October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween
Baby class tonight, which means no Halloween parties, no trick-or-treat, and no pumpkin carving. Hopefully, at the very least, they'll show some type of gory birthing video cause if they don't the whole night is a bust.

Image above taken from Plan59.

Bonus costumes: Captain Smalls, Coleson, and The Devil's Minions.

October 25, 2006

Coach of The Year
The birthing classes are off and running and already we are knee deep in Wharton's Jelly and calculating the viscosity of mucus plugs. You just can't have a conversation about newborns or yet-to-be-borns without discussing at least three or four different types of fluids. Fluids, muscles, and membranes - the biology of fun. Our teacher put on some great puppet simulations last night which featured a skeletal pelvis giving birth to a cabbage patch doll. That was totally worth the price of admission right there. And, as anyone could have forecasted, the misses and I succumbed to several bouts of uncontrollable giggling when it was clearly inappropriate to do so. We practiced 'mom' having contractions by walking in this group circle, then the teacher would say, "here comes the contraction" at which point the 'mom' is supposed to bear hug the 'coach' (that's me) for support until the contraction passes. I found this exercise so excruciatingly funny (especially when I took a peek and saw all the earnest looking expressions on all the other coaches faces), that it became me who was clutching on to the wife for dear life desperately trying to suppress a Junior High style giggle festival. This bodes real well for my delivery room decorum don't it?

October 24, 2006

Back to School
The neighbor on the Southern border of The Ranch has taken to watching television outside. He's situated a television on his patio with the screen facing the direction of our homestead. And here's the kicker, he only watches M*A*S*H. There must be some cable channel that playes M*A*S*H episodes back-to-back all day long. Seriously, I used to even like M*A*S*H. I especially thought the theme song was great (The Bobby Hutcherson version is fantastic), however, now with the theme song playing every half-hour, any enjoyment I once receive from the tune has deserted me and left behind only the mad desire to hold steaming red hot irons to my ears. Mercifully, the rain has begun to return to the Northwest which should put the kibosh on the outdoor theater. Although...Crap! From my office window I can now see that he's erected some kind of anti-rain tarp technologies. Weird, the whole scene kind of resembles the tent barracks of the 4077.

The misses and I went for a road trip this weekend to Hood River. I had never been there before. The downtown is very cool and reminded me a lot of Red Wing Minnesota, except with way more windsurfing and extreme mountain biking stores. We attended the Hood River Fall Festival, where the main attraction is apples. So many varieties of apples that I lost count. There was also a fairly large craft fair going on. But I must confess that I am lost on the whole aesthetic of the 'Craft Fair'. Which is a bit odd as I like both craftsmanship and hand-made goods. Yet the typical good at a craft fair has the air of a counterfeit. I wonder how many people get shopping-drunk at those craft fairs and then sober up at home to find themselves the proud owner of fairy crystals and overly contrasted airbrushed scenes of Big Sur.

Tonight, the misses and I attend our first baby-class. I can't even remember the last time I went to a 'class'. Should be interesting.

Bonus: Kelly's baby dance from her baby shower (photographer unknown).

October 19, 2006

His Program is Growing
It's been raining mightily this morning and yet the cats beg to go outside and play. I let them out and they run straight for the puddles and dance in the fresh muddy soil that I laid down last weekend in an attempt to revitalize the lawn situation. A half-hour later I get up to grab some more coffee and notice that the cats have been back through the house leaving criss-cross patterns of dirty tracks upon the floors and furniture. I am reminded of those Family Circus cartoons where Billy's adventures are traced by thick black dashes.

Thankfully, my bachelor days have come to a close as the misses has returned from Minnesota. She came back with an extra suitcase bursting with impossibly small clothing. We fight the temptation to dress the cats in miniature buster browns and R2D2 onesies. It's beginning to dawn on me that life is going to get awfully noisy in about twelve weeks. So I've taken to enjoying the vast quietude of these days and nights. Lot's of reading, gentle jazz, tea and, most importantly, sitting very still and doing and thinking absolutely nothing. I suppose one could argue that I should be doing the exact opposite. I should be in training mode; set the iTunes up with some loud un-listenable free-jazz-noise-prog and multi-task till I collapse in a fevered pirouette. But I am sure no amount of 'training' can prepare one for this next turn of events and thus I am determined to bask in the simple silence of conjecture until the Deejay drops the needle and the party explodes with the heat of a hundred suns.

