metagestation

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2009-06-26T19:19:00.001-07:00

Come see us over at the new Metagestation.

fashion smashion

2009-01-05T16:32:00.000-08:00

Truth be told, I lack the fundage to delve into fashion to the degree that I'd like but I do love to shop and definitely have a look that is my own. You know you have a look when friends and family are always pointing out things and saying "that's totally a shirt/skirt/dress". When that article of clothing is something that you like too, it's pretty flattering to hear.

So I've been experimenting with Polyvore. Head on over if you want to know more about it. The very fashionable author of (Into) the Fray has been posting about it for a little while and she is definitely exemplary in her style. I hope I look half as cute in my clothes as she does in hers.

Anyway I made my first set and I think it really is representative of the sort of things that I'd wear on any given day. Not very exciting but definitely an accurate reflection of me (if you know me). I'm going to experiment more - it's fun and I can put together things that I'd wear in my fantasy world where I'd never be judged for taking risks with my style.

Here's the set if you are too lazy to click thru:

thoughtful work wear by reesemcg

stockings

2008-12-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

I whipped up some Christmas stockings last weekend in an effort to try and make it look festive in our house. We don't have a tree because I'm paranoid about Fenix trying to climb it and potentially pulling it down on himself -- not worth the anxiety!

So we hung garland over the the doorway, wreaths on our front door and in another spot inside, and the stockings are hanging above the mantle.

The stockings were really easy to make. I bought a yard of blue and gray felt and a quarter of burgundy felt along with a spool of burgundy satin ribbon. I drew the pattern freehand on a big sheet of paper and then used my Olfa rotary cutter with a scalloped blade to cut out the pieces of fabric.

I cut the letters freehand and then stitched those onto the blue front panel first. Then I stitched the front and back panels together with a regular old top stitch - sandwiching a strip of ribbon folded in half between the two to make a little loop for hanging.

I finished it off by making a pompom from some variegated scrap yarn that happened to match perfectly!

Here they are, waiting to be filled:

Birthday shout out from Ohdeedoh

2008-12-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

One of our favorite blogs, Apartment Therapy's Ohdeedoh, posted a birthday shout out for Fenix today.

Check it out here!

christmas comes early

2008-12-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

I gave J one of his bday gifts a little early (his actual bday is 12/15). we had decided to hijack the tail end of Fenix's party to celebrate J's birthday as well. Our friends were giving him gifts so I decided to give him his big gift (a Wii). I guess he got caught up in all of the gift giving so he gave me one of my Christmas gifts early.

These wooden hoops from Leviticus Jewelry:

I love them! They feel so light on your ears - I kept touching my earlobes all through the next day to be sure that they hadn't fallen out.

Now that I have these it's kinda piqued my interest in other wooden jewelry items. Check out some of these:

from etsy seller carpedraco

from etsy seller ZsBcreations

from etsy seller effiehandmade

Happy Birthday Fenix!

2008-12-07T20:40:00.000-08:00

This birthday wish comes a day late because I was busy preparing for and celebrating Fenix's 1st birthday yesterday. It was a really terrific party. He was so happy and appreciative - couldn't stop smiling.

In Fenix's honor, here are some pics from the first days and a couple from the party:

brand new:

1 month:

6 months:

a year old!:

surely it is made from solid gold

2008-12-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

I was browsing Ohdeedoh and I came across this post about Lisa Mahar the owner of Kid O.
The post featured photos of her beautiful town house and links back to an article on New York Social Diary about her. I'm not too jazzed about her points of view but I definitely see some value in a few of the things that she had to say.

One thing that really caught my attention was this photo of her children's beds:

I love the simple design of this bed! Your toddler can't fall out because of the high walls, the entire unit is very low to the ground and on casters so it can be easily moved. Upon further investigation I found that the bed is sold online at Generate. All for the low, low price of $1399.00.

Why does a little kid need a $1400 bed?! I'll never know. I asked J how much it would cost for him to make a replica and he said about $200. Ridiculous. Fenix is getting the homemade replica.

shopaholics of the world, unite and take over

2008-11-30T20:42:00.000-08:00

We were out doing a bit of retail therapy today. After visiting my friend in her cute home I got inspired to work a little bit more at making our home look inviting and warm.

After Fenix came we really got lazy and stopped putting any effort into making things look nicer around the house. It's terrible and it really shows.

So today we went out and did a bit of shopping. The primary goal of the trip was to purchase a gift for Fenix's first birthday. We got something very awesome for him but I'll post a picture of it when I write about his birthday party (next weekend!).

I also stopped at Anthropologie to see what goodies were on sale and I was definitely pleased with what I found.

Dishes marked down from $10 each to $1.95:

I also picked up some really beautiful tea towels to replace our generic, dingy ones and a ceramic citrus reamer because we broke our old one - all deeply discounted.

After Anthro we moved on to World Market where we picked up a loveseat (also a sleeper sofa!) for just $399. It matches the sofa that we already have and it will fill the void left by the large and uncomfortable leather chair that we recently sold on Craigslist.

I still have a bit of shopping to do - a few things to put in Fee's and J's stocking, presents for J and our friends and a few more items like new throw pillows and a less intrusive coffee table but that'll all have to wait til the next paycheck! Feel free to share your sale finds in the comments section. Happy shopping!

How was your holiday?

2008-11-29T19:55:00.001-08:00

We just got back from Portland this afternoon. Our thanksgiving dinner was a demonstration in excess. We also managed to work bacon into almost every single dish which is both deplorable and magnificent, no? Portland is such a great city, I can really see us living there.

So we brought the dogs down and they had a good time too though Noodle managed to o.d. on wild mushrooms and got violently ill in the house. That was disgusting, sad and funny all at the same time. On Friday we went down to the Pearl to do some shopping. I had high hopes to buy some cute clothes or housewares but everything I loved was too expensive (what a surprise :-/). We ended Friday night with drinks and several rounds of pool at a new lounge in Alberta called Soi Cowboy - the space is cute, the bartender is friendly and the food is very delicious.

That about sums up our holiday. I hope yours was full of good food and good times.
In parting I leave you with a pictorial review of the weekend:

noodle wearing rudi's wig:

on a nature walk:

fenix, ready to put away some turkey:

do me a solid, huh?

2008-11-18T13:50:00.001-08:00

hey all,

please do me a favor TODAY... go here and vote for David Cameron. he's one of the talented authors of the USSMariner blog, which has been a faithful companion of mine for many, many years. He's got the chance for a $10,000 scholarship and for a dude that's currently in school, that's a big deal.

please please please go here and vote for David Cameron today, before the voting closes. do it from work and again from home if you can!

thanks all,
j

hand made, mcg made

2008-11-17T12:56:00.001-08:00

photo: me knitting a baby hat whilst still pregnant, august 2007

So apparently handmade gifts are super trendy this year. I'm feeling kinda good about this because it's always been really important for us to put a personal touch on the gifts that we give to our loved ones.

My friends are very creative people and I feel lucky to have received handmade gifts from them. But the good news is that you don't have to be creative to make nice handmade gifts. They can be really easy and in most cases none of it requires a lot of work or money to execute.

Last year we gave away homemade vanilla extract, pregnant belly salve, lip balm, infused whiskey, rosemary limoncello, change purses made from upcycled leather, mulling spices (for wine or cider), and things knit by me

This year we plan to give away more whiskey and mulling spices to folks that didn't get any last year as well as more hand knit and home sewn items.

What are you making this year?

Another sweet Modish giveaway!

2008-11-12T16:33:00.000-08:00

I've been a Modish fan for quite awhile now. They have giveaways on the regular and the handmade loot in these packages is always pretty fabulous.

Look at all of this awesome stuff:

This month features a two part giveaway the first of which has already been posted here.
I urge you to go check it out and follow the instructions to make an entry. Maybe you'll win! Oh and while you're at it, add Modish to your RSS reader.

To get you motivated I'll leave you with a photo of my sweet child hamming it up for the camera.

it's over!

2008-11-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

let's see... what else we got? there's so much in the news today. how about this
great slideshow of front page of many newspapers....

did you vote?

2008-11-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

We did!
Now it's your turn. Then go get your free stuff including this from Babeland.

I found it!

2008-11-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

the evolution of our home digital storage system continues, with some significant progress made over the weekend. i was even able to find the pic I referenced earlier.

now go vote!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

from an extremely uncooperative gnome named Fenix...

updates and such

2008-10-27T20:17:00.001-07:00

So a lot has been happening over the last two weeks. I haven't talked about it much because frankly it was a lot to process and I've been pretty emotional about it.

The company where I was working laid off most of the people on my team. This came as a devastating surprise to some people while others were just happy to get severance pay and the time off to aggressively look for another job. I would have been cut too but as it turns out I gave my notice just one week prior so the layoffs afforded me a much needed week long break in between jobs. Oh yes I guess I didn't mention that on a positive note, I got a new job!

I'm really excited about my new job but I should also let you know that now I am a full time employee. This is the only downside really. That and the fact that my awesome friend no longer works there and I was REALLY looking forward to sharing a work environment with her - but that is a story for another day. Anyway, I've been having some real sadness about being away from Fenix for 5 days a week. I know a lot of parents do it - hell, J has been doing it since Fee was 2 weeks old! But I... I just always envisioned that I'd be a SAHM and now I'm not and frankly it sucks. I know with time I'll feel better about it. I know that Fenix is doing great with his daycare provider (she is WONDERFUL). And I know that financially this is really the right decision for us as far as planning for the future is concerned.

So with all of that said I will say that I am thankful for the time that I did spend with Fenix at home. This has been the best 11 months of my whole life.

not disgusting vegan cookies

2008-10-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

In spite of my obsession with eating high quality, non-processed foods, I really do not have any desire to ever be vegan. I have done it in the past and I was miserable. I thoroughly enjoy things made with eggs and dairy and can't see myself giving them up unless prompted to do so by circumstances beyond my control. The thought that I'd never have real cheese or yogurt again is too much for me to properly contemplate.

So anyway I know someone that works hard to be a good vegan and so I decided to bake some cookies for her. In the past I've had vegan cookies and they run the gamut from totally inedible to pretty damn delicious. The best vegan cookies that I've had were peanut butter cookies so I thought I'd go with a recipe for those since they have a reasonably high chance of turning out great.

And so I set out to find a good recipe - as it turns out 101 Cookbooks has a decent selection of vegan options so I went with the peanut butter cookie recipe that I found there.

The dough is pretty loose so I did refrigerate it as recommended in the recipe notes. I also experimented with using a variety of cookie cutters both large and small. I found that peanut butter cookies are pretty rich so it's best to keep the cookies on the small side.

I sprinkled some with sanding sugar before they went in the oven and that gave the finished cookies a nice crunch. The texture of the cookies is soft and dense but not at all crumbly or chewy. I froze half of the dough right away and am looking forward to spontaneously baking up a pan full to cure some future late night cookie jonesing.

then vs. now

2008-10-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

ok, so, um, at 5 days...

and at ten months...

he's quadrupled in weight since birth! wow.

hey baby...

2008-10-19T17:30:00.001-07:00

fenix can't go from sitting to standing without flipping over to his front and crawling forward until he finds something to pull himself up on. so... during a photo shoot today he was flipping over and I saw - I hoped - for a shot to develop... so I waited, at the ready... and not only did the shot materialize, but I snapped it right when i wanted to and the exposure and all that was right. the result? hey, baby... check it out:

first french fry

2008-10-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

we checked out a new greek place recently (it was a hit), and gave fee a french fry to see what he'd do with it. first he said father, it's a potato deep fried to perfection - what could be better? then he nommed it.

best of the tubes from yesterday...
this is why you don’t steal
I like how this guy failed right out of his shoes
this makes me say ew! ew!!! while this makes me say huh?
this makes me ask: WTF is with all the blinking? while this makes me wonder: why so angry?!
this is the cartoon of the day

kiteboarding

2008-10-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

we were at the park recently and... who knew that people strapped a harness on, tied themselves to a kite, and went boarding? wtf? there were a ton of people on the water doing this and on the beach prepping to go in or winding down after a spell. just watching it seemed to me incredibly more intensive than snowboarding, which can be a heckofa workout.

check out this one (you may need to click to enlarge)... check out the air!

and here's one last one for ya....

...aaaand here's my take on the best of the tubes from yesterday:
from the cooking department: cheezburger not ripe yet
from the "my wife would divorce me for that" department: http://tinyurl.com/4h5ym4

My favorite phrase is “tacitly inciting lunatics to violence”... see Keith Olbermann does it again.

trains are fun: don't you think?

it's not a trick, it's an illusion

2008-10-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

did you know that Fenix can make wood blocks - and his hands - disappear? don't believe me? see for yourself!

I'm working at a level below my competence at the job right now. thank goodness for music and headphones. here's my favorite links from the tubes yesterday:
news: http://tinyurl.com/4qg2u7
funny: http://tinyurl.com/4gku4n
strange: http://tinyurl.com/5y6dgs

inspiration

2008-10-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

I've been inspired by Rachel: Photo Diary and am attempting to post a bit more often, even if it's brief, and if it's photos - even if the photos come from my phone.

recently I had occasion to be downtown near the stadiums... walking down Occidental there were a couple pictures that I just *had* to take, even though my camera phone... I'm not sure it can do the photo justice.

Ah, October.

2008-10-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

I love the fall. It carries with it the promise of soup cooked in crock pots and spiced apple cider. The inherent fun-ness of Halloween parties, where adults can recapture a few minutes of their childhood, simply by playing dress-up.

Two pictures for you today, both Halloween themed. Both pics are “from the cell phone” so forgive the picture quality. . . the first is my best pumpkin carving from last year. The second is a showcase of Reese’s mad sewing skillz and a preview of little Fenix’s Halloween 2008 costume.

Welcome to October, the best month of the year!

first apple pie of the season

2008-09-28T08:46:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year again. Warm spiced cider, pumpkins, brightly colored leaves and apple pie.
If summer is my favorite season then fall is a very close second. It's a wistful time of year where you lament the things you didn't get done during the warmer days of summer.

But a warm slice of apple pie with melty vanilla ice cream makes it all better, no?

I use Martha Stewart's Old Fashioned Apple Pie recipe. Of course I modified it a bit, using a combo of Granny Smith and Gravenstein apples. I also added about 1/2 cup of caramel sauce to the filling (left over from a fresh apple cake that I had made a week earlier).

I encourage you to make the crust from scratch using the Pate Brisee recipe (linked on the same page as the pie recipe). It's really easy and tastes far superior to store bought crust.

elf baby

2008-09-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

I have been googling around looking for a knitting pattern for a gnome hat since Fee is going to be a garden gnome for halloween. In my searching I stumbled across the pattern for this hat which is actually more of a pixie or elf hat but it was really cute and the pattern was very simple so I threw it together over the weekend. It came out even cuter than I had imagined and I intend to make several more for Fenix and to give away as gifts. I actually used the pattern found here and then made the chin strap and crocheted neck band with a mod found here.

