Busy, Busy, Busy

Nothing much to say right now. I'm trying to make a dent in some of the work that piled up this week when I wasn't able to focus on things too much. That's one of the busys. The other is the phone lines to Louisiana. Since Wednesday, I've been able to be in touch with my folks at least once or thrice a day; so far today all I've gotten is busy signals or "Due to the hurricane in the area you are calling, your call cannot be completed at this time; please try your call later" or "All circuits are busy; please try your call later" messages.

I did hear from my brother when he got to Meridian, Mississippi. He said gasoline is in short supply throughout the travel areas to/from Hammond and there are definite problems with panic buying in places. The big concern is that he would be able to find gas to make it all the way home to Atlanta, but, based on reports to sites like GasPriceWatch.com there are stations along I-20/I-59 that are selling fuel still.

A--- said that while things were bad in Hammond, the parishes to the east, Washington, St. Tammany, were still an unknown. Little communication is trickling out and with all eyes on the mess that New Orleans has become, even the few voices that are popping up aren't being heard. With all the infrastructure damage, it'll be weeks to months before some places will have electricity back — and probably twice that long before we really find out what recovery and rebuilding will entail.

My father, looking on the bright side of things, was telling me how bright the stars were on Tuesday night — and how, when the lights came back on in part of the west side of town, the light pollution really dimmed things.

My mom said that the portion of the tree that clipped the house was 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) in circumference. It was one of those oaks whose trunk twins and it was the larger of the trunks that fell. The base of the tree was something like 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) in circumference. The fallen bit stretched from the base of the oak in the backyard all the way to the lamppost in the front yard. They were able to get someone out to drop the tree off the house and to cut things up. I don't know if all the big bits have been carted away yet or not, and I think something still needs to be done with the part of the tree that's standing. And then there are all the trees that are down but not on the house ...

Right now, I wish there was more I could do. Part of it is survivor's guilt; part of it is rage at the looting and lawlessness; part of it is distress at the slow and ineffective response from the national government. And though it all, I feel hapless and helpless.

Celeste's birthday is Sunday. My folks were supposed to be up here last night. Evelin's parents are flying in today. When my mom called on Monday to say they weren't going to make it (Katrina had yet to really hit, but the tree had already damaged the house), I got a webcam to see if I could set up some sort of birthday party stream so they could still participate in the party — in light of what all's happened, that just feels a bit stupid now. Plus, I couldn't get the network to recognize the damn thing yesterday. Such a small problem, really.

Uhm ...

With all the excitement going on back in Louisiana, I guess there's really no good way to put this (and, to tell the truth, I'm not 100% sure what it means yet), but ... Evelin had a β-hCG draw yesterday and the results are 142,818. Zoiks!

Cutting Some Slack

It looks like I should cut the Daily Star some slack for not updating during the storm. In an article at Editor & Publisher (Katrina Makes Strange Bedfellows at Baton Rouge Paper), AP New Orleans Bureau Chief Charlotte Porter said they had relocated to the Star for the storm, but "As the storm passed over Hammond, we lost power, then the phones went out and the water started coming through the roof."

The Star's website today says:

The Daily Star has resumed publication today Wednesday. Aug. 31, 2005. Tuesday marked for the first time in memorey that the newspaper was not able to be published due to natural disaster. Hurricane Katrine left the newspaper plant without power, phones, or net service. The paper itself is being printed at an alternative location pending the restoration of power.

Now if they would just follow the lead of Times-Picayune and the Mobile Register and open up the PDF edition to everyone ...

Good News

I just talked to my dad a moment ago. Hammond is doing a good job of clearing fallen trees/debis from the streets, and there are a lot of Entergy trucks in the area waiting to head into New Orleans. Since they can't get any closer to the city for a little while yet, he said, they are expected to try to clean up the power lines they can reach on the North Shore. Big, big, big sigh.

Tired of Rumors

I'm having a lot of trouble staying focused these past few days. On 9/11, when the rumors were swirling out of control and I could see the smoke from the Pentagon and hear the boom of fighter jets in the air, at least I was able to go — along with hundreds of other people — to a blood donation center. Even though they ran out of blood bags and I was asked to come back in a week or two, at least it was something small that I could do.

Monday, yesterday, this morning ... it's all just calling into the affected area only to get "out of service" or "all circuits are busy" messages, if that much; surfing Flickr, the forums at NOLA.com, Metroblogging: New Orleans, WDSU's Internet feed, etc. It's driving me crazy that the Daily Star, Tangipahoa Sheriff's Office, and other sites nearer my folks have no information up.

I know my folks are okay, but not being able to get first-hand information is getting to me. I hear things third/fourth hand and one moment it sounds like things are okay, the next is sounds like there's real trouble. Earlier yesterday, I got a reply to a post on the NOLA boards that the independent living place where my grandmother lives is fine; a few hours later, my brother calls with word that my grandmother had been told to evacuate and had made it to Hammond.

I ended up last night leaving a message with the insurance company (my folks and I have coverage through the same company), knowing that privacy rules would keep them from being able to tell me anything, but asking if they could put a note in my dad's file to see if they could pass a message from him to my and/or my brother in case he hadn't been able to reach us yet. (I guess I am thinking that if the insurance company has someone going in on the ground, and phone lines/cell sites remain down that maybe a message could get out that way.)

As it stands, here's a list of relief efforts (scroll down a little) if anyone wants to figure out where to make a donation.

UPDATE

(Things are changing before I can hit post.) My brother just called; he's talked to my dad. They're okay. My grandmother and her brother are in Hammond with them and are fine, although they're all working on arranging to get them moved up to Alexandria where my aunt and some of her family evacuated to. Big sigh of relief, although a lot of questions remain ... I hope others out there are also getting good news as this whole situation progresses.

It'll Always Be New Orleans ...

From the Times-Picayune Breaking News Weblog:

Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were eyeing the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head back out to the levee to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee.

Still no word from anyone back home; I kept getting "all circuits busy" or "your call could not get through" messages last night. Hopefully some of the phonelines/cellsites will be back up today. I'm sure everyone is okay, but it be nice to hear something.

[ASIDE: One thing I hadn't really thought about: A lot of friends and family have moved away from South Louisiana, but still have 985 or 504 area code cell phones. While those phones could connect to local cell sites in Phoenix, Atlanta, or wherever, calls placed to them had to be routed through storm-damaged areas ... and thus couldn't get through.]

I talked to my brother in Atlanta last night, and he and his family were in the basement waiting out a tornado warning. They were getting some pretty good activity from the far bands of Katrina. I think we're supposed to get some activity later today, although the bulk of things should be well to the west of D.C.

Monday Night Gerunds

Stealing an idea from MC at Running*Cooking*Writing, here's an attempt to catch up on what's been going on with Celeste ...

Sleeping ... I didn't say anything earlier because I dinna want to jinx things, but since it's only happened once now, I guess it doesn't hurt to say that Celeste slept through the night last week. One night, Thursday, actually. She was knackered after being up late the night before, and Evelin called me that morning around 10:30 to say that Celeste was asleep. She just couldn't take it any more and had to have a nap — she didn't even mind that her blankie was in the wash, she just wanted to sleep. And she did for about two-and-a-half hours. Later in the afternoon, she and I had about 15 minutes of quiet time (she spied her blankie on the coach where it was laying with other laundry in various stages of folding, cruised over, grabbed it, and snugged down into it, so I though she might want a nap, turned out she didn't, but she humored me for a little while), and she was in bed by 6:15 p.m.

She woke about 8:00 p.m. — I think because she was too hot in her footie pyjamas (her room was warmer than usual because we'd turned off the AC to take advantage of the couple of nice days we were having, but her windows were closed because of street/neighbor noise) — but then slept straight through to 6:00 a.m. the next day. Evelin and I were up a dozen times to check to make sure she was okay, and I ended up going downstairs to do some work around 4:00 a.m., but we were so psyched that she made it through the night. Since then, she's continued to wake up at least once a night and last night, she was bad enough to end up coming to our bed around 1:30 a.m.

My addled brain's logic was that she'd had a rough night the night before, which was similar to what had happened our second-to-last night in Montana; at the hotel, the bringing-her-to-our-bed trick worked, and I thought maybe that eighth tooth was coming in so the close proximity would help. It didn't make much difference. She did eventually go to sleep, but was up by 5:30 a.m. I tried explaining to her, in German, that she needed to sleep for one more hour. (I thought if I said it in German, no matter how ungrammatical I might be, she might stay quiet for a while trying to figure out what I'd said/meant.) It didn't work.

Talking ... She is getting more verbal bits out, working on m and n phonemes to go with her d, b, and g sounds. She also seems to have a specific "word" for book, similar to her Dɑɑ for "dog."

Signing ... Celeste definitely gets a lot of what we say and at least a few of the signs, although the only one we can say she consistently makes is MILK (and usually that is only when she first wakes up or after her bath). Still, she had done MORE a few times, and she recognizes WATER (I'll make the sign and/or say the word and she turns to look for her cup), EAT, and, I think, BATH. We're also using words for various foods — CHEESE, APPLE, SWEET POTATO, CEREAL — and are trying to introduce CHANGE and DIAPER. I thought I caught her signing CHEESE last week (and she was very happy to get a piece of cheese), but it could have been a coincidence.

