J at 6 months

We had a little scramble to get all our paperwork together for him, but we were thrilled to be able to adopt J in February. We named him J, for my father who passed away last November. Our boy has been growing like crazy, in his body and in our hearts, and we are so blessed to have him and Z. We call him “little monster” and “bubba” because that was Z's best attempt at pronouncing “brother” when we brought him home.

He is growing well, but differently from Z. He's about average for height, but he's thinner than she was. It seemed like it took him until he was three months to have anything you could call a bootie, and he never really got the fat rolls. He struggled a lot with his digestion the first few months. We finally figured out that he was allergic to milk around 3.5 months, and that made a huge difference. He stopped spitting up literally overnight when we changed his formula and he's been a happy baby ever since. He is up to date on all his shots and the doctor says he's hitting all his milestones. He started on solids this last month and really loves to eat! He wanted nothing to do with cereal, really, but loves any kind of soft veggie or fruit that we give him, and he's done great on the little bit of beef and chicken he's tried so far. I think his favorite is apple, but it's hard to know for sure because he's so enthusiastic about everything!

He cut his first teeth, found his feet, and got up on all fours all in a week last month. It's like he was racing to see how many milestones he could hit and how fast. Not long after that, he was crawling. It wasn't a big dramatic moment, he just looked across the room at a toy he wanted and started motoring over to it. He was so pleased when he got there, though, that he kinda forgot how he had done it. It was several days before he did it again, and a few days after that before he finally mastered it and added it to his daily repertoire of tricks.

Some of his favorite things to do now are to grab onto faces and chew chins and noses. He knows the word “zrbtt” (I think most people call them “blowing raspberries”) and if Z starts giving zrbtts to me or Rose, he will crawl across the floor to do it, too. He especially likes to zrbtt people on the cheeks. He's very slobbery, so you have to love him a lot to let him do it. He has a great grip, though, and can all but do chinups off my ears. I had been growing my hair out, and trying out dreadlocks, but he was getting his sticky little fingers so tangled in the locs, and then he barfed in them and I couldn't get the smell out, so I had to cut it short. He still gets a good grip on it and pulls me in close so he can chew my nose, but at least now it's easy to untangle him. He's got swimming lessons coming up in the fall, so we can't wait to see if he learns as quickly as Z did. He loves to play and splash in the water, and we've taught him how to float on his back and hold his breath and go underwater already.

J has been to East Texas for a family reunion, and to Houston to visit with the cousins, and to Austin to visit with our friends and family there, and also to College Station to visit with our good friends who live there. His cousins just love helping with getting him changed and dressed and fed, and they are very excited when they know Z and J are coming for a visit. He hasn't gotten to go on any real vacations yet, but we do have one coming up in October, we'll be going to the beach. I think he'll love crawling around in the sand. He's a good traveler and likes to babble in his car seat and he sleeps well in the car.

He's the apple of his Zeidy's eye (Zeidy is Yiddish for grandfather, that's what Rose's dad is called) and loves to tug on Zeidy's mustache and sit with him in the recliner when we go visit. Rose's mom goes by Bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother) and she loves to hold him and feed him his bottles. We try to make sure we see them once a week, at least, so J is very familiar with them and always gets excited when he sees either of them open the door.

My mom recently moved to a new house, so we've been to visit with her a couple of times in her new place outside of Austin. J did his first rolling over there, on the rug, at Easter. My mom is very fond of him and often calls him by my dad's nickname. She reminds him sometimes that he'll have to be a little bit tough to hold his own with such a feisty big sister, but tells him it's okay to be sweet, too.

He's surrounded by music all the time, because we sing to him and to Z as we play our way through the day. He likes to have lullabyes at night, and his favorite toys are a little play piano and a musical table that is covered in noisemaking gizmos. He is definitely a pacifier-loving baby, and never was very interested in his thumb or any other soother. The day he figured out how to put his own pacifier in his mouth was probably one of his happiest, and that's saying a lot because he is a very happy baby. He has an easy, bubbly laugh that he uses all the time. Everything from funny sounds to bouncing on a lap will make him laugh out loud. He enjoyed a bouncer, liked his swing, and LOVES his jumpy seat. He can sit and bop up and down in his jumpy seat for what seems like an hour at a time. He's a funny sleeper, he wakes often as he tosses and turns but it's easy to get him back to sleep. He takes several good naps during the day, but doesn't yet sleep through the night.