I used bulky weight Patons yarn instead of worsted weight as the pattern indicates, so I went down to size 6 needles.

baby's best friend

2008-09-21T22:10:00.001-07:00

Well it's been a bit since I've talked about Fee's milestones. To catch you up, he's got 2 bottom teeth now (and oh what sharp little teeth they are!), he can crawl, pull up to standing and he's saying a few words (dada, hey, yay!, hi).

With his new found mobility we also have a heightened interest in the dogs, namely Luna, our greyhound. Our other dog Noodle doesn't hang around for very long if he sees Fee coming at him (can't say I blame him) so at this point it's really all about Luna.

This afternoon Fee had a great time crawling up to and "talking" to Luna. It was really sweet, I only wish that I had taken video of the encounter but I think that the pics convey how cool this moment really was.

Exhibit A:

a16 meatball mod

2008-09-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

My friend recently sent me an article about A16 meatballs. I had heard of them before but the buzz around them is that they are pretty labor intensive to prepare. Since I have little or no time for labor intensive meals, I just filed it away as something I'd make when I was old and bored.

Well the time came for us to start planning how we'd spend our anniversary. We elected to celebrate on the weekend since the actual anniversary fell on a weekday (today!). We also decided that it would be nice to just celebrate at home as a family. So we set out to make a really nice meal paired with a great bottle of wine and spend quality time with each other.

So it dawned on me that A16 meatballs would be the perfect thing to make for a special meal where we had lots of time to prepare.

Having said all that, I decided not to grind all of the meat myself, opting instead to purchase grass fed organic ground meat. The original recipe calls for prosciutto and chopped pork fat as well but I left that out too and subbed in bacon fat (something we already have plenty of). The original recipe also does not include the addition of garlic but I added it anyway because what is a meatball without garlic, kwim?

So I prepped the meatballs, taking time to fry up a test meatball to ensure adequate seasoning.

After I fried the test meatball (it was seasoned perfectly) I threw these bad boys into the oven to cook. When they were browned I removed them from the oven and drained off all of the fat that was in the bottom of the pan and removed the meatballs.

The recipe calls for a very simple sauce for braising - 1 can of crushed san marzano tomatoes. Well, I didn't want to go quite that simple so I put the roasting pan on the stove top, added back some of the fat rendered from the meatballs and heated it up. To this I added 1 clove of sliced garlic, cooked it til fragrant and then a splash of red wine to deglaze the pan and pick up all the lovely brown bits left by the meatballs. Then instead of one can of crushed tomatoes I added 2 because I wanted alot of sauce. Stirred the whole thing up, added the meatballs back in and set it all in the oven to braise for about and hour and a half.

When the whole thing was done I sprinkled it with torn fresh basil and served over linguine with a bit of grated cheese. The recipe calls for grana padano but I could not find that so parmagianno, it was.

Here are the finished gems:
Links to the original recipe and an easier version:
A16 Meatballs
A16 Meatballs, the easy way

A16 Meatball Mod - McG style:
Ingredients
meatballs
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
1 half loaf of day old italian bread torn into cubes and chopped into coarse crumbs in the food processor*
1 tablespoon of bacon fat
1 clove of minced garlic
1 cup loosely packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 teaspoon dried chile flakes
2/3 cup fresh ricotta, drained if necessary
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup whole milk
sauce
2 28-ounce cans San Marzano tomatoes with juices
1 clove of garlic sliced
3 tblspoons of red wine
Handful of fresh basil leaves
Block of grana padano or parmagianno reggiano for grating
Extra virgin olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat two rimmed baking sheets with olive oil.
2. In a large bowl, combine the pork, beef, bread, bacon fat, parsley, 1 tablespoon of the salt, oregano, fennel seeds, and chile flakes and mix with your hands just until all of the ingredients are evenly distributed. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, and milk just enough to break up any large curds of ricotta. Add the ricotta mixture to the ground meat mixture
a little at at time until the mixture should feels wet and tacky - you may not need to use all of the ricotta mixture. Pinch off a small nugget of the meatball mixture,
flatten into a disk, and cook it in a small sauté pan with a bit of olive oil. Taste it and adjust the seasoning of the mixture with salt if needed.
Form the mixture into 1 1/2-inch balls each weighing about 2 ounces, and place on the prepared baking sheets. You should have about 30 meatballs.
4. Bake, rotating the sheets once from front to back, for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the meatballs are browned. Remove from the oven, place the meatballs in a bowl and drain the fat into a separate container. Lower the oven temperature to 300° F.
5. Sprinkle the tomatoes with the remaining 2 teaspoons salt, and then pass the tomatoes and their juices through a food mill or chop in a food processor.
6. Place one of the roasting pans onto the stovetop and turn the heat up to medium. Add a couple of teaspoons of the meatball fat back to the roasting pan, cook the sliced garlic in the hot oil until it is fragrant and translucent.
7. Add the red wine to the pan and then the tomatoes. Stir to incorporate.
8. Pack the meatballs into the roasting pan with the sauce cover tightly with aluminum foil, and braise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the meatballs are tender and have absorbed some of the tomato sauce.
7. Pull the pan out of the oven and uncover. Distribute the basil leaves throughout the sauce.
8. For each serving, ladle meatballs with some of the sauce into a warmed bowl. Grate cheese over the top, drizzle with olive oil to finish, and serve immediately.

*I didn't have day old bread so I toasted the torn cubes in the oven for a few minutes before I threw them into the food processor

2 years ago on this day.........

2008-09-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

J and I were married 2 years ago today. It felt like a big party and we all had so much fun. This shot is of us jumping the broom and it is one of my favorites from that day. These last 2 years have been so awesome and I'm looking forward to the next 50!

the drive down.

2008-09-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

man, the drive down was something.

it takes a certain person, certain people, to pull off the old just-drive-until-you-get-there thing. apparently, we are those people. what with the tolerance for sitting in the car for that long, the monotony of long road trips, the disparity between the comforts of life and life on a road trip... i won't lie, it's not for everyone.

we'd be going 810 miles point to point. for comparison, Chicago is 790 miles from New York.

google told us it was a 12 hour 40 minute drive. link here. of course, that's just time on the road, it doesn't include stops for gas and food and stuff. I use "50-60 MPH" as a barometer for point-to-point driving with minimal stops over long distances... so by my time-math I was figuring 14-16 hours.

how in the world do you get an 8 month old to be a) strapped into a car seat for 13-16 hours and b) be chill about it?

you don't.

right, you don't, so... so I guess we better drive through the night and hope he sleeps in? that or spend four days of our vacation driving to and from the destination. no thanks!

we tried to leave for around dinner. but of course first we had to:
> pack stuff for his majesty, pack stuff for us, pack stuff for the dogs
> mow the lawn, do a hundred loads of laundry, do the dishes, take out the trash, sweep and vacuum
> cram all the crap into the car in a way that it will fit and you can find it all later and still reach the baby stuff and the cooler bag and the adult stuff and make sure that the dogs are safe and and and . . . . . . . . .

so we didn't leave around dinner. we left around midnight. not exactly the start we were hoping for. there's nothing quite like knowing that you're going to be in the car for hours and starting off at the end of a long day.

on the other hand, on our first road trip reese and i went 1300 miles in 2 days, the foundation for our relationship in many ways was a road trip. our honeymoon was a road trip. so we both felt confident that we could do it, and elated to be on vacation and spending quality time with each other.

reese took the wheel, pointed us south, and we got rolling. our plan was that she'd drive as long as she could then hand the reins over to me and I'd drive the rest of the way. no big deal, right? woo!

i tried to nap, which was a challenge. there was lots of checking on fee, plus I couldn't recline the seat all the way because of all the crap in the back. it's hard to stay asleep when you get a stray blast of high-beams full in the face, you know? we'd been on the road for about 200 miles, we're south of portland, and reese woke me up to ask me if I'd packed the camera. a, yes I did. b, we're not going back for it if I didn't so why did you wake me up - gaah! at that point i gave up on the idea that I'd get more sleep but I did manage to snooze a bit after that.

after another hundred miles or so reese was contemplating falling asleep while driving and killing us all, which is the metric we use to know when it's time for the other person to take over. we just took the next exit and did the chinese fire drill thing in some parking lot. it always makes me nervous being in small towns in the middle of the night. too many towns are funded by ticketing the travelers, you know?

final tally for reese: almost 300 miles exactly with just 1 stop for gas.

I took over and did great for awhile, right up until that pre-dawn dusky dark lightness thing. do you know what I'm talking about? you know how, just before sunrise, it gets light? what i'm talking about is the half hour or so PRIOR to that pre-dawn light. . . . you know, it's still quite dark, but it's starting to light up.

so anyway, i'm driving and of course there's no street lights, nor many other cars on the road. when I can i use the high-beams but there's oncoming traffic so I can't do too much of that. just. fucking. concentrate. so i was just fucking concentrating which was really straining my eyes which was really amplifying my exhaustion which was really not helping the feeling tired thing.

i pulled into a gas station and picked up a few of those starbucks espresso beverages in a can. i immediately drank 2 of the beverages that supposedly contain two shots each. i say supposedly because they didn't do much for me. still tired, so tired.

of course, at this point reese is beyond tired. she's passed out. except if there was a bump in the road, or if it curved a bit faster than the last curve... then she'd wake up in a panic, thinking that i was killing us all. she'd wake up alarmed and ask are you all right? it got to the point that i'd see a curve coming, take the curve, and say I'm ok, thank you before she could ask.

with dawn, beautiful, beautiful dawn, I'm instantly awake. now it's only a matter of time. how long before Fee wakes up? how cranky will he be? how many hours do we have left to be in this stupid car?

a lot. we had a lot of hours to go.

Fee was good. due to his interrupted sleep the night before he actually slept in quite late, until 9 or 10. his standard crankification upon waking gave us an opportunity to get out and stretch our legs, change his diaper, give him breakfast, etc. the dogs also appreciated being able to eat... that was the longest car ride they've ever had (with us, anyway) and they did admirably - no real issues other than luna's breath-of-doom.

onward! couple hundred miles later we're getting close. everyone had to pee so we hit a rest stop, where we were descended upon by the bums with some made up story about an alternator. here's some money, leave me alone. then they came back, can we have more money. go away! you're creaping us out. so we bailed and took the next exit and did the diaper change at the gas station. the attendant pumps gas for you in oregon, same as in jersey, and that guy was cool, he gave us milk-bones for the mutts.

onward! damn it's hot. open the windows. we were hoping to get to oakland near 9am (HAHAHAHAHA). that was revised to noon then later revised to 2. the thing is, we're going out to the beer garden in SF tonight. it's not debatable, we're meeting like 10 people there or something. so! we gotta bust out butt to get there so we're not holding people up, you know?

so it was I-5 south for 717 miles, then 505 south for 33 miles, 80 west for 47 miles, and 580 east for 9 miles. about 716.5 miles into the trip i asked when our next turn was hey it's right here turn here! whew, made it.

33 miles on 80: no problem. first 40 miles on 580: no problem. I've gotta pee but we've only got 50 miles left to go. hold it! five miles later, with 45 miles to go... we stop. dead stop. I'm thinking that we've run into the famous bay area traffic nightmare. after 5 miles or so of 15 miles per hour we cleared a car accident and were on our way.

40 miles later and we pulled up in front of matt and haydee's. for reese it was the first time she met matt, for me it was the first time i met either of them. not to worry, tho, because they are both awesome.

sooo.... unload the car, setup the dogs, feed the baby, change a diaper, shower*, setup the car seat and stroller in matt & haydee's car, and drive to SF. on to zeitgeist!

but that, my friends, is another story for another time. . .

* I honestly can't remember if I showered. reese told me that I did, but I was so tired that I really have no clue. so, so tired. good thing we went out drinking!

Beard Papa's

2008-09-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

for our recent vacation, we ATE our way through Oakland and San Fran. if only we'd had more time!!

one of our guilty pleasures was Beard Papa's. I'd do a whole write up on it... but there's a really good write up on it already over at curiously ravenous, so go check that out.

come read our latest endeavor

2008-09-01T11:22:00.001-07:00

My friends and I have a new blog...

Sweet Teas

Our aim is to point out innovative style and we'll pay special attention to the funky and creative style of various brown girls that we spot on the streets of Seattle and Portland or wherever we happen to be.

i could live in sf...........

2008-09-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

I really could. But alas it is far out of our budget to purchase a home there so we'll stay up here in the pacific northwest.

SF was really good to us. Jason and I had both been before we met each other but never together as a family. And of course this was Fenix's first time down there. I can say that we *all* had a really great time.

Where to begin.....
First day we got there, we quickly showered and jumped in the car with our friends to head over to Zeitgeist where we shared several pitchers of beer, burgers and delicious tamales with friends. Fenix bonded with the famous Tamale Lady of SF. She was really sweet and pretty infatuated with Fee. Oh and her tamales were sublime!

After Zeitgeist we headed over to another great spot in the Mission.... Bombay Icecream and Chaat. I had a scoop of mango and a scoop of coconut but there are many more exotic and delicious flavors (cardamom! sesame!!) to be had.

We stayed at our friend's house in Oakland and what a lovely house it was. Very spacious and well kept with good minimalist design. Alas I did not take many photos of the interior but we had a good time sitting in their cute and cozy backyard.

We made plans to leave Fee with a sitter so we could enjoy a night out with friends. We went to eat at Cha Cha Cha, purveyors of some very potent sangria. I don't remember much after we started our second pitcher but I know that we had a good time. Here's the view from across the street (after many glasses of the aforementioned sangria).

On Wednesday we went to Alcatraz. I was surprised at how cool it was - the weather was beautiful which made for a lovely ferry ride to and from. We saw so many interesting plants that we'd never seen before. It seems so sad that such a pretty piece of land was just a prison and military outpost.

That night was our first night on our own in our friend's house as they had headed off to more exciting things at Burning Man (maybe one day we'll get to go!). That night we went shopping at the local Trader Joe's and made a nice meal at home.