Sipping ... She's graduated from a sippy cup to a cup with a straw, and she's getting better and better about controlling how much she sucks up. Evelin figured out Celeste was ready for a straw when she was letting her play with a sports bottle and noticed that she wasn't just gnawing on the straw, Celeste was sucking up water and spitting all over herself and the bed.

Walking ... Celeste is getting better with her balance and confidence, although she really doesn't like to let go of my/Evelin's fingers. We've been doing some practice where Evelin and I sit with our feet touching and try to convince Celeste to walk from one of us to the other. Sometimes she does it willingly; other times she will get to the no man's land between us and start to fall backwards. Still, her favorite is to hold on to some fingers and to lead us around the house. And if she's hungry, she'll lead us straight to her highchair, let go, and start banging on the foot rest on the chair.

Cruising ... While her walking is still mostly assisted, Celeste is doing a lot of cruising, taking herself up and down the couch, along her crib bars, and other various grabby places in the house. She's starting to mix in a few new tricks, too. Last night, I put her down with her back to the couch to try to encourage her to walk toward me, but she turned herself around to cruise along the couch instead.

Falling ... Of course, with the walking comes a bit of falling, including a nasty head vs. armoire moment last week that, I think, traumatized me more than her. For the most part, she recovers pretty well from the occasional fall, but they do, understandably, make her a bit more clingy and unwilling to try to walk by herself for the next few hours.

Eating ... And then there are things that probably best expressed with a picture. Blueberries — even frozen ones straight from the freezer to the mouth — are very, very good.

Beyond blueberries, Celeste continues to be adventuresome with her eating. While in Montana, she tried black olives for the first time, and I promised her good Καλαμάτας olives when we got back to D.C. The texture is a little hard for her to deal with, but she's snarfed them up each time I've offered them to her; sometimes they just get chewed for a while and then spat out, but she still is quick to pick up an olive slice from among a bunch of peas.

An Ill Wind Blows

Last year, when New Orleans was threatened two or three times by hurricanes (and people even evacuated for Ivan), I never thought the city would end up in a bad situation. I don't know why — especially given my safe perch in D.C., a thousand miles away — but I just didn't feel it. But with Katrina, ever since it crossed Florida and started building in the Gulf, I didn't like it. Maybe it's because I'm using RSS feeds to get every update NOAA puts out. Maybe it's because the way Katrina seemed to blow up so quickly, just like Camille, and the way it was tracking, again, just like Camille.

I was only two months old when Camille hit Pass Christian, and we were up in D.C. at that point in time, but I remember growing up seeing damage from Camille whenever we went across the lake to Bay St. Louis where my grandparents and other family had houses. My aunt and uncle had pictures of the damage Camille caused hanging in their (rebuilt) house, and when we would go picking blackberries, there were concrete slabs underneath some of the bramble patches where someone just decided not to rebuilt.

As a kid, I remember a few good storms — one that blew away our rabbit hutch and my and my brother’s rabbits; another that knocked down several big pines in the backyard (my dad made us a neat fort out of some of those); another where there wasn't official word as to whether or not school was closed so my mom drove us to school only to find a tree across the entrance to the school parking lot — but for the most part there was maybe a power failure, some flooding or at least really high water in the ditches and streets, but never anything too bad, at least for us (I did have some friends who had water (and snakes) in their homes with more than one or two storms).

Last night, Evelin had to practically pull me away from the computer as I was watching the tracking and the radar and the updates and googling other storms for historical comparisons.

I talked to my mom and pretty much all my family that is in New Orleans decided to evacuate, except my grandmother (who e-mailed that she figured that even if they did have flooding — and you can see over the levee into the river from her balcony — that it wouldn't get up to the eighth floor) and one cousin (who is an auxiliary deputy with Jefferson Parish and would have to work as part of the public safety response).

My folks are north of Lake Pontchartrain and therefore aren't in the danger that New Orleans is, but this morning they had an old oak slip and clip the back of the house. I talked to my mom early this morning and it sounds like the house is going to need a bit of work, although it could have been a lot worse. My dad and the neighbor got some tarps up to help keep some water out, and they moved the furniture and other stuff out of the damaged area, but it sounds like the foundation took some damage and the AC unit was flattened. And the bulk of the rains have yet to arrive, so there could be further damage yet to come.

Right now, it looks like the rains are picking up and Katrina continues to churn to the southeast of the city. Maybe it will cross the sound and go into Pass Christian the way Camille did, or maybe it will stay west and do more damage to New Orleans. In either case, as it heads up the Tennessee and Ohio River valleys, it's going to continue to dump water into the Mississippi watershed, which won't make any post-storm recovery easier.

A Bear Without a Name

I feel really bad about it, but I have only done two panda watches since Celeste was born. Since the last watch, Mei Xiang has had her cub, and I've still been too busy to sign up for a shift — I'd also feel a bit guilty about taking a panda watch shift now since I've been out of it for so long and it would feel like I'm just doing it to get a peak at the little guy. [For those at home, Animal Planet's webcam seems to be easier to connect to than the zoo's.]

In any case, the tradition is that a cub isn't named until it reaches 100 days, and, under the panda loan agreement, Chinese officials get to vet the name before it is bestowed. Given that, the zoo has set up a web poll where people can vote on the little guy's name.

They only have pinyin versions of the names being polled, so I've tried to suss out the true Chinese versions:

• 华盛 Huá Shèng (China Washington^*, magnificent);
• 盛华 Shèng Huá (Washington China, magnificent);
• 太山 Tài Shān (peaceful mountain);
• 龙山 Lóng Shān (dragon mountain); and
• 強強 Qiáng Qiáng (strong, powerful).

Of course, the best name, as DCist has noted, would be 黄油条 Huángyóu Tiáo (butterstick), since when a panda is born it is about the size of a stick of butter.

^*I do wonder about saying that 华盛 means "China Washington." 华 does mean "China" or "Chinese" in some contexts and 华盛顿 Huá Shèng Dùn is the phonetic rendering of "Washington," so I guess you could see a form of China Washington in 华盛, but it seems like a stretch to me ... and by the same token 盛华 is an even bigger stretch.

Once Again ...

Another chapter in the ongoing saga of the "summer in which [I] damage [myself] in many and various ways"¹:

Last night, before Evelin went to bed, she closed the baby gate to the kitchen, just in case Celeste figured out how to escape her crib, walk, navigate the stairs, and otherwise find herself tempted by all the dangers the kitchen offers. She also brought her water bottle to the bottom of the stairs and asked me to fill it up before I came up for the night.

Well, after shutting off the last of the downstairs lights, I kicked the water bottle on my way upstairs, which reminded me that I needed to fill that for her. Rather than turning on the lights, I trusted my nightvision to navigate me through the living and dining rooms to the kitchen ... and straight into the baby gate.

It wasn't latched, but it stayed in place enough to send me tumbling head over heels into the kitchen with a rather loud bang and an interjection or two that, thankfully, Celeste did not hear because she was asleep. Nothing was bleeding, but I did tweak something in my hamstring. Sigh.

P³ Progress

Between the weather, travel, and doing other things, it's been a while since anything has been done on the Pond–Patio Project (a.k.a. P³). Well, this morning, a giant leap forward was made — we finally got someone out to clean away two truckloads of rocks, railroad ties, rebar, assorted pond and yard waste, etc. The cost was more than I might have liked, but it was about the same as if we'd had a tip dropped off in front of the house and we did the loading, and I doubt I/we could have moved everything out in the 45 minutes it took the guys we hired.


The mesa to the left of the photo is what remains of the old patio [here's an old picture from an early stage of the P³ showing some of the trash and patio frame] and there are six or seven intractable pipes and two buried railroad ties still in place, but I'm willing to work around those for the moment and if I do eventually get them out, it will be a small enough amount of trash to get the city to take it (albeit maybe over the course of a month).

The next step is to see what we can do about knocking the mesa down a little more and using that dirt to fill in/grade some of the lower areas in the upper portion of the backyard. A lot of that has already been done, but the loss of the trash pile makes evident a few areas that need attention (and makes it easier to maneuver a wheelbarrow).

We also are near the point where we can break out some graph paper and lay a hose or two on the ground to try to figure out how/where we'd like the planned deck/patio replacement to end up going. Considering we didn't really have a schedule, I'd still say we are behind schedule, but we are probably moving more quickly than I would have though we might. Will there be something built by winter? I don't know, but it feels more likely than it was a week ago.

Garden Update

While cutting the ogräs on Saturday, I noticed a few specs of red on the raspberry bushes. Another crop is setting and ripening. I managed to find three good ones (one for each of us — Celeste ended up spitting hers out) and a handful of potential berries that will hopefully be ready to eat in a week or so.

Not that we've been paying the best of attention to it, but the garden is looking pretty rough. The cucumbers (along with the hanging flower baskets on the front porch) died while we were in Montana. The only tomatoes that are growing are self-seeders that sprouted from last year's fallen fruit, and none of them are to the fruiting stage yet. The carrots look like they're doing well, although they seem to have choked out the leeks. The parsley and chives are doing well, and the mint patch is struggling with the raspberry patch for supremacy of the hillock.

The garlic we harvested back in June and July, but the toes are a lot smaller than the previous generation. I think part of that is because when we though to save some of the old ones for planting it was only the smaller cloves that were left — I don't know if it was a matter of the variety or the specific genes of that bulb, but it seems we planted small ones and got smaller ones. We've already picked up a few bulbs at the farmers market that we are planning to save to plant come October.