And even though he's very nearly 8 months old now, I am so proud of myself for getting this and Z's updates written, that I don't even care that it's late. Writing anything at all is a victory right now.

things i like...

1) A good stylist who gives me a good haircut, consistently. My stylist just moved from one salon to another, and I didn't spend 0.1 seconds trying to figure out whether to be loyal to the salon or the stylist. Curly hair ain't easy, y'all!

2) Ice. It soothes aching muscles, it brings coffee down to a comfy summer drinking temperature, it makes my dogs scrabble across my kitchen floor chasing its frictionless fleeting form. No end to the hilarity OR usefulness of ice.

3) Growing and nurturing things. Fish. Plants. Dogs. Marriages. Well, just the one marriage, but you get the idea. I can't bake, but I can make stuff grow!

4) Swimming. I like the way it feels when I'm suspended in the water. I like the way water slides over my skin. I don't know if I'll still be so in love with swimming this winter when the weather is cold, but for now, I lurve it.

5) Air Conditioning. The south didn't get civilized until this handy invention became commonplace. I wouldn't live in the cold, cold north unless I was paid to, and even then it would have to be sums of money in direct proportion to the volume of snow I have to move in the course of my daily life. But without air conditioning? I would not so much enjoy all the easy access I have to sunshine, beaches, quality mexican food, and year-round motorcycle weather.

count those blessings, y'all!

Insomnia = Memories

I can't sleep. So I'm going to tell you a story. And because I could really use it right now, it's going to be a funny story. See how this works? This is another excerpt from my Papa James' autobiography. It's a tale he told on his father, who we all called Big Daddy.

Again, I've corrected bits where it was important to make the meaning clear.

I remember well something funny about Big Daddy: Once in Crowley, LA, Big Daddy went to a bait dealer that a lady ran out of her home. She also sold goldfish & puppies from her female dogs. After counting out our gold fish, Big Daddy gave her a $20.00 bill. She told him to come into the house so she could get his change. He followed her in and she went in the bedroom to get her purse for change. She had a mama chihuahua with young puppies in her bedroom. She asked Daddy if he would like to come into the bedroom and see her little chewawa [sic]. Big Daddy had never heard of a Chihuahua and thought she was offering him sexual concessions! He declined the offer! Later he found out what a chihuahua was. Ha. I can still hear him laughing and telling this on himself, even years later.

And because turnabout is fair play, a memory of me being unsophisticated...

I was about 7 years old the first time I stayed by myself at my grandparents' house. I hadn't really gotten to play like I was an only child since my middle sister was born when I was 13 months old. So, like, never. About that time in my life, I was fighting with my mom about my hair a lot. Maybe all the time, because I seem to recall that by the next school year old ladies at church were telling my mom what a fine priest I would make some day. I knew all the words and had the clean-cut look! Anyway, at this point, my mom was still trying to let me wear my hair long, but it was a daily war zone with crying, wailing, chemical weaponry, blood, entrenched positions, the works. Mom kept us on a pretty tight schedule as kids, mostly for her own sanity, but suddenly I found myself in the bizarre position of being the (extremely spoiled) grandchild in a house by myself with my grandparents' undivided attention. I lapped it up like a cat does cream, and was slinking into the kitchen about 3 days into my visit in my pajamas to see if anybody wanted to make me pancakes. I was only 7, I was entitled to that level of self-centeredness and, in fact, my grandmother DID want to make me pancakes. She had gotten a jar of sourdough starter going pretty good and wanted to use some of it, so logically, pancakes ensued. And as I sidled into the kitchen all barefoot and rumpled and bedheaded, Granny Jessalyn looked up from where she was reading in the green morning light of her kitchen window, and she laughed a deep happy laugh and remarked to Papa James, "Yes, sir! When you're at grandmother's house you can really let your hair down!" Serious and literal and 100% sincere, I responded, "That's right! You don't even have to brush it if you don't want to!" She laughed so hard, and then hugged me so tight, the memory is chipped into the rock of my soul the way it smelled and felt and sounded. She explained about women having to wear their hair put up all the time, back in the old days, and how it was a real treat to be where you could relax and let it down. And ever since, I've associated the Gibson girl with my Granny Jessalyn's kitchen. Then she pulled out the sourdough starter from her icebox and we got down to some pancakes.

