I got to hold a baby for a long time yesterday. My arm muscles are all out of practice – not very much baby carrying going on here. It’s so nice to hold a baby, it’s like holding a little ball of light and joy! This little baby has an older sister with Rett Syndrome who is just 2.5 years old and we chatted with his mother for a long time about our desires for our daughters and how having a severely disabled child shapes and forms our lives. There is so much to learn from each other.
Month: January 2014
Middle school and midterms.
Vince had his first set of mid-terms in his life this past week. It was a little stressful – they actually rearranged the class schedule so that they have 2 hour exam periods. I don’t really understand why an 11-year-old needs to have 2 hour exams, but whatever. They are over now and there is a four day weekend to reward him for his efforts.
Elizabeth & MIT
Jeremy’s former coworker, Elizabeth, was back in town for some sort of transportation conference. She’s now a grad student at MIT and I got all dreamy talking to her about the MIT buildings and the chapel and hearing about all the development on Mass Ave between MIT and Harvard. None of it was there 20 years ago. Now it’s full of Whole-Food-Barnes&Noble-American-Apparel goodness. We had burgers – date night often means with another person and eating burgers.
Old photos.
Gene and Bette are moving and are going through a million old photos and dispersing them to interested parties. Saw photos of Bob as a 7 year old. Lots of photos of baby Jane and George. I think we are going to try to send them to a service to scan them.
Old house run.
Did a three mile old-house run today. Ran to the house I consider my “real” childhood home. Look! A Z4 parked in the driveway – certainly an upgrade from the Duster and Gremlin we had. I remember sock fights with my parents in this house. I remember climbing the trees in the front yard. I remember playing with all the neighborhood kids – hide and seek in the dark. And I remember the woods in the backyard.
I ducked into the woods in the middle and looks for our old trails – places where Donald (who apparently can now run 400m in 1:04. Not bad!) and I fished for minnows and crayfish with our kitchen strainers. I had to schooch over a log to cross a stream (and convince Maxi to come with me).
Finally emerged and ran past the house that we lived at when Donald was born. This house I have fewer memories – I remember playing on the swingset in the backyard and the neighbors two houses down. They’ve built an addition – I wish I could go inside and see it.
Rainy day outing.
It’s hard to get out as a family these days on the weekends – often Vince has plans and Jeremy, Edda and I drift to our respective computers and work or watch TV or putter around the house. So it was with great effort that we all headed out this weekend in the pouring rain to the movies. We saw Frozen – recommended by friends – and Edda loved every minute of it. Laughed at all the jokes – had the best time ever.
Ate at a Korean chicken place right before the movie. Rainy days have the best light.
Old friends.
Our friend, Vidya, came from Philly to spend Sat. night with us. When he walked in the front door – he couldn’t recognize Jeremy without his goatee. Vidya was a few years ahead of me in grad school – helped me out on my slightly disastrous research project. We stayed up late, late, late talking about Indian politics. Diplomats, conspiracy theories and LGBT rights. Reminded me that I should read Son of the Circus again. Seems like just yesterday we were all sitting around grad student housing watching Friends and Seinfeld.
Storage Space in the Garage
Mom asked me to erect racks for her dried-chicken legs. I did. One of the rack can be seen in the second picture.
After that, I started to rearrange stuffs in the garage. Finally, to make more room, I decided to add some storage space half way up in the air. Picture 1 shows the middle support columns for the storage space hanged from the existing ceiling beams. Also shown in the picture, on the right hand side, is the wall supports for one side of the storage space. And the far (other) side is supported for the existing columns (picture 2). The storage space is slightly recessed & elevated to make the room for the car antenna and future garage door opener (only one side has the garage door opener). Some of the horizontal beams, to be installed, are just laying there to save space.
In picture 3, two white air-bubble pads were taped on each side of the horizontal beams, just in case extreme tall guys walk underneath it. May be Donald can bump his head, but don’t think so.
Mom would like me to finish our basement master bedroom and bath too. May be before the storage space for the garage 🙂
Edda falls on Ruby and can’t get up.
Orchestra concert.
Went to Vince’s orchestra concert last night. Three groups – orchestra, band and chorus. I was preparing myself for a long, drawn out concert in a hot stuffy room because that’s what they were like in elementary school. But the teachers in middle school had the good sense to make the whole thing 45 minutes long and everyone played/sang popular songs. Katy Perry, Star Wars, Beethoven all made appearances.
Vince and his fellow orchestra pals.
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Vince is going to my junior high alma mater. It does give me a strange and happy feeling to watch Vince play violin in the same gym where I played violin concerts as well. Actually, I think he is using my old violin. I did manage to find my photo on the wall in the 1986 class photo.