Sunday, May 9th

Carrie's parents had arranged for their siblings (and their children) to stop by to see the newest additions to the family. When all was said and done, the kids had been passed, handled, cuddled, kissed, viewed and touched by upwards of five dozen individuals. Three hours, three feedings, and four changings later, both the kids and the mama were pretty bushed, and took the opportunity for a much-needed nap. But even with the respite, the kids still showed the signs of overstimulation a few hours later; Carrie and her mother left the kids in the capable hands of Grandpa Rus, Uncle Rod and myself, and even though Gabe, was content to sleep off the nervousness caused by the day's events (he actually slept through much of the handling and being passed around), Ollie was still cranky enough to have a pretty major meltdown, and it seemed that only the tender ministrations of Aunt Carla could save the day.

Saturday, May 8th

We started out this morning at about the same time as last; we left the Shiloh Inn Riverside in Boise around 8:30, and headed on the road out of Idaho. Carrie took the first driving shift, and we made it about 100 miles before we had to stop off and take care of the kids. After that, I drove for the next 300 miles or so until we hit Ogden, Utah while Carrie rode in the back seat with the kids. After Ogden, Carrie drove us to Nephi then Richfield.


We pulled into Richfield around 6:30 that evening. While the mother, kids and dog settled in, my father in law, Rus, and I went out briefly to get food for everyone, then we all settled in for the evening. The children's maternal-maternal great grandmother and great-aunt stopped by for a sneak peak at the children; around 9 that evening, Carrie, the kids and I went to bed for some much overdue sleep.

Friday, May 7th

We had packed the kids, dog, and ourselves into our trusty blue Prius and set off to Columbia City Bakery in order to get some breakfast and coffees. I had packed Axia into her Sherpa brand soft dog carrier and left her in the car, which was in a shady spot and had its window cracked open. We spent about twenty minutes in the cafe; when we came back out, we discovered that Axia, in her zeal to be totally unfettered or uncaged, ha chewed a hold into the nylon mesh at the front of the carrier. Big sigh – that carrier had seen her transported from Hawaii to Washington state, and from Bremerton to Silverdale to Seattle. Now its time is at an end. Services at eleven.

Moving on. Or, not moving on. At least not quickly or far. We had barely made our way to the eastside when our Gaboli's hunger started to manifest itself in the well-known litany of grunts, arm-waving, half-screams and, finally, crying that no amount of talking or replacing of pacifiers in mouth could assuage. We pulled off at a gas station in Snolqulamie so that the kids could be fed and the Anderson – Burrell twin show could once again hit the road. Which it did for about another hour or so, when Gaboli's primitive needs of food and mom broke through the more moderns appeasements of pacifiers, music and vehicular motion. We went through another couple of cycles of this before an accommodation was made; the mother would sit in the cramped space between the two car seat, holding hand, making bottles and replacing ejected pacifiers, while the father would drive. In this fashion, we were able to make our way with relative quickness through the rest of Washington state, Oregon and into Idaho.

We stayed for the night at the Shiloh Inn Riverside in Boise, which is an okay enough place. The front desk service was excellent, the room was clean but needed some major updating / refurbishment, and the continental breakfast was decent enough for the purposes of calorie provision. They charged us $25 extra for Axia, but they took off almost that much due to the fact that we were first time guests.

We ordered food from Flying Pie Pizza. We had the Stromboli Pizza which was okay. The toppings weren't really anything to talk about and the dough was average. They were cool enough to deliver beer to the room for us – we had a six pack of Alaskan Amber.

After the first day, we came to the conclusion that the five hours of discomfort that we would have gone through had we flown would have been greatly preferable to the twenty-four that we would have to eventually endure driving to Utah. We also decided to un-invite Axia to any future outings; we love the dog dearly, but she clearly was ill-suited to long drives.

Making our way to the land of Bountiful Beehives

Carrie, Gabe, Ollie, Axia and I are making the drive down to Utah to spend Mother's Day with her family.Not only will this be our first road trip together, but it will be the first time that the Gaboli show has hit the road. Personally, this will be the first time that I will have had the opportunity to visit the great state of Idaho.