So much of our trip was food centric which makes sense since our lives are pretty much the same way. There were several things that I knew I wanted to try so we made it our business to hit those spots in the course of our travels. I'll make another post in a bit about the last couple of days of our trip.

the city by the bay

2008-08-25T10:11:00.001-07:00

ohmygodohmygodohmygod we're having so much fun. it's awesome here.

the drive was something. we wanted to leave at 7pm, we left at 1130. that put the 14+ hour drive with too many hours with fee awake in the a.m.... but it was alright. reese took the first shift while I attempted to nap. she rocked the house and drove for 300 consecutive miles, handing off to me around 4am, deep into oregon territory. i took over and drove for the next 500 miles with stops for coffee, food, and bathroom. reese can hold it like a camel so she busted my chops every. single. time. that i had to pee. hey, i drank like 5 cups of coffee! a man's gotta pee, that's all i'm saying. all in all, we averaged 65 MPH with 32.1 MPG for the 800 mile trip.

we got hustled by bums at a rest stop, that was pretty awesome. everybody had to pee that time, so we did it and got out. his majesty needed some new clothes, too, but we just went down the road to the gas station and fee and the dogs did their business and we were on the way.

only a couple times where i had the falling-asleep-we're-all-gonna-die moments. the pre-dawn dusky non-light is murder on my eyes. when i said that to reese she was like yeah try driving through the dark with one good eye. uh, no thanks! i have to concentrate so hard to see anything that i get exhausted. on the way back we're going to pull over for that half hour and take a goddamn rest.

anyway, blah blah, drive drive, and we're here. gas is cheaper than i expected, it's about the same as in seattle.

we went out last night to zeitgeist, then for kulfi, then home to take care of the dogs and cater to his majesty's every need. the city was awesome. it felt like parts of hoboken and seattle and queens and chicago and a bunch of other places. and everybody - everybody! - was dressed like super fucking sharp, it was awesome. super chill city, too.

anyhoo, so we're here. we're going to go do some stuff. we'll post pics soon as we can.

shame on us and vacation musings

2008-08-21T23:38:00.001-07:00

yeah yeah i know what you're thinking... we haven't posted in ages. it's a travesty. But we've had good reason. First Fenix was sick and let me tell you that the trajectory on puke from the belly of an 8 month old is surprisingly far reaching. Blech. So no surprise that Jason and I both got sick too. It was a bad scene all around. But we are finally on the other side of that nonsense. As a matter of fact we are headed out for a much needed vacation. Me, J, Fee, Luna and Noodle are driving down to SFO:

We will be on vacation all next week. I can't wait to see friends and for Fenix to see his new friend that he doesn't even know yet, Declan. It's going to be a blast.

We'll be trendy types and make our way to Burma Superstar for lunch. We'll be tourists and visit Alcatraz (we've both been to SFO but have never been there). We'll shop. We'll drink. We'll drive over to sonoma wine country and restock our home wine supply. All this in one week.

I really can't wait!

See you when we get back.

my family makes happy babies

2008-08-12T09:47:00.001-07:00

Look at these two:

Isn't it great to watch their little personalities emerge? My heart gets full when I think of them.

Jay McG, I.T. Project Manager

2008-08-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

so... remember this?

It took some time - good things always do, right? - but in the few months since that post I found a position in my company that I would kick ass at... and since I'd already worked for the hiring director for a year and a half, I felt pretty comfortable inquiring about the position.

my background, going back to good old rockefeller center in nyc, is in facilities management. facilities management is essentially project management about facilities-related projects. however, a generic project manager in any industry will have more earning potential than a generic facilities manager. so, I was looking for my "facilities project manager job" to bridge the gap for me between facility management and project management... and huzzah! I just got there this week.

the job I just left was an interesting one. it was a lot of fun in a number of ways but there was way more work than could be done well in a week, and - much worse than that - no room for growth. so, after the last reorg, I updated my resume - shit, I updated my resume between when I got the news and when I blogged about it - and started looking.

so... I got the PM job but they made me wait until my backfill/replacement/successor was hired before I could transition into the new role. that person started in mid-July so we had a few weeks to cross-train and I moved on to the new gig just yesterday. the new job is in a different building than I used to work in, so I had to give up my gigantic 64 square foot cube – with a window! – and move to a different building into a 48 square foot cube - without a window. ah, well, the sacrifices we make. maybe I should "get migraines" so that I "require access to natural light". just kidding. apparently there are more moves coming and my new department allocates space based on company seniority... with 27 months in already I might actually get a window spot soon. lets just hope I'm not sharing a cube wall with my boss, right?

this new floor is OK. the real estate group recently swapped out all the furniture on the floor, so at least my desk isn't like a hundred years old and smells like old coffee and farts. but... there's an interesting vibe on the floor. actually, it is the floor. the floor in the kitchens and mail rooms... check out how awful it is:

ugh. vertigo-city. doesn't that make you want to puke? apparently they're going to swap it out for something less hideous... with next year's budget.

so anyway, here I am, all dressed up for the ball but still waiting for my ride... they're starting me out fairly slowly to get me acclimated. which is to say that I've got time to make a blog post on a weekday morning. crazy.

want to give a quick shout out to our new favorite blog, cakewrecks

... and this, this just just cool as all hell... slow-motion lightning:

so that's it! happy eight-eight-eight, happy olympics, happy friday.

simplicity 3692

2008-08-05T18:52:00.001-07:00

So I finally got around to making that dress that I mentioned ages ago. It's a Built By Wendy pattern... Simplicity #3692.

Now that I've made my first dress, I can't believe how easy it was and I feel stupid for being intimidated by the idea of making clothes.

For this dress I used bamboo jersey in a heathered dark purple color. The pattern has 3 options -- A, B and C. A is an a-line dress with short sleeves, B is a 3/4 sleeve tunic style shirt and C is a sleeveless top with a gathered elastic bottom. I made a combo of A and B -- a dress with 3/4 length sleeves.

The most taxing part of this project was the sewing of the sleeves but even that wasn't really too troublesome.

Here is a photo of me in the finished product:

awesome little moments

2008-08-01T12:41:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week Fenix and I were in the store looking to buy new clothes for him. This particular store usually plays some pretty awful 'lite fm' style music that is hardly tolerable. But while we were browsing this one really great old song came on.... "You've Got a Friend" (James Taylor and Carole King).

At some point I ended up getting really into it and I was singing out loud to Fenix who was sitting in his carseat on the shopping cart. I think he was digging it too because he was smiling and laughing so much as I sang.

That's when someone came by and totally caught me and started cracking up laughing at this spectacle.

What an awesome little moment that was. I haven't stopped hearing that song in my head ever since.

So I hope you have a happy Friday and to get your weekend going I'll leave you with this:

New Orleans BBQ shrimp

2008-08-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

This shrimp recipe is oddly named since it includes nothing resembling bbq sauce. As a matter of fact I have only actually cooked it on a bbq grill once. So I don't know where the name comes from but it sure doesn't matter because it's freakin delicious.

We first had it at place called Oddfellows in Hoboken, NJ. Perfect for a quick happy hour meal on a weeknight after a crappy day at work. We always chased it with a bottle of Abita Purple Haze (try it - you must). Strangely we did not eat this shrimp dish when we were actually in New Orleans so I cannot confirm it's authenticity. Rachel??

So this recipe also calls for Abita beer but that can be hard to find (Whole Foods carries it but I think it's a regional thing) so just use whatever good beer you have on hand and a PBR would certainly do in a pinch. Though I definitely would not use any of those fruity beers for this because I doubt it would work well here.

Here's what you'll need:
1 lb. raw shrimp with tails on (we buy the bag of frozen shrimp from Trader Joe's)
3 tbls unsalted butter
1 tbls olive oil
½ onion or 1 shallot chopped finely
2 Cloves Garlic minced
2 tbls Worcestershire Sauce1 half Bottle Abita Beer - Amber or TurboDog (or whatever else you have)Juice of one lemon
dash of cayenne
1 tbls old bay seasoning (or other ground dry crab boil seasoning)salt
pepper

Thaw the shrimp if they are frozen. Leave the tails on.

Preheat your broiler or grill on the high setting (~500°)

Place a large and deep (also broiler or grill safe) skillet over medium/high heat. Add the olive oil.
Add the chopped onion or shallot to the hot oil and sautee until transulucent
Add the minced garlic. Cook until fragrant.

Add the butter to the mixture and cook until it is melted. Stir in the worcestershire, crab seasoning, cayenne. Stir to incorporate.

Add the entire bottle or can of beer. Cook until the foam disappears. Add the lemon juice, stir to incooperate and remove the mixture from the heat.

Pat the shrimp dry to remove any excess moisture. Add the raw shrimp to the sauce (you may need to transfer the mixture into a broiler or grill safe pan at this point). Stir to coat the shrimp with the sauce and arrange them in a single layer in the pan.

Place the pan of shrimp into the oven or into a covered bbq grill. Cook for 5 minutes (watch these closely so that they do not get over cooked). Flip the shrimp to cook on the other side. Remove from heat when the shrimp are just cooked (they will be opaque and pink).

Serve with crusty pieces of baguette and grilled veggies (we like asparagus or zucchini).

camping, a recap

2008-07-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

So our first camping trip with the baby was a huge success. He enjoyed it immensely and we had a lot of fun. Here he is, overjoyed with the great outdoors:

We actually came away learning a bunch of cool stuff from this trip. For example, I felt bad about feeding Fenix cold cereal and cold fruit puree for breakfast. Well we had some peaches that we brought for a snack and I thought it would be smart to wrap the peach in foil and throw it in the fire to roast.

After the peach got really hot and mushy we took it out of the fire and scooped out the flesh and what do you have? Warm fruit puree (aka baby food)! You could do it with an apple or a plum or a banana... whatever you've got. So easy, so yummy.

Speaking of fruit in the fire, what got me down the road of roasting the peach was our dessert from the previous night. I had read a recipe for inside out caramel apples as a camp dessert so we whipped some up. You just core an apple and stuff several caramels down in the hole where the core was. Wrap the whole thing in foil and throw it in the fire. Cook until it's mushy and eat it up with a spoon. I can confirm that this was a delicious and easy recipe and it is now a permanent fixture on our camp menu.

A much more important discovery of this trip was this incredible invention called the "rocket". A rocket is a small pouch of biscuit that you roast over the campfire and fill with delicious things. Here's how it works:

First you have the rocket apparatus which is basically one short piece of a very wide dowel with a very long piece of narrow dowel attached to it.

You take a biscuit (from one of those cans of horribly processed premade biscuits) and you mush the uncooked dough evenly over the end of the rocket. After the dough is on their good you roast it over the fire, turning it slowly being sure to cook the part closest to you first and working your way down towards the 'butt' (the end of the rocket).
When the biscuit is cooked it should slide right off of the rocket apparatus leaving a deep pocket that is ready to accept the filling of your choice. In this case it was scrambled eggs with mushrooms and chorizo.

So on our way home from this trip I got to thinking how I could really expand on this and create an entire arsenal of rocket ideas. First of all, that processed biscuit dough is not the greatest but a homemade dough is often too short to work with in this application. I will need to experiment with some recipes to figure out what would work. And better still, what if instead of biscuit dough we used pizza dough and filled the pocket with cheese, tomato sauce and sausage or grilled veggies? You see where I'm going with this?? I am even having thoughts of dessert rockets filled with warm apple compote. The possibilities are endless.

So I bet you want to go camping now don't you?

seattle mass transit is such a tit twister

2008-07-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the foul language but honestly I'm sick to death of the b.s. that a person has to put up with to commute in this god forsaken city. I know what you're thinking... "move if you don't like it". And I say to that... don't worry, I will.

Anyway mass transit in Seattle is a well documented problem. Besides driving or riding your bike (which is never fun in the winter since it RAINS ALL THE TIME HERE ;-)) there is only one option for most people commuting into downtown or other Seattle metro areas and that is the bus.

Seattle has 3 main bus systems - Sound Transit, Metro and Community Transit. Metro buses service anything within city limits and some outlying areas. Sound Transit services south Seattle suburbs and Community Transit handles the north end suburbs. There's some overlap between the services areas of all three systems but it is negligible.

So here's the thing.... there is a Community Transit bus stop very close to our house. I usually walk to and from there on the days when I go in to work. The Community Transit buses are very clean and comfortable, always have seats available and have wifi. Nothing to complain about there... EXCEPT (!) they do not run frequently unless it is rush hour and even then it's 30-45 mins from one bus to the next. Picture it if you will... me, 7 months pregnant, winter weather and I'm making my way to catch the 5:15 bus. I've left myself plenty of time but as I reach the top of the hill I watch it drive right past me. But it's only 5pm, I say angrily in my head. And I can't run because, well, I'm pretty slow on my feet at this point. So it's another hour of waiting (outside in the cold!) for the next bus. Christ, I just want to go home.

Now take that story and imagine that it happens over and over and over again. How freakin' early do I have to be to catch this bus?! There are also times where the bus just. never. shows. up. By the time a bus actually does roll up it's time for the next scheduled stop (or worse, the one after that). I am positive that you can see the smoke pouring out of my ears on those days.

Moving on, there is the Metro bus. Well it's certainly got more frequent instances than the Comm Trans bus. And for that matter there are many more places to catch these buses as well. But much like any other *free* city bus it wreaks of urine and is usually heavily populated with mentally unstable people. There were times when I was on this bus where I was positive that I would never make it to work because the person sitting in front of me was ranting to himself and rocking so wildly in his seat that I was sure he was going to kill us all.

That leaves Sound Transit - I can't tell you jack shit about that because we don't live in the south end but I hear that it's on par with Comm Trans - posh and clean but you better get to your stop extra early.

So what is the problem, Seattle? Why is there no subway? And don't you dare mention that light rail or that lame ass monorail! How can such an educated, forward thinking community continue to limp along like this? It really feels like I'm missing something. I don't like this car culture. It's partly my fault for not researching this before we moved here but you don't know what you've got til it's gone, right? In NJ I would leave my car sitting parked for weeks. God, I really miss that.

the popcorn popper!

2008-07-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

hate to rain on your parade or whatever, but it's not a single-use item! :-D

we can use it over and over and over and over. so long as we wash it.

it's like this, but better:

we're going camping kids!

2008-07-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

We are not the backpacking/wilderness/hike to the campsite sort of people so traveling ultra-lite is not a goal of ours. We basically just car camp but we have so much other crap (dog gear, baby gear, etc...) that we do try to minimize the amount of extras.

We're headed out to the Olympic peninsula for a bit of car camping with a couple of other families. This will be our first time camping with Fenix but my confidence in our ability to pull this off is growing as I talk to people who have done it before and realize that if all goes to hell, we'll just pack up and leave. I have a feeling though that Fee will love it - it's in his blood after all since his dad lived outside for a bunch of time. He'll have to tell you all about that some day. It's a pretty great series of stories that I don't mind hearing over and over again. Aaanyway....