Bloggity Goodness

I've been using Bloglines to read RSS-enabled blogs for a while now, which has probably contributed to my slacking in posting, but has expanded by blogroll beyond what is in the sidebar in the left-hand frame.

Among those blogs totally worth a read but not represented at left are:

• The Burrito Blog — reviews of burrito chains/joints mostly in New England by someone who understands that lime-cilantro rice is a non-starter;
• The Smoking Tongue — one bottle of hot sauce every single day;
  and, in a totally different vein,
• Drink at Work — authored by the brain behind Sally Forth but worth reading mostly for the conversations with his father.

Eaten Alive by Mosquitoes

I am so going to catch West Nile. Over the past two summers, we've really let the yard go a bit wild. Last year, while pregnant, Evelin wasn't much in the mood to be out in the hot sun gardening; this year, well, it's hotter and more humid than normal and the mosquitoes would drain every last drop of blood from Celeste in a matter of minutes.

Since we seem to have been running crazy more weekends than not this summer, that or it's been raining, it's been a little while since I cut the ogräs that passes for grass in our yard. The front yard looked a little unruly, but the backyard was off the hook. All was going well until I got into the backyard when, all of the sudden, the mower stopped. It's electric and I thought I might have cut the cord (again), but it turned out we had a neighborhoodwide power failure.

Waiting for things to right themselves, I did a bit of weeding near the back fenceline. When Evelin hollered out the window that the power was back on, I stepped out of the bed to find a dozen mosquitoes happily feasting on my legs. About half of them were too sluggish to fly away before I swatted them.

I tend to hate to use insect repellant, sunscreen, etc. Basically, I'm stupid or something, and I don’t like the way that stuff feels. Evelin had no sympathy for me or my itching.

Is Rice a Finger Food?

The week before we went to Montana, Evelin and I thought about trying to go out for dinner with Celeste, but it didn't work out in terms of when we would get to Samantha's (our favorite Salvadorian place and where Celeste was almost born) and when Celeste started fading.

So, this morning, we talked about trying to go for an early dinner there. We headed out at 4:30 p.m. and Celeste started yawning in the car, which worried us, but we persevered and ended up having a very nice meal.

We brought along some food for Celeste and also fed her off our plates. She tried the black beans, rice, pinto beans, a bit of pupusa de queso, some corn chips, and assorted vegetables Evelin picked out of her sopa de pollo. The pinto beans and pupusa went over well, along with the rice and black beans. The vegetables were offered a bit late in the meal, so she ended up throwing more of those than not, and the corn chips were chewed but not with much gusto.

The funniest bit was, after feeding her some rice with a spoon, Evelin decided to just put some rice on the table in front of Celeste and to let her feed herself. Celeste looked at the rice and leaned over to try to put in her mouth without using her hands. She soon figured out that this bit of rice wouldn't jump into her mouth the way the spoon-fed stuff did and dug in with both hands.

Looking at the floor and table around us, I think for the near future, when we go out Evelin and I need to adopt a policy of tipping at least 25% to help cover the clean up costs.

Daddy–Daughter Day!

Today was a first. Evelin had a one-day conference up in Pennsylvania (the same meeting as last year's Schtadtleit mit die Amischen adventure), so I took the day off from work and hung with Celeste. While I've been doing the two-afternoons-a-week thing since January, and other stray parts of days here and there, this was the first time Celeste and I have had a full waking-to-sleeping day alone.

Celeste's waking time coördinated well enough for her to get in her breakfast nursing before Evelin had to leave, but the rest of the day was up to me. To placate several friends at work, I'd agreed to bring Celeste in around 9:00 a.m. It worked out pretty well in that I remembered to bring some toys and her diaper bag. The only problem was that I forgot she usually has yoghurt, oatmeal, and some fruit (usually applesauce) around 9:00 a.m. ... and I forgot to bring food with us. I realized about half way through the commute.

While it did yield some tongue-clucking from mothers/grandmothers at the office, things worked out. Celeste and I just ran to Trader Joe's (it's across the street from my office and opened just as we were getting there) and picked up a four-pack of applesauce with berries, a small full-fat ΦΑΓΕ yoghurt, and bag of mini-bagels.

She ended up eating her breakfast in front of an audience that ranged at any given moment from three to six people, wowing them with her ability to push away the applesauce and to demand more yoghurt.

After some walking around the office to visit various people, she sat in while the marketing director and I tried to sort out some changes for the 2006 media kit. (My publisher in Italy had some changes that we we're immediately sure how to accommodate.) For the most part Celeste was pretty good, until she pulled over some files, started gnawing on a videotape, and spit water on the floor a few times.

We didn't end up getting home until later than expected, and I had to fight to keep Celeste awake. As soon as we got home, she hit the crib and was out for about an hour and a quarter. The rest of the afternoon went pretty well, but that short nap caught up with her.

Also, since she wanted sleep more than anything else, she missed her normal pre-nap dose of milk, saving it for when she woke. That meant she didn't have her (solid) lunch until around 3:45 p.m. (after we got back from making groceries), and by 4:30 p.m. she was hugging her stuffed lamb and leaning over like she wanted to go to sleep.

As we were headed from Whole Foods to Giant, Evelin called to say her meeting was breaking up early, so I was working to keep Celeste moving through the afternoon. Plus, if I'd let her go to sleep at 4:30 p.m., she'd have thought it was a nap and would have ended up staying up way too late.

In the end, she headed to the bath around 5:30 p.m., and Evelin walked in the door pretty soon thereafter. Celeste got to nurse instead of having a bottle before going to bed, which was probably a good thing, giving her her normal sleep cues.

Thinking of sleep, Evelin and I are back to trying to get her onto a better schedule/sleeping through the night or at least only waking up once. We'd been doing pretty good with her, but a fever, teething, and Montana really messed her sleep up. Since we got back on Monday night, Celeste has been waking as much as seven times a night, so starting Thursday night, we're working on letting Celeste try to self-soothe some, especially early in the evening, and I am going to be the first responder during the night. (If she sees Evelin overnight, she thinks it's time to nurse, even if she just nursed an hour ago.) Last night she did pretty good — she did need to nurse at 2:00 a.m., but otherwise she either managed to get herself back to sleep within five minutes or I was able to calm her to sleep.

Of course, since I just blogged this, we're probably in for a rough night.

VoIP and Wiring

After way too long of a wait, it seems that our old phone number has been transferred over to our Vonage VoIP service. I haven't received official word from Vonage that the local number portability request has gone through, but dialing our number now rings the phone attached to the Vonage line and not the normal phones.

Of course, to add to my confusion, the normal phones still work, at least for placing out going calls. This could be because we haven't been cleared to cancel our Verizon local service yet, or maybe something with the changeover is screwed up.

Once I'm sure the Vonage line will keep ringing, I am supposed to be able to just run the telephone line from the phone adaptor to any nearby jack and it will connect the VoIP service to all the jacks in the house. But, before I do that, I need to disconnect the outside PSTN line from the house so that there's no chance of damage to the VoIP gear.

It should be a simple task: Go to the outside interface box, unplug the plugs, and voilà — no signal. Expect our house is wired stupidly. Even with everything unplugged from the interface box, I still get a signal. Next I try tracing the lines and find one that runs inside and looks like a likely culprit. I figure if I rewire those I can set up something that will isolate the inside wiring without making it too difficult to reconnect to the PSTN line when we move or if we decide to give up on VoIP.

I disconnect things and ... nothing, the phone still works. I go so far as to cut the red lines (figuring the red and green lines were still twisted together, so maybe that was making the circuit) ... and the phone still works. At this point, I decide to reconnect things in the rat's nest style typical of this house's phone wiring. Maybe in the morning or daylight I'll be better able to discover what goes where (and maybe by then I'll find out whether or not the number has been fully transferred).

Montana Adventure

While we were out there and on the Billings–Denver flight home, I roughed out some of my blog entries for the trip on my Palm. They're up and in place now, back on the days the events happened. This may violate some informal truth-in-blogging rules in that it's not as immediate as a blog might otherwise be, but it's my little corner of cyberspace and I think this makes for a more coherent travelogue, so whatever.

• Montana: Day 1 — Getting There & Little Bighorn
• Montana: Day 2 — Yellowstone
• Montana: Day 3 — Pictographs & The Wedding
• Montana: Day 4 — Heading Home

One other thing not noted elsewhere, a while I ago, I blogged about winning 1-liter Diet Cokes. I drink a fair number of 20-ounce Diet Cokes, and around here the odds of winning a free 1 liter are 1 in 12, which were the odds I saw when I first encountered the promotion in California back in February.

Out in Montana it was 1 in 4 (I came home with four winning caps). In Wyoming, it was 1 in 8 (no winners). In Denver, it was 1 in 6 (1 winning cap). I guess it's the local bottler who decides how generous they want to be, or maybe a regional Coca-Cola authority decides. Anyway, while I thought it was weird, I will enjoy my 5 liters of Diet Coke and let 7-Eleven sort out the details.

More About Montana Later But ...

My town publishes a crime report from the city police each week on its LISTSERV. The final item on today's edition:

08-13-05 THEFT, [...]: at approximately 9:30 a.m., an unknown suspect stole several boxes of Rogaine from a drug store in this area.

