05.31.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:04 am by Anne

So to start out my birthday right, this morning, Lily woke up at 6:30, tramped into the hallway crying and refused to go back to sleep in our bed. I was impressed she slept the whole night in her own room so was less irritated about getting up early. Then, while Mom showered and Shan piddled around, I made a special breakfast of homefries (fried diced potatoes and onion, maple cured bacon, and eggs scrambled in leftover bacon drippings. My God, if you can’t eat like that on a day like this, when can you? Also, served up a pot of hot Earl Greyer. yummm.

Lily has turned over a new leaf and will only eat if you place her food in the little Winnie the Pooh bowl and hand her a baby spoon. Although most of the time she alternates between spooning and handgrabbing, I think there is no turning back, and it won’t be long before she learn how to set a napkin in her lap and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Or maybe I am fooling myself completely again; it’s rather easy to do.

On the funerary front, Dad’s remains are to be buried Wednesday morning in a small gravesite service. Shan and I bought the most lovely white casket spray to lay on top, I assume with an American flag since he was a veteran. Do to flowers get buried as well? Either way is fine, I have trouble with the idea of taking the thing all the way home and placing it on the mantle. And every time I think about the flowers, for some off reason, I think back to Archaeology 101, when we learned that the Cro-magnons were the earliest, as far as our fossil records go, to begin the practice of burying their dead with flowers. Scientists found the dust of decayed flowers on top a cache of primitive human-like bodies.

Still going in an out of knowing and believing he is gone. Last night I had a small breakdown when I realized more time had passed than ever before, between telephone calls, and it hit me right between the eyes again that I would never again here his voice on the phone. I really hope that this is the worst sense of loss that I will ever feel, because honestly, I can’t imagine nor do I want to, feeling this way ever again. So yes, it is a part of life, and yes, we are all going to die no matter what, but Christ. It’s no wonder people turn bitter as they age.

Other planned events for this birthday are as follows:

Print invoices

Iron Dad’s burial clothing ( Mom’ll do that I imagine)

Eat cake. Amo just called to say she is baking me a chocolate cake. Does anybody else find this amusing, after my long blathering about baking my own cake? I planned on baking strawberry shortcake instead, something small and nourishing, that will utilize the fresh berries I got at COSTCO yesterday, and now I guess we’ll have it later this week. And I think one of Shan’s cousins is bringing a pan of lasagna over, so dinner is taken care of. All I have to say is the tradition of taking dinner over to people’s houses is a really good one.

Shan is off the hook for not getting me anything for my birthday again, only because he has helped so much with all this depressing stuff lately. Otherwise it would be *pow* and I would have to get Cecily to beat him up. Seems like every year he has some kind of apprehension about celebrating my birthday. What a freaking goof. In light of this, though, I had the notion of handing this day over completely to my nephew. Really. Ever since the 21st year, what else is there to celebrate? Wrinkles and gray hair? yippee.

hahahah…

Happy Memorial Day!!

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05.26.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:44 pm by Anne

We got back into town late last night. Mom is with us for a few weeks while we make arrangements to bury Dad’s remains nearby. It’s still very unbelievable; I oscillate back and forth between knowing he is truly gone and blankly almost forgetting that I will not be seeing any more emails from him in my inbox. It’s very strange and very heartbreaking.

Lily did well on the planeride to CA. We were one of the last groups on and I wound up sitting next to this very attractive, young and virile bullrider from Oklahoma. I realize it sounds like a joke but I am serious. Shan sat on my other side and was a lot less impressed with the young man. Lily, however, was extremely interested in him. Right after we sat down she reached out and touched his forearm and he smiled at her, so basically for the rest of the three hours it was a veritable lovefest between the two of them. He was cute but had to ask me how to spell ‘DALLAS’ and also, whether Texas butted up against California. ummm, yeah. We know who paid attention in high school.

For the last hour of the flight, Lily slept. Shan had to get up to change a stinky, once, just as the plane hit turbulence. Go figure. The best part was sleeping during the descent. She rubbed her little ears a bit but never cried about the change in pressure. The flight back was not near so pleasant. I guess it was because we weren’t next to the young bullrider.

Going to my parents house in California was difficult in so many ways but thank goodness my sister and brother met us there. and God Bless big brothers and highly efficient husbands. Shan and my bro knocked out so much that needed to be done, I feel they deserve some kind of commodation.

And thanks to everyone for your kind words. I really do appreciate them.
I don’t know that I plan on keeping this as a strict baby blog since my grief is very tangible right now. It is going to be part of me and my thoughts for a very long time I think.

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05.20.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 6:41 pm by Anne

I’m going to be out of the blogsphere for a few days. My father has unexpectedly passed away and we are flying out in the morning.

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05.19.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:11 pm by Anne

It was so pretty and warm out this afternoon that I thought Lily should put on her new swimsuit and play in the water. After slathering her in sunscreen and pulling her into the swimdiaper, we headed out to the back yard. I let her hold the waterhose as I got the big round animal trough thing we used to wash the dog in and she started filling it up. It was a perfect photo shoot. She’d step in and step back out, I’d step in, she’d laugh, and then finally we both got out and ate white popsicles. By the way, the mystery flavor is raspberry. I thought it tasted like grape.