As far as tools/utensils go, we bring:
camp stove and fuel
a bit of firewood for the campfire
compact cutting board and knife

1 small pot
1 cast iron skillet
cheap flatware that we bought from the bins at goodwill (who cares if it gets lost!)
wooden spoon, wooden spatula
scissors
french press (after a fitful night of sleep in a stuffy tent, I must have the kind of viscous coffee that only a french press can provide)
*cast iron popcorn popper for making popcorn over the campfire
enamel coated dishes and cups
Several big jugs of filtered water - just sterilize some jugs that we have and dump in Brita water (I do not want h. pylori, no, I really do not)

For meals we like to make things that can go in one pot:
Southwest skillet ragu
or
Braised chicken thighs with pinto beans (I'll post the recipe later)

It's also good to have some sort of charcuterie plate for snacking before the meal is done because salted cured meats are awesome and of course we throw some cheese, fig jam and crudites on there too. You could always just do chips and salsa but I think a meat and cheese plate with delicious olives and fresh raw vegetables and fruit brings an air of elegance (if that is even possible on a campground).

There is always wine - white because red makes you groggy and headache-y and you want to stay bright and fresh for as long as possible or at least until the neighboring campers tell you to pipe down.

What about breakfast? A granola bar is the easy way out but that isn't very exciting, now is it?
Have you ever had the pleasure of being lured from your tent by the smell of bacon frying?

Up round these parts we get beautiful morels that grow in wooded areas and if your trip included a little mushroom hunting you could make a wonderful scramble with a sautee of minced shallot and chopped mushrooms in butter - fold that into some scrambled eggs - and serve with a side of bacon of course. For bread we just do english muffins because they hold up better than sliced loaf bread.

Lunch is usually pretty spare, just a piece of fresh fruit and snacky things like the aforementioned granola bars and maybe some jerky or a piece of cheese if you want some protein.

For Mr. Fenix who eats his fair share of solid foods now, we are going to go the easy route to avoid an accidental case of baby botulism and buy some of the organic jarred stuff and supplement it with bits of mild cheese and freeze dried fruit (which he LOVES).

We'll take lots of pictures so that you can see how it goes. I'm off to find my headlamp.....

*now honestly we would not even have this thing had it not been for the fact that we discovered it for some insanely low price at the goodwill. i'm not a big fan of single use kitchen tools but it's for popcorn (!) over the campfire (!), how could we have left it in the store?

my new favorite pizza

2008-07-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Forget cheese being the only ingredient in a stuffed-crust pizza, Pizza Hut’s new Double Roll sticks hot dog sausages in there too.

"please create a 'smiths, the' channel on pandora. thank you." -reese

2008-07-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

regarding slate, discussed yesterday, there's more groovy iphone articles. here 's the link. and here's the bush o' the day: "The economy is growing, productivity is high, trade is up, people are working. It's not as good as we'd like, but—and to the extent that we find weakness, we'll move."—Washington, D.C., July 15, 2008

oh, and also, it's food month... weds night for dinner reese took some pork and roasted it over low heat for an hour, plus wood chips on the grill to smoke it out. she handmade a carolina-style barbecue sauce and we had pork sammies with cole slaw.

besides all that... do you ever get somewhere and it's empty there and you have to decide where the best place to sit is, like, on the fly? every time I get on the bus, for sure... at least until I have a groove. a strategy. I used to have a subway strategy when I was back east. another story.

we sold our second car and my wife needs the car today so I'm riding the bus. so i get on and switch seats later, whatever, right? anyway, we sold the second car because, well... because of the fucking gas crisis, where every fucking thing costs more because nobody planned ahead. i'm not blaming the bush administration, either, this not planning ahead shite has been going on for decades! this bullshit "crisis" is of our own doing. the goddamn model-t got 25 miles per gallon! for real. edison had an electric car in 1899 for fucks sake!

riding the bus ain't that bad. i'm writing this while on it. so far, a good first day.

I was nervous and pissed that I would have to walk like a million fucking miles uphill on a busy street with no fucking sidewalk, but it didn't work out that way and I only had to go a couple blocks.

it's pretty awesome not to be driving right now, I'll tell you that. I've been getting into this hypermiling thing, which is kinda fun, but i live 22 miles from my job and traffic in my town is stupid bad... not matter how good your gas mileage that still sucks, you know? again, see lack of fucking planning. if you wanted to be a kick-ass big city, why would you NOT build subways? NY said fuckit, tore up the streets, and put in the subways like a hundred fucking years ago.

seattlites will be toiling around on buses for the rest of our fucking days. there will never be comprehensive mass transit in seattle, period.

ah, riding the bus. it's nice leaving the driving to them or whatever, but I want a subaru outback sport and a pontiac vibe and a toyota matrix and ooh i really want a mazda3 protege. that would be sweet! zoomzoom.

nobody sat next to me so that's alright. it's a bummer that reese has to come get me, that i can't walk from the termination point to home. but! it arrived on time and is dropping me off on time and I've had a seat in the sun the whole ride and haven't had to drive. I've been sitting in the sun, writing. I could have been listening to music but I'm so out of practice that there's no headphones in my backpack. I could have been napping! there was some napping going on, for sure.

my wife just pulled up beside the bus next to me and i just saw my son napping in the back. how fucking awesome is that?

and now we're here. bye!

corn and iphones!

2008-07-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

corn is in season now and 50 cents an ear in my neck of the woods. has been for a few weeks now. i really love when corn is in season. i'm still perfecting my grilling technique for grilled corn. it's easy to think it's too dark! take it off! and then be bummed that you should have left it on for like, 18 minutes longer.

so it's... soak the corn, cook the corn, butter the corn, season with (salt + pepper + cayenne + whatever? or leave your own suggestion in the comments?), then eat, right? how long does it have to stay on?! argh. how can you tell when it's done to ohshit i burned it?

sooo... besides corn, what else is there to do on a tuesday night? I know! let's surf the tubes!

wait, do you know what surfing the tubes even is? ok, back up backup. do you know who senator ted stevens is? of alaska?

he's this old fart who's almost certainly corrupt (not a little corrupt either, but i'm just saying, whatevs). you may remember him from his frequent clips on the daily show. some old jackass on the senate floor yelling NO!

aaaanyway, there was something that happened awhile ago. stevens was talking to somebody about something and it was being recorded. they started talking about the internet... and he starts trying to explain it or something, which sorta comes off .... just wrong. it's like he's explaining it to himself but the details are just not right; clearly stevens just does. not. get. it. which is sort-of understandable. i mean, the guy is older than alaska. he's probably as old as abe lincoln! imagine trying to explain fucking match-dot-com to abe lincoln, should the opportunity present itself. as smart as we figure that guy was, that'd be a LOT of explaining, right?

so stevens rambles for awile, which is hilarious, and eventually gets to how the internet isn't a truck, it's ... a series of tubes. it's... it's pretty awesome. checkit:

besides ted stevens (no!) what else do we got... ok, time for another recommendation.

you should be checking out slate. they cover a bunch of stuff and mostly are funny... like this iphone review I found titled Can I Resist the iPhone 3G? An Apple obsessive confronts the company's shiny new bauble .

it's fun and worth checking out. my favorite quote:

The first thing I noticed was that even though the iPhone 3G is slightly bigger than the original, it felt a tad lighter. Otherwise, my old iPhone and his new one were all but identical. The first iPhone was a revolution in smartphone design and a dramatic leap forward into an age of ubiquitous connectivity. To match the original in revolutionariness, the 3G version would have to fire lasers, electronically impregnate you with your own clone, or at least be way smaller. But this was … the same thing. I mean, I knew the two phones were to be basically the same, but seeing this with my own eyes made a difference.

there's also a bunch of other stuff. they try to do sports, like Derek Jeter vs. Objective Reality Why baseball researchers are obsessed with denigrating the Yankee captain's defense

the article read more like an analysis than a fun read...
One reason why baseball statisticians didn't get too excited about the study is that Jensen's methods ("for each grounder ball-in-play—g-bip—we have the—x,y—coordinates in the field where the g-bip was fielded" and on and on) are grounded in the familiar language of the sabermetric literature. Mostly, though, the paper didn't provoke much intrigue because Jeter's badness is already an axiom of said literature. In fact, debunking the conventional wisdom about the Yankee captain's fielding prowess has become a standard method of proving the validity of a new fielding statistic.

they have a bushism of the day section. today's is
"Should the Iranian regime—do they have the sovereign right to have civilian nuclear power? So, like, if I were you, that's what I'd ask me. And the answer is, yes, they do."—Speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., July 2, 2008

so basically... what I'm saying is eat corn if it's in season near you, don't be afraid to blacken the corn, and read slate, because mostly it's fun.

i love my niece and nephew

2008-07-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

that is all...

jerk

2008-07-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

alrighty then, who knows what jerk is, really? I mean, I kind of know what it is ("it's a jamican spice" right?), but not really.

from wikipedia:
Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica in which meats (traditionally pork and goat, but now including chicken, fish, beef, sausage and even tofu) are dry-rubbed with a fiery spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice. Jerk seasoning principally relies upon two items: allspice (Jamaican pimento) and Scotch bonnet peppers (among the hottest peppers on the Scoville scale). Other ingredients include cloves, cinnamon, scallions, nutmeg, thyme, garlic, which are mixed together to form a marinade which is rubbed onto pork, chicken, or fish.

Jerk is on of those things that scares the bejeesus out of me. I . . . I'm afraid of it. I'm not afraid to say it, I fear the jerk.

anyhoo, I'm reading "the times" one lovely sunday morning and what do I find but an excellent article about jerk. check this out (emphasis added):

"This is a dish that is ours, not coming from England like the patty, or from India like the roti," said Winston Currie, owner of the Best Jerk Center in St. Ann, Jamaica. "Real Jamaicans can eat jerk every day; we never get tired of it."

If you want to read "the times" click the link above. if you want to read about the jerk story (not talking about the jerk store, mind you) then click on this link right here.

now, after all this, you might ask: are you any less afraid of the jerk?

A: no, now that I know more about it, now I fear it even more. seems very complicated. but! I wish I were back in NYC so that I could go to brooklyn and get some of the real thing.

let me ask you - why do you have to be a registered user to read past articles on the new york times web page but, on the web page of the international herald tribune the global edition of the new york times, you don't?

beverage advice

2008-07-13T23:23:00.001-07:00

if you want to drink one of these:

then don't pour this into your glass:

that is all.

breakfast crisp and smitten kitchen love

2008-07-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

I really dig the blog Smitten Kitchen. It is my go to place for dinner ideas and cooking techniques. The author has great taste in food and her photos make your stomach grumble with hunger.

I was looking for a recipe that used apricots as I had found some nice organic specimens at the market. I went with a recipe called Breakfast Crisp and it was delicious. I have since made this recipe with nectarines/blackberry combo and a peach/raspberry comb.

It is delicious with a dollop of plain yogurt on top and can serve as a breakfast or a dessert.

The process is simple and after making it twice I needn't look at the recipe because I have all of the steps memorized. Furthermore, a well stocked pantry would have all of the necessary ingredients on hand so this is a great thing to whip up on a whim.

What you do:
Cut up the fruit into small-ish pieces - if the fruit is very soft, like apricots, you can just tear it up with your hands.

Next you make the topping. The recipe calls for turbinado sugar but you can sub in regular sugar. I always have turbinado sugar in our pantry so I've never subbed. So why don't you just buy some?

After you've made the topping assemble the whole thing and shove it in the oven. A few notes though.... I noticed that with the peach/raspberry combo, there was a bit of liquid pooled at the bottom. I think next time I will use more flour than the recipe calls for.

I never wait for this to cool down because I am usually making it when I am hungry and I end up hovering near the oven til it's done but the Smitten Kitchen post says that it's even better the next day and I tend to agree.

chocolate Kahlúa cream cheese brownie muffins

2008-07-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

someone at work gave me a muffin or a brownie or whatever. and it was awesome and now I need to make it. I posted a pic below but it’s horrible.

to make it... very easy. get a box of chocolate cake mix, some Kahlúa, a brick of cream cheese, and some chocolate chips

prepare the cake mix per the directions except sub Kahlúa for the water
sweeten a brick of cream cheese with 3-5 tablespoons of sugar and vanilla to taste
fill the muffin cups HALFWAY with the chocolate cake mix
add a dollop of cream cheese to the center
top with chocolate chips
bake per directions
bring to work and make people jealous

you can also make this in a bundt cake pan with half the cake mix, all the cream cheese, then the rest of the cake mix.

WANT.

adventures in cooking lamb

2008-07-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

So for those of you that know me as a tree hugging vegetarian... forget all that for now. I'm back on the carnivore bandwagon and it's treating me pretty well. Basically I love food so it was only a matter of time before this happened. The last time I 'broke' my vegetarianism it was for bacon. This time it was for a cheeseburger. Oh well.

Anyway this post is about lamb and all of it's wonderful goodness. Don't like lamb? Pshaw... yes you do. Well ok, maybe you do. We didn't think that we really cared much for lamb but then we discovered the awesomeness of lamb loin (another virtue of Trader Joe's) and we were converts.

Have you ever heard of Ming Tsai? If you care at all about cooking and food and celebrity chefs then you know who he is. Well he has a pretty great show on PBS called "Simply Ming" and that's what started us on the road to lamb lovin.

The recipe is for lamb satays that are served with a citrus mint dipping sauce. It's very simple to prepare and has wonderful flavor. We eat it as a protein for dinner with rice and a veggie but you could serve it as an appetizer and make out just as well.

First off a link to the recipe:

Peppered Lamb Satays with Citrus Mint Syrup

And now for a quick sidebar regarding the molcajete...

We got a nice molcajete as a wedding present and had been 100% intimidated by the seasoning directions that came with it:

That's a lot of committment for one cooking tool. I have sh*t to do.... I can't be seasoning molcajetes over the course of several days. So we didn't really follow all the steps but....
Grinding the rice:

and of course Fenix helped...

Grinding the salt:

And all I really wanted to do with the damn thing is grind up some whole peppercorns.... I shoulda just used the spice grinder :-/

Anyway back to the lamb. Here are some pics that we took to encourage and tantalize you:

quick shout out

2008-07-09T07:14:00.001-07:00

I just stumbled onto this site and it's funny as hell. check out see mike draw, please.

funny ones are here, here, here, here, here, etc.

that is all.

mack donalds

2008-07-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

do you guys ever read the huffington post? if not, you should. for real! there's a bunch of good shit on there. check this out from yesterdays article McDonald's Makes Jesus Cry:

There are billions and billions of reasons to hate McDonald's. They took the McRib away, for one, and that burns. (Sometimes I almost wish I'd never loved it at all.) There's at least one good reason to like McDonald's: They're being boycotted by the American Family Association.

What did McDonald's do to cross the AFA, its president, Donald Wildmon, and -- by extension -- Jesus (R-Nz.)? They donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. McDonald's' revenue runs about five billion dollars a quarter, so you can see their profound commitment to destroying the family through sodomy.

The AFA says that by donating one thousandth of one percent of its 2007 earnings, "McDonald's has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda."

Which seems like a kind of shrill definition of "full weight," but maybe it's like the Quarter Pounder®, and it's the weight before cooking that counts.