When we come back, our household will have an additional member :) Stay tuned!

Watery concoctions that have lost their souls

This weekend, in the process of getting things back in order after my parents visit combined with making preperations for our upcoming journey to Utah, I got the chance to go to a spot that I used to frequent when I lived in Belltown, El Diablo Cafe in in Upper Queen Anne. I used to love heading up there on Sunday mornings for thier authentically brewed Cuban Coffee. Before heading into the store, however, I noticed a new (to me) establishment, Wink Cupcakes. They were closing up, so I bought Carrie a Peanut Butter cupcake and a Vanilla one for myself (Carrie proclaimed hers to be "the best cupcake that (she) ever had!"). I went into El Diablo to get my drink - a Cuban Coffee, and was a bit disappointed; whereas their Cuban Coffees used to be a rich, frothy brew full of flavor, this one was a watery concoction that seemed to have lost its soul.

Speaking of watery concoctions that have lost their souls...

I went driving around Queen Anne and, in the course, of such, got the chance to think a bit. It seems that neighborhoods here in Seattle have become clones of each other. Slowly but surely, older apartment buildings are being replaced with the brick, glass and brushed concrete of condominiums, neighborhood-specific shops are closing down, and chains, both local and national, are moving in, and the population that served to lend a genuine color to the local scenes are being replaced with haughty, bleached out yuppies, soccer moms and older professionals. My old haunts of Ballard, Greenwood, Fremont, Greenlake, Wallingford, Belltown and Capitol Hill have fallen by the wayside; Columbia City and the Central District are in the process of becomming agresssively getrified themselves, and I'm sure that someone has thier eye on Georgetown and Beacon Hill. Or not. I can only hope that the latter two communities are able to retain thier working class and (in the case of Georgetown) industrial flair for a few more generations. Or years, even.




Finally....


I've started a new blog that is dedicated to my somewhat varied (as in quality) writings. Please be warned that there is rough language on this site. Without further ado, I give to you C.A.'s Cafe!!!

Excuse Me!!!

Saturday morning, I went to the bakery to pick up coffee and treats for Carrie and myself. If you've ever been to Columbia City Bakery, you'll know that after 9 or so on the weekends the place is packed. The line for coffee and treats was almost going out the door, and all of the tables were full.


So, you would think that people, being cognizant of the fact that space was at a premium, would behave accordingly and not expect the sea of people to automagically part at their merest approach, wouldn't you?


Into the pictrure comes stereotypical passive-aggressive bearded slacker Seattle guy. He's taking his order of coffee and scones to the high-top where his generously smiling girlfriend is waiting for him. He is about to pass in front of the couple who are in line ahead of me. Does he utter those magical words that have served as the sociospatial lubricant for generations - "Excuse me"? NO! He simply waves his food in the general direction of the table, and, not even looking at the people that he's pushing his way past, proceeds to - push his way past the people whose mere existence he can't be bothered to acknowledge.


Time passes. The couple ahead of me is served. My order is taken. I stand to the side to wait for coffee. Meanwhile, Mr.Stereotypical passive-aggressive bearded slacker Seattle guy, along with his girlfriend, Ms. I'm obviously the better socially adjusted of the two of us, finish their meal. He, avoiding my gaze, pushes his way past me and seems genuinely puzzled as to both why he is tripping over my unmoving size 13 foot and why he needs to exert something other than a cursory amount of force to make his way past my mostly unyielding elbow. She, for her part, smiles as if to say “Yes, I am with him, please don’t hold it too much against me”, gives me a quick and quiet “Excuse me” as she works her way by, and I gladly stand back to accommodate her passing. He glares at me, as if mad that I dare to accede to her spoken request whilst not doing the same for his unspoken one.


