The Average Blogger

Blizzard, Birthday, Bailout

You can be a child of God, or a child of rage, but this child of mine is apparently a child of snow.
I've mentioned before the snowstorm the night he was born -- and the worse snowstorm the day he was going to be inducted if he didn't make deadline. 

There was snow for his first birthday, but not a big deal.

There was no snow for his second birthday, but there was also no plumbing. And we had 20 people at our house.

There was heavy snow when he was 3, and we watched as the entire town descended on Chuck E Cheese when we did.

There was some snow and bowling when he was 4, a little snow and a party when he was 5, and no snow, but lots of ice at a hockey game when he was 6.

And then there was 7.  Great goshamighty.

All week the forecasters were sounding klaxons and flashing red lights.  Lock down! Get food! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOMES AFTER FRIDAY MORNING!

Friday morning, I went to work.  It started snowing juuust as I got on the interstate.  I kept an eye out the window all day. 

Eventually I had to go out.  The Young Prince had requested "White frosting! From a can! Not that stuff you make, the whippy kind!" and I had neglected to get any.  There was also a mixup with some birthday gifts, so I had to do some last-minute shopping on that front too.

It was still really warm -- I left my jacket undone. Snow wasn't sticking yet, and it was early afternoon.  I found the gifts, bought some lunch and headed back to the office.

Without the frosting, of course.

So I went back out at 3, and although the ground was still clear, it was getting colder. Plus, the wind was pretty crazy. You could turn any direction and it was still blowing snow smack into your face. I was unhappy to find that the first drug store only had chocolate frosting. I went to the one across a diagonal block, and bought the Last. Can.  -- blinded the whole way by big fat flakes bashing me in the eyeballs. 

I left work at 4:30 or so.  I got home with McDonald's for the family around 5:40.  This is because the interstate was deserted and the road was quite clear -- but once I got off the interstate the roads were terrible and visibility was quickly decreasing.

Error Number One: I call home and tell Not Your Average Blogger that I'm going to park at the top of the driveway. "Oh, don't do that. The plows will just come by and bury you."  So I park at the bottom, in the usual spot.

Error Number Two: Power outages were predicted.  In a display of hubris, I was sure if I baked the cake Friday night for Sunday consumption, we'd have power galore.

Still Friday night was nice. We watched a movie, I frosted the cake, we all went to bed.

8:30 next morning, we heard "Hum, click-click-click" as our cable and Sleep-Number bed informed us the power had gone out. This was quickly followed up by the YP barging into our room and announcing the lights were out.  Error Two deployed. 

The power magically returned at 11:30.  We scrambled to wash dishes, crank up the heat to 75 so the house will be warmer when the power goes out again, and throw some snow-soggy clothes in the dryer.

Error Number Three: NYAB decides to put pork chops in the crockpot instead of flash-frying them. 

Annnd, the power goes out again at 1:30.  

For whatever reason, NYAB decided to pass the time by reading aloud from the book he's currently working on. About the Donner party.  This was not helpful.  All that cold imagery and descriptions of 30-foot snowdrifts did nothing to warm my soul.

We moved up the kid's birthday celebration to alleviate powerless boredom. Fortunately, none of his gifts required electricity.

After another couple hours, we concluded that huge amounts of food would be ruined if we didn't do something, so we dumped the contents of our fridge on the deck and the contents of the crockpot into a cast-iron pot and threw that in the fireplace. 

Dinner was fantastic, though we took no photos. Error Three corrected.

The cake was a success.

Once it started to get dark, we dragged all our bedding down in front of the fire, lit some candles, told stories, and entertaine ourselves til it was the kid's bedtime. 

We brought in buckets of snow to melt for non-drinking water use, watched as the first snowplow of the night took a first pass at our street, and went to bed. 

Next morning we woke up early and started digging our way out. We only have one snow shovel, so we took turns -- not a huge rush, just to get started on the job.  I went to see if the neighbors had a spare, and was told it might be Tuesday before we had power. 

Well.  I had to be online for work at 4:30 Monday morning. That wasn't going to do.

So after that, we shoveled a bit faster.