There's one other line I want to share and agree with: just bring back the McRib.

check out the full article here. and bookmark the huffington post.

for more cartoons check out See Mike Draw.

Irish Alzheimer's & Japanese Pizza

2008-07-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

ok, so I'm surfing the web for no reason whatsoever, just checking out stuff, and what do I find... japanese pizza. I'm thinking... "ok, I can see how that can work, lets check it ... no. NO."

it's kind of crazy and gross, actually, but it's also entertaining in its own way and a recommended stop. here, look (emphasis added):

As far as I can tell, this is the web's first page dedicated to introducing the world to Japanese pizza which, in some guises, is truly an abomination for mankind. But I won't make any further value judgments here and simply describe the pizzas that are selling at Pizza Studio, an establishment in my neighborhood in Setagaya, Tokyo.

for example:

oddly enough, that's not the only scary thing out there on that topic... there's more over at this dude's site. checkit, emphasis added:

I love pizza... But nothing I had ever experienced came close to preparing me for PIZZA in JAPAN. They do evil, nasty things to pizzas over here...Sometimes there are things present that God never intended to sit atop a pizza pie. Especially if you get one of their special combos from the twilight zone... pizza from the dark side.

then I went here, which... this is just, I don't know, there's just something wrong with this whole thing. PH in Japan? no, it's not right. not like this!

so, em, anyhoo, japanese pizza. weird, huh?

also, this was on my mind today: you know those people that hold on to a grudge, like, fucking forever? everybody knows someone like that, works with someone like that, or lives with someone like that, right? holy shit those people drive me insane. fenix just threw up all over me, right, so I said to him Fenix, when you're seven I'm going to withhold your allowance one week because you puked on me when you were seven months old.

I was mocking those assholes... but when you boil it down, that's about the extent of the thought process for the grudge-holders, isn't it? as if there's punitive damages in personal relationships... and as if children would get it? it's so messed up and the dysfunction just feeds more dysfunction later.

man, you gotta leave your dysfunction at the door. we all got enough already without you adding those two cents.

i'm irish... and the old joke goes like this:

question: you know what irish alzheimer's is?
answer: no, what?
punch line: we forget everything but the grudge (bah-dum-bum!)

and for no reason whatsoever, I'll conclude this with this cute picture of a wet dog.

take it away, noodle:

Peach Cobbler

2008-07-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

In Portland over the weekend my man Chad made this beautiful Bourbon Peach Cobbler. I have a note out to get the recipe - if he's willing to give it up - and will post it at that time.

yogurt

2008-07-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

it's been a yogurt-themed day today.

first I ran across this interesting post over at the curiously ravenous blog for those of you interested in making your own yogurt. reese used to make hers, many a year ago, and perhaps she'll make some more soon.

for the rest of us... you know "activa"... the new-ish yogurt made by dannon that claims to help with the making of your boom-boom's? slate, always a fun site to check out, had a great article reviewing the health claims made by dannon and their accuracy.

enjoy today, yogurt-y goodness.

Tater tots

2008-07-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

so we're in portland this weekend. we went exploring on saturday and "the ladies" (link, link, link) kept getting distracted by boutique shops and wandering around inside. that's great and everything, but "the boys" (link and link) wanted nothing to do with boutique shops, in that they are boring as hell.

boutique number 27 was next to a pub so we said "the next boutique you go into that's next to a pub, we're drinking"... as it turns out, boutique 32 was next to a pub, so in we went. the pub was great. it had a few things for us, among them:

so we had a pint and played a game whist we waited for the ladies. what in gods name do they do in those places anyway?

then the ladies arrived and it got crazy. crazy! the jukebox got turned on! they ordered tater tots! there was a baby in the bar!

the tater tots were awesome and the music was good and the company was great and my kid was allowed in the pub until 9pm. now that's living.

in researching this post I found this cute biography of the tater tot on the curiously ravenous blog.

Lamb Lollipops with Mint Salt, also ... HAHAHAHAHA

2008-07-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Happy fourth!

Do you ever run into a recipe that you just can't wait to make? bonus points if it combines lamb with mint, salt, and pepper. oh, hey, what do you have here... Lamb Lollipops. yes. yes, I want to make that. well, mostly i want to eat it. in any case, we'll see if we can work that in before the end of the month. if so, we'll take pictures and tell you how it goes.

also ... aHAHAHAHAHA. remember what i was saying, just like five seconds ago, about the weather here? how's it's all nice, like summer, and whatnot? and how that's unusual because it always rains here on the 4th of july?

lookey here, a map of the weather in june, last month. you'll see what i was talking about with the "it's still spring, nope, now it's summer" thing... if you click on the pic it will be much easier to see the details.

now... here's july. again with the clicking

that is all.

baby wearin'

2008-07-03T13:00:00.001-07:00

So I've decided that the Baby Bjorn carrier was made by some parent hating crazy person!

We got one that was new in the packaging from a seller on Craigslist. I was so happy to have found it for such a great price. Well.....

7 months later and I want to throw the thing off a cliff. Here's why:

- It hurts your back A LOT. You will feel like you have done serious back breaking yard work after an hour of wearing your infant in the Bjorn. Mind you I have no back pain issues outside of those inflicted by this carrier.
- Your baby will quickly outgrow it. Fenix is a petite baby but his chunky ham hocks are barely squeezing through the leg holes of the Baby Bjorn. Sometimes when I was wearing him I would look down and see that his little feet were blue. Nope, not a fan.

So what do I like? Well I'll tell you.

Wrap style carriers:
pros
- can be used from birth until they are too heavy/bratty/sassy to be carried around
- baby can face in our out (only after they have full neck control)
- relatively inexpensive - Ours was $60 but you can get the basic model for $40 - a structured carrier like a bjorn is much more.
- many different types of hold options (hip, front, back, cradle)

cons:
- hot as balls for you and the baby in warm weather unless the wrap is made of very lightweight gauzy material.
- can be awkward to get the baby in when done without a spotter.
- has a bit of a feminine look when worn - if you are a dude, you may not be into it - j isn't :-/

We have the Moby D wrap and I love it because the D model has a non-stretch panel of fabric, that adds a bit of extra support for your baby.

Soft structured or pack carriers:
pros:
- easy to put the baby in and out
- some allow facing in or out
- structure gives more support for carrying a heavier child.
- manly enough for a dude to wear - unless you get one that is made with pink flower print fabric LOL

cons
- expensive - a new ergo carrier costs ~$100, other brands are even more.
- limited positions for carrying

I really want to purchase a Beco, Ergo or Pikkolo structured carrier to use in addition to the Moby D. The drawback of the Ergo is that it does not allow for the baby to face out (they have a bunch of rhetoric on their site about why they don't - meh). I know that unless Fenix is really sleepy, he wants to be facing out in the carrier so that puts Ergo on the bottom of the list.

So anyway if you are in the market for a carrier maybe this will help. We are keeping our Bjorn because until we buy a Beco or Pikkolo, that's what J will wear. And I have heard that they are now making a Baby Bjorn that has lumbar support but you know what??? Who cares because I'm so over them :-P

Quote of the day

2008-07-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

- "Notably mild-mannered" Republican Senator Thad Cochran, of Tennessee, speaking about Arizona Senator John McCain

trader joe's guacamole kits

2008-07-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever bought one of these? We really love guacamole around here. The TJ's guacamole kit comes with:

2 avocados
1 tomato
1 small shallot
2 cloves of garlic
1 lime

I always use everything except the shallot. I just save it for using in something else. I wonder why they include it. I love shallots but I have never had guacamole with it before. Instead they should throw in a couple of sprigs of fresh cilantro. You can't have guac without cilantro!

did you know?

2008-07-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

part of an occasional segment: did you know?

today's holy shit! moment comes courtesy of Fox News. recently the NY Times wrote and published an article examining media ratings this year. they indicated that cnn and msnbc viewership has grown while fox's had plateaued. you can read the original piece here.

fox ran a piece about the the writer and of his editor, and posted their pictures on the screen... except, first they - and by "they" I mean somebody (probably the terrorists) - digitally altered the photographs. one poor schmuck had his teeth yellowed, his nose and chin widened, and his ears made to protrude even further out from his head than they already do. the other guy had his teeth yellowed, black eyes added, and his hairline moved back.

I don't know, but... doesn't this sound ... ok, I'll say it. doesn't this just sound crazy?! they wouldn't do that, would they? on a NEWS program? in AMERICA?

here's a better question - could the schmucks sue fox and win? on what grounds?

if your eyes haven't glazed over by now then I imagine you want to see the before and after pictures. they are available at this link.

beer can chicken

2008-07-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

our good friends eric, melora, and margaret recently re-introduced us to a classic american recipe, beer can chicken.

for those that donut know, beer can chicken is a fairly simple recipe: rinse and dry the bird, rub it with spices and stuff, jam a beer can up the hole, and cook it on the grill. there's a fairly generic recipe at this link.

personally, I'd never had one and certainly never cooked one until recently. williams sonoma has taken the beer can chicken thing to a whole new level. they've "upscaled it", if you will, with this beautiful vertical chicken roaster. the concept is the same: rinse and dry the bird, rub it with spices and stuff, and plop the bird on the roaster... after, of course, putting beer or wine inside the roaster. what happens, in a nutshell, is that as the chicken cooks the fat drains off the bird while the booze bubbles up, replacing the lost moisture. here's the do-dad:

an hour or hour and a half or whatever later, you've got a beautifully roasted bird that is just incredibly, incredibly juicy. it takes some time to cook, but not much effort at all. plus you can load potatoes or corn or whatever floats your boat into the channel around the edge of the roaster, and roast your veggies alongside your chicken. the fat will drip off the chicken, then through the holes and onto your grill (where they will alight and smoke and it's just awesome), and the whole thing is wonderful deliciousness. for a family of two adults, like ours, it's an awesome dinner and an awesome bring-lunch-to-work-the-next-day. it also is good if four-five people come over for dinner.

I'm not "all about product placement" or whatever, but for cooks: this is the shit.

holy shit, it's july!

2008-07-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

traditionally, summer doesn't start in the Seattle area until July 5th. It's kind of a joke here, that it will remain gray and a little rainy up to, and including, the 4th of July (usually). many / most Independence days growing up included socks, long pants, jackets, and baseball hats to keep the drizzle off my face. that's just how it is in seattle. it's how we roll.

mind you, up until June 18th it was the coldest start to the year in recorded fucking history in this town. as is routine, there was no real transition from winter to spring this year... but there was a noticeable turn from spring to summer over the last ten days or so. now - all of a sudden - it's been hot and dry here, hot enough to set records.

I'm sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with global warming, which - obviously - is Made Up To Instill Fear In The Hearts Of Everyday Americans. if you believe that global warming exists then You're Helping The Terrorists Win. donut help the terrorists! go buy that hummer today. what with the discounts and things they practically cost the same as an accord, and I'm *positive* that gas prices won't top four bucks a gallon before... wait, what's that? what'd you say? they're already at... really? are you sure? hmph. i don't believe you. neither does my man johnnie mac. well, johnnie just doesn't know, but that's ok. wapner's almost on.

anyhoo, it's july! NaBloPoMo month again! this month it's FOOD. so most importantly, we'll be posting daily, and we'll be posting about food. this will probably turn into "what we ate for dinner last night and a rant on an unrelated topic"... last night was a homemade italian sub while we waited for someone to come test drive the jeep we have for sale. eff you, craigslist jerk who stood us up!

and the "rant of the day"... well, see above.

Looking forward to a month of food and beverage posts!

fathers day: the shave!

2008-06-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

man, I don't know where the time has gone. the last six months have been unbelievably busy. it's funny, I've kinda said this the whole time... though Reese was essentially able to take six months off, just like we planned, and go back to work circa June 1st, just like we planned... I haven't really been stressing about money. my salary certainly isn't enough for the 3 of us to live on forever, but we planned ahead and got a lucky break here and there and are going to make it just fine... money wise, anyway.

time, on the other hand... it seems like there are fewer hours in the day now than there used to be. a lot fewer hours. I remember last year working in the garden, mowing the lawn and planting things and weeding and such. this year... hahaha! I'm sure my neighbors would have appreciated if I mowed the front lawn a couple more times than I actually did. hell, I would have appreciated it too.

this part I'm writing from home. I took Wednesday off this week. been working a lot recently. like, a lot a lot. too much. needed a break, it was nice to be home with the fam.

it's funny, since there's not enough time to do everything, I've been focusing (obsessing?) over the things that can be done better, more efficiently, faster. for instance, we don't have a dishwasher, so - to have a kitchen that's remotely clean - we wash dishes... and since we cook and have a baby, we're *always* washing dishes. it's awesome. problem there, of course, is that our kitchen is nice but super tiny, so to install a dishwasher you have to take out valuable storage space. sigh.

what the hell am I blathering about? I'm busy, waa-waa, cry me a river. this is supposed to be a post about father's day and The Shave! fathers day was AWESOME. my lovely wife arranged for a swanky straight-razor shave on saturday morning...

this part I'm staying late at work on Thursday to write. I have reviewed the traffic and am convinced that I can get to the day care with plenty of margin for error (must pick up by 6pm or incur $5/minute charge).

so, the shave. The Shave. it was at a cool little shop in Bellevue Square called, appropriately, The Art of Shaving. The shop was small but had a very high-end feel. lots of dark wood, glass, stone. the front three-fourths of the place was a retail store for shaving and hair care products. man hair care products! The back little part of the store, separated by a glass wall with frosted vertical stripes, were 2 barber stations.

I think I made the barber laugh a little bit when he first saw me since I'd shaved on Thursday morning... quite a bit of my facial hair is on the lighter side, so by Saturday morning it didn't really "look" like I had much of a beard. which I didn't, whatever. he commented that most of his shaves recently were dudes with mountain-man beards and he was almost like "aww, do you have any hairs?"