October 12, 2006

Belly Watch: 24 Weeks
Things are getting large in the belly department. Baby Skelton has graduated from gentle tap dancing to full-on Beat Street inspired break-dancing. He really gets the party bumping just before the sleepytime hours. He seems really invested in the Project Runway finale. Two quick kicks means he likes the design and a random flailing of elbows and feet means it wasn't the designers best work.

Yesterday the misses left for Minnesota to see family and partake in baby shower rituals with 'the girls'. Not really knowing what to do with myself last night I opened a fresh bottle of Dewar's whisky, broke out the guitar and wrote a blues song entitled, "My Baby Took My Baby Back to Minnesota".

We start birthing class on the 24th and when the misses returns it's time to start some serious work on nursery construction. She picked out this great fabric for the crib and I'm lobbying hard for this Angela Adams rug which I think would complement nicely.

October 09, 2006

Dancers Wanted
Frustration. Too much to do and the blog withers on the vine as I attend to other matters. I need an Army of Me's to get through my lists of to-do's. Seems like a month has gone by since we got back from Vegas. Has it only been a week?

Vegas delivered in big ways again. Yet, it was a different experience then some of my previous adventures to Sin City. This time it was all about the people and less about the city. John and Allison's wedding was a blast. John was looking handsome in his custom pinstripe suit from Nates Clothing. Allison was beautiful in red. Flamenco musicians provided a nice sonic backdrop to the ceremony which was held in the somewhat gothic ambiance of the wedding chapel at the Artisan hotel.

Before the ceremony, John and I went out to get haircuts and straight razor shaves from a celebrity barber located in the bowels of Harrah's Casino. We decided to walk from the Artisan Hotel which is located a few blocks off the strip. Walking out of the Artisan we could see Harrah's off in the distance and didn't think it would be a problem finding a cut-through street to the strip. Of course, we were wrong about that. What should have been an easy 15 minute walk turned into an epic one hour journey through the dirty and dusty back streets of Vegas. With the temperature in the mid 90's, and with the wedding looming only hours away, our walk took on this apocalyptic, 'Paris, Texas' kind of quest. The thing about Vegas is, it's all about "the strip". The strip is kept very clean and pumped full of fresh oxygen. If it were up to the hotels, I'm sure they'd rather you never strayed from Las Vegas Blvd. Once, you do stray however, it's all garbage, power grids, and depression era housing for the millions of people who open doors, drive cabs, and clean ashtrays. Luckily, one good pull on the Wheel of Fortune progressive slots can erase your memory banks in a New York (hotel) minute.

The Artiian Hotel supplied a number of interesting guests that we met over the weekend. One morning, Kelly and I had were waiting out front of the hotel for a cab. This women in her early 40's walked out of the hotel and after a brief conversation offered us a ride to the strip in her rented white PT Cruiser convertible. I wish I could have taken a picture of this lady cause she was "Miss Las Vegas 2007". To say that she was 'done up' at 9:30 in the morning would be a huge understatement. She was tall and slim with gold and diamonds everywhere, leather pants, a lace shirt, big blond hair, and four inch heels. She talked fast about her love for Vegas and of the quarterly trips she makes from Hawaii every year. After dropping us off she zoomed away running over two large orange traffic cones. Kelly and I just looked at each other with speechless amazement.

We also met a lovely Dutch couple, Jacquelien & Pascal, who were staying at our hotel. They've been living in New York for the past three months and are on assignment from a dutch daily to write about the American Experience. What better place than Vegas, huh? I told them that if they want to see the true American Experience they'll find it gorging itself on breakfast steaks at the Sunday morning buffet in Ballys Hotel. It was fun to hang out with them and see Vegas through the eyes of European travelers. Pascal summed up Vegas nicely when he said, "Vegas is a fake city, wrapped in a fake city". Word.

Vegas photos.