One of the [many] abandoned homes in my neighborhood just had a buyer. It's the townhouse next to me that has been unoccupied for about six months. It's an investment property for the new owner, and he is just doing repairs in an attempt to rent it out. I have befriended the owner. In an act of pity, he lent me his pressure washer. I cleaned the back of the hosue, and was going to do the front on Saturday, but the guy came back to collect his pressure washer on Friday night. That was just the first of my plans to be thwarted this weekend.

Saturday night we were supposed to attend a drive in movie with Martha & Eric. We arrived at the prescribed location (we were even on time) to find that most of the viewing area was roped off and cars were not permitted to park there. Most people brought lawn chairs and set them up in the parking lot. We did not have anything like this, as we were planning to watch the movie from our car. We basically just walked around for ten minutes and left. Stephen walked very far without ever putting his hands down or stopping to rest. Maybe 1/8 of a mile to the snow cone stand and the same distance back to the car. We instead came home and watched Frost Gaint, which was everything we'd hoped.

Yesterday was the Men's final for the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in DC. I had two tickets that I got for my birthday from S&S, and the tickets said 12 noon. We didn't bother to check the details until yesterday morning, when we found out that the doubles final was at noon, and the singles final was "no earlier than 3pm," depending on how long the doubles match went. So we changed our babysitting plans and planned to get to the stadium at 3pm. After the world's longest drive-though line at McDonald's, we ended up getting to our seats about about 3:20pm, but the match started ten minutes late so we only missed the first two games. Turned out to be a complete trouncing, with the no-name, often-injured underdog winning in straight sets.

It was hotter than hell and there we no clouds. Being up in those bleachers makes you feel like you're right next to the sun. There are some aspects that are more impressive when you watch live, but I think I'm done with witnessing live sports. It's too much of a gamble regarding the weather, traffic, and the players. This year, two nobodies made it to the finals; there was no way to predict that when the tickets were purchased more than three months ago.

We did manage to go grocery shopping on Saturday.

Tonight is the first of our "band practices." If all goes well, Fat Man After Dark is going to do an audio interview with my band on Thursday. More on that later, hopefully.

This weekend was more my speed. We took Stephen to the real pool for the first time yesterday. There was no one there despite the weather being perfect for swimming. Stephen can stand in the kiddie pool but struggles to walk. We actually spent most of the time in the regular pool, alternating between holding Stephen and swimming around for pleasure. There was shade from a tree in the late day. It was nice. By the time we got out, Stephen was dunking his face in the pool over and over and loving it. Jaime was standing in three feet of water and he kept holding his breath and bobbing into the water.

Today Stephen's Grandparents did some babysitting while Jaime and I had a mid-day date. It's nice to get babysitting in your own home. It simplifies the whole thing. We had a good 4.5 hours out of the house at a movie and lunch at Don Pablo's. Of course, during all this relaxing (never more than 3.5mi from the house), we failed to go back to the swimming pool today or go grocery shopping. Jaime's car is getting some body work done this week so I do not have a car. This means I/we have to go grocery shopping tomorrow after Jaime gets home from work. Blech.

In a month, I will be on vacation.

What a day. Got up at 6am, made our way down to DC. Did the entire 5k walk with Jaime and Stephen. It was quite humid and in the mid-80's, but the clouds were covering the sun for most of the walk. Stephen didn't get any naps. He slept about 45 minutes on the drive home, but that was it. We tried a couple times to get him to take a nap in the afternoon (we got home before 1pm), but he just refused. He was in an awful mood and couldn't be satisfied.

We couldn't take it any more and put him to bed at 6:30pm. Even if he sleeps an amazing 12 hours, that means we are getting up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. I have some pictures that I will post tomorrow.

Then, since Stephen went to bed far earlier than normal, we watched a very long movie (Benjamin Button). Now I'm still having trouble winding down. Night.