frustrated at the airport

chicago airport nominally has wi-fi. but it's run by boingo, and so far i have been completely underwhelmed by their service. i beat my head against the wi-fi signal for about half an hour trying to get my dadgum e-mail and as a result, i'm probably not going to get this posted until i get home. unlike the usual head-beating routine, this actually had a positive effect: i managed to read all my e-mail. i didn't get to send many replies and i certainly didn't hazard sending attachments, just quick notes telling people i'd send attachments later.

tomorrow, i have an appointment with my lawyer. nothing to worry about, unless you're my banker. that's because i'm giving my lawyer several thousand dollars to draw up a series of legal papers and contracts that ensure that, as nearly as possible, the state of texas and the institutions within or without will be forced to recognize rose as my partner and my next of kin and my power of attorney (aka: my wife). so, those of you that have the option of domestic partnership or marriage where you live: treasure that and defend it at the polls. texas has not one but TWO state "Defense of Marriage Acts" averring that it will never recognize marriage or any other institution conferring the benefits of marriage on any sort of homosexual partnership. of course, eventually the federal bench will catch on to the fact that preventing legal recognition of gay relationships doesn't prevent people from ENTERING gay relationships. and because the partnerships are formed, they eventually end for whatever reason. if family and probate courts are able to rely on case law and treat those endings exactly like they do the endings of marriages, it'll make everyone's lives a lot easier. and that's the thing that irritates me about opposition to gay marriage: it doesn't hurt anyone for me to be able to go the JP and get married. straight people in their religious or non-religious marriages will still be just as married, just as committed, just as faithful after a gay couple marries as they were (or weren't) before. it doesn't help straight people at all, but it hurts me and it hurts my friends.

my plane is about to board. i'm home sweet home for four days, and then i'm on the road again. i'll probably spend 90% of that time sleeping and trying to desiccate the giant snot-factory that's set up operations in my sinuses. if you have any anti-viral prayers, meditations, or vibes, i could really use them. that, or a year's supply of kleenex with lotion built right in. i'll need that if the vibes don't work out.

far be it from me to mock someone for large hair, because i am an offender whenever the humidity gets high, but wow... there is some Lubbock-style big hair on the lady cleaning up gate B14 at O'Hare Terminal 1. she looks like she probably has a lifetime of interesting stories to tell, but she quite clearly stopped updating her 'do in about 1965. yikes.

hairdos

i got my hair cut today. i love my stylist; he's an atrociously cute gay boy who can give me a men's business cut or a modern girly cut with equal aplomb. today his hair was EXACTLY the same color as his skin, only about three shades darker. it gave him a weirdly monochromatic look, so he said he was going to get some lowlights to break it up and make it more interesting. he sorta looked like a ken doll, really, but after "don't ask. don't tell." was repealed and ken could just come on out of the closet and tell barbie how badly she needed that lip wax all along.

now, last week, i had an amusing conversation with a fairly buttoned-down and well-groomed sort of lesbian i am acquainted with. she and i were with a group of friends at a play in phoenix. the play is a whole other post in itself, but i'll summarize it with the blurb they used in the publicity "lesbian erotic fiction dramatized and set to music." now, i ask you, aware readers - do you think any lesbian story EVER needs to be dramatized? i mean, further than it already is by virtue of the fact that it's a lesbian story, whether fiction or non-fiction? anyway, we were sitting in our seats waiting for the show to start, and the two rows in front of us were reserved. just a few minutes before the show, a gaggle of fashionably mussed and well-dressed lesbians came in and filled up those reserved seats. and the lady next to me leaned over and whispered, "doesn't anybody comb their hair anymore?" she had a point. these ladies were pushing the bed-head look to its fashionable limits. being the straight-shooter i am, i leaned over and whispered back that they had stopped issuing combs to lesbians born after 1980, because of the budget cuts. of course, by the time that had wended its way telephone-game-style down the row of friends, it came out something like "they stopped making combs in the 80s because of the petroleum crisis." whatever.