At about 1 p.m., we were halfway up our driveway.  The kid came out and rolled some snowballs, but he wasn't a lot of help and we sent him back inside to watch the fire and make sure the house didn't burn down.

At 1:30, some guy with a snowblower showed up and did our neighbor's driveway.  As he was trundling it back down our street, I stopped him.

"How much??"
"To go all the way down?!?"
"Nah, just to where the car is. Halfway down."
"Oh. Twenty bucks?"
"SOLD!"

I gave the guy $30.  And he did in 15 minutes what would have taken us another 3 hours.  Talk about having the right tool for the job -- and he cut a path to our mailbox.  Best $30 I ever spent.

After that, we packed up, buried the food in a bit more snow, inhale a bit more smoke from the fireplace -- the whole house reeks -- and decamped for a hotel. With power. And wifi. And a pool.

And a jacuzzi.  My shoulders were shot last night but they feel muuuuch better today. 

The YP has dubbed this, "the birthday of Lights Out."   I call it, "the Donner Birthday Party." 

Of course, upon arriving here, I heard from a neighbor that our power had come back on a couple hours after we left.  We'll go back today to see if we have cable/internet/etc., or if I will be putting in another early morning shift at the hotel.

Regardless, nobody will be picking up our trash for a while.

Is It Still a Party if Nobody Shows?

I wouldn't know the answer to that actually, since all my hale and hearty neighbors did show up for our annual cookiefest last weekend, but  this is as close as I've ever come to having the game called on account of anything.

What got in the way? Well, first, the Senate decided to be a bunch of prideful twits and convene a jillion weekend sessions.  Then Mother Nature decided to be a prideful twit and dump 2 feet of snow on us.  So between those two things, it's hardly surprising that nobody ventured to make the 40-plus mile drive out on Saturday afternoon.  Even if they had, our road didn't get plowed, so they would have had to walk at least the last half-mile or so.

As it turned out, this was a good thing.  For one thing, I wound up having to do a number of things for work while the poor woman on call tried to get home before the subway closed. Then the YP and NeighborGirl went out and flopped around in the snow for a bit, and then the kid came in and went promptly to bed -- getting out of it only to throw up intermittently, and to come down and wanly say hello to the neighbors when they showed up for the evening portion of our party.   On Sunday he was still barfy, and the house was so, so quiet. It would have been enjoyable if not for the niggling urge every four minutes or so to go up and see if he was still breathing. NYAB and I took advantage of this relative peace to slalom the car up the driveway and to watch a few movies.

Turns out his bug was a doozy -- he was still sick Monday, so NYAB took him to the doctor while I went through another round of Senate votes. Doc said he was dehydrated (really? Go figure!)  and that if he continued to barf he would need to get an IV stuck in him.  NYAB brought him home and we tried to pump him full of Pedialyte, which of course didn't work as I only remembered to go up and tell him to drink every 40 minutes or so.  When he threw up the second time that afternoon, I handed off work to another colleague and went upstairs and monitored so that he took a sip every 5 minutes. That did the trick, he went from cracked and pale to flushed and irritable in a little over an hour.  Meanwhile, his malady ... moved south. Ugh. Still, easier to deal with than barf.

It is now Thursday and he is only now beginning to resemble his normal self. Yesterday he was still somewhat cranky and rather weepy, and wound up crashing for a 6 hour nap at about 4.  Though perhaps he was worn out by the excitement of the Christmas tree trying to commit suicide -- twice -- by toppling over and smashing several lights and ornaments, including some we'd had since I was at least 3, and possibly had been in my -- dad's? mom's? -- family longer than that. Apologies to whichever parental unit's memories just got destroyed.

Meanwhile, it is Christmas Eve and I was up at 5:30 for what I hope will be my last morning of work for a week and a half, and after I update the site one more time tomorrow, I'm done done done.  Since I've worked in some capacity every day for I can't even remember how long at this point -- it feels like Thanksgiving was the last day I didn't touch anything office-related, but that's probably wrong -- I'm ready.  I hate the Senate. I really do.

