notes to the neighborhood

(Los C--- edition) <-- i feel all nineteenth-century doing that.

Dear coffee-brown two-story house,

I admire your decor, with the stonework on the front matching the stone wall around the front yard, and the flowers just outside the wall are wonderful. Most of all, I covet your left-side bougainvillea, the one whose flowers are cream-white with pink tips. I've never seen one like that; it is gorgeous.


Dear pair of adobe-style houses,

I admire what you've done on lots that are half the size of most of the other lots. Did the others used to be your size and everyone else combined them, or did someone split a regular-size lot and build two houses on it? In any case, you left-side house in particular have done a really nice job with the front courtyard with the little fountain, and the bougainvillea (regular bright color flowers) that adds just the right amount of color to the setting. Anyway, good going on your architecture (what I can see of it, anyway).


Dear brick-front house with the gable second-floor windows in the dark-shingled roof,

You remind me of a common look for houses in the Philadelphia suburbs where my husband's family lives. It's a good thing; it means you remind me of vacationing every time I walk past. Though, in general, I feel that the effect of a facing on the front of the house, such as brick or stone, is dissipated somewhat when it doesn't continue around the sides. But I still like you.


Dear little house with the covered porch running the width of the front,

I admire the neatness of your front yard. Your porch looks nice and cozy and is the sort of thing I wish we had on the front of our house, with a few design differences (ours would be above ground-level and wooden railings instead of brick floor/pillars). Thus you inspire me to thoughts of home design every time I walk past, which I enjoy.

-----

Hm. I should perhaps have pictures with this. Maybe I'll manage that soon.

of a feather

The Players: Two kindergarten-age girls, four slightly older boys.
The Setting: upstairs on the play equipment at Walteria Park.

Girl #1 possesses a large black feather that is way too big and fluffy to be from any local bird. It probably fell off someone's hat.

The following is transcribed to the best of my recollection.

Girl #1: Look at my feather! (Goes over and waves feather at group of boys, who are clambering about the connecting chain-net-ladder-thing like a group of little Spidermen.) Isn't it awesome?

Boy #1: The feather is boring.

Boy #2: How old are you?

Girl #2: I'm in kindergarten.

Boy #3: Well, we're in the grades, so there.

Girl #1: The feather is awesome!

Boy #x (possibly more than one): The feather is stupid.

Girl #1 (to Girl #2): Come on. (They go to the other covered portion of the equipment.)

Girl #1: They are stupid and they LIE.

first tooth

Right lower front. Emerged last weekend, seen here on Tuesday in a lucky photo. It's becoming more and more visible above the gum now. Bother, I think this means I have to start brushing it soon.

iconic

the travails of mr. penguin

o, the fickleness of young girl's heart:

four months

of CUTENESS. Not that I'm biased or anything.

since the eagles weren't in it

We all wore Steeler yellow on Sunday, although hers took the form of teeny yellow flowers, which I suspect is slightly atypical as Steeler fan-wear goes.



It is now a trend that when a new generation is born into my husband's family, the Steelers will win the following Super Bowl. It happened with him, and now with our daughter. Steeler Nation: you're welcome.

libra rat with sheep ascendant

This is our daughter(!!!)'s seventh week.



Although these pictures were not taken this week, she still looks pretty much like this.

down the flume

228 to 205 to vote down the bailout. That's 433 out of 435. Not bad considering that my understanding of the daily usual in the House is a few people speaking to an empty hall, aside from the C-SPAN camera and the other few members on the list to talk that day who are still waiting their turn. A bit curious who the missing two are, although not quite curious enough to go search them out.

(Assumption that the information is available somewhere, and probably on the web. Whatever did we do before the Web? Yet it's only existed in its current expanded state for about a decade.)

Heh. The Yahoo link to the AP article is labeled "financial_meltdown". Dudes, y'all ain't seen nothin'. Even a 550+ drop in the Dow, where we are at the moment of writing, is only about 5 percent. The really big slides have been in the double digits. Although, maybe the computers kick in to prevent those happening all in one day now. Guess we'll see where we are in a week.