then i walked out of my hair appointment looking like one of those uncombed gals from the play last week... my stylist gave me a modern girly cut today, and bless his heart if he didn't try to iron it flat so it would lay down against my noggin. curls just don't do that, but if he pastes 'em down with gel and i put my motorcycle helmet on right afterward while the gel sets, i can kinda make 'em behave for a few hours. i can't wait to see what the wedding planner and the photographer have to say about that...

i got a haircut!

every few years, i like to grow my hair out. i grow it out until it's as long as i can stand it to get, and then i whack it off short and start all over again. i usually start growing it out about the time the phrase "yes, i know this is the women's room" starts to roll off my tongue even before the woman coming through the door can try to tell me i'm in the wrong place. unusually short hair, unusually long legs... sometimes the first impression is wrong. and eventually, that gets old.
it takes me about two years to grow my hair out to 12 inches, and i know that because the last time i got my hair cut was when my nieces were in the NICU. they're turning two this month, so that's how long my hair's been growing. i wanted to cut it before my monster road trip because my mop of hair is NOT something one wants to deal with on a two week motorcycle adventure. it's especially not something one wants to wear in the desert, and as i already mentioned, i was crossing ALL of them. (seriously: the chihuahua, the sonora, the mojave, the great basin. ALL the deserts)

it's the second time i've done this and donated the hair, but probably the 4th time i've done the drastic hair-chopping thing. this time, instead of just taking a borrowed pet trimmer to my own head, i got rose's sister to cut my hair for me. she did a great job! i like the process, i like the way it makes me feel lighter in body and spirit, but i really like knowing that all that time in maintenance and upkeep isn't just going into the trash. so, since 1 pic = 1k words, i'll just say that i donated the hair to Locks of Love and let you read the story below...

before the cut!

a foot of hair...

i'm ready. are you?

cleanup. with STYLE...

ta-daaa! high speed, low drag, easy-maintenance hair for the desert...

Now in Size EXTRA-Large

So I was in Austin this week teaching a class. It was super-fun to visit with my friends in the evenings instead of sitting in my hotel room staring at the walls. Ordinarily, I do a lot of reading and blogging when I go on these trips. In this case, however, the internet was broken (again) at a Hilton family hotel, and I was alone in my room with only my cell phone for company. I hate TV, so it was good that I had lots of people to keep me distracted from the problem of broken internet connectivity.

Anyway, after a fantastic, but exhausting week, I wound up at the Bonnie Raitt concert at The Backyard last night. I had a terribly bizarre experience there. A woman behind me asked me (very politely, and with good humor) if I would pull back my hair so that she could see the stage. As a friend said, it probably didnt help that Im like 8 feet tall. Still, for my hair to have achieved view-blocking status is quite the feat. I have now declared it officially Sized Extra-Large. Previously, I just told people I had Big Hair, so the upgrade is significant.

So me and my extra-large hair are going motorcycling this weekend in the Texas Hill Country. You'll be able to tell it's me because of all the hair hanging out from under the helmet. It just won't stay crammed in there, yo.

Just when I start to feel like a grown-up...

So I'm in Vancouver this week. Not the whole week, thankfully, but Tuesday-Thursday, which might as well be the whole week. I managed to get my stuff moved out of my apartment this weekend, with the invaluable assistance of my delightful girlfriend. I would have been overwhelmed and then collapsed in a heap of frustration several times (especially toward the end) had it not been for her steady help and encouragement. As it was, we managed to finish all the crucial packing well beforetime on Friday, so we got one long, last, luxurious soak in my garden tub before i had to turn in the keys. We got a decent night's sleep and were reasonably chipper when the movers arrived to carry all the things from Point A to Point B. Then, we wrapped up the move in time to get a shower and a nap before going to her parents' house to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Happy New Year! I had never eaten Jewish "home cooking" before. For that matter, aside from the occasional kosher dill or lox on a bagel, I'm not sure I've ever eaten any sort of Jewish cooking before. It was a fantastic new experience and let me tell you - homemade Jewish cous-cous ROCKS. The hizzouse.