So tonight I will wrap a jillion presents and go to bed late.  And tomorrow we will get up way early to see what Santa hath wrought.  And the next day we get up before sunrise to go to the airport. And then, weather and travel gods willing, we will wing our way to Hawaii by way of Atlanta and Salt Lake City.  Part of me is sorely tempted to just spend the entire time there sleeping, but I have a feeling once I get there and see vistas with no effing snow, I will perk right up and get moving.

Is it terribly wrong that I am sincerely hoping that the BlackBerry won't work there?

See you in 2010, y'all, when I am tanned and rested.  

Holiday Post

Along with the usual things of health, hearth, kith and kin, this year I am thankful for:

All those people I know who are the "shut up and do it" type -- not just for shutting up and doing it, but for reminding me that this attitude is also exactly how to cope with the Other Type.

The days I can sleep until noon.

The evenings I can drink myself silly-not-stupid.

My leafblower.  No, SERIOUSLY.

Facebook and its ease of communication with just the right amounts of exposure.

All the folks on the front lines and in the back rooms and working the graveyard shifts who make it possible for me to enjoy the sloth and convenience of the previous items.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Working for the Weekend...

So, last weekend was a weekend of rest.

This weekend, we have Not Your Average Blogger's sister, Indiana, and her son, Eddie, visiting.  It's been a quiet sort of visit with hours of euchre and poker, punctuated by golf and ice cream.  If we get off our asses we will see the Museum of American History this afternoon.  Then again, maybe we'll take naps instead.

Next weekend is the big high school reunion proving I am old and every bit as uncool as I was 20 years ago. Hopefully it will also prove I have a much better sense of humor about it.  It's shaping up to be a whirlwind schedule.  We (meaning me, NYAB, the Young Prince, and our faux pair,) leave Thursday night and drive to Fayettville. Friday I will get up early and do the 5 a.m. stuff for work, then we will drive to Orlando.  Friday night we are going to swank it up in a Disney resort and I'm very excited to see my friend Bald Owl for the first time in 20 years and assuming all goes well, have the longest In Real Life conversation we've ever had.  This won't take much doing, as the longest IRL conversation we've had to date probably consisted of, "Are you using that chair?" "Uh, no, you can take it."

Saturday we spend the morning at the Helliest Place on Earth -- taking the monorail from our hotel concourse right into the park! -- and then leaving late afternoon for the drive to Plant City and our PC-posh hotel (hahaha! where we have a suite! hahaha! assuming they didn't screw up the reservation! hahaha!) and a visit with the neighbor who watched me be uncool through high school.  Then NYAB and I will hit the reunion while the YP and the faux pair live it up in the hotel pool, or with the DS player, or ... I don't know. Hopefully they don't set the building on fire.

Sunday we leave early-early and drive northish to Atlanta-ish, where we will have dinner with friends Kat and Harold and hopefully JC.  I haven't seen Kat since she left Texas, Harold since I left Florida, or JC since I got married. So that should all be very entertaining.

Monday we drive home.

Then a week of work.

And then, on August 1, we take the YP to his first big-league arena-venue musical extravaganza: We're sitting in not-nosebleed seats to see Paul McCartney.  I've never seen him in concert either, so at least one of us will appreciate it. NYAB saw Sir Paul before, but that was when he was married to his previous wife and I'm sure he will have more fun this time -- or at least he will say he did. At first I was waffling on the wisdom of this purchase, but when it occurred to me we've spent a lot more money on Red Sox tickets than we'd be spending for this, I couldn't resist.

What better way to kick of congressional recess?

The Young Prince Is Six Today

Dear YP:

I keep wondering when you will be old enough to start reading and comprehending all the stuff I write here, and when you will start howling at my laying bare your many exploits for the whole world to see. 

I am inclined to think that won't happen, as you have long displayed a fairly exhibitionist streak –  ever since you started walking, pretty much, with the notable milestone at age 2 where you horrified the neighbor one afternoon by slithering through the open door where we were talking and streaking across the front yard.  It was autumn, and cold, and you were stark naked and a half-acre away before you decided to come back. And I know you have an inordinate fascination with seeing yourself on the Internet; you were nearly as obsessed with flickr as you were with starwars.com for a while there.

