Visiting Grandma

Whenever we talk to Baby about Grandma Caril, she puts her hand to her ear as if she's talking on the phone. I guess that's how she thinks of her Grandma-- on the phone. But this past weekend she got a special treat. She got to see Grandma Caril in person! We all had a wonderful visit to beautiful Asheville, NC, and Baby loved having someone to laugh with. Nobody laughs as much as Grandma Caril! We're all sad to be back to business as usual today. It was such a fun long weekend...

Domestic tableau

This about sums up weekends around our house.

GRETCHEN: Trying her best to clean our messy house.

BABY: Having a ball with the vacuum cleaner on/off switch.

GRADY: Standing right in front of Gretchen, barking nonstop, while she tries to vacuum.

ME: Sitting down with a cup of coffee while all this goes on around me, doing nothing more strenuous than grabbing my cellphone to get a picture to capture the moment.

City by the Bay

I love San Francisco. Not only is it a fun city in a beautiful setting, but my first job after college was in the East Bay, so I have fond memories of the area and a few friends from those days who still live there. I hadn't been back in 4-5 years, so I was happy to have a chance to go last week, even if it was for work rather than play. Of course, having not taken any business trips lately, I'd forgotten how much I dislike long flights (5 1/2 hours in this case) in the back of the plane.



I got out there one day early, but I unfortunately spent that day in bed (possibly as a result of some funky tacos). Still, even with limited free time you can do worse than having things like this right outside your hotel:



Not to mention the nearby Ferry Building along the Embarcadero, which is filled with gourmet shops and restaurants. (When I left the Bay Area, there was still a double-decker freeway running along the Embarcadero that had been heavily damaged in the 1989 earthquake, and the city didn't know whether to rebuild it or tear it down and make it more aesthetically pleasing...needless to say, I think they were wise to go with the latter option.)



And as an added treat, I got to see my friends' new baby.



Of course, no trip to San Francisco (call it The City, if you like, but never "Frisco") is complete without eating well. Sure enough, I had some tacos (carnitas, carne asada, and chicken) that tasted excellent but were the leading culprit in the next day's gastrointestinal distress.



I also had a superb breakfast at Mama's, which is always a highlight even with the long wait (about 45 minutes at 8:00am).



And when you're not feeling very well, what's better to eat than raw fish?



So the bottom line is that despite the long flight, not feeling well, not having Gretchen and Baby with me, having to work rather than play (thereby missing chances to see friends and family), I can say I still love San Francisco.

Really, we're still here

I just looked at the blog and realized it's been 10 days since we posted anything. I think that has to be the longest we've ever gone without posting something since we started the blog nearly 4 years ago (except for when we've been on vacation and without computer access).

Not that I have anything noteworthy to post. Here's what's been going on with us.

--Kirk just returned from a business trip to San Francisco. I'm happy to report that this was his first work trip since returning to the US 5 months ago. As much as we both love travel, I'm happy that he is no longer traveling as much as he used to. He may disagree with me, but I'm happy to have us just stay home for a while.

--Baby and I are finally settling into a routine of sorts. We go to a music class once a week, and a tumbling class once a week, and in between times we spend time on playdates, at the library, going on lots of walks, running errands, or just playing at home.

--In Basel, we used to spend time at Starbucks with my Moms group and their babies because it was the only comfortable, non-smoking place we could find. I've never been a fan of Starbucks. Now we're hanging out there again, this time in northern Virginia, and this time to hear a lady named Miss Belle sing goofy kids songs every Tuesday afternoon. It's free, it's a kid-fest, and it's a great place for me to meet other stay-at-home Moms. And Baby loves music. By the way, I still don't particularly like Starbucks.

--I think I may be a horrible mother. Listen to this. I introduced Baby to McDonald's for the first time yesterday. I can't believe I'm admitting this to the whole world. Even scarier is the fact that she loved it and ate an entire hamburger patty! Oh well, she hasn't been eating well lately and I've been trying like crazy to get some protein in her, so why not?!

--Baby has learned sign language. Not an official form of sign language, but rather a language she's made up on her own, based somewhat off of things I've shown her in a series of books called "Baby Signs for Animals" (and "...for Mealtime", and "...for Bedtime"). It is absolutely remarkable how she communicates now. She doesn't miss a thing. She is constantly doing a sign for something, even if it's not really what she sees. The most common signs she uses these days are butterfly and stars. As you can imagine, we don't often see butterflies and stars, but she often sees thing that, in her mind, resemble butterflies and stars. She also knows elephant, dog, cat, duck, bunny, book, bath, toothbrush, sleepy, more, eat, drink, swimming (she made that one up on her own), sun, moon, and phone. Did I miss anything?