Read today that some raw almonds were recalled. Since the last ones I bought were from Costco and were sitting in my freezer until the right moment to bake something evil, like my own birthday cake this year, I went to check. Sure enough, their date fits in with the recall dates. The thing is, my Costco membership is expired. Since I also need some new RO replacement filters, though, maybe it would be worth it to re-enlist. sigh. Salmonella tainted almonds. Now what will I bake instead of a cake with a chocolate almond ganache? hmmm. hazelnut?

Which brings up another thing. For Memorial Day weekend we are all going up to the lakehouse. My nephew (5 yrs old) and I share the same birthday and I have a bad feeling that my mother in law wants to have a little afternoon birthday lunch. Although she is a wonderful cook and baker, I much prefer my own cakes to hers, so the question is this: Is there a way to keep her from baking me a cake without hurting her feelings? sigh. I’ll ask her son about that. I may just need to suck it up.

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05.18.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:45 am by Anne

She likes to turn circles and then walk around with a bit of a wobble. It’s a happy fun play thing and more evidence pointing towards the innate desire to change our physical/mental state through external stimuli. My poor little addict.

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05.15.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:06 pm by Anne

Oh yeah, and Shan and I exercised out democratic rights as a citizen and voted this morning too. On the ballot was an initiative to make the city able to sell beer and wine. You know we voted in favor. I wonder if it’ll pass?

Come on tax revenue!

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:55 am by Anne

Last night we got out to see Van Helsing which was hilariously entertaining, so long as you didn’t hold it up to Mary Shelley or Bram Stoker’s novels. Hugh Jackman. yum. And Wenham, who played Faramir in LOTR…who knew he could be such a dweeb! It was very comicbookish with plenty of gory bestial transformations, exploding bat babies, and gymnastics hijinks…just exactly what we needed to see. Not to mention, this movie has the most interesting credits ever.

Meanwhile, we got up early this morning, ate breakfast and I headed out to take a CPR class at the gym. When I got there exactly on time, the awful disorganized truth of LADY OF AMERICA once again bit me on the ass. The class had been canceled (I found out later by the independent contractor who was teaching it)and no one had told me! I guess there are worse things than wasting my time on a saturday morning when I am without Lily, but Hell. And the poor little knownothings at the front desk (newbies) were ignorant of any CPR class ever to begin with in the first place. Exasperating. I called the instructor and may take a private class next week.

So there’s that.

And my unnatural desire for fried cheese products has reached dizzying heights this past week. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so poorly over one week’s time ever before. But that’s it. I am turning back the leaf to nourishing foods and plenty of water. gotta keep new baby happy and healthy. Almost out of the first trimester!

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05.13.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:13 pm by Anne

She said ‘waa waa’ today for the first time! It happened while I was giving her a drink from my glass and right after she began blowing bubbles into it. What a big girl!

meanwhile, i just heard about this on the radio.

supercool. I love this kind of a thing

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05.12.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:18 am by Anne

HOW DUMB IS AL QAEDA?

This is the really striking thing about the Zarqawi execution of Nick Berg. Al Qaeda never learns. Listening to the hooded coward shriek on that video and reading what he says can only remind us that these people are a) vile, b) as alien to true Islam as the KKK was to the Gospels, c) pathetic and d) dumb. They think they terrify us by this? The gang-murder of an unarmed, innocent civilian? And they think that it will add to the shame of Abu Ghraib, demoralize Americans still further, and prompt a withdrawal? In fact, of course, the Berg beheading does a grim but salutary service. In the midst of our own deserved self-criticism, we are suddenly reminded of the larger stakes, the wider war, why we are in Iraq in the first place. Most Americans do not in any way excuse Abu Ghraib, but also see that any sort of moral equivalence between our flawed democracy and Islamism’s pathological hatred is obscene. In a purely strategic sense, stiffening American resolve and inflaming American outrage at this juncture is exactly what a smart al Qaeda would avoid. But there is no such thing as a smart al Qaeda. Evil can sometimes be stupid, and often is. Hitler, remember, invaded the Soviet Union. For our part, we must not take the deeper bait, which is to polarize this still further and associate these fanatics with Arabs or Islam as a whole. This is not a war against Islam. It is a war to defend Islam. And a democratic Iraq - not run by mullahs - is indispensable to that end.

ganked from Andrew Sullivan

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05.10.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:10 am by Anne

So busy here, sorry for the weak postings lately. New cousin born friday and this morning a friend had her baby and so we are all over the place.

Mother’s Day was wonderful. Shan got me some lovely flowers (Lilies of course!) and a large box of dark chocolate Godiva business. Heaven. I snarfed half of it in one day and am laying low for now…hoarding the rest. Tell you what, though, that dark chocolate key lime truffle is to die for.

We are out the door, more later.

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