Monday, I went to the city dump and disposed of my dead washing machine which had left a bit of water-stain on the floor of my laundry room because it had decided at some point that leaking water was preferable to conveying it all into the wash basket. At least the leak was at the upstream end, so it wasn't leaking dirty laundry water on the floor. So, I was feeling all fabulous and mature and productive because I'd gotten all the move stuff done and finished the last cleanup details at the apartment and turned in the keys... I even remembered to wipe out the inside of the fridge! Tuesday, I had to pack for Vancouver, and this is where the trouble began.

For reasons unknown to me, I ended up spending lots of time Tuesday morning doing laundry, checking e-mail, catching up on blogs, preparing for demos I'd be giving at the conference and NOT PACKING. So when I got hungry, I looked at the clock to see if I could justify a lunch break, and realized that I had just one hour to get myself totally ready. This included FINDING the clothes and shoes and socks and accessories I wanted to pack, ASSEMBLING them and my toiletries all in one place, and ACTUALLY STUFFING THOSE THINGS IN A BAG. I failed miserably at the last two, and slightly at the first one.

A short list of the stuff I already know that I forgot:

• Novels for airplane entertainment
• Jacket (It's 18 here, yo!)
• Hair Stuff *
• Deodorant (I brought some, but it's so empty that I'd throw it away if I were home.)
• Phone Charger
• iPod

* The problem with forgetting my hair stuff is that, left to its own devices, my hair resembles nothing so much as a very disheveled Q-tip that has been used to clean auto parts. This, I assure you, does not coincide with even the more relaxed Professional Dress Codes. If you've been to one of those sandwich shops where the Sandwich Artists wear dreadlocks and have multiple body modfications, it's possible I could get by with my hair in a place like that, but I really think they'd make me muzzle it, even in a place that liberal. My "Hair Stuff" tames the mess and makes it lie (more or less) down against my head and unites the individual strands so they look like big curls instead of a frizzy haze. You don't even know you need to thank me for using it, so I'll tell you right now - You're Welcome.

back from connecticut

well, i'm back home safe and sound from connecticut. the road signage continued to be woefully inadequate at almost all times. the interstate freeways themselves, because they are under federal guidelines, were adequately marked. however, getting onto them from the state and local roads was occasionally a very dicey game.

yesterday was the gay pride parade in dallas and i rode my motorcycle. i'd affixed a texas flag and a us/pride flag to the back. my girlfriend had attached a us flag and a banner for her motorcycle club, so we got to lead the group out with our flag display. i picked up a passenger. she was some cute kid who had turned 19 just the day before and had ALWAYS wanted to ride on a motorcycle, etc. her girlfriend rode along as a passenger with my girlfriend, so that was some nice symmetry. it was slick and rainy and there was junk all over the street that various floats ahead of us had tried to toss at the crowd and then missed. how you could throw and miss a wall of people 4 feet from you, i don't know. but i assure you, there was plenty of flotsam atop the oil slick atop the water-slick streets. it made some of those parade maneuvers a bit scary. it was my first time carrying a passenger, and i was terrified that i might drop the bike in a turn or hit a string of beads just as i was braking down a hill and slide right into the antique car in front of me. anyway, i survived. and photos seem to indicate i was smiling:

that's me out front looking at the camera. in the vee between my flagpoles you can see my girlfriend laughing out loud at something. now, back to the trash on the street question - how can you throw something at a crowd like that and MISS?!?!
here's another picture. it's a little blurry, but it's got a much better angle:
it rained on us all day long, which was a mixed blessing. the temperature was cooler than our daytime average, but then... we were all wearing wet underwear and socks. really, nothing dampens my mood quite like wet socks and underwear. hunger and cold can make me really cranky, but for general mood funk - wet socks and underwear are the ultimate trigger.

the photographer noted that she'd never seen my hair braided up like that before. it's really just gotten long enough for that quite recently, since i'm growing it out again after having donated it to Locks Of Love. i think i've only worn it braided 4 times this year. braiding my own hair is one of those phenomenally useful skills i picked up along the way rather by accident and didn't appreciate the value of until well after the fact. the other two skills i count in that way are typing and the "roll step".