--As for talking, "Mama" is about the only true word she says. She also says "Mama" if you ask her to say "Daddy". It's all about Mommy these days. "Baby" is her other almost-word. She says "baby" anytime she sees a baby or anything a baby uses, such as a carseat or stroller, and then points to herself and says "baby" just to remind us that she also is a baby. She makes lots of animal noises, including a very sweet, and not so fierce, "roar" for a bear or a lion, "baa" for a sheep, "ooo" for a monkey, and "mmm" for a cow. She has sounds for dog and cat as well, but I'm not sure how I would write them. She also likes to shush Grady when he's barking (ah yes, the power of imitation) and say "shhh" when she sees a baby sleeping. Isn't she smart?

--She may be the smartest baby I've ever met, but she's taking her own sweet time when it comes to walking. She's almost 15 months old and still hasn't taken any steps (other than a few now and then with my fingers assisting her). It's become very clear to us that she won't do anything until she can do it perfectly. Apparently she got this trait from her Dad. All the other kids her age are running around and falling and getting bruises and bloody lips and our cautious little girl does what she is sure she can do: crawl.

So that's what's been going on with us. Nothing too exciting... no wonder we're not blogging much anymore!

Early start

It's never too soon to begin developing a taste for good Thai food...



(Baby went to Thailand in utero, so why not?)

(And just for the record, chopsticks are not used in Thailand--spoons are the preferred utensils--but I think everyone in the States asks for them so the restaurant had them at the table.)

Thriller

Since we have it as one of our 400 or so channels (as opposed to being our only English channel in Basel), every now and again Gretchen will watch a little CNN International for old time's sake (and because news programs here are so uniformly inane). This afternoon she was watching and came across this story about prisoners having to dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" in the Philippines, which we found oddly fascinating. Evidently it's a hit on YouTube. I haven't decided if I think it's cruel and unusual punishment or if it's simply awesome.

(And going to the CNN International website reminded me of my girl Hala. Sigh.)

Southern comfort

Located near the historic/cultural dividing line between North and South, my understanding is that DC was historically more oriented toward the latter than the former. (Although John F. Kennedy perhaps said it most accurately: "Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm"...if that doesn't make sense, think of a place being described as having Italian efficiency and German charm.) In these modern times it can be easy to forget that, but all it took was a look into a butcher's case at Eastern Market--featuring such delicacies as pig ears, twitchers (pig tails), hog maws (stomachs), and chitterlings (intestines, also commonly known as chitlins)--to be reminded that the South isn't as far away as we sometimes think...

A tale of two cities

DC has a (well-deserved) reputation for having high levels of crime, but the reality is that a relatively small, wealthy pocket of the city--including the parts that tourists tend to see--has very low crime. The high crime levels tend to be concentrated in low-income areas in the vast eastern half of the District. It's almost as if there are two completely separate cities broken down largely (but not exclusively) along financial and racial lines.

One place these worlds collide is the area known as Capitol Hill. The Hill, as everyone calls it, is where Gretchen lived for many years after arriving in DC. It's a beautiful, graceful neighborhood of rowhouses, brick sidewalks, small parks and tree-lined streets a short walk from the Capitol and Supreme Court. It's also surrounded on three sides by relatively sketchy areas, which can sometimes make for trouble. Gretchen loved living there, but after a while she got tired of having to watch her back when walking at night, as well as hearing about break-ins and assaults on her block, acquaintances being mugged, etc.

This weekend we got a taste of both sides of the Hill. On Saturday morning we went to Eastern Market, a great food/crafts market we used to walk to on weekends when Gretchen lived there and we first started dating. Full of people walking dogs and families with young children, it was a great place to walk around and stock up on fresh produce.




When we finished shopping, Gretchen suggested we drive around and see how the neighborhood had changed. When she lived there, there were rough boundaries people had in mind as to where things got a bit sketchier. Over the past decade, as the housing market has boomed and DC has become a more attractive place to live, those boundaries have pushed outward. So we drove around and Gretchen pointed out blocks, now lined with expensive apartments and rehabbed houses, where 10 years ago she wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving her car. Then, as we drove past what used to be her closest supermarket (a Safeway that everyone called "the not-so-Safeway", to distinguish it from others like "the Soviet Safeway" and "the Social Safeway), we got a reminder that the two worlds are still closer than you might think.

As we drove down Kentucky Avenue, which was only about 5-6 blocks from where Gretchen lived, and which she said she always thought was a pretty street, we passed 6-7 police cars. While it was obvious that their work was mostly finished, where they congregated a man was hosing down the sidewalk, which is never a good sign. Sure enough, the next morning in the paper we read that someone had been stabbed to death there the night before.

(Despite that--and crazy stories like this--I still think it would be a nice place to live. For a variety of practical reasons it wouldn't make sense for us to move there, but the thought of living in a more urban neighborhood in an old rowhouse within walking distance of shops/restaurants/bars/cafes is quite appealing.)