I feel sort of dumb marking your milestones in text … it’s like I’m signing a yearbook. Hey! Well, it's been a great six years, we had fun! Stay sweet! Have an awesome summer!

Honestly, it’s been an overwhelming six years. Longer than that, even. I remember finding out you were going to be a boy and being horrified. I didn’t know anything about boys! Nobody in my family had boys! I was predestined to completely screw you up because all I knew about little boys was that they were obnoxious twits who liked to run around and yell a lot.  I called my grandma, who’d had the last boy –- my uncle, my mom's brother, the guy who lived with us and stuck a lizard in my face when he was out of college and I was in kindergarten. And she said boys were easier and I would be fine and that I'd see, it was going to be more fun than I'd ever had. But, see, she’d had your grandma for a daughter. I get the feeling that having a Tasmanian devil as a second child would have been easier.  I finally decided that it was just all going to be up to your dad to make sure you got whatever little boys needed. 

He’s done a damn fine job, I think.  And I’m thinking my grandma had to be right, because I think my ratio in raising you has been about 90-6-4 in terms of laughter to rage to panic.

And for all the aggravation, for all the hair I pull out over you acting up in school, for all the times I yell at you for not listening, not focusing, not sitting up or sitting down or sitting still – dude, you are so much more than I ever would have dreamed of asking for.  You are funny, yet considerate of others’ feelings. You are fearless unless it is a food you’ve never tried. You are enthusiastic and impatient and bossy and independent and you hate it when other people act just like you.

And you are smart. You read more – and harder things --  than I did at your age. You can add into double digits. You connect facts and ideas and remember things that blow my mind. You are way more cognizant of world events than I was. I remember turning six. I remember kindergarten. And I was pretty sharp. I was ahead of the other kids in my grade. I wasn’t a patch on what you are.  Except I think I was better at sitting down and shutting up.  But you’d have to ask your grandma. She’d probably say no, just to spite me.

You have excellent taste in movies. You are the only kid I know who saw Army of Darkness and said, “Hey! That’s what the robot said in Day the Earth Stood Still! Did you hear that Mama? Did you?” And then laughed hysterically for the next half hour, and at the end of the movie demanded to see it again immediately.

We have so much fun together and even when you’re howling furious at me it is clear that you understand it isn’t forever and that we will both get over it and sure enough, 10 minutes later you have called me up into your room because a really great song came on the iPod you hijacked from me after giving it to me for Mother’s Day and you want someone to dance with.

I hope you keep hugging me.  You hug me and I tell you it is the best part of my day. You agree and then you give me extra hugs and kisses for my pockets and tell me to be sure and take them out when I’m at work and need to be happy. I don’t know where you got this, but I absolutely love it. And then you spill your water on the floor. And I don’t even care.

Six years has flown by.  I remember your dad and I used to wonder what you’d sound like when you would talk. It never occurred to us that what you’d have to say would be this interesting this soon.

I hope you’re having as much fun as we are. Happy birthday, little man.

Let Us Not Wallow in the Valley of Despair

Rather, the Blogger household celebrates and educates.

At dinner last night:
YP: I don't have to go to school tomorrow!
Me:That's right. Do you know why?
YP:  Nope. I just know I don't have to go.
NYAB: Oh, you do so understand why you have the day off. Whose birthday is January 15?
YP: Ummmm. Martin Luther King?
NYAB: Right. And we celebrate him when?
YP: The 19th, I guess.
NYAB: Close enough.
Me: Do you know why we celebrate him?
YP: Because he was one of the good guys?
Me: Nice try. What'd he do?
YP: Ummm. He had a dream.
Me: Yes. A dream of what?
YP: I don't know.

So we had a big long talk about civil rights and justice and segregation and discrimination and Rosa Parks and the whole ball of wax.

YP: I never had any dreams like that. I just have dreams about movies.
Me: Well, he didn't really mean like he went to sleep one night and this all came to him while he was sleeping. He meant a dream like he really wanted to see it happen one day.
YP: And it did!
Me: Yeah. But he didn't get to see it. And some would argue that's not true yet.
YP: Huh?
NYAB: Oh, let it go. It's all blablabla to him now. And he needs to get ready for bed.
YP: Can't I watch a movie first?