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is tomorrow in downtown DC. This will either be my fourth or fifth time walking the 5k (we couldn't go last year because Stephen was 2weeks old). This is our first year going with Stephen, and we are on our own. Our six-person group is just three this year, and one of them is a baby. To make matters worse, we can not take the METRO line that comes out our direction, because several stations/stops are under maintenance. So, I think our plan is to sleep at S&S' house (an empty house, because they are out of town due to a family emergency) and then travel via their METRO line. That way, we can leave the dogs at S&S' house and we don't have to make any transfers on the METRO.

This hopefully ends our streak of extremely busy weekends. With graduations and visits and birthdays and flights, May was completely slammed. I'm pretty sick of it. I don't want to dread the weekend any more.

Stephen turned 1 today. We had a lot of family in town. Turned out to be 11 or 12 people there. Stephen got so many wonderful gifts from everyone. Thanks to everyone for that. We are all exhausted. We had lots of good food and lots of good weather. But most importantly, we had Elmo cake:

Stephen eats/smashes his Elmo cake.
May 22, 2010

So, on Friday afternoon I flew to the St. Louis airport. My dad picked me up, which was a bit confusing since neither of us know our way around that airport. Then we went straight to Denny's and picked up four meals. On the way to my brother's (Robert) house, we stopped at my grandparents' hotel room and all ate some Denny's in the hotel. That was a good (although brief) visit before my father drove me to my brother's house.

My brother has had a condo in Edwardsville, IL for two years and I had not yet seen it. It's almost precisely the same setup/floorplan as my condo, but slightly smaller. We hung out and waited for Robert to get back from Beauty and the Beast. He assembled and conducted an orchestra for a week-long community theater presentation of Beauty and the Beast (the musical). He got back about 10:45pm and we all hung out until midnight. Then my parents went upstairs to go to bed, Robert set up an air mattress and my brothers and I attempted to sleep in the living room (on couches and air mattresses). We talked for almost two hours and I had much difficulty sleeping after that. I got 3-4 hours of sleep.

The next day was Robert's graduation. First he had to conduct the afternoon show of Beauty and the Beast, so he left before us. My family (immediate family plus grandparents) all went to the graduation and waited. The graduation was... a graduation. Boring, etc. Fortunately Billy and I were able to pass his iPod Touch back and forth and play a turn-based game for a bit. Robert got graduate degrees in both Collaborative Piano and Conducting.

Then we walked across the campus to attend Beauty and the Beast. I had not been to any of the performances, and Robert had arranged for me to sit in the orchestra pit. I had the best seat in the house; it was so fun. The members of his orchestra were all cool and cracking jokes the whole time. Even though the orchestra pit is right in front of the stage, no one in the audience can see the members of the orchestra. Everyone was whispering jokes and making fun of some of the actors. It was a lot of fun. Also, some of the musicians were exceptional. The percussionist has a degree in percussion performance. He was the calmest, most relaxed guy, but he never missed a cue and he juggled about 5 instruments effortlessly. He was quite impressive, along with the flautist and the trumpeter. Then we went out to eat at Applebees until midnight, just the immediate family. I got another pathetic 3 hours of sleep.

Woke up at 6:30am this morning to get to the St. Louis airport, about 36 hours after I landed there. The flight home was awful. There was prolonged turbulence and I got very nauseated. The nausea continued after we landed and Jaime picked me up. Even after a thirty-minute ride home I was feeling horrible. I went into the bathroom and immediately threw up... violently. I even felt bad for a few more hours. I think I am finally starting to come alive, but I need to catch up on some sleep.

What a great weekend. Yesterday, dinner with 8 adults and 2 babies at Rock Bottom. Even got Nathan's ice cream later that night. Today, laundry, shaved my head, couple dog walks with the family, went to Costco, returned the pump to Lowe's. Got a lot done. Had fun doing it. We may even go grocery shopping this evening.

I have been in earsauce mode. Steve and I are constantly planning how to get the word out. I'm actually willing to put in the work recently, so I've been trying to take advantage of that. Our site is slowly building hits, and our myspace has been redesigned and has shown signs of life again recently.