It doesn't say, but I'm guessing they're looking for someone with a receding hairline.

Two More Down

33 states (including DC) down; 18 states and 4 territories to go
(Map via World66)

We're back from a whirlwind long weekend in Montana and Wyoming. Celeste suddenly has seven teeth and her schedule is so far out the window that ... uhm, I can't think of a clever metaphor. We're all very tired. More later.

Montana: Day 4

Our last day in Montana started off with a little confusion. I was certain our flight left at 12:30 p.m., but looking at the itinerary I printed out before we left, it clearly said UA1209 left at 1:25 p.m. It didn't really make that much of a difference, we still needed to check out by 11:00 a.m. and to return the rental car.

We ended up having a big breakfast at the hotel with Evelin's parents, sister, and aunt and uncle. Her brother and G--- had already slipped away to Yellowstone. M--- (the sister) and J--- and C--- (the aunt and uncle) were headed that way after breakfast, while R--- and M--- (Evelin's parents) were still making up their mind where they were going next (they ended up heading to Glacier). We were pretty much the only ones who were headed back East so soon after the wedding.

Originally, we'd hoped to take a longer vacation around the wedding, but the planning fell apart early and we decided to only do the four days (Friday to Monday). Still, it turned out to be a trip that exceeded our expectations: When we bought the plane tickets, we figured we'd get to Pictograph Cave State Park and maybe Little Bighorn Battlefield, but Yellowstone would probably be right out. We also figured we'd only get in one new state, not two. It was a little frustrating to be within 45 minutes of the Idaho border, but it's for the best that we didn't add that mad dash to Saturday.

We finished packing while Celeste had a post-breakfast nap, and then checked out with a bit of time to kill. We considered making a quick trip to Zoo Montana or to Action Farm Toys, but instead went with an almost-guaranteed-to-please visit to the swings at South Park.

She enjoyed that for a little while, then we piled back into the car and drove around downtown a little, looking for bighorns, before we realized we were getting a little hungry. It was getting close to noon, so we decided to just dump the car, head to the airport, and get something to eat there.

Returning the car went well, but the shuttle to the airport ran into a roadblock just as it crested the butte. Apparently, Dick Cheney was flying in for a fundraiser for Sen. Conrad Burns and the airport had to be shut down for an hour and the main road in blocked off. Suddenly the discrepancy between what I remembered booking for our flight out and the itinerary made sense ...

Evelin made a comment about it was good to get Cheney out of D.C. and one of the other passengers picked up on it with another snide comment. Celeste started crying, and I told her that it wasn't really true that Dick Cheney eats babies; the driver also tried to reassure her, saying he was wrong, it wasn't really Cheney who was flying in. That did seem to work, and she calmed down.

After managing to get to the check-in counter just ahead of a large 4-H contingent, we headed across the parking lot to visit the Peter Yegen, Jr. Yellowstone County Museum. It was chockablock with memorabilia — from Native American beadwork to farming implements to an old telephone switchboard to stuffed animal heads. Celeste's favorite though was a stuffed two-headed calf. She kept walking back over to it and staring and laughing. I don't think we have to worry, but we did buy her a postcard of the calf/calves before heading back into the airport to see what food we could find.

The flight from Billings to Denver was the only leg of our journey where we couldn't all three sit together; Evelin and Celeste were on one side of the aisle (17A and 17B) and I was at the opposite window (17F). In between us were a woman traveling alone (17C) and a woman with a 2-year-old and a 14-month-old on her lap (17D and 17E). The 2-year-old was cute; she kept asking me "Where you going?" because, her mother said, she'd discovered that it was question that tended to get people to talk to her. For much of the 90-minute flight, she kept trying to crawl over me to look out the window or otherwise squirm around in her seat. It didn't bother me, which I think the mother appreciated, especially when I pointed out that my daughter was over in 17A.

In Denver, we had a longer layover than the first time, and Celeste spent a good bit of her time walking around to go see various people. Evelin got to do most of the hand-holding for that, because she sent me off in search of some sandwiches for dinner. I ended up at ¡Qué Bueno!'s sister airport-food place, Itza Wrap! Itza Bowl!, and got Evelin a grilled turkey-broccoli-cheddar wrap and another rice-and-bean burrito for myself. Celeste did not have any of either, sparing herself another accidental encounter with a jalapeño.

The big surprise in Denver, after I got back with the food, was that Celeste had cut another bottom tooth. It's her seventh tooth, and it really explained why she'd had such a rough time the night before. We thought some teething might be going on (and we suspect an eighth tooth will be making an appearance soon), but actually seeing a new one in her mouth caught us both by surprise.

Celeste managed to sleep for the first 90 minutes or so of the flight, but the rest of the way home was a bit touch-and-go at times. She would stay occupied with one toy or book for a little while, but quickly wanted to throw it away. Even a copy of Hemispheres, ripped in half so that she could better manipulate it, only kept her attention for so long. We did let her out of her seat a few times — to walk down the aisle, to look over the seat at the people behind us, etc. — and we managed to make it to Baltimore without a meltdown.

The plane landed a little before 10:00 p.m., and Evelin and I split up to help speed our way home. She and Celeste got the luggage; I went with our carry-on bags to the satellite parking lot to pick up the T.R.U.C.K. I worried that it would be hard for Evelin to wrestle the carseat/Go-Go Kidz thing along with our two bags, but it really speeds things up if we don't have to wait for the luggage and then wait for the parking shuttle. As it was, Evelin and Celeste made it to the curb with our bags just as I was pulling out of satellite parking; it probably got us home at least 20 minutes earlier than we otherwise would have made it.

Montana: Day 3

Sunday evening was the wedding, so we had some time during the day to see sights or otherwise kill time. While Evelin's parents and siblings headed into Billings to wander around downtown, we headed out to Pictograph Cave State Park. Driving over the butte to Bitter Creek Valley, we passed a big tower farm on the rimrocks overlooking the city; we also had a good look across the valley to the butte that's home to the airport.

The caves were pretty neat, although the pictographs were hard to see. It was a short paved trail up the butte to three indentions/caves, only one of which had cave paintings. The rest of the walk highlighted the natural and archaeological history of the site. Celeste did a little walking on the trail, but had a much easier time going downhill than uphill.

Afterwards, we decided to grab a quick lunch before Celeste's nap. We headed into Billings to the Montana Brewing Company, the local brewpub. It was pretty tasty: I had a white pizza (which Celeste stole some mushrooms and artichokes from) and Evelin had a burger. The sampler of their beers had a mix of the good (the Fatbelly Amber and Scotch Ale) and the bad (the Huckleberry Hefeweiße).

Apparently, huckleberries are quite popular in the Rocky Mountain West. They were available in everything from candies to jam to syrup to hefeweiße, but we never saw any plain huckleberries. I asked our waitress at the brewpub, and she said she didn't think she'd ever had a plain huckleberry, but products made with an extract or concentrate. It seems they have a very short season and aren't really cultivated domestically; people have to harvest them in the wild. In any case, some of the huckleberry candies were good, but huckleberry hefeweiße is a definite no.

While we were finishing up our lunch, G--- and G--- (Evelin's brother and his girlfriend) wandered down the street. We called them over and chatted for a while. Celeste was a little wary of her uncle, but she really seems to like his girlfriend. As we left and headed to our respective cars, we passed a few of the Bighorn Magic sculptures [gallery]. I know it's not high art or anything, but I still like the trend of temporary public art installations like this.

The afternoon was spent with a good nap for all three of us and then Evelin and Celeste gave the hotel swimming pool a try. Evelin's been meaning to take Celeste to the pool all summer, but just hasn't had the chance. It turns out Celeste liked the water. She didn't try to swim off on her own or anything, but she did some splashing and kicking, and she enjoyed watching the older kids running and splashing around the pool.

After cleaning up, we got ready for the wedding, arriving at the church in Laurel a little early. We got to see some of Evelin's family that we hadn't yet run into, and Celeste enjoyed herself walking around from person to person to person. She didn't want to be picked up by anyone else, but she like having Evelin's or my hands to hold on to while exploring.

We started the ceremony with Celeste in the chapel, but she started to get restless, so Evelin ran her out to the nursery. About half-way through the ceremony, I switched off with Evelin so that she could see the rest of the wedding. Celeste probably would have been fine in the nursery with the babysitter and two other kids, but we're overprotective or something ...

During the reception, Celeste continued her walking around, which was endlessly fascinating to some of the 4- and 5-year-olds who were there, too. She also danced a little with her grandfather. We ended up cutting out fairly early in hopes of getting her to bed before she was too overtired, but it ended up being a rough night with her waking almost hourly.

Montana: Day 2

We made it to Yellowstone today, and not just to the border or some easy to get to spot from Billings — we went all the way to Old Faithful, saw an eruption, and went back to Billings. I highly suggest others take more time and not spend over 11 hours in the car to make this trip.

My in-laws made it out to Billings late Friday night (the whole reason for this trip was a wedding on Sunday — there were some 20 people from Evelin's branch of the family coming out from various East Coast points), so we met up with them and tried to figure out what we wanted to do that day. After a bit of talking (and an inopportune nap on Celeste's part), we headed off to Yellowstone around 10:00 a.m.