So - they leave. But if you think that’s the end of the story- fear not! For here comes Ms. Stereotypical passive-aggressive I live in a trendy gentrified neighborhood and you are just a visitor here Seattle older woman! C’mon – didn’t you know that there’s a table open, and this gal has to eat? Sure, I may be 6’0 and 230 pounds, but be sure that she will make sure that all 5’6, 140 lbs of her will somehow find a way to attempt to violate the first law of physics with your self before she even thinks about giving you a dirty look.


*Sigh*


Since when did saying “Excuse me” become passé? Is it because saying those two little words could be considered being tantamount to admitting that you are not in total control of the space around you,? Or have people just become that damn lazy and inconsiderate? Okay, okay – I’ll not tar all of humanity with the same brush – it just seemed to me, on that day in Columbia City, that certain individuals were going out of their way to be rude.


At least that didn’t color my entire weekend. Since Carrie wanted to clean the house in preparation for my parents’ visit, I elected to take los Gemelos out for a ride. When I came back two hours later, the house was sparkling clean, and the mama was beaming, happy with her progress. Sunday, I went for a run around Green Lake (2.8 miles in 27 minutes 6 seconds), and then, meeting a friend for the Top Pot 5k, walked for 3.1 miles around the same body of water. I came home, tired, but feeling otherwise pretty good, and spent the rest of the day as a pretty quiet day with Carrie and the kids.


Two more days to go!

Yesterday...

Yesterday was one hell of a day.

I stayed at home so that I could watch over the kids for part of the night (allowing Carrie to get more than 4 hours of straight sleep), and had planned on working from home the rest of the day after a brief nap. So, as planned, I took over Gaboli duty (Gaboli being the portmanteau that Carrie and I came up with to refer to the twins collectively) at three in the morning, and proceeded to stay up with them until around five, at which point they calmed down enough so that I could get a couple more hours of sleep. When I woke up around seven, they were stirring a bit, so I took them to Carrie so that she could feed them.

At this point, I had planned on taking a quick nap for a few hours, and then getting up so that I could do some work. So, I crawled into bed and was about to doze off when I received a call from Sarah’s (my ex wife) stepfather, Sonny. It seems that she had opened an account at a credit union and listed me as a co-owner. When she had passed away, full control had reverted to me. So as not to disturb Carrie and the kids, I took the call outside of the bedroom. While I was talking to Sonny, I decided to pull up the bank accounts on my Mac and confirm that I had primary control. Seeing that I did, I then went about talking to both Sonny and the bank to see what needed to be done so that Sarah’s husband could get the money out of the account.

Upon hanging up, I noticed that my computer was acting strangely. Despite clicking around the desktop, I was unable to access any applications, and there was no response to my keystrokes. With a sinking feeling – I had seen this before – I hard-rebooted my computer, only to get the dreaded Mac OSX Question Mark of Death.

For the second time since I had bought the machine, my hard drive had crashed. Damn.

Luckily, I had my work computer with me, so I was still able to get some work done and make an appointment at the Apple store in Tukwila so that I could get my computer fixed. But replacing the internal hard drive on a Macintosh is not an inexpensive proposition – I ballparked the estimate at $300. But it had to be done. Needless to say, the culmination of events left me more than a little upset. I had to jump through some hoops to help Sarah’s husband get the money that he was rightfully due, my hard drive had crashed, I would have to drive twenty miles to get it fixed, I would have to spend money, and a good deal of my music and photographs were gone. 

So, I did what any self-respecting man would do to deal with all of this.I went for a run. 

I ended up doing two miles in slightly under twenty minutes, and I found myself at my favorite spot nearby, Columbia City Bakery. I treated myself to my usual quad shot of espresso, chilled for a bit in the cool, sunny outside area, and walked back home, having gained a bit of perspective.

The rest of the day went pretty well. I got some work done, helped out with the kids, and took my computer in to get fixed. Pleasant surprise: since there have been so many issues with the hard drives on Macbooks, they replaced mine free of charge. Even better surprise: since the smallest hard drive they had on hand was a 160Gig model, they slapped that one in there for me. Sweet!