We are leaving The Beaner. Not for good, of course, but overnight, for the first time. My mom came up on Friday to hang out with him and get used to his routine, to learn where the sippy cups are, which towel to use when getting him out of the tub, which jammies are his favorites and which ones he'll reject with tears of anguish, what he eats for lunch and dinner, and how to determine whether he needs...
October 27, 2006
I left for MAX2006 in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning, before The Beaner woke up, and returned last night a little before midnight, long after he went to bed. While at the conference, I attended a few CSS sessions; talked to a lot of customers (something I realized I hadn't done—face-to-face, anyway—in three or four years); took lots of notes and filed a few bugs based on what I saw and heard; battled a cold, dehydration, and noxious clouds...
October 12, 2006
Al, The Beaner, and I had a lovely weekend in California... and I'm still a bit heart-heavy about it. Truly, we had a wonderful, wonderful time: We got to see friends we don't see often, The Beaner got to play with new friends P and S, the weather was wonderful, my dress worked out great, The Beaner was more talkative than ever and used several new phrases, we got to eat great food, a good friend finally met and...
September 26, 2006
We've been shouting "APPLE PICKING!" at each other for about a week and a half now. At first it was in anticipation of the event—the first of two we hope to complete this season—which was scheduled for this past Saturday in Stow, MA. Ever since we got back, it's been to remind ourselves what a great time we had, and how many wonderful apples are taking up all the space in our fridge. (By the way, The Beaner learned...
September 14, 2006
I have a little list of things I've been wanting to write about, but which I haven't had time to address as of yet (and yes, I'm still behind on my e-mail—if I owe you one, hopefully you'll hear from me soon). Part of the problem—which isn't really a problem at all, given that usually we're homebodies who don't do much of anything—is that we're too busy DOING THINGS and HAVING FUN for me to keep up with, well,...
August 14, 2006
Earlier this week, when I heard from the Weather Channel that it was supposed to be cooler and drier this weekend—and cooler and drier still in New England—I proposed that we drive to Connecticut to enjoy the weather and restock my supply of Decaf Chocolate Truffle coffee. (I mix it 3:4 with Starbucks Decaf Verona for a rich iced coffee treat, in case you're curious.) My original idea was that we'd stay overnight and then drive back on Sunday...
July 25, 2006
So as I mentioned in the previous post, we had a busy weekend. I probably should have spent the weekend doing laundry and cleaning the house and bleaching my hair and making packing lists in preparation for BlogHer (I only remembered last night that I'd be IN THE OFFICE on Thursday and not calling into meetings, and that I'd need to have everything washed and ready to be packed on Wednesday in preparation for the 6:20am flight on Thursday), but...
July 8, 2006
Al, Austen, and I just returned from a lovely road trip to Maine. We took our time (a trick I learned when Austen and I traveled alone to Maine in November), spending a night in Springfield, Mass on the way up and one in Norwood, Mass (near my best friend Sandra's place in Canton) on the way back....
May 29, 2006
I'm on my way home now, between flights at Chicago O'Hare. I'm waiting to see if Orbitz' "air traffic advisor" is right about late-afternoon flights being delayed by 45 minutes or more. So far, no posted delays on my flight to Philadelphia....
May 28, 2006
I had so wanted to get up early and go see if the seals were out at Deep Cove, but after two hockey games last night and a bedtime after midnight, I just couldn't do it. The only reason I'm up now is that Al called around 7:50am, and my mind clicked ON—a sure impediment to getting back to sleep. I hope to use the time between now and when I have to leave for this morning's game at...
May 27, 2006
Before heading out to Deep Cove (the suggestion of the guy at the front desk) this morning, I took some more photos of the bruise on my butt. I think this one shows the damage pretty well, as well as the migration of the bruise into the previously-swollen area just above my tailbone. I think you can also see the knob pretty clearly, even though this photo was taken head-on (or butt-on, as the case may be...)....
I finally arrived at YVR, went through customs, grabbed my bag and stick off the oversize ramp, and picked up my rental car, and I was on my way to North Vancouver at 9:09pm local time last night. After a quick stop at the Safeway and a couple wrong turns (I was following a Google Maps route from memory), I made it to my hotel almost exactly an hour later....
May 26, 2006
Well, I made it to Denver—40 minutes late, but with a 5-hour layover, who cares? The wireless access I paid for in Philadelphia is good here too (yay!), so I've been able to do some website maintenance-type stuff while I'm waiting... like putting ads on my hockey blog. We'll see how that flies. I'm not sure I want them here at avocado8; there's plenty of stuff already on the main page, and I don't want to clutter it up...
I was planning on catching up on all my e-mail on the plane and then sending the messages once I got to the hotel in Vancouver, but as you all know, plans change. My flight to Chicago at 8:30 was cancelled due to mechanical problems with the plane, and after many tears, several phone calls, and lots of running back and forth between United in Terminal D and USAir in Terminal C, I got rebooked on a USAir flight...
