six cats in the yard

We looked forward to our visit to SF for Quinton & Alex for months, and having had a trip to Tennessee for Leigh’s dad’s funeral the month before, we knew that Maddie would weather the trip well…except for the fact that we got in to Oakland after 11pm and didn’t get to the hotel until after midnight. Totally screwed up her sleep so that was a hard lesson learned.

All in all, however, it was a terrific trip with too few pictures and too little time spent with many of Leigh’s and my good friends. It was wonderful to show off little Maddie, and just as wonderful to leave her with a terrific nanny for a few hours of downtime, especially after two days of very fussy baby not so down with napping all of a sudden. 

We took a trip to Japantown for some culture, Korean food and Q&A’s wedding gift. 

 We ate breakfast at what apparently is an SF institution, Mel’s Diner. And managed to have some breakfast before she broke down the first day, and while she was sleeping the third day.

We were able to meet up with Leigh’s good friend Jeff and his wife and kids at the Exploratorium. Though she’ll likely have no memory of her time there, Maddie will be able to see herself in some good pics. I can see how parents would want season passes to this place. You can’t possibly take it all in over the course of a single visit and there’s no way to stay longer than a couple of hours before you go through system overload.

Neither of us really wanted to leave when it was time, especially because it meant that I had to start working and Leigh had to go back to work. Ah well. 

 I’m a little late in posting this particular bit and will likely let the photos do most of the talking. It was a very wonderful, unexpectedly sunny day in Seattle and Stephanie, who is the most generous friend for hosting not only my 30th birthday party when it occurred, but she also threw our wedding shower and then offered to throw us a baby shower as well. I still haven’t come up with an appropriate way to say “thank you” (at least a massage gift cert is in order I think). 

It was so nice to see all of those who were able to make it. I think the kids actually may have outnumbered (or at least equalled) the adult population.

My friend Mark, who, like us, was surprised by his partner’s own pregnancy, brought his new family with him…two very cute little girls under 5, I think! It’s been good training for him because I’d be willing to bet his girlfriend has another girl (she knows the gender, but he doesn’t).

Mary & Thomas, Nirmala & Donald, Stephanie’s mom Anne, Jill & Mattson with their two toddlers, and Colin & Hye Jung with their brood as well all made the festivities well worth the drive from Hood River just by coming to celebrate the event.  

Hopefully we won’t have to wait for another baby to see everyone again! And it’s been so long since the day, that I have to ask apologies in advance if I forgot anyone who came!

After waffling for several days about whether or not to make the trip to Florence for the Ginsberg annual OCF trip, I felt good enough to be gung-ho about sleeping on the ground while being 9 months pregnant. I pulled together emergency numbers (just in case) for Eugene hospitals and checked with my doctor and midwife that there were no obvious signs of impending labor (not that it couldn’t happen at the drop of a hat at this point), made sure that Leigh had all the same numbers and managed to get on the road with a lot of energy. By the time I got to the site that night at 6:30, however, and set up the tent and the air mattress by myself (Leigh couldn’t make it until the next night), I was ready for the inevitable 2-hour nap!

It was so nice to spend the night under the stars with the pine smell and the cool coastal breeze as a remedy for the insufferably hot Gorge weather that’s been a little overwhelming the last week or so. The first night I managed to say hi to Stephanie & her brother’s crew and that was about it before I hit the tent and actually slept pretty damn well for having to struggle to get my big fat belly and ass off the ground to get up to pee at least 3 or 4 times that night. 

I felt good enough the next morning to contemplate spending a few hours wandering around the always colorful Country Fair. For those of you who have never been or never heard of it, it’s basically a giant hippie fest that’s been going on for almost 40 years. There used to be a lot more nudity and a lot stronger smells of the Ganja, but nowadays they bill it as “family fare”. However, if you are part of a family that gets shocked and easily offended by nudity and some raunchy costumes, you will not be very happy. When I was growing up, a lot of people in town (usually from Springfield) would go to twitter and turn red at the spectacle of naked men and women. Ah well. There’s a ton of good food (Ritta’s burritos all the way), lively and friendly attitude, and beautiful, artistic displays of individuality. Highly recommend a trip. Plus the crafts and clothes are unique if not expensive.