We were making good time when we stopped in Red Lodge for some film and to visit the Montana Candy Emporium. As we got back on the road headed for the Northeast Entrance via the Beartooth Highway, we quickly discovered that the road is washed out about 12 miles past Red Lodge. (The Billings Gazette had a good article on the engineering going into the reconstruction on page 1 of Sunday's paper, a day too late for us.)

Looking at the detour route, what that would mean for when we'd get there, and where Old Faithful is in the park, we decided to try to limit the detour to two-and-a-half hours by going through Cody, Wyoming. We didn't stop at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center or the Buffalo Bill Dam (although both look worth a visit), but we did take a short diaper-changing break along the Shoshone River above the reservoir.

We made it to the east entrance of Yellowstone around 2:30 p.m., which is about what we expected given the change in route, and struck out for Old Faithful only to discover that the road from the east entrance to the lake is also under heavy construction. It could have been a lot worse, but it did slow us down.

After a stop at Lake Yellowstone, we made it to Old Faithful [NPS webcam] not too long after an eruption and with about 45 minutes to wait for the next one. Celeste was doing a lot of walking holding on to fingers at this point, enjoying being out of her carseat immensely up to the point where she slipped and fell hitting her head. It turned out to be a really good forehead bruise and a small cut, but she was okay after Evelin and M--- (my mother in law) took her into the lodge to wash off. We next walked around Geyser Hill and saw a few little eruptions/events up there before heading back down to get a spot to watch the eruption.

It was pretty cool (even though I was one of many watching things at least partially through a viewfinder), although there were a few false starts before the full eruption hit. I got some pictures so when Celeste is 10 and says she wants to see Old Faithful, I can tell her "You've already seen it."

After the eruption we got back on the road (Celeste was less than thrilled to see her carseat again) and headed to the north entrance. We figured the quickest way back to Billings would be to head out through Gardenier, Montana, and to pick up I-90 at Livingston.

I'm sure part of it was because we were just driving the main roads, but we didn't see too much wildlife in the park: a few mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), some white-tail deer (Odocoileus virginianus), two elk/wapiti (Cervus elaphus) resting in a marshy area, and a few cranes of somesort, maybe sandhills (Grus canadensis). I think we also saw a pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) or two, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

Celeste woke soon after we left the park (actually while we were circling back around so that M--- could get a photo of the old north gate), so we stopped at the Park Street Grill & Café in Gardiner for dinner. The food was really good, Celeste had a good time, and I got to try a Trout Slayer ale and a Teton Ale. The Trout Slayer was little lighter, but I liked the Teton a lot.

Everyone was too full for dessert, so we headed back on the road, making it home with no incidents. We did, however, see some pretty good fireworks as we were passing near Big Timber or Columbus or somewhere. We finally made it back to the hotel around 11:00 p.m.

Montana: Day 1

In less than a year, Celeste has managed to visit 14 states, including the District of Columbia. Today, she bagged numbers 13 (Montana) and 14 (Wyoming); it was also the first time Evelin or I had been to either state, too.

Another first for Celeste today — jalapeño. That was an accident.

We had a very early flight from BWI, 6:00 a.m., which meant leaving the house at 3:45 a.m. Celeste wasn't sure what to make of being awoken (it's usually her job to wake us at such hours), but she was game for the adventure.

To make the airport easier, we picked up a Go-Go Kidz wheelie thing, which turned her Britax carseat into a stroller of sorts. It couldn't wheel down the aisle to our cattlecar seating, but it did work well in the airports.

Celeste did really well on the BWI to Denver flight, sleeping about an hour and otherwise playing nice and quietly. On the Denver to Billings flight, however, she was hungry. Evelin and I had grabbed burritos at ¡Qué Bueno! during our layover, but they started boarding before we could eat them, so, while the plane was loading and taxiing, I started feeding Celeste part of mine. I tried to be careful and to give her only bites of the rice, black beans, and guacamole, along with the occasional bit of onion and/or tomato from the mild salsa, she apparently she got something with heat.

She just started bawling, but still wanted food, and it took me a moment to figure out what the issue might be. At first I thought she hit a bit that was too hot (Fahrenheit/Celsius hot, not Scoville hot), but water, even though she gulped it, dinna help. I figured it out when I licked off the spoon before starting a jar of Gerber Tender Harvest Tropical Fruit Blend babyfood; there was quite a bit of spice.

I think what happened is that although I asked for mild salsa, the burrito maker started to splash the spicy/hot salsa on the tortilla. I guess some of that worked its way into a bit I fed Celeste. It took almost the whole jar of tropical fruit to cool her tongue.

[ASIDE: Is a term comparable to barista for a person who makes burritos? If I were coining one, I'd probably go with burristo, but that probably is an unfortunate slang expression or something ...]

After getting to Billings, picking up the rental car (a Hyundai Sonata) and making a quick stop at Target for diaper (we figured it made more sense to buy a pack out there rather than pack a brick in our bags), we headed to the hotel ... and Celeste promptly fell asleep about three minutes from the hotel parking lot. We tried to move her into the room without waking her, but no luck, so after an hour or so of trying to get her to nap again, we headed out to start seeing Montana.

Our goal was fairly modest, Pictograph Cave State Park, just the other side of the Yellowstone River from Billings. It was about 5 miles from our hotel ... and Celeste fell asleep before we got there. Apparently, she can sleep in the car ... when exhausted.

So we decided to just keep driving. We stayed on I-90 an headed south through the Crow Reservation, past Little Bighorn and into Wyoming. Celeste woke up when we took the exit for Ranchester, about 15 miles inside of Wyoming. We'd seen a billboard for a dinosaur museum (turns out it was closed for the season), and we figured we'd better start heading north at some point.

After a quick snack, we turned back to the Crow Reservation to visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield and to see the site of Custer's Last Stand. It was really interesting to see the sweep of the land, which seems almost unchanged since the 1870s, and to figure where the various skirmishers were during the battle. It was also really easy to see why that one hill is where Custer and his men ended up (and met their end). The nearby Indian Memorial was an interesting counterpoint to the older memorials for the U.S. Calvary.

Back at the hotel, Celeste went down for the night, and I headed out to find us something for dinner. At first I thought I might find a grocery store or something else with a salad bar, but after about an hour of driving around, not being inspired by Taco John’s or Del Taco or Burger King or anything else I found, I ended up at the Conoco station next to the hotel, buying some apples, cheese, and other knosh along with a Moose Drool brown ale for myself. It was pretty tasty.

Babies Dig Risotto

Maybe I shouldn't generalize too much here, but Celeste at least is one baby who seems to dig risotto. When you stop and think about it, that shouldn't be surprising: rice, cheese, gooey, creamy — what's not to like?

She's had bits of my standard risi e bisi risotto before, and she enjoyed the leftovers of the zucchini-porcini risotto I made last week. So I decided to start making some batches of risotto specifically for Celeste.

Part of this was because we had a block of Cascadian Farms frozen winter squash that I picked up a while ago thinking we could break off pieces to feed Celeste. She never really went for it (and, honestly, it wasn't as good as the homemade butternut squash purée that she had been getting, so I don't blame her), but something needed to be done with it. I'd made a pumpkin risotto a while back, so I started thinking ...

Squash and Garbanzo Risotto

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 3⁄4 teaspoons garam masala, dissolved in 1⁄4 cup water
• 13⁄4 cups vegetable stock
• 10 ounce package frozen winter squash, thawed
• 1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and rubbed to remove/loosen skins
• 1⁄3 cup ricotta

Sauté the onions in olive oil until translucent, add the rice toss to coat with oil. Add the garam masala and water and stir until mostly absorbed. Add in the stock, thawed squash and garbanzo beans and stir. Bring to a boil and lock down the pressure cooker. Cook for 8 minutes at low pressure. Release pressure and stir in ricotta.

Evelin and Celeste both liked it (Evelin compared it to pumpkin soup) and, since we froze about half of it, we'll see how it reheats over the coming week or two. The garam masala I used is a North Indian style with heavy notes of cinnamon. I don't think a hotter South Indian one would work as well, but maybe some scallions or fresh parsley would be a nice addition.

Why Is It ...

... a mandolin (and, just to be clear, I ain't talkin' about bluegrass ...) can seem so dull when it's having trouble slicing an onion or a potato, yet it suddenly gets quite sharp when it meets a finger or two?

Let's just say that tonight's gratin wasn't quite vegetarian, nor was it quite cannibalism.

Ga Ga for Garbanzos

Considering how much Celeste likes hummus, I shouldn't have been surprised, but she really chowed down on some garbanzo beans (straight out of the can) this afternoon. I sat down to feed her after the dishwasher was delivered and sent back (more about that in a moment), and she was on the peckish side. She started off with a bit of risotto, followed by some parsnips and applesauce, blueberries^*, watermelon^*, banana bread, cucumber^*, mango^*, and veggie burger (^*not her favorites ... today), but was still acting hungry, so, fishing around for options, I opened a can of garbanzos. She took to them like candy, popping them into her mouth as quickly as I could slip the skin off the beans.

When she seemed done, I look away her bib and tray and, while I was turning to put those things on the kitchen counter, I heard a wet *blaurgh* sound. She'd leaned over the front of the chair and puked up about a teaspoon of water and garbanzos. It's a milestone because it's the first time she's really thrown up (as opposed to spitting up); it was also funny because I quickly cleaned up the mess (such as it was) and she proceeded to lean over to try to make that noise again ...