i rebelled against taking typing when my mom "suggested" it my freshman year of high school. "but moooooom! i'm not going to be a secretary, i don't need typing!" you almost have to be a freshman in high school with no understanding of how an office works to comprehend how much scorn i heaped on the words 'secretary' and 'typing'. needless to say, i've used my typing skills nearly every day since then and couldn't be more grateful to my mother for insisting that i learn.

the "roll step" is something you learn in the marching band. it's a way of placing your heel and of rolling your weight along the outside of your foot as you walk so you don't jounce along and break your teeth off with the mouthpiece of your musical instrument. if you like coffee, and have ever tried to walk back to your desk with a hot mugful, you realize the application immediately. until i made the ridiculous mistake of trying to wear women's dress shoes that matched my business attire better than they matched my lifestyle, i never spilled hot coffee on my fingers as i passed through the office. the "roll step" requires a reasonably flexibly-soled shoe with a relatively low heel on it. a glorious open-toed black franco santo with a 2" heel on it does NOT work with the roll step.

the hair braiding thing i owe to the air force academy. my hair is a giant mop which is not, under even the best of conditions, militarily uniform. nobody has the time or inclination to braid their roommate's hair every day, so my roommate showed me basically how she did her own and left me to adapt the technique for myself. i practiced a lot while reading history texts and eventually my hair got long enough and i got good enough. again, it's something i've used so often since then that i can't begin to imagine getting through my rugby career, my surveying jobs, or my professional career as an alarm-over-sleeper without it.

odd realization...

have you ever changed your appearance in some way, say getting a drastic haircut or changing from glasses to contacts? after you did it, did you notice that you had some reflexive gestures that went along with the old look? like flipping your hair over your shoulder, or pushing your glasses back up your nose? did you keep doing the gesture for a couple weeks after you made the change?

i just did that, with my nose piercing. for the last 6 years, i've had a style of jewelry called a (i know this sounds awful) nostril screw. it was basically a stud-style earring with a really long post that is bent around in a spiral so that it lays flat against the inside of your nostril. the great thing about it is that there's nothing on the inside to poke your septum, so it's very comfortable to wear. unfortunately, it can be really hard to fit those things. i've had three different nostril screws in the past six years, and the last one is the only one that fit right on the inside. unfortunately, the spiral it was in, while it fit great in my nostril, left the gem on the outside looking a bit "tucked in" and crooked.

so i went for a change, and after three or four adjustments to the fit, my piercer (pam at trilogy in the gayborhood. she rocks.) suggested a different style. she suggested i use a labret stud. to which suggestion i said, "a what-what-what?" i'd never seen one up close, never having had a labret piercing. anyway, it amounts to an earring with a cap-style back on it. however, the "cap" in this case is like a tiny metal bud vase. it's got a very smooth, flat butt on it, and a short barrel that the stone kinda snaps into. it's actually kinda neat from a variety perspective because once you've got that backing, you can swap out for any stone you want. so i got an opal. (pretty shiny thing!)

now, the odd realization that started this whole post is this: i apparently had a large number of reflexive gestures related to my old nostril screw. it had a tendency to spin in the piercing so that the spiral part of the stud was hanging down out the bottom of my nostril. when you're a giant amazon, and most people look up at you from some lower elevation, this is especially apparent and rather a social faux pas. pam changed the jewelry out for me last night, and i can't tell you how many times i've reached up in the last 12 hours to make sure that my nostril screw was adjusted correctly. i'm looking forward to getting used to this thing so i don't look like i'm picking my nose all the time. ugh.

Enginerdiness

So... how's this for weird? I was outside this afternoon in the "smoke shack" taking a break. I don't smoke, but it's got benches and it's in a shady breezeway, and it's covered in case of rain, so it's the ideal spot to sit and take a break. I could NOT stare at my monitor for another second lest I tear out my hairs by their tender roots. So, I'm out in the smoke shack and one of the smokers comes out to have a cigarette. She and I get to talking, and she starts telling me how my potential is being wasted in my current job and I should think about looking for a better position closer to Dallas. How am I supposed to tell her that I have a phone interview tomorrow for just that purpose? Anyway, I thought that was weird. The good news is, I have an phone interview tomorrow! I just got the e-mail setting it up today, although I had a rumor of it from an anonymous source two days ago. Anyway, I think it would be a good company to work for, so I'm very keen to find out more about the specifics of the positions.

