out to see if the coast was clear for her and her kits to go on their evening foraging run.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin">This article</a> is a thought-provoking (and lengthy) examination of how couples struggle to achieve a fair balance when it comes to raising kids, managing the home, etc. I’m fascinated by how little the numbers have changed over time, as though there’s something hardwired in either us or our society that prevents us from moving the ratios too much. Regardless of how your family is set-up (one career, two careers, single parent, etc.
This is how strange a spring it has been: today, June 17, is the first morning this year that I’ve spent most of my time in our three-season-room/sunroom/screened-in porch, or whatever this room is called. Most of the spring it’s been too chilly to hang out in here anytime before lunch. Over the last couple weeks, it’s been hot and muggy, too much so to come out even in the mornings.
I feel comfortable saying the Celtics have this thing wrapped up, since they have a 31 point lead three minutes into the fourth quarter. I believe that’s what you call a comprehensive ass-kicking. So much for my Lakers in five pick. Paul Pierce proves he’s one of the best players in the NBA, officially ascends as the second best NBA player to come out of KU, and puts a nice wrapper on the year of the Jayhawk (Bonus: Scot Pollard gets a ring as well!
Happy Father’s Day, late in the day, to the other pops out there. I enjoyed mine. Worked in the yard. Had a little cookout for the local family. Enjoyed my gift, the <i>Rock Chalk Championship</i> DVD. (I learned one thing from the DVD: Bill Self is a locker room genius. No singing “Eye Of The Tiger.” No tired “Everyone is against us,” tirades like John Calipari is perpetually rolling out. Just calm, confident speeches that inspire his team.
My on-going quest to read everything ever printed. 18 - <i>Open Line</i> - Ellen Hawley. This is a fun little novel about a lark run amok. Annette Majoris is a late-night radio host in Minneapolis who dreams of making it big in a real city, specifically New York, not some sleepy Midwestern town. One night, after being bored to death by another round of conspiracy-theory spouting callers, she casually asserts that the U.
While at the library last night, M. and C. were playing with some toys while S. and I were looking at books about ten feet away. Another little girl, who looked to be 4-5, ran up to them and asked, "What are your names?" M. gave her a look for a minute like, "Who are you, asking me questions?" but finally got happy and said, "I'm M. and this is my sister C.
I want to be careful how I say this, because there are a lot of people across Indiana and other Midwestern states who have truly suffered over the last week because of all the rain. Some of the pictures from just south of Indianapolis were incredible. But, I’m ready for all these freaking storms to go away. C. is now incapable of sleeping through even the mildest of storms. Despite having a fan cranked up in her room, at the first rumble of thunder, she starts crying, gets out of her bed, and comes and finds us.
M. had another birthday party this weekend. I highly recommend checking out the family pic page (right there on the right sidebar, top link, for you newbies) for some good ones. This was a special party in that there were farm animals. Two ponies. Two baby goats. A rooster. A hen and some chicks. A rabbit. And all were either drugged up or mellow enough so the kids got to get up close and hold/pet them.
Finally, a little political talk. (The Obamas sully the presidency, and demonstrate their hatred for America, with their offensive fist-bump.) I have to admit, as interested and involved as I’ve been in the contest this year, I largely tuned it out following the Indiana primary last month. I was frustrated with the tone the Democratic race was taking, and fearful it would continue to get nastier and nastier, potentially sapping the eventual nominee’s strength for the fall.
Not sure if this is sad or hopeful. Willie Aikens will always be one of my favorite 3-4 Royals. And it’s not just becase he hit four home runs in the 1980 World Series. (As an aside, the ‘80 World Series may have been the pinnacle of my kid fandom. It came at the perfect moment in my life: we had just moved to Kansas City, I had the white-hot intense fandom of a nine-year-old, George Brett just dropped one of the greatest years ever on the American League, etc.
I’ll admit, since April 7, I’ve been wearing a lot of KU gear. I would say 80% of the times I’ve left the house since then, I’ve had some kind of KU shirt on. Generic, Final Four, or National Champions gear. Doesn’t matter as long as it’s KU attire. I figure there’s a limited window in which you can take advantage of your team winning a championship, I might was well milk it for all it’s worth.
In the late 70s and early 80s it was hard to find two cities that, per capita, loved baseball more than Kansas City and Baltimore. 30 years later the Royals broke their 12 game losing streak tonight and in Baltimore there were about 50,000 Red Sox fans filling up Camden Yards. Watch the video of Manny Ramirez hitting his 500th home run and notice how many people are going crazy, as Red Sox fans would do, rather than just standing to watch history, as O’s fans would do.
Like all parents, we struggle at times to ensure that our girls are eating a well-balanced diet. Not just making sure we’re hitting all the food groups in the proper ratios each day, but also just in variety of foods. We could serve mac & cheese with some kind of fruit at every meal and the girls would happily gulp it down. In an effort to branch out, I picked up Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook at the library last week.
We’ve had a couple large milestones here in La Casa De B. in recent months that I’ve failed to mention. M. left the pull ups behind in March. It was one of those “We’re down to about ten pull ups, do we want to buy any more?” changes that we parents have to force upon our kids sometimes. She was cool with it, though, as she was ready. She had been taking naps without a pull up for about a month and avoided any incidents.
M. finished up her first year of preschooling yesterday. Her school year went out with a bang with a big bike parade for all the three year olds followed by a cookout/pot luck lunch for the kids and their families. The parade was pretty funny as it clearly demonstrated the differences in ages amongst the two classes. The bigger kids, who turned four last fall, were flying around on their bikes, some of them on pretty big bikes with training wheels.
We’ve been trying to sign the girls up for swimming lessons using the city’s parks & rec website. We kept getting an error saying we were already registered in their system that we couldn’t work around. So S. called and got a fairly young guy on the phone. After a couple minutes of fruitless explanations of what she wanted, basically to have our password/account reset, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Three lines. That’s what the sonogram showed today. For those of you who have never been lucky enough to sit in on a sonogram, those three lines indicate you’re growing a little girl. I believe we’ve officially debunked the Chinese Birth Calendar and proven that S. and I are only able to produce girls. As I said last week, what was important to me wasn’t the gender of the kid but that it and S.
Please note a more important post will be coming later today. Remember, we’re making a trip to the doctor this morning. I did not stay up late enough to catch all the drama last night, but I followed some of it. Ironically I was thinking, before results began coming in, that there aren’t any surprises in politics anymore since 800 different polling groups are constantly surveying voters before each election. But last night was a surprise, and perhaps the effective end of the Democratic nomination race.