Another milestone for today: She was walking holding only one of my hands. She prefers to hold two hands/fingers, but she was able to take controlled steps with only one hand.

Dishwasher Scratch and Dent

So if I'm buying a scratch-and-dent dishwasher, I'm cool with whatever damage it may have, but when the guys were about to unload it off the truck, they asked me to come and look at things first. Celeste and I went out and, lo and behold, the front panel of the dishwasher is creased/dinged/dented. After talking it over (and the delivery guys blaming Sears's warehousing practices), I decided to refuse delivery.

Calling up Sears.com customer support, I find out it's going to take about three weeks before a dishwasher will be available for delivery — which seems pretty excessive to me. But, to add insult to injury, after I authorize a redelivery date, I go to see what they say about stock and the price on the unit has dropped $50.00.

Thankfully, they have a price protection guarantee and were pretty polite about crediting me back the difference, but it was still a bit of a kick. I decided to go with Sears for this because of the percent back Celeste will get in her 521 account via Upromise, but I'm beginning to wonder if it was worth the hassle. Hopefully delivery number two will occur more quickly than anticipated and there won't be any damage ...

Living Off the Earth

Today was one of those days when I left for the office before Celeste awoke and dinna get home until after she was back in bed. I might see her if she has a crying fit in the next hour or two, but otherwise it'll be tomorrow afternoon. My Tuesday/Thursday afternoons with her help make amends for days like today — I hope.

Anyway, since I don't have any tales from the day that won't get me dooced, I'll relay what Evelin called me about this afternoon. She and Celeste went into the garden to pick cucumbers. We've been a little lax in making sure we check the vines each day, and some of the cucumbers have grown large enough to be confused for spaghetti squash. She culled the giant/bad ones and picked the one good one and handed it to Celeste, who almost immediately started eating it.

When they got back inside, Celeste refused to give it up and proceeded to gnaw a goodly bit of the gourd away. (And, surprisingly, a good amount of that ended up in her stomach, not just all over her clothes.)

Baby Jogger

So I got an e-mail this evening from Wacky Planet about some new Red Sox hats and while wandering around the site, I was asking Evelin whether or not Celeste needed a Red Sox cheerleader outfit (both of us think not) or Red Sox nylon track suit or perhaps a Red Sox hoodie and sweat pants.

I started to argue in favor of the later when Evelin made the hard-to-argue-with point: "Does she really need a Red Sox jogging suit? How often does Celeste go jogging anyway?"

In related thoughts: Go Sox! After all that Manny drama, it was great to see him come in and get the clutch, game-winning single. Although it's fun to think what Theo could do if Manny's salary were foisted off on the Mets or something, I still like having Manny around.

Slack Day

It was a fairly gray, overcast day today. Nothing much happening; nothing much doing. I did get over to the tire place to have the flat on the T.R.U.C.K. fixed, and I picked up new windshield wipers for both vehicles, but other than that it was mostly non-eventful.

One bigish thing is that Celeste is running a fever and drooling like a mad woman. When she woke this morning, she was 102.2°F, but Infant Motrin knocked that down and she was feeling a lot better pretty quickly. Around noon, when the Motrin was starting to wear off, she was getting cranky again, and the fever was back up to 101.2°F. The drool, we figure, is teething-related and fevers can accompany teething (although 102.2°F is high for teething), so we're not too worried at this point, but we are monitoring her, giving her lots of fluids, and trying to keep her on the cool side. Hopefully, if it isn't teething-related, it's just a little bug helping to build her immune system and she'll be better tomorrow or Monday.

The other thing was that I saw a hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus) for the first time. I glanced out the window while washing dishes (new dishwasher is due to arrive on Tuesday) and he was just going to town on the flower stalk of one of our Adam's needle (Yucca filamentosa) bushes. After he flew off, I went to look and he really did tear apart bits of the stalk; it was pretty neat.

Celeste and I tried to have a nap this afternoon; I was more into than she was. While she did eventually conk out for about an hour and a quarter, I was in and out of sleep for a few hours. I guess things are catching up with me. When we have a "nap buddy" afternoon, I usually spend the first 15 minutes or so pretending to sleep while Celeste wiggles around on the bed, kicks me in the face and chest, tries to force-feed me her pacifier, etc. Eventually, she settles down (sometimes after I'm no longer pretending to sleep) and goes to sleep, allowing me to either continue my nap or to read for a while. Today, I started reading, but was pretty soon back asleep.

For dinner, I made us a nice risotto. I had some zucchini leftover from Thursday's suzette pie, so I put together the following and it worked out pretty well:

Zucchini–Porcini Risotto

• 1⁄2 ounce bag of dried porcini mushrooms
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 shallot, diced
• 2 toes garlic, minced
• 1 medium zucchini, diced
• Salt and pepper
• 2 small bay leaves
• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 1⁄4 cup chardonnay
• 13⁄4 cup vegetable stock
• 1 cup shredded Manchego cheese

Soak the mushrooms in two cups of hot water laced with 2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar for about 30 minutes. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter and reserve; rinse the mushrooms to remove any grit.

In a pressure cooker, heat olive oil and sauté onions, shallot, garlic, and zucchini over medium-high heat. Add salt and pepper and continue to sauté until onions are translucent. Add bay leaves, rice and wine and stir until the wine is absorbed. Add vegetable stock and 2 tablespoons of the reserved mushroom soaking liquid.

When it comes to a boil, close the pressure cooker and bring heat up to the first ring. Hold at that temperature for 8 to 10 minutes. Release pressure, remove the bay leaves, and stir in the cheese. Let continue to cook until the desired consistency is reached.

Garlic-Breath Baby

We're out of it at the moment, but Celeste is really digging hummus right now. She'll eat up spoonful after spoonful. Adding that to her back-and-forth relationship with dolmas and her love of ΦΑΓΕ yoghurt, and this girl seems destined to live Levantine food. Of course it could just be a matter of what we feed her, but she does wear the garlic-breath well ...

Faltering Steps & Sleep, Precious Sleep

Celeste's holding onto a hand and staggering took a leap forward into the hands-free realm. She wouldn't do it for me this afternoon, but this morning she twice let go of Evelin's hand, stood for about five seconds and pitched forward two or three steps into Evelin's arms. It's not quite walking, but it's two to three steps closer than she's been before. That's cool. And scary. At least she isn't pulling herself up yet ...

That's the "faltering steps," the sleep side of things ... who can tell. Last night, she had a crazy awake period around 10:30/11:00 p.m. Tonight, she was tired at 5:00 p.m., had a good dinner, a nice bath, and then decided to hell with sleep, I'm staying up ... for three more hours. And she was bonkers during that time, part of which Evelin spent playing/trying to coax her to sleep while I finished making a Suzette Pie — it turned out pretty good; I think I'd precook the squashes some next time and change the herbs to espazote or something, but it was tasty). I then got to try to soothe her while Evelin waited for the pie to finish cooking and to have a slice or two ... In the end, Evelin nursed her to sleep, which is probably suboptimal, but at least <knockwood>she's stayed down thus far</knockwood>.

Other adventures

Celeste and I found out today that while the Baby Jogger stroller is very cool, you cannot fit a watermelon and a baby in it. Since it was the first nice day in a while, we walked to the farmers market and the only thing we came home with was a nice watermelon, but, soon after handing over my cash, I discovered that the under-baby stowage area is way too small for a watermelon; the net in front of the driver can accommodate a watermelon, but it pushes the baby forward at an uncomfortable angle; and the footrest is a bad place to try to balance anything that makes a tempting target for kicking.

I asked Celeste to hold the melon on the ride home and she just looked at me like I was out of my gourd (pun totally intended). So I tried putting it atop the sunshade. That worked for a while, but the velcro started to loosen or something and the melon gradually pushed the shade down until it touched Celeste's head, upsetting her greatly.

In the end for the last mile or so, I just carried the melon. We haven't cut it yet; it better be sweet.

Confused by Neckwear

Celeste was laughing at me this morning. Not because she decided to wake around 5:30 a.m., no because I had a meeting downtown which meant wearing a tie. My office is a casual one and I rarely end up going to work wearing something other than jeans and a T-shirt (in winter maybe it'll be a flannel shirt or a sweater). Since Celeste was born, I think there's been one day where she had the opportunity to see me in a tie, and that day I might have left for the office before she woke up.

At first she gave me the "Hey, it's daddy!" look (which is always nice to see), but then she wrinkled up her face and let out a little "huh" noise. I bent down to talk to her and she just kept looking at this thing swinging from my neck. Thankfully, she didn't try giving it a big tug or anything, but she did bat at it a few times.

Birthday Flat Tire

Back in 2002, I spent most of my birthday morning in the neutral ground in front of the Canadian Embassy waiting for AAA to show up. I had a flat tire and that was when I discovered that the jack in the trunk was more rust than tool.

This was during the World Cup and I was desperately wanting to know the results of the Poland–Portugal match because it would help determine whether or not Team USA would advance to the next round. The tow truck driver who finally showed several hours later than expected, turned out to have played soccer professionally in Egypt, but he hadn't been paying attention to Group D; the same was true for the Moroccan guy at the gas station.

But all that has nothing to do with today's birthday flat. First off, it's Evelin's birthday, not mine.