Interesting times, as they say. I know that's supposed to be a bad thing. I can't help finding it a bit exciting. I should really hold my excitement until I at least have a functioning vegetable garden again. Which, given imminent baby, is unlikely before, oh, ... I have no idea.

one week late

Another nonstress test yesterday. Another round of happy (?) wiggling. I am getting contractions more often the last few days, but nothing has ended up coming of them yet. We set her a deadline, though, for later next week. If she's not out by then, we're a-gonna get her out.

I hope she decides to appear before then though; I'd rather she picked her own date. I know I don't like being interrupted when I'm in the middle of something.

Too bad she didn't pick yesterday; it would have been M's grandfather's birthday, who died just before we discovered I was pregnant. Of all the potential "target" dates in these couple weeks (and there are surprisingly many), that would have been particularly poetic. Ah well.

zero plus four

This would be a fun date for her to pick also: our engagement anniversary. But still no particular signs. I don't think Braxton-Hicks contractions count.

She was perfectly happy (nice and wiggly, anyway) during the nonstress test yesterday. Which is good. At least one of us is comfortable. :p

zero plus two

I confess to harboring a secret hope that she might be born on Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. I know I would have enjoyed that for myself, although I'm happy with my actual birthday which is also my dad's (and a great-grandfather's!). But still no signs so far that she's going to make it out today.

Turns out that those who care as much or more than me about such things have figured out that, due to differences between the hobbits' Shire Reckoning calendar and ours, September 22 in our calendar isn't actually their birthday anyway -- it was September 13, this year (due to this being a leap year). Oh well.

Shire Reckoning, by the way, has always seemed eminently more logical than our cobbled-together Gregorian, but the hobbits' old-school season-based holidays (Midsummer, Yule) that don't belong to any months would, I suppose, confuse too many people used to our modern three-day-shopping-weekend system.

zero hour

So today is/was the due date. So far, it doesn't feel like anything's up today. Considering I myself was nearly two weeks late, this does not greatly surprise me.

I am really rawther ready for her to be out though. She's getting ... big. I am ready for my ankles not to puff up anymore, for it not to be such a chore to roll (literally) out of bed or get up from a chair, for visits to the bathroom to become less frequent, for my regular clothes to fit again (I know I've got a few months yet on that one). I don't know if I'm ready for one or two hour blocks of sleep, or diapering, but ready or not...

At least the house is more ready for her now. Bedrooms were painted several weeks ago. Nursery is ready. Crib, dresser with changing top, glider chair (I'm actually looking forward to trying the nursing, providing we both can get the hang of it OK), a few toys already in the closet along with diapers and various other gear. Clothes, blankets, check. Stroller, car seat, check.

But most of all, it's just the curiosity. I am so very interested to finally meet her.

sock it to me

Baby's getting bigger. Not actually sure where six-ish more weeks of baby/me growth is supposed to go. But I guess this is how it works.

Bigger stronger baby is good, but it does mean that she has begun actually kicking or prodding me in my lower right rib, from time to time, in a rather painful way. As in IT REALLY HURTS. I don't want her to come out until she's ready to, but I am very ready for her to BE out, if you follow me.

...well, except that the nursery's not quite ready yet. We've been playing musical-furniture with the house while we reshuffle and reorganize, and fix things that need fixing, and figure out where everything is going to go. Today we're getting our internet cable moved from the front bedroom (formerly our computer room) to the familyroom, where for the next indeterminate length of time, our computers/desks will sit in the corner all "um, hi, pay no attention to us, just go ahead and watch the TV to your right there, enjoy." Meanwhile M's 40+ shortboxes of comics on their utility shelving are camping to the left of the fireplace, which situation may or may not be altered by the time cold fireplace-using weather arrives. Anyway, after our internet is moved and functional, we can paint the front bedroom. Then we can move our bedroom stuff into it. Then we can paint the nursery-to-be, formerly our bedroom. Then we can move the nursery furniture in and put the crib together and be finally ready.

The plan is for this all to be done by sooner than six weeks from now, so that paint fumes have time to dissipate properly. Seems a reasonable period of time, doesn't it? I think we can, I think we can...