As for my weekend, it was great. I played softball with my work team on Friday night, and we WON! We've lost two games so far, and this last brings our record to 2-1. Yea! I played pretty well, I fielded a couple of balls that came to me off the bat and I caught a couple at second to get the runner out. I had a really hard time with the pitcher, though. He had a weird pitch that had a lot of "hang time" and a really quick vertical drop over the plate. I don't want to sound like sour grapes, or anything, but it was a bit much for a slow-pitch, co-ed, 4th-tier league, in my opinion. That said, the pitcher himself was no peach. By the end of the game all his own teammates wanted to string him up by his toenails from the field lights, so I guess he's got bigger issues than whether he's putting too much heat or spin on his underhand pitch. I generally do pretty well at the plate, and I'm sort of what you'd describe as a "giant amazon", so I can usually smack the ball pretty far. Okay, I'm what I would describe as a giant amazon. Maybe you'd use another term, something like: Jolly Green Giant's Wife. I dunno. Point is, I was endowed by my maker with some really long limbs, which give me a really good moment arm for rotational motion, which in turn translates to a high linear acceleration rate when I transfer that rotational momentum... oy. Enginerdiness overcame me. I hit the ball hard. K?

Saturday I went on a motorcycle ride out to Hico, Texas with my friend Rose and her motorcycle club. That was a fun trip! The sun was warm, but not too hot, and the breeze was cool, but not too cold. The wind was pretty strong but nobody got blown off their bikes, and all the bikes stayed on the road, so I guess it wasn't that bad. We met up with a motorcycle club from Austin at a restaurant there in Hico, and I had fried pickles for lunch. Okay, I had something else, too, but it wasn't very memorable. The thing that WAS memorable was that I had fried pickles. yum!

Sunday was Scarborough Faire. I got my hairs braided, and they looked like this: That's an arrangement called a "Star Crown", if I recall correctly. Anyway, I had a good time at the fair. We saw several shows, some juggling, some bawdy tavern wenches, Ded Bob, and The Mud Show. Highlights: the tavern wenches, Iris & Rose (Wild & Thorny) sang a song about circumcision in honor of their Jewish patrons, since it was Easter. That didn't make any sense to me, either. I think it was just an excuse to sing about circumcision.

Anyway... at the Ded Bob Sho (which I highly recommend) I noticed that Bob had a new dummy. Ded Bob is not your run-of-the-mill ventriloquist show. In this show, the puppetteer is silent and wears a bag over his head while the dummy does all the talking. In fact, since the puppetteer wears a bag over his head, he might not even be a ventriloquist at all. Anyway, the puppetteer used to be named Smudge, and I would swear that this year Ded Bob was calling him Pudge. That's not the good part, though. The good part is that I got to be BobZombie #1!!! If you've ever seen the show, I'm the one who is shy, petite, and virginal and who ends up hopping mad. (You're welcome.) I think one of my friends took pictures. If so, I'll see if I can get a copy.

Finally, we saw The Mud Show. This was very different from before, when it was titled "The Sturdy Mud-Eating Beggars". I guess the beggars have eaten enough mud that they were able to retire, because I didn't recognize any of the players from my first several years of fair attendance. The new show features a lot more splashing in the mud (picture the first few rows of the Shamu show at SeaWorld), and a lot fewer potty humor moments. That aside, it's still good, dirty fun. The show was a re-enactment of the epic saga Beowulf, and I highly recommend it. Look at your bench before you sit down, though, and note that if there is any mud on it, you WILL become dirty at some point in the show if you sit in that spot.

Last bit: my dog got sick over the weekend. I would complain about how distraught I am over this, but really, she's a lot worse off than I am. She had the 'squirts' for three days, and has been on a rice diet since Sunday as a result. She had a much better day today, but she had to wake me up in the middle of the night a couple of times to get her outside. As unpleasant as that is, I far prefer it to her letting me sleep and then waking to find she's squirted on the floor. Yeah. ugh. Enough of that.

Those are all my thoughts for now. I'll say something profound about the job interview when it's over with.