Her New Favorite Pasttime

She makes this face every few minutes right now for a variety of reasons. If you were sitting next to her you would see that she puts so much effort into squishing all her various parts together that her jaw clinches and her head trembles. Hysterical.

Happy Thanksgiving!

All of the food at this years thanksgiving turned out exactly like we hoped and expected. That might be a first. I did not take pictures this year, though. Not even of Rosalind. I thought it would be great fun to feed her her first thanksgiving meal, but possibly due to a returning (for the third time!) ear infection she was not into food. She spit out a bite of mashed potatoes and that was pretty much the extent of it.

As a kid I tormented my parents every thanksgiving over tradition. We had to use the good dishes that stayed in the china cabinet and fold up real cloth napkins and put candles in the middle of the table. I was insistent, and they obliged. Due to a complete lack of chairs or space, we ate this years meal around the coffee table...off of paper plates. I have to admit, it didn't make the food any less tasty and I was pleased with the easier clean up. A successful holiday for us. Hope yours was as well. Now for some pie...

Books and Dates and Stuff

I wrote this post a few days after we went to this event. It is a couple of weeks old now, but I forgot to post it because I thought I would change it a bit. That did not happen. Is it Thanksgiving Break yet? I lost all motivation for anything except turkey and dressing about four days ago.

I picked up a David Sedaris book when I was eighteen and needed something to read on my flight to Europe and the subsequent train travel from country to country. Until that point an avid reader of romances and classics from Southern Small Town, USA, I didn't really know what I was looking for at the bookstore. I had long been dissatisfied with what I was reading but had no clue how to go about changing things.

So a rushed trip to a Barnes and Noble and I desperately sought out the Bestsellers aisle. What a novel concept! The title caught my eye, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and that was enough. I bought it and something else I barely recall anymore and threw them into my luggage. I didn't pick it up again until we were on the Chunnel. I remember reading the first story and continually flipping it over and skimming pages. What is this? Is it fiction? Non-fiction? Short stories? I was out of my league. A few more stories in and I was mentally widening my eyes and giggling. The author is gay! Oh my! Then the book started chronicling the authors time living in France. And there I was traveling through France!

Needless to say, on several occasions I was in an absolute fit of tears laughing so hard at his descriptions of rude Americans in Europe or even himself fumbling with language. It was the perfect thing to have stumbled into reading for that trip, but it was also just one of the funnier things I had ever read. I became a Sedaris devotee at that point.

Sergio and I always turn the radio up when we hear Sedaris reading on NPR, no matter how many times we have read the same story. We read all the books. The articles. And for years we have narrowly missed his book tour readings by moving across the country right before or after he has just been somewhere.

Then last Monday Sergio sent me an email saying he had tickets to Walton Arts Center to hear David Sedaris read. He sweetly planned a whole evening, the first real date night we have had since Rosalind's impending existence was known to us. Duck turns out to be one of the best things ever, by the way.

I will never quite recapture what it was to read that book at that time in my life. When I was still so closed off to the world that every page introduced foreign realities. As somebody behind us at the reading pointed out, if there was a liberal in Washington County they were all crowded into the theater that night. Now I know what I am getting into when I read or listen to Sedaris. I am more than happy with that.

Veterens Day

"And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me." From the book of Isaiah

These men and women died on or around November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, TX.

Michael Grant Cahill
Justin Michael DeCrow
Frederick Greene
Amy Sue Krueger
Michael S. Pearson
Francheska Velez
Kham See Xiong
L. Eduardo Caraveo
John P. Gaffaney
Jason Dean Hunt
Aaron Thomas Nemelka
Russell Gilbert Seager
Juanita L. Warman


We lament this loss. My father served in the First Gulf War and I hope he understands my appreciation. America is better because my father is alive, it would be better it these men and women were alive.

The Business

Sergio began his own law firm a few weeks ago. The website launched yesterday. Click here to check it out.

A Little Afternoon Workout

http://gpsed.com/track/8085086207854930191