This morning, as I'm working and NYAB is sleeping:
YP: I don't have to go to school today!
Me: That's right. Do you remember why?
YP: Martin Luther King!
Me: And why do we celebrate him?
YP: Justice! Civil rights! Dreams! Freedom!
Me: Yes.
YP: ... Hey, do we have any movies about him?

Tabula Rasa

I hope all y'all had very safe and happy new year's celebrations. Ours was pleasant and low-key, catching up on the latest exploits of a friend we see all too infrequently, and mocking ABC's attempt to ring in the new year. Seriously, Dick Clark needs to just ... stop.  It'd probably be fine if he just smiled and waved, but let's not make make the poor man talk. 

Speaking of traditions that need to be retired ... is anyone else delighted that these are going the way of the dodo?

Christmas Foodie Tradition

I hope you and yours had a happy merry holiday. Ours was swamped with twisted USB cords, tiny game cards, and lots and lots of books.  I got a new iPod, with mega-memory that will hold allllll our CDs. The kid got a Nintendo DS.  Not Your Average Blogger got the entire history of Holy Land excavations. Ergo, an extended bloggy absence.  That, and a couple outings.

I think y'all know I'm pretty fond of my kid, and we drag him along to a lot of things that maybe other people wish we'd leave him home. (Including him, probably.)  DInners out. The theater. Occasional forays to the office.  So far this season he's been out for dinner twice and sat through the Nutcracker.

So we left him home when I gave NYAB and early birthday gift of tickets to West Side Story. This is a greater gift than you might think, because honestly, of all the musicals on earth, this one is probably the only one I will mock openly and without restraint. People, I had to bite a hole in my tongue to keep from laughing until the first intermission.  NYAB got up to use the facilities and I got all my rants out of my system by sending snarky Bberry messages to Best Boss Ever.  NYAB returned, with the following conversation:

"OK, you can't laugh about this ANY MORE.  Even Russ Grimm is here."
"Huh? How do you know?"
"Because I saw him."
"Well, did you talk to him? What did you say?"
"I said, 'Hey, you're Russ Grimm!'"
"And what did he say, 'Yes, but don't tell anyone you saw me here?'"
"NO. He just said yes and shook my hand."

So that was all nice and fun and good.

But last night was one of my favorite Christmas traditions -- the one wherein we ditch the kid with a sitter and go have dinner at the Willard Hotel.  It is lavish and decadent and represents the one time a year that I eat and drink expensively without a lot of regard to how much I'm spending or whether I finish everything on my plate to make it worth the price.

It's fan-friggin'-tastic, man. Last night was no exception.

Last year was a $45 glass (yes, GLASS) of champagne.  Last night was two mint juleps.No photos, because it is very dark in the Willard and the drink is very dark and all the photos came out looking like a glass of iced sewer water with a lemon peel on top and that is just not fair.

(A word about the mint julep. I first encountered this drink in literature -- The Great Gatsby -- in my early teens and it sounded sooooo good. Doesn't it? Like it is ice and mint ice cream and chocolate and little bits of cotton candy and pixie dust, right?  So imagine my disappointment when my 16-year-old self is in New Orleans with my parents at a very lax-on-IDs bar and upon ordering one I'm presented with a glass of bourbon and some chunked up mint leaves in a glass with some ice cubes. Whaaa? I made a very sad face. My mother laughed. I think my father drank it for me. Fast forward 21 years, and I am pre-theater dining in the very hotel where the drink was invented. Heck, sez I, it's been 20 years. And I like bourbon. Let's take a shot. People, it was soooo good. It is mint leaves and crushed ice and bourbon and little bits of crunchy sugar and drunky dust. So when we are there for dinner a week later, I get two. Yessss.)

Aside from drinks, we had an amuse-bouche of foie gras cappuccino. It tasted about as you'd expect. The bread was better, imho. I had duck canneloni for an appetizer and NYAB did not eat the venison he ordered as it showed up looking a bit like a slice of spam on a plate.  But the main courses didn't disappoint -- NYAB had sea bass and I had prime rib. At that point neither of us was particularly interested in dessert, but we glanced over the menu and didn't really see anything to change our mind. (Especially since I was pretty sure that Best Babysitter Ever and the YP had made cookies in our absence.) So we called it a night.