Reese treated me to "the royal shave", which started when my "master barber" put a hot towel over my face, then applied oil that was infused with black pepper and cloves. this caused my skin to become warm all over as well as to cause my whiskers to stand up, such that they could be shaved off easier. then came the hot shaving cream (so luxurious!) and pass number one with the straight razor: with the grain. it did not feel like a traditional shave... not sure that I can describe it much better than that. he sort of dragged the razor across my face, which made a scratching sound but felt like nothing at all, and the hairs just disappeared.

meanwhile, I'm hanging in the barbers chair, which fully reclined. define: relaxed. then there was more hot shaving cream and pass number two: against the grain. are you comfortable? can I get you a glass of water? ahh.

we made small talk and stuff, but the barber was respectful about it. mostly I wanted to just close my eyes and chill and he streamlined that. he was friendly and very professional.

after pass number two the barber was a little bit less sarcastic about how short my hair was. he said, "your whiskers may be short but they sure are stubborn." it was at this point that he introduced his "little friend", a five blade razor with an integrated LED light and vibrating action. the LED light "revolutionizes shaving in the shower" and the vibration a) replaces the need for you to apply downward pressure with the razor while you shave, b) "wiggles" in between your skin and your beard to cut the hair off shorter than a conventional razor would and c) is just cool.

this part I'm writing one handed from the couch on Thursday night. Reese is en route home from work after another 10 hour day. 2 days a week is groovy and everything, but Tuesday's and Thursday's are long days. NOT COMPLAINING. wouldn't trade anything in the world for the life I'm living right now. update, I made it to day care with like 40 minutes to spare. also, goodness I hate driving to work. if I bussed or trained to work I could have time to read. I need to be reading the baby signs book right now. who has time to blog post anyway? I miss our friends who moved to portland.

what's this story about? right, fathers day. if you're with me this far - but don' t know me personally - this is exactly what it's like to have a conversation with me. on topic for a time, off on a tangent, wander around for a bit, come back to center, continue. here we go!

three passes with razors and it's time for a cold towel soaked in lemon water wrapped around my face... ahhhhhhhhh. so comforting. next he put cotton pads soaked in lemon water and chamomile and who knows what else on my eyes and a clay mask on my face. I'm reclining in the barbers chair, 45 minutes in and exceptionally comfortable.

I just put Fenix in his jumper machine and walked to the laundry pile to toss in a burp cloth... by the time I'd walked back he'd spit up. that kid has some timing, let me tell you. he's like me!

the clay mask had to be on for 3 minutes or something. I relaxed while the barber cleaned his station and all that. then the mask came off and he sprayed my face with this stuff that instantly felt cool, it was really nice. turns out it's some kind of spray that they have with essence of rose in it or something. good stuff.

more spit up! come on, man!

last in sequence was after shave stuff which smelled and felt good. can't remember what was in it but the guy said that all their stuff is made without alcohol so it didn't mess up my skin after.

the royal shave took an hour, was supremely relaxing, and was just an awesome, awesome treat. certainly not something I would have done for myself but a fantastic gift. just thinking out loud... I could see how this could be an excellent *recurring* fathers day event (ahem!). after it was over Reese and I walked through the mall, she complimented the shave - the closest and best of my life. We sipped coffee and watched Botox of Bellevue lurch past on their spiked heels, then stopped at the apple store for stuff that we are not yet rich enough to buy. that's right: not yet.

after the shave we drove around Bellevue for a time (Medina = envy), we went out to see a band saturday night (out at the showbox like grown-ups and everything!). that was made extra-interesting by running into a friend of she-who-must-not-be-named. on sunday we went out to a swanky, swanky brunch at Salty's on Alki, where I managed to leave my bank card behind. man, I am one kind of reliable, I'll tell you. not necessarily the kind you want, but...

after brunch we took a walk around Alki beach. I have a very soft spot in my heart for Alki, from my roots in Seattle as well as... when I describe my east coast time in Hoboken NJ and it's proximity to "the city", I always refer to the distance between the tip of Alki point and the closest spot on the downtown Seattle waterfront... Hoboken and the city are that close.

this was by far the best fathers day ever. I mean, I know it's my first and everything, but... damn, reese. you treat me well. so happy to be your other half. thank you, thank you, for real, thank you.

~j

First Father's Day

2008-06-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was J's first official Father's day. As a gift I made him an appointment for an old skool straight razor shave which is actually just a facial for a man but instead of massaging your face, you get a super close shave and he loved every minute of it -- but I'll let him tell you all about that.

So the straight razor shave thingie was actually on Saturday. On Sunday (the actual holiday) we went to Salty's on Alki for brunch. Have you done this? If you live in Seattle or it's surrounding areas, you must. The amount of food is ridiculous. Do you like seafood? There were mountains of crab legs, oysters, clams and mussels. Smoked salmon as far the eye could see. And the normal breakfast fare of course... waffles, pancakes, eggs, biscuits, bacon, potatoes, bagels, yada yada yada. Oh and my favorite thing... the dark chocolate fountain with marshmallows, rice krispy treats, strawberries and fresh pineapple for dipping. I am pretty sure that I ate 10 strawberries. Gluttonous!

Anyway after brunch we walked on the waterfront and talked about life. And after that we went to the Edmonds art festival and met up with J's parents for a coffee. It was a really nice weekend and we are feeling especially happy about life and our good fortune and thankful for all of it.

February 29, 2008

2008-06-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

Flashback to a 02/29/08 news conference at the White House for today's Quote of the Day...

Peter Maer of CBS News Radio: "What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing ..."

President George W. Bush: "Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?"

Peter Maer: "A number of analysts are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline."

President Bush: "Oh, yeah? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."

Related stories here, here, and here.

Sounds like Grandpa can't program a VCR

2008-06-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day:

"We're going through a process where you get a whole bunch of names, and ya ... Well, basically, it's a Google. You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It's remarkable, you know."

Who else? John McCain
What was he talking about? His method for vetting prospective VP candidates
When was this? Err... this was yesterday in Richmond, Virginia (6/9/08)
Seriously? Yup

From an article titled Forget What Clinton Did Wrong. What Did Obama Do Right? by Jane Hamsher. For the full article, click here.

Quote of the day

2008-06-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

"I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit."

-Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights

From an article titled The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind. For the full article, click here.

S & S

2008-06-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

My sister just sent over some pics of the twins and I had to share. Sebastien has started social smiling and he can see a tiny smirk peeking through in this pic. They are both so adorable, they get cuter every time I see new pictures of them.

lessons from africa

2008-06-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

So today was my first day back at work. Well I'm still here. But I'm taking a quick break to tell you about how things went today.

I dropped Fenix off at daycare around 8 am. He was happy. He immediately went to one of the ladies and started smiling and playing with the other babies. I went over some things with the 'teachers'- how to change a cloth diaper, his likes and dislikes, etc.

Then it was time to go.

I tried so hard not to cry. I really did. But then when I went to say goodbye, my heart got so heavy. I felt my throat tighten. And my eyes started to well up. It sucked.
I took him and kissed him and said goodbye and I left.

And then I sat in my car and cried and cried.

While I was sitting there having a meltdown one of the ladies came to the car and asked me to come back in. So I pulled myself together and I did. And when I went inside another one of the care providers took me aside with Fenix. She is this little African lady named Ann and she has the most wonderful accent!
She said:
"In Africa when the mother leaves her baby she must never cry. You cannot leave him with tears because he will take them from you and then he will cry too." Then she showed me how his little eyes were full of tears because he had started to cry right after I had left :-(

So she took me and hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and thanked me for sharing Fenix with them. And I hugged them both and kissed him and said goodbye in a happy voice. Then he turned and gave me the biggest brightest smile.........

Then I walked back to my car, drove away and cried on the bus the whole way here.

I feel better now. I'm looking forward to seeing my little one tonight when I get home. I never knew I could love another person this much. I thought I knew what love was when I met J but this is just so much more.

today

2008-05-30T07:32:00.001-07:00

Did you know...

On this day many a year ago Joan of a Ark or Arc or Arch or whoever was burned at the stake? Man, what a way to go. No, thank you.

One of the groovy things about living in the Seattle area is how far north we are. Though I grew up here, I didn't realize "the north effect" until after we moved here from NY/NJ. If the story is to be believed, we are the city farthest north of any Major League team. Think about that: Chicago, New York, Boston! Take that, Toronto!

What that means for our day to day lives... Its all about the light & the weather. In the winter it can get gray and oh so dreary. The days in winter are short, dark like a storm is coming, and cloudy. in short, they suck.

fun fact: it rains more in NYC than it does in Seattle, and has for years and years. people in NY always have something cute to say about the rain in seattle. it rains on more days of the year here, yes, but it still rains less here overall. it's all about how fast it comes down. in Seattle in May it rains an average of 2.1 inches. When we were in NJ a few weeks ago in rained more than two inches in one day. in NY in May it rains an average of 4.7 inches. it rains more there, bitches! end interlude.

Seattle days in summer... ah, the days in summer. we live for the days in summer. the days in summer are loooooong, often cloudy in the a.m. and sunny in the afternoon and early evening. if it's cold in the morning then it generally will be warm in the afternoon.

speaking of light: we will have 16 hours of daylight today, and we're not even to the solstice yet. 16 hours!

16 hour days mean more time for grilling. we got a new grill a week and a half ago and have already made burgers, sausage, steak, and fish tacos. thank goodness it's grilling season again!

happy friday, world!

sorry so quiet.

2008-05-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Hi people. I regret that we haven't been blogging much at all over the last 2 weeks but it's just been majorly busy round the McG household and we have been enjoying the start of a beautiful Seattle summer.

Now regarding Fenix, he started solids last week. In the world of babies this is a monumental step. One day it's breast milk and formula exclusively and the next someone is shoveling tiny spoonfuls of lukewarm rice cereal in your mouth. What must that be like?! Well he seems to love it. As a matter of fact, he loves it so much that he starts whimpering in between spoonfuls if you don't move quickly enough. So far we have tried rice cereal, butternut squash and sweet potatoes. Next up, oatmeal, peas, carrots, bananas, apples and pears. I am planning to make his food using a food mill but since we are in this trial period I bought small jars of organic baby food. I didn't want to commit to a big batch of any one thing until I knew that it agreed with him/he liked it.
Here he is after a belly full of brown rice cereal:

So back to the work thing, I am starting next Tuesday - it's actually my former place of work. They were so nice as to let me come back on a part time schedule. Fenix will be in day care for those 2 days. I think this is going to be a nice balance... I'll have every other day off, four day weekends and I will be with Fenix more often than not. The least amount of time that we can sign up for at the day care facility is 30 hours so that means that every week we'll have about 10 extra hours that I can use to go to doctor appointments or run errands where it would be nice to not have to schlep poor Fee along with me or better yet I can use it to get a leg up on my schoolwork.

Lastly our great friends Chad and Ty said their goodbyes and moved to Portland this past weekend. I didn't get emotional when they left but now that they are gone and day to day life is setting in I feel this yucky emptiness. I miss them so much already. I hope that some day soon we are all living near each other again like the good old days. It'll happen. Yeah. :-)

How to get effed by United Airlines:

2008-05-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Fly with them.

My flight from Richmond to Chicago had its start time delayed by air traffic control. A short delay, only 20 minutes or so.

When we landed in Chicago I busted my tail to get to my new gate, which was hard because it was all the way across the airport and because we didn't even deplane at a gate. We deplaned on the tarmac and had to hoof it across the concrete, then up a series of ramps until we were actually indoors again. THEN I could run halfway across the airport.

As I was walk-jogging up to the gate of my connecting flight, I noticed with despair and growing fury that a) it said FLIGHT CLOSED and b) that the plane was actually right there, it hadn't even pulled away from the gate. The United Airlines person was like "um yeeah, the next flight to Seattle is tomorrow. Also, I've enjoyed ruining your day. Please have a nice day."

She said that the next flight out of Chicago to Seattle - on any airline - was the United flight that left at 8:30 am Saturday (today), and that I had no choice but to stay the night in Chicago. This option would have put me home at around dinnertime tonight.

I can't even describe how angry I was.

Seething, I went to stand in United's customer service line to get my hotel and cab taken care of. The line had about 45 travelers in it, and only a couple people working the desk at the front of the line. It was a one-to-two hour line. The guy behind me had his connecting flight re-directed but his luggage wasn't, so he was stuck overnight in Chicago with no luggage. Go United.

For the two weeks before my travel I was worried in the back of my mind about exactly this thing happening - it's dangerous traveling through Chicago's O'Hare Airport, you know? So yesterday during all of this there was a little voice saying "I told you so, I told you so." I fucking HATE that voice.

While standing in line I called the awesome professionals at my company's travel agent, Carson Wagonlit, and was able to get booked on a US Air flight to Las Vegas with a connecting flight to Seattle. This was scheduled to put me in to Seattle at 2:30 this morning and give me a personal best - and never to be repeated - 6 plane rides in 3 days.I booked that flight but - of course - the plane was leaving in 20 minutes and was entirely on the other side of the airport. There was no jogging this time. Nope, this time I ran my white little ass off all the effing way across O'Hare. Let me tell you, that sucked. I got to the new gate and got my boarding pass. I told the gate agent what happened and she said "wow, we sure are getting a lot of pissed off United customers today."

So, got on the plane AND managed to get an aisle seat, my personal favorite. OK, we're ready to take off. Go ahead. Go ahead...

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain, uh... we seem to be having some trouble with the internal intercom system. I'm not really sure exactly that the issue is, but technicians are on the plane now and we'll let you know as soon as it's resolved."

Thirty minutes or so went by, dangerously eating into the time I would have to navigate the Las Vegas airport to get to my connecting flight to Seattle. So of course my nerves were on edge. Further contributing to my annoyance was the attitude on the plane (Vegas, baby! woo!!) and the dirtbag in the seat just across the aisle. He alternately appeared to be on the verge of throwing up due to being a nervous flyer ... and couldn't wait to party, chanting on a number of occasions Drink! Drink! Drink!

Oy.

Eventually they resolve the intercom issue and we started flying. That's what you're supposed to do on a plane: fly. Due to it being a night flight they turned the lights off. I was really wired so tried to read my magazine, except my personal reading light was on the fritz. It would stay on for a few seconds or a few minutes, then turn off without warning. I could reach up and whack it with my knuckles to turn it back on for a moment, but there was nothing keeping it on unless it wanted to stay on. Eventually I borrowed a keychain flashlight from the flight attendant, but you had to squeeze the bejeesus out of it to get it to stay on. I did that off and on for an hour or whatever, long enough to calm down, then napped a bit until we landed in Vegas.

When I deplaned I asked the lady where my next flight was and she told me. You want to guess? ALL THE WAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT. Remember, flight 2 of 3 on the day was delayed taking off. I said "do I have enough time to make this next flight? Do I have to run to catch it?" She wouldn't say you HAVE to run, but suggested that running wouldn't be a bad idea, you know, if I liked running.

oy.

so I move briskly to the end of whatever the hell concourse I was at, down a few ramps and again I'm on the tarmac. I'm standing with a half dozen other travelers looking just as worn out as I am, like we slept in the dryer. After a couple minutes the bus driver shows up to drive us over to our correct concourse. we unloaded, across the tarmac, up some ramps, and it's time to hoof it over to the gate again. I walked briskly to my gate to find that my plane had already been boarding for some time now. I joined the end of the boarding line and within 2 minutes or so was on the plane (it was THE END of the boarding line).

We took off in short order. I struggled to nap on the two hour flight, mostly failing. Something happened to my right ear on the first flight of the day and I never was able to synch it up with the rest of me, with the pressure and whatnot. It's still hurting, as a matter of fact, though at least I can hear through it now.

We landed with a bump and three thuds that would have yanked tears from my wife's eyes, and thank the gods I was in Seattle.

