Year: 2014

We got our eyes checked at Costco a few days before Thanksgiving.  Both of us have noticed our prescriptions changing.  Our eyes are old and tired.

Jeremy got his eyes dialated.  I did not so I could drive us home.  Jeremy has freakishly long eyebrows.

I can’t decide if getting our eyes checked at Costco is a good deal or not.  On the one hand, the exam and the resultant progressive bifocal glasses were amazingly cheap.  But then we spend a gargantuan amount of money on gum, toothpaste, Christmas decorations, juice boxes, thermal underwear and aluminum foil while we think about getting the largest TV known to mankind (No XL TV.  Sorry Edda.).

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Jeremy shows off his red and green plaid vest that he ordered for himself for Christmas.  Who is this man?  Is this really how we amuse ourselves these days?  Apparently, the answer is yes. It is.

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Edda says good night!  Good night, Edda.  Sleep well.

Because we didn’t have a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with Nat and also because Jeremy wanted a Thanksgiving where he was in charge of the WHOLE menu, we had 2nd Thanksgiving on Tuesday night.

Vince has been teaching us about “hand hugs” for the past few weeks.  A hand hug is where you both take you right (or left) hands and place them palms together and gently wrap thumbs around the other person’s hand giving a little squeeze so your hands “hug” each other.

I thought he made this up himself – or at least his pals made this up.  But I sitting in the hallway right before an exam on Monday and I saw some 20 year olds give each other the “hand hug” for good luck right before the exam.  I guess it’s been around for a while and I just didn’t know about it.

Jeremy did not make the whole turkey again.  He just made a turkey breast.  He also didn’t have mashed potatoes – the only starch was stuffing.

Before Thanksgiving, our friend Cindy came with her family and stayed a few days.  (This is not the best photo.  Sometimes I get beautiful photos, sometimes there is just a photo to say that something happened.) We took them to our favorite Chinese food place.  Their daughter, Melanie, LOVED the dogs.  I don’t think the dogs have ever gotten so much attention within a 48 hour span.

Cindy got her first dog, Monty, just a few months after we got Ruby.  This was way before any of us had any kids, so the dogs were our only children.  Cindy, Jeremy and I (and Ruby and Monty) would spend every Saturday morning at at local, hidden Austin swimming hole just watching the dogs play in the water for hours.  It was great fun.  (There was a golden named Hoover who would dive in two feet of muddy water for rocks that were 8 inches across.)

Once morning in December 2001, Cindy called us and said that we absolutely needed to go to Petco to get the dogs a picture with Santa.  While they were here visting, I managed to find mine!  2001!  Ten thousand things have happened since 2001, but both dogs are still alive and happy.

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Both dogs are sick now (meaning Maxi and Ruby).  Ruby refused her dinner yesterday which is unheard of in the history of being a laborador.  Being the pessimist that I am, I concluded that she must be on death’s door and I made a “just in case” appointment for next Monday to do a chest x-ray and labs if she didn’t perk up.  But 2 hours after the appointment was made, she’s feeling (and acting) much more herself.

I know exactly what labs I want to see: WBC, Creat, BUN and Liver enzymes.  I know what the #s should be for a human, but I don’t know them for dogs.

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Now let the stream of odd gifts that make us happy start:  fancy orange socks.

And the dorky-est digital clock ever.  This is going to be hung in our kitchen for all to see.  Can we be any more not-stylish?

Advent is here and so are our Advent calendars.  We have chocolate ones we got for $1.50 from IKEA and Edda has a special wooden house one that we’ve had for a few years.   Last year, we went to New Mexico, so this year is suppose to be a grand staycation year with lots of decorations at home.  Hmm.  I’m not sure that that vision going to happen, you’ll have to ask me after the 15th.  Vince’s enthusiasm for trees and decorations has peaked and now is sliding down the other side of the monomodal curve – he’s still keen on gifts, but not as keen to hang 100 ornaments.  Edda, of course, is our Buddha – fully enlightened and not needing any of this extra stuff to know what is important.

Someone sweet sent us a real wreath.  With the nice seasonal smell to go along with it.

I’m in bed now and I’m too lazy to go get my camera to download today’s photos, so you get only commentary today.

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Vince is struggling with his Chinese class.  He gets really stressed right before exams and he was very pleased that he managed to get a C last quarter.  But now we are at almost the end of the next quarter and he’s stressed again.  He says half the kids in his class are growing up in Chinese speaking households and the other half have parents who have hired one-on-one tutoring.  I have to admit, I have not provided either amenity.  Now that my workload is lifting a little (amazing that as I slide into finals, I think that my workload is less because I don’t have to go to the hospital two days a week anymore), I think I’m going to try to help Vince out each night for 15-20 minutes.  I guess I can learn Chinese too.  My accent is so terrible and now any remnants of an authentic Chinese accent is going to be further diluted another generation.   I think they are only 200 characters in – not completely insurmountable, I suppose.

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I can’t believe that Thanksgiving has turned right into December.  This is the most stressful time of the year for me.  I’m grouchy and unreasonable and generally a grinch.  I’m hope that I’m less so each year, but sometimes it’s hard to reach that goal.

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Maxi is sick.  She has diarrhea from the seventy thousand treats that people fed her over Thanksgiving.  This means we are getting up in the middle of the night (once at midnight for me and once at three am for Jeremy) to take her for a walk around the neighborhood.  And her farts are really smelly.  Sigh.

It snowed a lot the day before Thanksgiving at Bard.

It was beautiful.  Especially since we didn’t have to travel in it.

Look!  Kiki took a photo of all four of us!  Wonderful!

My most loyal blog commenter, Sheila and her husband, Scott.  And their soon-to-be-mechanical-engineer son, Josh.  They are from Texas.  There is nothing more fun than watching a bunch of Texans have a snowball fight.

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I did run a 10K race Thansgiving morning in Troy, NY (about an hour north of Bard): 51:19 – just about 8:15 pace.  I negative split it which means I kept running faster as the race went on which is the most amazing feeling.  First mile at 8:30 pace, last mile at 8:00 pace and a little kick the last 0.2 miles.  Delicious!

Happy post-Thanksgiving y’all.  The Martin gathering was up at Bard this year and even my parents and Donald all made it up to there despite the huge snowstorm centered on Bob and Katherine’s house.  My mom made her traditional egg rolls which has been on the Martin Thanksgiving menu since 1997.

I didn’t take many photos of Thanksgiving, but it was lovely with all the family and friends we haven’t seen in a long time. I present here some photos that Donald took on their road trip up and back.  I look a lot like my mom, huh?

We are now all decompressing from the drive down today.  It was a mess.

Vince went camping with the scouts this weekend.  It got to 15 degrees on Friday night.  Vince forgot his coat at school on Friday and was going to leave for this campout with only a sweatshirt in hand.  I had been bugging Vince all week about underdressing to go to school (shorts/T-shirt) but usually I let that go 99% of the time because 15 minutes in 30 degree weather in shorts isn’t going to kill him, but I drew the line at going camping in below freezing weather with a sweatshirt.  I gave him the puffy jacket off of my back and when he got home, he admitted that the coat was very helpful.

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Vince has been mucking around in the garage a bunch the past few weeks.  I’m not exactly sure what he is doing, but he seems to be enjoying himself.  Lots of sanding, hammering and spray painting.

He takes his PPE seriously.