A bit before 11:00 a.m. I got a call at work from Evelin. She and Celeste had made a run to Target and she though the T.R.U.C.K. was driving funny, but she waited until she got to the store to find out the rear passenger-side tire was going flat. She and Celeste went ahead and picked up the things they needed, and when she got back to the parking lot the tire had no air left in it.

After talking about it some, we all decided that she and Celeste would walk home and I would cut out of the office a little bit early to take care of the flat before Evelin had to get to work. Target is a little over a mile from our house, but it was quite hot and humid today, and the air quality is in the icky category.

Long story short: I left my car at the house, walked up to Target, changed the tire and got home in time for Evelin to get to work. And it was hot, humid and icky.

While this was going on, Celeste was napping. On the walk back from Target, Evelin had had to work to keep her awake and she was in bed by 11:30 a.m. She ended up sleeping until 1:45 p.m. — a good two hours and 15 minutes — which meant she was ready for her afternoon with me.

In addition to a quick trip to the grocery for some birthday supplies, Celeste spent a good bit of time reading, including flipping through the latest issue of BabyTalk and giggling at some of the photos and advertisements.

She also played a little soccer. Basically, while holding my hands to walk, she would bump into her little Size 0 Lego soccer ball pushing it forward. At first I think it was annoying her, but there were a few times where she looked like she was aiming and giving it a good kick.

Getting Worse

Okay, so the new sleep regime is not yet in place. Part of it is due to a leap, we think, but a lot of the problem is probably teething.

Yesterday, after her good night of sleep (midnight–6:00 a.m.), Celeste didn't want to nap. She finally gave in around 11:00 a.m. or so, but only slept for about a half hour. That afternoon, however, she slept from a bit past 2:00 p.m. until after 5:00 p.m. A three-plus-hour nap into late in the day.

She stayed up a bit late to have dinner with us (whole-wheat pasta and Trader Joe's vegetarian meatballs — neither of us were up to cooking much). During the meal, Celeste gnawed on some pasta and sampled a wheatball, but she really dug her slice of frozen asian pear. By 8:00 p.m. she was in bed, and I wasn't too late behind her, although sleep wasn't coming easy.

Evelin fed her a little before midnight again, but a hour later, she was up again ... and she stayed up for well over an hour. We tried a bunch of soothing tricks (and redosed her with Infant Motrin as soon as she hit the six-hours-since-last-dose mark — sometime around 1:45 a.m.), ranging from various holding postures to letting her come into the big bed to leaving her alone to begging and pleading. Finally she dropped off after an extended bout of comfort nursing and a half-hour before I had to get up to head to the office.

Hopefully, I'll get a call from Evelin in a few hours saying that Celeste slept through until 8:00 a.m., but even if that is the case it leaves me wondering what's in store for tonight.

One of the front incisors is in and the second one is pushing hard at her gums. We're obviously focused on the front teeth, which are the most visible, but she's almost 11 months, so I guess she could have her first molars looking to erupt sometime soon, too. I'm betting that won't be fun for any of us.

UPDATE: (08:12) Well, after I left, Celeste slept straight through until about 7:30 a.m. Evelin said she seemed well rested and ready for the day, but a rash we noticed yesterday evening seems to be spreading around her neck and torso.

We did go a little crazy introducing several new foods at once because we were sharing our food with her (mushrooms and red bell peppers grilled with a marinade that included sesame oil; stuffed grape leaves; veggie burgers; egg yolk; ... all within the past four days, and there may have been one or two other new things, too), so it could be a reaction to that, or it might be because of the dryer sheet that some of her clothes were washed with, or it might be prickly heat or some other ailment due to the hot, humid weather we're having right now. For the moment, she seems not to be bothered by it, so we're going to try to step back a week or two in what she's eating, rewash her clothes, and watch things to see if it clears up or continues to spread.

You Don't Have Laces?

After our hike yesterday, I started wondering if a rear-view mirror that could clip on to my glasses would help keep an eye on what's going on with Celeste while she's in the Piggyback. The Piggyback comes with a small mirror on a bungee cord, but it takes a bit of effort to stretch it out to an angle where Celeste can be seen and I've been known to step off the trail and/or into a tree while paying attention, so walking while trying to position the mirror could prove a bad thing in the long run.

Poking around at REI during lunch I found this CycleAware Heads Up! "eyewear-mounted mirror." I think it'll work, although the clip doesn't really snug down on the thin arms of my usual pair of eyeglasses. We'll see.

While there, I also wanted to pick up a new pair of boot laces. Adventure store. Big hiking boot department. No laces. Apparently, they've been out of stock or something for a while now and hope to have some in by the end of the week. That just seems wrong to me.

Other Things

SLEEP: Last night, Celeste did better that I did. She did wake up around 11:00 p.m. and Evelin fed her, but after that she slept through until about 6:00 a.m. I woke around 4:00 a.m. and headed down to the couch to read for a bit, and thus was ready to spring into action for those first few cries. A quick pacification and blanket straightening and she was back asleep for another half hour. I considered this a good night; Evelin, who was the one who woke at 11:00, was less sure. We'll see how tonight goes — Celeste often wakes about 15 minutes after I leave the house on my early-morning days.

HUMOR: McSweeney's has a great selection of George W. Bush jokes, although "some of them seem gratuitous and mean-spirited." (Via White House Briefing of all places)

Sleeping In

After playing hooky from work on Friday to get a haircut and a little relaxation and then dealing with the yard on Saturday, Evelin, Celeste and I had time for a little hike this morning. We loaded up the Piggyback and headed off to Jug Bay Natural Area. We hadn't been there before, but the walk through the Black Walnut Creek Nature Study Area looked short enough to keep Celeste interested but not too short; the only downside was that it was about 20 minutes outside the Beltway and after Celeste's crazy night (more on that in a moment) we knew she was skipping her morning nap, but we weren't sure what she'd be up for.

It turned out pretty good: Only about 1.25 miles, but she seemed to be enjoy herself, spending much of the walk "singing" — at least that's what Evelin thought she was doing. We heard birds, but didn't really see many, but there were tons of dragonflies around and a bunch of frogs, as well as one deer.

Skipping back through the last night or two, we're trying to cut out Celeste's middle-of-the-night feeding. A while ago, she dropped (with a little encouragement) her 4:00 a.m. feeding, but shifted her 11:00 p.m. feeding to somewhere around midnight. This past week, we started trying to just soothe her in the middle of the night with the goal of getting her to sleep through to morning.

On Friday night/Saturday morning, during a big thunderstorm, she woke around 2:00 a.m. screaming. I tried calming her for a while, but Evelin ended up having to come in and nurse her back to sleep. On Saturday night/Sunday morning, there was no thunderstorm, but she was wide awake at a little past 2:00 a.m. After a about an hour-and-a-half, Evelin again had to rescue me (Celeste wasn't crying this time, but she wasn't going to sleep) and ended up nursing her to sleep. In the end, she made up for some of the awake time by sleeping until around 8:00 a.m., but it's not quite what we're aiming for.

Celeste on Suess

Yesterday, Celeste spent a good deal of time digging through her books. In fairly quick succession, she read Green Eggs and Ham, Buenas Noches, Gorila, Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Peek-a-Boo!, and about five other books.

Must Watch Myself

I know I have to be careful not to laugh at some things or else Celeste will repeat an undesired action with the hope of getting more approving laughter from me ... but when she take a big slug of water and then imitates the Jet d’Eau it's hard not to laugh ...

Doggie Bigot

I'm feeling a little bad because I'm seeing some things in myself that I don't like.

The couple who gave us the dishwasher as part of the F²/D² also had a dog that they needed to get find a new home for. The problem for them was that they were a two-dog household and she (the dog in question) was having some dog aggression issues with the other (older) dog who had some form of epilepsy. The medicine would control things, but when the older dog would have a seizure, the other dog would try to attack. They had a two-year-old with a new baby due in autumn and there were concerns that if one of the kids tried to get in between the dogs they might get hurt.

We met the dog who needs a home and she seemed really submissive and sweet. She did a lot of face-licking, which Celeste loved, and was really cute.

The problem was that she is a pit bull/doberman mix who was rescued as a puppy from a fighting dog situation. Had she grown up with the people she was taken from, she'd be a fighter.

That's what has me nervous. Our yard isn't dog-proof — two sides have decent fences that belong to our neighbors; the third side is our fence, but it's in very bad shape (which generally isn't a big deal because it's overgrown with ivy, forsythia, and other plants); and the fourth side is unfenced — and there are dogs a yard or two over, which could be a problem. Plus, we see a fair number of dogs being walked in our neighborhood: There would be plenty of opportunities for a bad dog interaction.

But the bit that has me second-guessing myself is that I am nervous about Celeste and the dog. She was really sweet in her house, but I worry that the stress of adapting to our pack might set her off and cause a problem. Plus she's a very strong dog and if Evelin were walking her and trying to control the stroller at the same time ... it's easy to imagine something bad happening.

So, right now I'm feeling guilty for turning away a dog that needs a home, but I keep thinking it's the right move for us, but I'm not 100% sure. Sigh. If anyone is in the D.C. area and is able to take a sweet, crate-trained five-year-old pit bull/doberman mix (no other dogs in the house), let me know: I can try to put you in contact with the dog's owners.