After navigating to the car and exiting the garage I got home around 3:30 this morning. With the baby and all we've been up since around 7 , though I was able to nap for another or so with the baby when he crashed earlier.

I never want to fly again.

Ever.

another great purchase

2008-05-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

While we were in NJ, Fenix had the chance to play with some of the twins' toys. One of those toys was an activity gym. I had avoided buying one because as you know, I am weird and loathe the idea of garish plastic toys cluttering up my home. However, once again the happiness of my child overrides any desire that I have for a home that doesn't look like a nursery school. So today I bought one. I went with this one:
It's made by Boppy and it costs about 65 bux. I like it because the attached toys are mostly made of fabric (not nasty plastic) and the whole thing has a very small footprint. All of the little designs on the mat are really cute. It also has additional tabs so you can hang other toys on it. The little butterfly toy that hangs down in the middle has lights and plays music if you squeeze it's head. Very trippy.

And most of all, Fenix likes it. He has been laying underneath it for the last hour and a half, quietly swatting and babbling at the toys, occasionally pausing to suck on his hands. I folded laundry... I washed dishes. This thing has already paid for itself.

If you want one too.....

Richmond to chicago, 4th flight (of 5) in 3 days

2008-05-16T15:44:00.001-07:00

another day, another flight. Once again i am on a robustly sized EMB145, three seats per row (2-aisle-1). At first glance it is in roughly the same condition as the last.

The first seat I grabbed, my proper seat, had no tray table. I was annoyed about this mostly because I wanted the aisle seat but had the window one. Anyway, a nice couple who booked seats B & C approached, assuming that they would not be seperated by an aisle. Ha! I switched with them and now have both a window and an aisle seat. the little textured knob on my fan does not work, but I do have a tray table.

I wonder if there will be water in the bathroom! I cant wait!

Traveling

2008-05-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

As you may know I'm traveling for work currently. Writing this on Friday while tooling around Richmond, Virginia. Currently I'm chilling in the airport pub waiting for my flight back to the 206 (via Chicago for ****s sake, cross your fingers for me). the music in applebees sucks, thanks for asking. now I'm freeeeeeee, freee-fall-iinnnnggggg.....

After the turbulence-a-licious flight T described below we navigated home, unpacked, and stayed a night in our own bed, then I got up and flew back to the east coast so I could do some work today. I already posted about the awesome spill that happened on my flight from Seattle to Saint of the Louis. the flight from STL to Richmond was interesting. I had the ONE CARRY ON AND ONE PERSONAL ITEM like they said I could have, but my carry on was too big to fit in the overhead bin because it was a small plane. Not "how much do you weigh" small (it had a bathroom!), but small.

that plane had some problems. when we were taking off one of the doodads covering the light on one of the seats near me just... fell to the ground. the plane was old, and being old made the plane sad. I went into the bathroom and there were a few things about that made me laugh. one, there wasn't the regular bi-fold/accordion door to enter, it was a sliding pocket door. the accordion door would have smacked one of the people in the last row on the elbow. oh, the seat configuration was window seat, aisle seat, aisle, window seat/aisle seat. 3 seats per row, like 35 rows to the plane or something.

so I walk to the back of the plane and slide the pocket door open. the first thing that I see - as it's right in front of me - is the sink. I know immediately that I will not be washing my hands after this trip to the bathroom when I see a cylindrical blue and white container in the sink with four words clearly visible:

antibacterial wipes

kills germs

ok, so the water doesn't work. I can work with that. I mean, it's lame and everything, but whatever. also, they charged for snacks ("just four bucks for chips!") but didn't take credit cards, which was a bummer since I ran out of cash on the turbulence-a-licious flight the day before.

anyhoo, fly from NJ to SEA, then fly from SEA to VA the next day, an overpriced cab ride to the hotel, six hours of tossing and turning, and it's time for breakfast. I always *try* to eat well when I travel, and ... whatever. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. mostly depends on where I go and what's available locally.

In particular I try and have a good breakfast. Today I hit a home run: check out the omlette, bacon, home fries, grits, juice, coffee (and yogurt, not pictured because I ate it while the dude was cooking my omlette) that I nabbed at my hotel:

lets everyone raise their glasses for a safe trip home! be good!

:-D

The jerz

2008-05-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

OMG jersey was the most fun I have had in effing forever. we spent a lot - a far majority - of our time at Wife's sisters house with her sister and husband and their newborn twins and Wife's other sister and her mom and her cousin who drove up from Virginia and her other cousins and aunts that live in town and visited her grandparents and my uncle and cousin and my best friend mike and my cousin's pub in NYC and T's best friend and her best friend's little son and oh. my. god. our little man got so much love it was just awesome.

Interlude, it's Thursday, the day after we returned home to Seattle and I've departed again to fly to the east coast for work. Due to editing this probably won't be posted until Friday. I am on a plane when writing this, and I'm writing to tell you that peeing in turbulence sucks. The bloody mary was all right, though. donut worry, tho, I was not actually peeing when I wrote that. I wrote it back at my seat. also, I always wash my hands. always. and I spilled club soda all over the little tray attached to the seat back in front of me. yes, I am "that guy" that spills stuff all the time, and trips over stuff, and whatever else. I had no napkins so had to wipe it up with my hat. good thing it was club soda! now all I need to do to make sure it doesn't leave a stain is to blot it... with club soda! get it? yuk yuk...

sigh, if Wife were here she would be rolling her eyes and she would say get on with it already except it would be "under her breath", haha, as if there is such a thing. end interlude.

My family/community growing up in the 206 (* & **) was my sister and my parents. Period. When Wife was growing up she went to school she with a whole giant group of cousins. Though they were not literally her brothers and sisters they may as well have been. Wife always had someone to look out for, someone that would look out for her, someone to eat lunch with, someone to could call that would beat someone up so nobody messed with her, someone to walk home with, to play with, to eat dinner at their house or vice versa, to go to the mall with, to take vacations with, and the list goes on and on. and on.

The biggest thing missing from my childhood (in retrospect, of course - yuk yuk), was family. Or better yet, community. Wife and I have talked for a long time about the differences between our childhoods, and while we each had our own personalized b.s. to deal with, we both turned out okay. Anyhoo, the biggest difference - and by difference I mean *my opinion* of the most important factor that was different from her upbringing to mine - was family or community or whatever you want to call it.

Wife and I have talked on and off about the number of kids we want, 1-2 or 2-3. Given the propensity for twinning in her family, that's 1-2 pregnancies. The joke is that what I want our boy to have is more siblings and cousins than you can shake a stick at - like Wife had - and it doesn't really matter if we have 2 or 3 pregnancies, we simply are not getting there on or own.

being in NJ was bittersweet. we got so much love that it made it really hard to leave.

* referring to the greater seattle area
** yes, that refers to area code 206. yes, I currently live in the same area where I grew up. yes, the area I currently live in now is area code 425. HOWEVER!, during my childhood it - and everything else in Washington State west of the Cascade Mountain Range - was area code 206. So it fits, all right?

tiny wine and whiskey

2008-05-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

These are the two things that got me thru the flight to and from NJ. Oh and let us not forget the tears. They were flowing so I guess that helped me too? And the best part is that Fenix slept blissfully through the whole thing. Never cried or fussed. But his mom? Not so much.

I HATE turbulence. Yes, I know that it's just like a driving on a bumpy road but I really don't care. I don't like the way it feels and I can't help thinking about the plane doing a nose dive every time that it happens during a flight. I used to take Xanax to help with the anxiety before a flight but my prescription is expired so I didn't have a pill to take this time. Thankfully J had the bright idea that I should order one of those cheap bottles of wine that they sell on the plane. Well that took the edge off and then I chased it with a tiny bottle of Glenlivet and I actually felt good.

What do you do when you hate to fly but you love to travel?!

Anyway I forgot to post the link to the full set of NJ/NYC trip pics in my earlier post so here they are: NJ/NYC trip

and we're back....

2008-05-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

Well that was a really great trip. Our only regret is not having the time to see more people and do more things.

So let me recap the highlights for ya. We stayed with my sister and her husband in their very adorable (and much larger then ours) house in Englewood. My sister lives next door to the house where I grew up. We spent alot of time sitting around telling stories, taking care of the babies, playing with the Wii and making each other laugh. Most of the time my mom, and other sister were around too.
Here is a pic of me and my sister and one of her twin babies:

Another one with my mom, Feeny McG, the twins (Sebastian and Sienna) and my other sister:

When we weren't chillin' in the cut with my family we were out and about. We made a trip to the Ikea of clothing and accessories, H&M, and both got a few cute things. We made our way through 50 and 45 Rock where we both used to work and that was intense since we were rolling around down there with Fenix. It was crazy to think about the time when J invited me to the Rock center Christmas tree lighting party that his company held. That was when I met some of his friends for the first time. It was also the first time when we held hands in public and we really were starting to look like a couple. Then suddenly there we are... married and pushing our son in a stroller through those same halls. My how things have changed.

On another day we went out to Queens to see Jason's uncle and cousin. We had a nice lunch at a diner (I miss diners!) and just spent time talking and catching up. It was cool to see the place where Jason first lived when he moved back to the east coast.

Here's Fee with Jason's uncle:
We also made 2 trips to Staten Island. My Italian twin, Chris lives out there with her husband and their freaking adorable son Jake. Jake was born 3 weeks after Fenix. I am so jazzed that they finally got to meet each other and they hit it off famously. I mean like for real, they were holding hands and babbling at each other for a really long time. I even have video proof of this but certain technical difficulties prevent me from posting said video today. So you'll have to settle for this still photo as proof thereof:

and a cute one of John and Fenix:

When we were with Chris and her husband we did plenty of eating. We also spent alot of time comparing various baby notes... "does he do this?", "oh yeah he does that", etc.. etc... It was cute.

We also went to see my grandparents. It was awesome to see their faces light up... finally got to see their first great grandchild.

At one point we tried to get a pic of all three babies together. This was not exactly a success but it was funny. Fenix was hamming it up and the twins were soooo not interested. Check it out:

J ended up going into NYC one night to hang out with his friend Mike. They went to J's cousin's bar, The Emerald. They also had brunch, shot pool and swung at the batting cages at Chelsea Piers. I am sad that I didn't get to see The Emerald but it was cool that J got to spend some time with his good friend, unencumbered by wife and baby. On his way to NYC he met a guy at the bus stop that carved this amazing bass:
Here's Mike swingin for the stands:

And J being an uberdork (but we love him):

My cousin came up from Virginia to see Fenix and the twins. She brought her dog with her. His name is Shoney and he is very cute but I think all our loudness made him nervous.

Regrettably I did not take pictures of any of the food that I ate because I am too greedy to pause and take a picture when a delicious meal is placed in front of me. We ate lots of bagels and pizza. I have the belly to prove it. We ate lots of yummy italian food too. I had a delightful pint of matzo ball soup, piping hot from Sol & Sol Kosher Deli in Englewood. We did not make it to Baumgart's and we spent almost no time in Hoboken - again, not enough time. For Mother's Day we went to Dos Caminos on Park Ave where Jason proposed (it was packed and they happened to sit us at the SAME TABLE and no we did not ask for that!). Jason gave me a really cool pair of titanium hoop earrings. I love them. We rented a Prius for the trip and now I desperately want one. Everyone showered Fenix with so much love and nice material things, I am blown away by their generosity and kindness.

So we are glad to be home but it's bittersweet because we definitely had a good time in New York and New Jersey. I can't wait to go back and see everyone again next year.

Hello from dirty jerz!

2008-05-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's not really dirty but that's what we call it anyway. So far we've seen lots and lots of family and friends and eaten some great food (pizza! bagels!. It's been a blast and save for one day when it rained like crazy the weather has been glorious. When I get some time I've got some awesome pictures to post and even a really sweet video! I am gonna be sad when it's time to go home on Wednesday. My niece and nephew are perfect little munchkins and it's been great to spend so much time with them.
So that's the deal. See you when we get back....

oranges

2008-05-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

after a hiatus existing for much of my life, I've been eating oranges recently. sometimes orange juice gives me heartburn so I avoided oranges. recently I started eating them and I'm really glad I did. I tend to snack a lot, and at least if I'm snacking, an orange isn't that bad.

only problem, I have no idea how to pick an orange. an apple? that's easy because you can see the bruise and I know the texture of a "good" apple. a potato? no problem, just look through the dirt to see if the skin is green. I was in the grocery store the other day and there's the guy stocking fruit so I asked him how to pick an orange. in a nutshell, he said

lets pause here for a minute and talk about people. grocery store people. I respect people that work in grocery stores. it's ... a public service. I know it's easy to joke about people who work at grocery stores or pet stores or any "service" industry... but there's just something about grocery stores. it takes a complicated persona to take people's BS and still politely carry groceries to their car. some of these people, those at the register anyway, interact with a wide variety of people - much wider than many of us do as part of our daily journey. they see families arguing and alcoholics and ring up groceries for people on food stamps. do they silently critique what they see others eating? I would.

There's a complicated something, a good thing, that it takes to do that job, and a certain undesirable thing as well - a level of comfort with people being rude to you, to your face. I don't really participate in the rude thing, and try to express appreciation at the register when I see someone who "gets it". obviously I'm only talking about the GOOD people that work at the store. jerks, religious zealots, close talkers, dummies, chews-with-their-mouth-open or has-stuff-in-their-teeth, corporate propaganda machines (may I have your phone number? what about your email address?) or message force multipliers (link, link, link), and others of their ilk are not included in my positivity and well wishes. they can go scratch.

I was buying dog food recently and they asked if I needed help carrying it to my car. I said no since I didn't, but was curious - so, asked how many customers take the offered help. "about one in four of five customers" was the response, which was a bit astonishing. twenty to twenty five percent of people are having the workers carry their 50 pound bag of dog food to their car? the dude and chick behind the counter were like "whatever, it's part of the job, no big deal". that's really cool! I'd be so annoyed by carrying around bags of dog food for strangers I think I'd kill myself.

