Ultranormal

Category: family

  • All Alone

    After a marathon Saturday getting Jen and Max to the airport, circumventing a gigantic accident on the Beltway, navigating through a less than pleasant neighborhood in downtown DC, managing to get everyone to the airport, checked in, to Security, back over the beltway, wrong way first, U-Turn by FedEx field, getting antibiotics from nice old pharmacist at Safeway, coming home to an empty house to wallow in sinus pain.

    Jen and Max made it to Tucson safely. Max was an angel and slept for two hours on the plane and then played quietly the rest of the time. I was prepared for horror stories of inflight diaper disasters, grumpiness and general pandemonium. Max gets a pony when he gets back, I think.

    I slept through church on Sunday. I slept for 14 hours straight, and was still tired when I finally dragged my butt out of bed, downstairs to the couch where I had a cold bachelor pizza lunch and wondered why the olympics didn’t start until 7.

    It’s no fun being sick unless I have someone to feel sorry for me, so here I am at work where I’ll do the “I’m sick, but aren’t you impressed that I’m here anyway” and try to avoid as much actual work as I can. The problem is three projects are at their apex of pain right now and that means I get to do eight things at once, answer thirty IMs at once and juggle ostrich eggs all at the same time. That’s pretty tough when I’m well, much less when I’m swimming in a facefull of bloody snot.

  • Spent today being sick and

    Spent today being sick and playing with Max, and watching Jen pack for their trip. Now, I’m printing directions to the airport to combat last-minute mind-losing. Must go to bed now, head is full of snot.

    Tomorrow – drive to airport, help corrall the kid while in line for security, drown sorrows in Super Troopers and Vietnamese food. Wallow in my sinus infection in front of Iron Chef.

  • Funky Funk

    A funk has set in. Maybe it’s because Jen and Max are going out of town for two weeks, or the fact that I don’t feel well. Maybe it’s that they’re threatening to switch platforms on me at work, and I’m afraid I’ll have to learn a language I don’t want to (Java – Why the hell would you compile something that’s going to change every other week?).

    There’s something to be said for a sinus infection that’s now bad enough that every time I sneeze it looks like a gib exploded in a bad gangster movie. My face is so swollen that my vision’s affected. Yeah, baby, I love it! I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to see what’s up and hopefully we can find a way to kill this thing once and for all.

    In other news, I’ll be able to weigh myself on a reliable scale tomorrow and see if this soda reduction is working. I feel like I’ve lost weight, but our scale’s so old and messed up I have no idea where it starts, much less what number I should be reading when I get on it.

  • Jen is strongly refuting my

    Jen is strongly refuting my charge of infrequent seat-lifting. I think we’ve come to a consensus to blame it either on the supernatural or Max.

    And just an update for those of you who may be wondering – I only pee sitting down at home. In public, I’m a stand-up manly urinal guy.

  • Green Snot

    Oh, look at all the pretty colors in that thing I just coughed up! I see green, a little pink, yellow. It’s like a Paul Klee that got left out in the rain. I hate winter. Yes, I know not long ago I was fantasizing about snow, but this winter has been mild so far. All of a sudden, winter came back yesterday after a week of tempertures in the sixties and seventies. Boom! Thirty-five, thirty mph wind and snow. Do you know what happens to people with allergies and asthma when there’s a sudden temperture change? We flip out. The body decides to rebel against the cold by battening down the hatches of my face with mucous. It’s a never-ending flood. My face fills up with sandbags against the cold. Like the extra insulation is really needed for the five minutes a day I’m actually outside. Damn you, body! Can’t you evolve into a nice housebody? One with a nice, regulated, amount of mucous? I don’t need strategic snot reserves. I really don’t.

    So, anyway, how are you?

  • Lessons Learned

    No more sushi for me. I didn’t sleep well (it doesn’t help that Max has a cold and has been completely unpleasant today – waking up at 6:30). My head is swollen, throat is sore and nausea is the general theme. I think the sushi was fine. It certainly tasted fine. I think I’ve developed an allergy to shrimp. It’s the weirdest thing. I love shrimp. I used to be able to eat it all the time and in large quantities without getting so much as heartburn. But, around Christmas, I tried some and got a little queasy, with the same sore throat. With my short memory, I had a shrimp roll yesterday and well, here we are today. Is that possible? Instant food allergies?

    Well, either way, I’m miserable. Max is miserable, and we’re not getting along. It’s really hard to understand a stuffed-up toddler with a pacifier in his mouth when my head feels like a cinder block, and my throat feels like I’ve swallowed one. We’ve watched Blue’s Clues all day, and it’s driving me nuts. Every time I try to watch something else, he throws a phlegmy fit and I give in before my brain explodes.

    Let’s hope one of us feels better tomorrow…

  • My poor little Powerbook.

    My poor little Powerbook. I have one of the older G3’s with the bronze keyboard (pre-firewire). It’s been through so many complete wipes and re-installs that I think it’s having a personality conflict. After getting tired of waiting for OS X to load anything, I’ve decided to switch to YellowDog 2.1 again now that Ximian‘s available.