Spent the afternoon at my in-laws' with Stephen's aunt, uncle, and cousin. Good day. Best possible weather.

Still trying to write a little piece about the Bobby McFerrin concert. It was truly amazing.

Chloe is whining and kicking her feet while dreaming. She is curled up in our armchair on her back. I wonder what she's dreaming about...

I'm not sure if it is just my NPR station (WAMU 88.5 FM), but on Saturday nights between 8-10pm, it is great. 78rpm records all night, mostly instrumentals. They have themed nights too, like Fats Waller or Django Reinhardt. It never fails to be the best show ont he radio.

Last week my brother Robert was here. Things were hectic. Steve was here for two days. Robert borrowed my car to practice at the church nearly every day. Saturday, I took him back to the airport. Tonight, my other brother Billy arrives for a week-long visit. They are both coming up here for their spring breaks, which is nice. I'm looking forward to it, although there is always that unseen, unspoken tension that guests/roommates adds to the house, especially with the baby.

The weather has warmed up considerably, but lots of rain has fallen. My sump pump was making a horrible sound last night. Just started shaking and making tons of noise when it was done running every cycle. Because of all the rain we had, there was a cycle every 40 seconds. This thing was loud; I bet the neighbors could hear it. Turns out it was just the check valve, so whenever the pump would stop pumping, water would flow back down through the check valve in spurts, causing the whole thing to vibrate in the wooden frame of the house. Those are the instances where babies really make things harder. My kid had another entire day of acting like a brat (lack of naps due to daylight saving time and bowling), and having a crisis at 5pm only made that worse. The end of the story is that I ran out to Lowe's and got a pump and some parts, but then I thought that maybe the pump wasn't bad. I called a plumber and paid $175 for him to put in a check valve, which probably costs $3. And now I have all this stuff to take back to Lowe's. Awesome. Just great.

While Robert was here, we managed to complete the time-consuming chore of absorbing him onto our wireless "family plan." This worked out perfectly, because Robert wanted a new phone number anyway. New phones, new contract, unlimited messaging, blah blah. Now we are splitting the cell phone bill three ways instead of two. Nice. Robert gave Stephen his old phone with the SIMM card removed. This is certainly the best gift Stephen has ever received. He already loves our phones, remote controls... anything that Jaime and I grab and push buttons on, really. Now he has a real (though disabled) cell phone that lights up and beeps when you push the buttons. It is pretty hilarious and cute. If I go into the "Tones" section, he can cycle through the ringtones; after he presses about every button on the phone, he will randomly press "down" and go to the next ring. He smiles every time.

Stephen had a couple of "firsts" while Rob was here. He can now drink a bottle while sitting up. He's been able to hold his own bottle for months, but he had to be lying on his back to drink it. Now he knows to lift the bottle. We can give him a bottle without putting him in his playpen. He can crawl around and drink it as he pleases. Stephen also improved a lot on making a few syllables. da da da, ma ma ma, ba ba ba

We also saw the new Alice in Wonderland on Friday. Not so good. At all.

It's been very hard to update this blog with everything that's been going on. I used up all my stores of saved drafts and even uploaded a few sub-standard pictures just so I could maintain making one post per day. Maybe I'll get back on track now.

Like everything else in my life, this blog goes in very severe phases. During the times that I actually want to work on it, I develop a backlog of saved drafts to post on later dates where I may not be so motivated. The last several days have been a pretty good example of that. One of my many Useless Facts post, a little post about what I listen to on satellite radio, blah blah. These were pre-prepared.

We got this kid a music-themed activity table. It stands about 18" off the ground and has about 25 buttons you can push and get different responses. It has "speaking mode" and "music mode" which has no words. He only likes it if I put Cheerios in the pocket. Then it's his favorite.

Weekend was great. Concerts were great. Thanks again to Martha and Eric for holding us a table at Leon Redbone. We had good seats. Leon Redbone is a very odd man. Every time I see him in concert, there is more silence between songs, and more weird things like playing the same songs twice. He did two doubles in his set on Friday. Weird.