I remember working at a fast food place as my first real job. we'd have to bring cases of burger meat and chicken and french fries from the walk-in freezer to the kitchen. unfortunately, the walk-in freezer was in the basement, and all that stuff was really really heavy to carry. the fries were about 35 pounds for a healthy sized box, and you'd carry them stacked two or three high, stacked just so and clutched to your chest. and they were freezing, of course, and you walked into the freezer in thin pants and a polo shirt and when you exited under the load of seventy to one-hundred-five pounds of frozen french fries then of course your glasses would fog up because of the temperature change and then you're left with the choice to walk while not being able to see or wait for your glasses to clear up. so you stand there with a hundred pounds of french fries clutched to your chest, then walk as carefully and briskly as you can all the way to the other side of the floor where you'll have the privilege of climbing a 32-step staircase with no breaks (hey, don't slip!) and maneuvering around whatever spilled between the top step and the reach-in freezer on the main level, and all this because your manager told you to bring up six cases of fries and two trips are better then three, or six. then of course it's back down for the burger "meat" and all of this JUST AS FAST AS YOU FUCKING CAN THERE'S TEN CARS IN DRIVE THRU and when is clint back from his break anyway?

why is it called a "service industry" in the first place? to me - in the parlance of our times - it means "YOU service ME" and comes with raised eyebrows and that's the best you could do, sugar? on the side. I think we got it wrong, the whole thing. I think "service industry" is supposed to be about "CUSTOMER service". I don't, however, expect this revelation that I've just let you in on to change the industry much. oh well, we do what we can with what we've got, right? sigh.

so, how to pick an orange. remember that? here we go.

according to the guy in the grocery store last week, is to focus first on the WEIGHT of the fruit. more weight = more juice. also pay attention to the skin, as smooth skin = thin skin and thin skin = more fruit & less peel. when asked about color his attitude was "meh" = not particularly important.

I'm now purchasing my oranges with these principles in mind. if you have any orange picking tips & tricks please leave them in the comments. cheers!

Cool black chicks

2008-05-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon the Material Gurl blog when I was browsing around on another blog. It's a cute site written by two young African American women attending college at Howard University which is a HBCU (Historically Black College or University).

Well they have this feature called Outrageously Chic which is just candids of stylish AA* women spotted on the Howard campus. I am loving the unique look that some of these women are sporting. I can't really pull off alot of these looks anymore without feeling ridiculous because I am not a 20 year old but I can certainly admire them and I am definitely inspired. I love how these ladies are breaking the mold, not opting for the cookie cutter Forever 21 style that everyone else is rocking these days.

I have a few favorites but they don't allow hotlinking so this is a picture free post :-(. If you do decide to browse the photo pool, see if you can find my jr. doppelgänger in the set (though *I* am probably the evil twin). There is a pretty crazy resemblance in style and physical appearance to the younger (thinner) me.

*AA is an abbreviation for African American and shall now and forever serve as such for this here blog.

I am the master of my domain

2008-05-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Did you notice? Or are you one of those totally nonobservant types that doesn't pick up on every ridiculous miniscule detail like I do?

Ok well if you didn't notice then I'll tell you. Metagestation now has it's on domain - freed from the blogspot chains that bound us! Anyway now all you need to do is type:

www.metagestation.com

Simple.

But even if you don't, blogger will still redirect you from the old url to the new one so it's no big deal. I am also hoping to redesign this here landscape in the relative near future to something slightly less cookie cutter but don't expect to see that for a little while.

6 more days til NJ

2008-05-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

I am getting kinda giddy over here in anticipation of our trip back home to see my family and my other peops. So in the spirit of that giddiness I thought I would school you on the area that I am from and hopefully change whatever negative perceptions you might have about NJ.

NJ is like every other place, there are good parts and bad parts. Most people think of this small stretch of turnpike when they think of NJ:

Well this is not really what all of NJ looks like... just that small part of it. I was born and raised in Englewood, NJ. Englewood is not all that different from one of the more residential neighborhoods of Seattle like Wallingford or Ballard but with a bit more socioeconomic diversity. It has tree lined streets with sidewalks. The houses are colonial style as opposed to the craftsman style homes that are in abundance here in Seattle. There is a downtown area with a main street that has lots of cute shops and restaurants.
Bonus: It is also very close to NYC. Here is Englewood on the map:

Famous people that either previously or still do live in Englewood:

Eddie Murphy (his estate was known as Bubble Hill)
Karen O (from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's)
Lil Kim
George Benson
Dizzy Gillespie (my grandpa got into a fender bender with him several years ago!)
John Travolta
Tony Bennett
Sarah Jessica Parker
me (just kidding)
Brooke Shields (well she went to school there, my grandpa worked at her private school)

So as for NJ as a whole, it's actually a cool place to live. If you live in northern nj you can drive to any of the following places in 4 hours or less:

Southern Vermont (I loved to snowboard at Mt Snow & Killington)
Philadelphia
Washington D.C.
Boston
Baltimore

NJ has nice sandy beaches and there is actually a significant surf culture at the Jersey shore (yeah we call it the shore). I have spent many summer weekends hanging on the beaches of Belmar, Avon, Bradley Beach, Mantoloking, Point Pleasant, and Long Beach Island (LBI). The water isn't blue and warm like the Caribbean but it's nice and not disgusting or dirty.

Let's talk about Hoboken for a sec. It is the town where J and I were living when we met and it's even closer to NYC than Englewood:

Cool things about Hoboken:

The PATH train to NYC
Oddfellows serves Abita Purple Haze
So many cool bars (though there are plenty of cheezy ones *cough* Bahama Mamas *cough*)
More delicious Italian food then any reasonable person could ever want to eat
Birthplace of baseball and Frank Sinatra
Beautiful brownstones and railroad apartments
Fun, young residents
Very pedestrian friendly. You don't need a car if you live in Hoboken and work in NYC. And it's a mile square town.

I could say alot more about NJ but I'm gonna let all this soak in. We'll take lots of pics while we are away and post some fun stuff when we get back. In closing I leave you with a photo of the place where Jason and I both worked before we even knew each other (Rockefeller center). We probably took the same train to work everyday and ate at the same food court on our lunch breaks. Life is crazy.

another goodwill find

2008-05-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

happy May Day, world! only four days to Cinco de Mayo, where we "honor our Mexican brothers" by drinking tequila and dos equis while learning or remembering nothing of Mexican culture or history. isn't it AWESOME how all holidays are really just fodder for the big corporations to sell us products? after all, we're not "customers" we're "consumers", right? consumers of, say... margarita mix and tortilla chips.

on the radio this morning they were discussing whether or not we're in a recession, which is just such a ridiculous premise. recent stats indicate that consumer spend increased last month by four-tenths of a percent (00.4%). all these jackasses are pointing to that to say "hey look everyone we're GROWing! yeah!" which is .... I mean, PR for a turd is just stupid. I don't care how much you tell me that a certain turd is awesome - my nose still works and it still smells like a turd, you know?

as it turns out, most of the increased spend last month ("growth") was due to inflation, which is caused by to the falling value of the dollar, which is hurt by the fed's continued cutting of interest rates. the actual true "growth" was only one-tenth of one percent (00.1%). the economy - I believe the technical term for it - is "in the shitter". I don't know if that translates to the dictionary definition of "recession" or not, and I don't care. it costs me "too much" for a tank of gas and it costs "more than it's supposed to" for food because it takes gas to transport food and if you need to fly somewhere then you're "screwed" because jet fuel costs have gone up faster than regular gas.

if you're responsible for the lousy state of our economy then I say "screw you".

anyhow, forget all that. this past weekend we visited the almighty Goodwill once again. it was a fairly routine visit, plenty of searching but not much buying. one thing we DID pick up, though, was this little guy:

it's as it appears, a sturdy & rustic little trunk. all the hardware on it works perfectly and it only cost us $12. it's probably due for a paint job, but will be great to store Fenix's books or toys or whatever, and since it's wood it's right up our alley for things we like.

sorry about all that rambling 'bout the economy. happy May Day!

Sleep

2008-05-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

We're up to 6 hours and 15 minutes before eating, then another 90 minutes or so in the crib after eating. Both are improvements, though we're definitely in the "baby steps" phase at this point.

we're getting there!

sleeping update

2008-04-30T08:43:00.001-07:00

As discussed previously, this is the week where we’re going for broke with getting little man to sleep through the night. So far, mixed results. Last night brought us one large step forward and one small step back.

Large step forward, we’re up to SIX consecutive hours of him all by himself in the crib, 2 hours more than his previous record. That’s not six consecutive hours without crying – HAHAHAHA – but one step at a time, right?

Small step back, due to his off-and-on crying for those six hours, he only made it until 3:30am or so before needing to eat. Which is pretty understandable as it takes a lot more energy to scream and cry than it does to sleep on Mommy.

Anyway, we’re getting there. We are getting there, right? Please let us be getting there.

Here’s picture goodness from a recent diaper change. To keep it g-rated he’s rocking the loincloth.

Sleeping update

2008-04-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

2 days ago Wife wrote about our (mis)adventures trying to get little man to sleep through the night. we spent 2 hours that night getting up every 20 minutes to comfort and console and SHHHHH and ho-boy was that fun.

well, we tried it again last night. considering how well the previous night went, we figured that we'd go to bed earlier, so we'd have more stamina and could fight him for longer. and that worked! we fought him for twice as long, for about four hours. after that point we gave up and he slept on Mommy for the rest of the night. so, continued progress in that he didn't eat for the whole overnight . . . but he still had to sleep on Mom, so, you know, that sucked.

as a result of his tumultuous night last night his mood today has been SUPER CRANK, and of course we are just exhausted. he fell asleep on my chest tonight after dinner and I was just soooo tired that I gave up and took a nap along with him. I'm sure I'll need the energy for tonight.

So here it is, 8:30 and we're gearing up for round three. parenthood is awesome and everything, but this... this sucks.

Trader Joes

2008-04-28T21:55:00.002-07:00

I wish there was a trader joe's within walking distance from my house. do you shop at trader joe's? if not - if it's not even something you've thought of before - then you should get with the program. they're an eclectic grocery store. they definitely don't have everything - I've never successfully purchased breadcrumbs from tj's - but the stuff they do have - my oh my.

they're generally on the smaller side - they are a "market" not a "supermarket". but there's still produce and meats and cheeses and vitamins and shampoo and beer and wine.

the things that sets them apart are
... lots of food that's heat and eat that's not terrible for you OR disgusting. you're still supposed to cook all your meals and not eat from a box, but on the night when you're just not going to cook no matter what, this is better than the fast food option by miles and miles.
... 2 gallon apple juice jugs for five bucks - good apple juice, too, the cloudy stuff
... many organic choices for meats and cheeses and dairy and all kinds of stuff like that. why in the world do products have to be labeled if they're organic? it should be the other way around. "made with poison!" or "toxins added - no extra charge!". so messed up.
... beer and wine - many a yummy wine can be found at tj's in the $5 range. plus lots of beers
... there's many more, but I have to end the post at some point so I'll go with tj's brands - they don't make their own (whatever), but they partner up with some sweet companies for some awesome products. you kind of have to comparison shop and shop at other places and overspend to truly appreciate what they bring to the table in this regard, but trust me.

anyhoo, shop at trader joe's & live better. be good!

S is for sleeping (through the night!!!!!)

2008-04-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

Holy crap I think it's really happening. Fenix slept from 10 pm til 6:30 am last night! Now I should mention that Feeny McG cosleeps. We actually have an Arms Reach mini cosleeper but he refuses to sleep in it nowadays. He insists on being held. If you try to put him down to sleep in the cosleeper at night he wakes up screaming in short order.

So last night we tried to make him sleep in the cosleeper because I could really use a solid night of sleep and I haven't had one in months. Also my back is killing me from sleeping with 13 lbs of baby on my chest. Well he was having none of that. He would fall asleep, then we would place him in the cosleeper and then within a minute or so he would start screaming. We would try to shush him back to sleep, turn up the white noise on the sound machine, and give him a paci but that was a waste of time because he just would scream more and more. So we finally would pick him up and get him to calm down and fall back to sleep. Well take all that and repeat it 3 more times and that's how the first 2 hours of bedtime went for us last night. Oy. On the 4th attempt, I fell asleep trying to calm him down and so did he. When we woke up it was 6:30 am.

So yeah. He slept through the night but it was in my arms. Does that count? God, I'm tired.

april milestones

2008-04-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

April has been a big month for Feeny McG.

He has reached some important (and fun) developmental milestones and he's just gotten to be so cute and funny and interactive. We are having a great time!
This month he rolled over for the first time. Hasn't mastered it yet but he definitely did it. He's also become quite the chatty Cathy. When he babbles I just nod and say "oh really?", "wow, that's great", "yeah, the mariners are sucking it up this year aren't they??"... and so on. This only gets him more worked up and hence, more babbling.

Another cool thing is that he is now able to hold his own bottles, though this is an interesting one because he only does it when he's in the mood. But I have proof that he can do it:

And lastly, we broke down and bought him this gaudy plastic monstrosity called the "Jumperoo". It's absolutely hideous but lord how he loves this thing. I have never seen him more excited. Judge for yourself:

And a video as further evidence:

traffic

2008-04-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Tight spaces

2008-04-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

let me tell you what i'm fucking sick of: people that complain that they have a "small workshop". i read this magazine called family handyman, which is actually a really great rag for someone like me who likes to work in the woodshop and in the house and in the yard and the kitchen and on the family car and all that stuff. recently, though, they had a couple articles titled shit like "solutions for the small workshop" or "small workshop tips and tricks" or some shit. all of these assholes that they profile have 2 car garages as their woodshop or a 15' x 20' outbuilding or some nonsense.

look at this. this is my fucking woodshop:

fuck you, assholes with 2 car garages. if i'm ever lucky enough to have a 2 car garage woodshop, i sure as fuck will not call it a "small shop". I'll call it The Biggest Motherfucking Shop I Could Ever Hope To Have. how about that?

sorry for all the profanity. I'm fucking cranky today.

OK, so here's what happened.

2008-04-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

man I was tired last night. so, so tired. it sucks when I look at the clock when going to bed only to see it show me "11:00" when I know that I'll be up at least once during the overnight to feed His Majesty and my alarm is set for 5:15. that's a discouraging feeling right there, let me tell you. plus with the sleep deprivation from sunday night and monday night and the all day headache on wednesday, i was wrecked by bedtime.

i lay in bed and close my little eyes . . . only to realize that i forgot to blog. damnit. ok. rally the troops. get up. get. up.

ok, get up. up. get up. get. up.

ok, i'm up.

stagger to the living room. didn't even put the glasses on though i can't see worth a damn without them. i only have to make a post and i already have it saved as draft i just have to log in and "publish". get up. i mean, stay up. ok. here we go.

i'm at the couch. i open the laptop. it wakes itself. success so far, thank goodness. ok. nav to the page. stay awake. ok. page is up. i'm doing it, almost do--

machine goes dark. no worky. stay awake. press the button to wake it up. not the power button, the other one. ok. no. wait. what? why...? the screen flashes alive! i'm back in busin--- zzz, machine goes dark. press the button again. nothing. again. nothing.

ok, fuckit. i'm going back to bed. no blog post.

sigh. at least i get to sleep, though not with a clean conscience.

nablopomo fail haiku

2008-04-24T03:14:00.000-07:00

Jason did you blog?
No the computer shut down
Are you kidding me???

Alternate title for this post: "But I was to tired too restart it..."

passive agressive notes

2008-04-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

You should be reading this blog:
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com