Mojo Memories

Flipping though the new entries on my Bloglines RSS reader, a throw-away reference to Mojo Nixon on Drink at Work sent me down memory lane. Reading through his bio, which is beyond funny got me started stumbling through more than a few memories of Mojo shows at Tipitina's and other venues.

Even better, it lead me to Mojo's Bootleg Shack where there's a 1987 recording from Baton Rouge. I wasn't at that show, but I was at Tip's a few days earlier to see Mojo and Skid Roper. If I recall correctly, the opening acts were The Dick Nixons and Too Much Joy, but that might have been a different bill.

The thing that stands out was that during "Mushroom Maniac" (a call-and-response ode to psychedelic mushrooms) Mojo decided he wanted to jump off the stage into the crowd to try to throw the water bottle he was using to pound out the rhythm through a basketball hoop. He started by working the line "Y'all gonna part," which the crowd parroted back to him, "Like the Red Sea." It took two or three times and much arm waving before we in the audience got the hint.

After leaping to the floor, Mojo took a few throws at the hoop, and then went to jump back on to the stage. He slipped and hit the floor hard. Skid leaned over the stage and quickly said "Uhm, show's over."

After a little confusion, a quiet call is heard: "Who the fuck?" A few voices in the crowd provided the response: "Who the fuck?" "Spilled their beer?" "Spilled their beer." "I think I broke." "I think I broke." "My leg." "My leg." Pretty quickly after that Mojo was back on stage for the rest of a very raucous show.

Two other Mojo memories:

Another evening at Tip's, I got the chance to talk briefly with Mojo before the first act started — he was waiting by the bar for food or a drink or something when I was trying.

And I saw Mojo's with the Toadliquors backing him up during South by Southwest in 1991. He had the audience do the "Magic Mushrooms Dance," which turned out to be the MC Hammer "Hammertime" shuffle.

Dɑɑ!

Celeste is such a dog person. We were at the farmers market this afternoon (it's a small one — three farm stands, one baker, two other stands — but very crowded) and after picking up some zucchini, green beans, and bicolor corn, Celeste and I were trying to decide whether or not to pile into the line for peaches.

I was carrying Celeste and she was looking over my shoulder at various people. I noticed the dog first (a cute Australian shepherd who'd gotten a buzz cut for the summer) and tried to point him out to Celeste. It took her a few moments, but she finally saw him and let out a loud "Dɑɑ!" started leaning and stretching out both arms toward the dog; it was the same move she does when Evelin walks in the door.

I Have to Wait How Long?

For Book Seven that is. Evelin, pitying me after yesterday's Freecycle Fiasco/Dishwasher Disaster (a.k.a. the F²/D²) let me read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince first. She also let me spend a good chunk of today reading (in no small part so I'd finish and let her read it, I'm sure). I am very, very lucky to be married to such a wonderful woman.

No spoilers; I'll just say I enjoyed it and really, really, really would like Book Seven to be released very soon.

Abject Failure

We needed a new dishwasher and, well, a free one sounded like a good idea at the time. Long story short: Sears will be sending over a new dishwasher at some point in the nearish future.

The Freecycle dishwasher turned out to have completely different-sized fittings from our old leaking one.

The electrical connection was no problem (although I found out that the dishwasher is on the "Main Lights" breaker instead of the kitchen or another sensible option).

The wastewater tube needed to be smaller than the existing one (and the one attached to the Freecycle dishwasher wasn't long enough to reach the disposal); so part of the first trip to Home Depot was a long piece of appropriate-sized hose, some clamps, a reducer to connect from the disposal to the hose, and a bard to mate the reducer with the hose. The new hose was on the long side (and at risk of kinking), so I had to trim it.

Then there was the water inlet. This is what doomed me. Dishwashers need and elbow piece that connects the solenoid with the supply line. The old elbow was still attached to the dishwasher with years of plumbers putty and other gunk. I figured it'd be best to leave that in place and to find a reducer or some other connector to fit it with my supply line. Three trips to Home Depot, one to Strosnider's Hardware, one to East-West ACE Hardware, and one to Northeast Plumbing Supply and eight connectors later, I had nothing.

I don't know if the old elbow was some odd size manufactured for six weeks in the 1970s in Guinea-Bissau or what, but I couldn't find anything that matched. 3⁄8" was too small; 1⁄2" was too big; flared, FIP, compression — nothing worked. Finally, I decided to risk damaging something to get the old elbow off and ... big surprise ... I damaged part of the solenoid.

With the expectation that no matter what, the new dishwasher would now leak (albeit it a much less visible and therefore probably more damaging place/way), I checked Consumer Reports and started looking for a new dishwasher. It is something we needed, but I really would have liked to have had a different way of going about getting a new one ... and now I need to see if the city will cart away two dishwashers for us.

Scary Beards

Apparently, bearded men scare little children. Years ago, while in line at the grocery store, I noticed that the toddler sitting in the cart ahead of us was staring at me. I started sticking my tongue out at him and making faces. Pretty soon, the child was in tears. I immediately started apologizing to his mother and she dismisses it, saying "Oh, his pediatrician has a beard. He thinks you're going to give him a shot."

Apparently, even children with beardless pediatricians can be scared by bearded men, however.

When I got home, I opened the door to see my niece K--- and sister-in-law M--- in the living room. K--- immediately froze and just stared at me. I said hello to her, but didn't approach or make any sudden moves. I could see she was a little unsure of me, so I figured we'd take things easy.

Later in the evening, Celeste and K--- were sharing a bath and Evelin and M--- were trying to get a picture with both of them looking and smiling. I thought I'd be funny and pop my head in and make a face. The first time it got a good "dæ di!" from Celeste and a what-the-hell look from K---; the second time, K--- was in tears.

Throughout the evening, K--- has been watching me very warily, so I've been trying to stay out of her way. Maybe tomorrow, if she's a little more comfortable in a strange place, we can be properly reintroduced ... and I won't be as scary (although, if she watches me installing the dishwasher, that could be scary for many reasons ...)

Freecycle Strikes

I've mentioned how much Evelin loves giving stuff away on Freecycle (one of her first comments after I bought the new phones was, "So, I can Freecycle the old ones, right?"), but tonight we made the deal for our first Freecycle intake — an old dishwasher.

Despite my previous efforts, the leaking on our old dishwasher continues, so when Evelin saw someone offering a dishwasher for free, she jumped. Unfortunately, that was a week or so ago and it was taken by the time she could e-mail. But this evening she checked her e-mail and the dishwasher was once again available and she pounced.

I have a great deal of trepidation about this (mostly about actually moving the Freecycled unit into the T.R.U.C.K., moving it from the T.R.U.C.K. to the kitchen, and then moving the old unit out to the curb), and the fact that we have to pick it up tomorrow morning adds to my concerns, but we'll see ... I guess, at worst, we either have to say "sorry, but we're passing" when we get there in the morning, or we have to pay a neighbor kid to help wrestle the thing into our house. And then I get to see about connecting a water in, a water out, and the electrical (and hopefully that'll be all there is to it).

[UPDATE: Okay, fears of weight were greatly undeserved (at least for the Freecycled unit; I won't know how much our old dishwasher will end up weighing until tonight or tomorrow). D---, the guy who was giving it away, and I braced ourselves when we went to lift it and almost through the thing into the ceiling; it was a lot lighter than we'd guessed. It fit okay into the T.R.U.C.K., although one of the hoses hadn't drained all the way, dumping some water into the back of the vehicle, but it wasn't too bad. The unit is older than our current one, I think, but hopefully it will install easily and, most importantly, not leak.]

Cruizin'

Celeste made another move today. Since my folks were here the last week in June (and especially since seeing her cousins running about over 4th of July Weekend), Celeste has been working at walking. She can pull herself up if we offer her fingers/hands to grab on to, and she will gladly lead us around the house to the point of fearlessly stepping off stairs into space if we let her. On Sunday, she walked me over to a Matisse print we have propped up against the wall in the dining room (it had to be moved for a shelf and we don’t know where it will go next) and plopped herself down in front of it. I think she said "Gauguin?" and I had to explain that she had the wrong painter (and really, the print, "Femme à l'Amphore et Grenade," looks way too Modern to confuse with anything a Post-Impressionist like Gauguin would have done).

Anyway, this afternoon, stuck with a dirty diaper and the need to drop her someplace secure for a minute, I left Celeste standing in her crib while I ran across the hall to the Diaper Champ. When I got back, instead of picking her up, I stood at the end of the crib and encouraged her to walk over to me by herself. It took a little work shifting her hand and foot, but I got her to figure out the hold-on-to-the-rail-and-side-step move and she was soon in the corner of the crib next to me. So, meanie that I am, I walk to the other end of the crib and stayed just out of her reach, encouraging her to move about two-thirds the length of the crib toward me.

This was her first instance of cruising.

[ASIDE: Earlier today (and I witnessed it when Evelin got home this evening), Celeste started spinning on her butt — yet another breakdancing move — to keep her mum in her sights. She's done this a little bit in the tub, but today, Evelin walked around a sitting Celeste and she used her feet to push herself 360°.]

Later in the day, when I was drawing her bath, she cruised along the side of the tub to try and get a toy, and, after her bath while waiting for Evelin to get home, she made two or three sideways steps while holding on to the downstairs changing table to get at a toy.

Evelin sums it up as "She's experimenting with movement," and I think we are going to be in trouble soon ...