The only thing I bought besides a lot of food and lemonade, was a painted belly:

I had two very respectable looking men stop me and ask quite politely if they could take my picture. I also got a lot of thumbs up and very joyful looks. I saw one woman pointing at me and telling her friend that that was going to be one happy baby, she could tell just from the sunflower on my expanding belly. And, the funniest thing was when a mother and father pointed me out to their 5 or 6-year-old son to tell him that the first time he’d come to the fair he’d been about as old as the baby in my belly. The little boy looked a little skeptical and unsure as to what to do with the information. But his parents looked so thrilled to be able to be telling him this that I couldn’t help but laugh with them. It was a celebration for me of the growing being I am carrying, but it was also nice to know that my act of “exposure” brought some amount of joy and happy amusement to others.

I know that when I started this blog, I promised to update people on what we’ve been doing over the last year since the wedding. Since my internship didn’t allow for any additional time off, we decided to take only a few days for a honeymoon right after the wedding. I hadn’t really spend any time on the California coast, so, after much agonizing over “the perfect place,” we found St. Orres in the teeny tiny town of Gualala. A few miles south of Mendocino, the town is apparently an artist’s community. And the cabins we stayed in were affiliated with the spectacular architectural oddity that was the main hotel. It was started by a chef and her partner from San Francisco, so you know the food had to be delicious. We didn’t actually eat at the restaurant, but every morning we had the most elegantly laid out picnic basket with quiche and homemade granola and fresh fruits. It was lovely and tasty and delivered to our doorstep every morning.

There weren’t any events in particular during the week we were there, so we mainly entertained ourselves, wandered around town, and hung out on the beach during the day and the hot tub at night. I taught Leigh how to play the name game, where you have to take the last letter of the last name (first name? first letter of one or the other?) and come up with a famous person. We played that game up in Alaska on the fishlines while we were trying to ignore the fact that our hands and our feet were freezing, that we were bored out of our minds, that we still had another 15 hours on shift and that we had volunteered to do it…

I spent time reading on the deck one day while Leigh was napping and looked up at one point to find a rather large turkey sitting on the railing across the deck from me, staring intently in my direction. By the time I found the camera, she was gone, as were all of her little turklets.

The last night before we left, we had dinner at one of the local restaurants, Pangaea Cafe. I was drawn in by the artwork on the roadside sign; it looked quirky. Situated directly on the main drag (Hwy 1), Pangaea was in a small house where they packed in tables and diners in a cozy setting. It turned out to be exactly what we’d hoped. It supports the local organic growers and tailors its menu to what can be had locally & in season. I wish I’d been taking more pictures, because now I can’t remember exactly what it was I ate. I just know that it was incredible. I highly recommend a stop if you’re coming up or down the North Coast of CA.

Just a small photo that I forgot to add to the other KY post. I thought this one was a funny juxtaposition of old/new

I spent a couple of days in Lexington KY learning how to be an equine dentist. We had countless instructors, which meant that we learned countless ways to do the job. And that’s a good thing because sometimes you start to think that, in vet medicine, if you don’t do things a certain way, you’re either going overboard or you’re not doing enough or just doing the wrong thing, god forbid and you are a bad doctor.

The best part was that I was able to visit with a lot of other vets that felt the same way I did: completely clueless as to how to take on the task of dentistry — even with vets that had been doing dental floats for years.

I should probably explain just what equine dentistry entails: You sedate the horse, put a giant speculum in its mouth (see the pictures below), and then shove a loud, vibrating grinder into their mouths and grind down points (sharp edges along the cheek teeth) or hooks (points on the front/back molars), along with correcting some other strange abnormalities. It’s pretty bizarre and, personally, I’ve scared myself into believing that until I perfect it, I’d better not try it. However, the only way to perfect it is to just do it.

One of the best parts of the conference, though, was the opportunity to just fly somewhere and meet & hang out with some like-minded people and drink beer.

Some highpoints:
• If you’re ever in Lexington, I recommend A La Lucie’s downtown; great food and with a strange French(?) atmosphere. The woman I went with later said she read that it was supposed to be Lexington’s most romantic restaurant.

• Another good restaurant was the Cheapside; very good portobello mushroom ravioli with pecan pesto (mmmm) but not so good margaritas (stick with the beer)

• I also saw Stephen Baldwin in the Chicago airport! He looked very scruffy, but it was definitely him.