    What’s funny is I don’t really use it for anything. I used to take it home and use it for MAME. Now I use my poor little Dell laptop for Civ3. So, I’m turning the Powerbook into my little crash machine where I can play with compiling kernels and other geeky stuff.

    Speaking of geeky. I’m sliding down the slippery slope of complete geekhood. I had a dream in code the other night. I now speak Tcl better than I speak English. I find it harder and harder to relate to non-geeks. I have dark circles under my eyes. I wear geeky shirts – like today. I got this nice polo from the guys at Overture, and well, I’m wearing it. I also got really excited yesterday when I got mail from the guys at YellowDog saying they’d posted my Howto and are sending me a t-shirt.

    I need to start painting that huge canvas in the basement. I need to read that book. I need to stop thinking about work all the time and get a good night’s sleep.

  • The Little Man

    We were going to the doctor this morning, Jen and I. We were early and decided that we should check out the mysteriously named Yas Bakery on the way. We entered to the smell of fresh mint and exotic fruits and spices. After passing a refrigerated glass case filled with assorted strange loafs and pans of tofu, we came to the pastry case, filled to overflowing with baklava, dozens of different small cookies, odd but tasty looking gooey treats, rock candy and a little woman in a white apron with olive skin and a gigantic smile.

    I decided to try the baklava and asked for six pieces (not all for me, of course). When she asked if there was anything else, I spied the gooey tubes. About the size of cocktail wienies, they glistened with what looked like corn syrup. I asked what they were, and she quickly took two out of the case and her small hand came over the case to offer them to me. They were sticky, but the pastry was still slightly crunchy when I bit into it, releasing the honey inside. It was amazing. I added six of those to the six baklavas, and the bag of “super seeds” I had picked up from the “seed table” in the middle of the small store.

    When I went up to the register, the little man came out from the back. He asked us with a thick Greek accent if this was our first visit to his bakery. It was. He threw up one hand in a triumphant salute and scurried behind the pastry case where he produced two almond cookies, one for Jen, one for me. The small shortbread was covered with paper-thin slices of almond and garnished with what I think were ground pistachios. It was very dry, the almonds slightly sweet and woody, but delicious. He then came around the case to face me across the counter where he promptly rattled off all of the amazing confections he could create and then produced a photo album. He proudly displayed pictures of baklava towers, three-tiered wedding cakes, a picture of the little man wearing an apron holding a frosting sleeve at the ready above a half-finished masterpiece.

    We paid, and I decided never to pass up the chance to visit the little out-of-the-way on the way to the doctor’s places of the world. I will always remember the little man and his family in their little sweet-smelling bakery and the cookies. Trips to the grocery store for milk and bread are quickly forgotten.

  • Happy anniversary, sweetie. The past

    Happy anniversary, sweetie. The past four years have been the best times of my life. From our little apartment in Tucson to our adventure in cross-country travel to get here. The day you surprised me at the front door when I came home and asked if I wanted to take my pregnant wife to dinner. The day we brought Max home from the hospital and all the times you’ve taken care of me. I love you.

  • Weekend Notes In no particular

    Weekend Notes

    In no particular order:

    • Max has decided that sleeping through the night is not the best idea in the world. He’s taken to waking up at random intervals during the night and/or insanely early and not letting us hear the end of it until one of us goes and gets him. I am not pleased. He’s been such a good sleeper almost his whole life. This can’t start now! Sleep, little man, sleep!!! You’re like you’re mom. You love to sleep. You would sleep for 18 hours a day if you didn’t like Blues Clue’s so much. Yeah, maybe that’ll work.
    • It’s time to go get new glasses. I can’t tell if it’s sinus pressure, or what, but I’m having a hard time focusing today.
    • This weekend’s playoff games were all great. They were all extremely different. There were two close ones, two complete dismantlings of different kinds, some amazing plays (that trick “What’s the call?” direct snap by the Steelers ties the wacky WR Reverse lateral by the Rams during the regular season as coolest play ever). I love the playoffs, but there are only three more games this year until the Hall of Fame game and the rest of the pre-season fun at the end of the summer.
    • So, now that Aiden’s out of the picture on Sex and the City, is Carrie going to move in with Miranda? Jen brought this up as we were trying to go to sleep. Aiden’s moving out, but he bought Carrie’s apartment. So, that logically means that Carrie’s gonna get evicted eventually, right? There are only two or three more episodes in the mini-season, so I’m not quite sure how that’s going to work out.
    • Six Feet Under won the Golden Globe for best drama. Wow, that’s an amazing accomplishment for a show in its first season and with such a short run. I can’t wait for the second season to start in March (about the same time the new Sopranos season starts).
    • Now that we have TiVo, I’ve noticed that we’ve stopped watching a lot of the network shows we used to. We’re replacing them with either late-night talk recorded the night before, or cable shows from during the day. Boston Public and Ally McBeal were the first to go (Ally’s just been horrible this season, but it was a habit. TiVo: the habit forming habit breaker). That’s Life was next. How many more will fall off the Season Pass list before we are fully assimilated?