It was an odd night for dining companions, however.

First, there was the guy dining alone at the table next to ours -- RIGHT next to ours -- who engaged both us and the couple at the table on the other side of him in occasional conversation. It was sort of sad yet annoying. I mean, I'm a big proponent of being nice to those dining alone, but if I want to invite them to my table I do so. And when I'm dining alone -- I take a book, I don't expect the people around me to take me in like an orphan.

Second, apparently it was dress-up night for the DAR or the Ladies of the Confederacy or something, because as we were wrapping up with the check and whatnot a slew of creakity old men in tails and dickeys came in accompanying a swirl of ladies in hoopskirts and ringlets and lace shawls and feathers. I am not even kidding. It was bizarre, but it made for a nice backdrop as their outfits were a nice match for the Willard's chandeliers and heavy oak partitions.  No photos -- I couldn't bring myself to be quite that obviously rude -- even if I did have to choke a laugh into a cough when one old guy dumped his water glass into his plate.

Happy Merry...

Been too busy in actual reality participating in new and old traditions to post in virtualland...

We went to the local Christmas light festival for the fourth year running, and for the first time braved the "winter wonderland" carnival too. Won't be doing that again. Brrr. Who needs a Ferris Wheel when it is 18 degrees out? Noooo.

The Young Prince experienced his first Nutcracker ballet. His favorite part was the battle, natch. He did a pretty good job of being still through the whole thing, though that intermission couldn't come soon enough.

Ditched the kid with Favorite Neighbor Girl Babysitter yesterday and celebrated Not Your Average Blogger's birthday early by going to see West Side Story.  Meh.

Tomorrow we go see the White House tree and possibly a spin through Georgetown to see the decorations, followed up by the apparently-now-a-tradition Christmas Eve pizza/baked ziti at our favorite Italian place in Falls Church.

And the next day is the big day. The YP is pretty wound up already. I'm not sure he will sleep at all that night. Fortunately, no gifts this year require hours of construction effort, so it's not like he'll hear us jamming our thumbs and smashing our fingers and swearing all night even if he is awake.

More in the afterglow. Best wishes, y'all!

Holy Halloween, Batman!

So, last night I got home from work at 7.  The boys got into costume, and we hit the neighborhood.

And with two exceptions, nobody was home. (Or, I was told today, one group was home, but they didn't hear the doorbell. Fishy!) We met our new next-door-neighbors-once-removed as they were leaving, and I decided immediately that we would heart them forever because they very sweetly and excitedly got out of their car when they saw us in their driveway and fixed the YP right up before heading out.

As we were coming back from our sixth darkened home, we saw some other neighbors getting back from dinner, and they were amused to see the YP and NYAB decked out.

Well. Two houses. That wouldn't do, no, not for a second.  So while NYAB finished up his work, I packed the kid into the car and drove him over to one of the few new housing developments around here that doesn't have a guardpost at the front gate and he made quite the haul. 

And then we went to the grocery store and to McDonald's and he was tickled to death that he got to go rambling around these mundane places in his costume, and he sang the Batman theme as loudly as he could.

But I think he definitely got the picture that next year he needs to get invited for sugar-panhandling in the high-rent district by some of his little Gated Community Friends from school.  Especially when you see what he got from one household:

Yes. Top ramen. What you don't see is that it is in a ziploc with a packet of pretzels on the other side, so clearly someone put some thought into this and it wasn't just, "Oh, I ran out of candy..." or "Hey, I'm a starving college student and this is all I've got..."  I just laughed and laughed when I saw it, whereas the YP was just very confused. I said, "Do you want to eat that first?" And he looked at it dubiously and said he didn't think he wanted to eat it AT ALL.  Instead, he opted for the traditional Tootsie Roll:

I am not sure I agree with his choice, though at least that did leave the KitKats for me and a Reese's cup for NYAB.  Heh.