March 6, 2006
I think I'll remember month 15 as the one in which Austen learned to sign "please" and say "no". These two additions to his vocabulary have made a tremendous difference in his ability to communicate his wants and needs; when he points up at the kitchen counter and says, "uhhn," we can now hold up any items in the area one at a time (me: "sippy cup?" A: "no." me: "banana?" A: "no." me: "glass of water?" A: "no."...
February 19, 2006
So I didn't mention that we were going on vacation before we left for a couple reasons, but now that we're back it's probably safe to say that we were in Hawaii with both my parents and Al's. Al's parents go every year for a couple months (they're retired), but my parents had never been. Whenever we mentioned it, my mom would say that Hawaii was a place they'd go "someday."...
Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of blogging over here—Al, Austen and I have been in Hawaii for the past 10 days (as you might have noticed from some of the photos popping up in the Flickr badge on the front page). I jotted down some notes during the trip and will post a vacation summary shortly. I'll also be uploading a slew of photos to Flickr sometime today or tomorrow. Stand by!...
November 11, 2005
Austen and I returned, along with Al (who flew up to Hartford to meet us on Sunday), from Maine on Monday. We had great weather every day except Sunday (which was foggy and drizzly), and especially on Saturday, when the air was brisk but not cold, the sun was warm but not roasty, and the wind was cool but not frigid. Perfect Dreamweaver fleece weather. Val, Austen, and I started the day with a hike around Mackworth Island just...
November 5, 2005
Austen and I left Lexington, Massachusetts for Portland, Maine at roughly 8:45am yesterday. The tree colors as we traveled north moved more to the orange-umber end of the scale, with an occasional shockingly white birch trunk sticking out like an exclamation mark amid the brittle-looking browns. We made it to Portland at about 11am and headed straight for the Eastern Promenade (Valerie's "nice day" suggestion). Sadly, the nice weather only lasted long enough for me to get Austen out...
November 2, 2005
It's important to know that when I say "leaf peeping", I say it the way Al would—in a sort of high-pitched, introducing-His-Majesty-the-King fanfare style. LlllLeaf PppPeeping! OK, now that the correct pronounciation of "leaf peeping" has been established, here's what we did today:...
September 28, 2005
It's time to clear my backlog of scribbled-on-hotel-stationery notes, most of which pertain to our trip to Boston on the 7th. Al had a meeting there on the 8th, and we decided to make a weekend of it so Austen and his godmother could meet each other, and so the three of us could have a little family vacation. The drive there was pretty easy; Austen didn't cry at all, and we made good time despite a stop at...
July 23, 2005
With all the cute little restaurants that Princeton has to offer, we somehow managed to eat at the same one twice today. Just after I last posted, we went across the street from the hotel to Teresa Caffe, where I had the pasta special (it's a pasta that I can't pronounce the name of, but it looked like rigatoni) and a glass of Merlot (I know, I know—that line from Sideways kept running through my head about how "WE...
Austen found his voice recently—and it's very shrill. Sometimes he babbles pleasantly, saying things like "ay ya ya ya ya ya" and "hey da da da da da", and it's super cute. Other times, he SHRIEKS. Loudly, shrilly, earsplittingly. It's annoying enough at home, but in public it's stressful in the extreme. I'm horrified and embarrassed that I might be bothering other hotel guests, restaurant patrons, and driving range golfers, and that I can't get him to stop. I...
July 22, 2005
After really enjoying my last (and first) Princeton visit on Father's Day, Al and I decided to spend a weekend here. We're staying at the Nassau Inn on Palmer Square. I chose the place for its location and hoped for a bonus of charm; I'm not sure we've really gotten the bonus, but the location *is* great. Our room reminds me strongly of the one we stayed in at the Jameson Inn in Lakeland, FL on our honeymoon, though...
July 13, 2005
All kinds of food items to share today, from the gastronomical delights of our last hours in New York this weekend to local Philadelphia finds. First, New York: Al and I got up early again on Sunday (though not quite as early as on Saturday) and made it out for another morning walk, this time with Al's brother Carl for company. We walked down Broadway to the Starbucks at 81st, where I ordered a cappucino and (as usual) got...
July 9, 2005
I'm not sure if I explained properly yesterday why a downpour in New York was the nightmare scenario, so let me address that omission before I talk about what we did today: Basically, a downpour meant that I was trapped—with Austen, and without any of the tools for entertaining him or giving my arms a break that I'd have at home. Being wet as well just made things even less comfortable. Today dawned better and brighter (and cooler and...
July 8, 2005
So as I was saying, it's pouring here in New York, and pouring rain wasn't part of the plan. I am wearing a skirt and neoprene flipflops. I suppose as raingear goes, these choices aren't so bad; the skirt material doesn't absorb water, and neoprene is what wetsuits are made of, so that's something. At first I was a little weirded out by walking through NYC puddles in almost-bare feet, but when the curb cuts disappeared under 2' wide,...
June 1, 2005
We're back from Vancouver, and I'm still in the process of entering some of my hand-written notes about the games into The Ice Hockey Escapades, as well as adding photos to the entries I was able to post from Al's Blackberry. I moved to paper after a couple games for two reasons: (1) my hands were already sore from holding my stick, and typing with my thumbs made the pain worse; and (2) it was faster to just take...