Xiobhan: All About the X

Eating & Bouncing

I have been having a bit of fun with the video camera and MS Movie Maker.  I bring you another Beck movie:

Download WooHoo_0001.wmv

UPDATE:

Hmmm..it seems that because this is a ".wmv" extension it's not mac friendly and best viewed with a windows media player.  Any recommendations, Intenet, on a free video converter I can download so that I can save it as an .mpeg or .avi?

Gourmet - Parent Style

Saturday night was our first Gourmet Club since Beck.  We were worried that we would miss it altogether given that the weather was not cooperating and snow was falling at an uncomfortable rate for most of the day.  Well we decided to not be pussies and pushed forward, bundling Beck up into the truck and driving extra slow over to Harry and Misha’s.  In hindsight, given the road conditions, it probably wasn’t the best idea, but we wanted to prove that having a baby wasn’t going to change our lives completely.  He was a champ. At the party, we put him in his jammies and he hung out with the big kids for awhile.  When he got all melty, I took him upstairs and put him in the middle of a big bed where he slept contentedly for most of the night.

My camera is on the fritz, so the following pics are courtesy of CJD and Matt’s new digital mac daddy Nikon D70.  I shot some pretty good footage for the making of “Gourmet: The Movie” but don’t expect to see it anytime soon.  Kevin Spacey’s Bobby Darin movie will have taken less time to see the light of day.

Gourmet 2005

Bart.  He's a natural.

These were the okra beignets that Craig and Marybeth -- our newest members don't ask what happened to the lesbians -- cooked to the great delight of our palates.

Our contribution: lobster bisque poured over fat chunks of lobster with a toast point (or round) floating on top.

That's a 31 year-old Macallan.  You'd lick it off the side of the glass, too.

I don't know what is happening here.  We had gone home by this point. In most cases that would be me bent over getting spanked.  Bummer.  Maybe some things have changed! 

The End

Giggles

I've been playing around with the new handy cam* and things are starting to come together. (* When I was in high school I worked at a specialty "gourmet" deli slicing overpriced prociutto paper thin. We had to place waxed sheets between each slice.  We used Handy Wacks.  Heh heh. Handy Wacks. Heh heh heh. This random memory was brought to you by too much coffee.)

Soooo.... The following is my first successful filmaking attempt. It's very cinema verite. At least that will be my excuse for the shakiness and lowlighting. Jane Campion I'm not. Who wants to see Harvey Keitel naked anyway? I bring you...Beck! Naked!

Changing Time

Baby, its cold outside

It’s positively negatively freezing out.  Every time the temps drop into the headlines I get this “I’m from Wisconsin” bravado.   I get all, “this isn’t that cold.  I used to plug my car in, fer cryin’ out loud.”   Well, it’s really freaking cold and last night I had to leave my car at work and mass transit home because some asshole threatened to blow his gasoline-packed van up in front of the White House if he didn’t get custody of his kids. (Insert joke here about blowing yourself up as not the best way to prove mental competence and parental fitness.  And let's say that this act really did impress your ex-wife and social services and they say, "You're so right!  We're wrong!  The kids should be with you!"  What the hell are you gonna do then? You're dead!)  Traffic was gridlocked in every direction due to the street closings and emergency response equipment so driving home was a crapshoot. One hour? 2 Hours?  How long will the 20 minute drive take? I work a couple of blocks from the White House and watched the flashing lights out my window with dread. (“Just shoot him  already!”) I had the iPod and my cozy hat so I decided to take metro to Ballston and walk the mile home. HOLY SHITE. I wonder how long I can actually claim to be from Wisconsin when I have lived out here for ten years and whined the whole way home.

Interesting: The metro was of course jam packed so I stood and leaned against the wall, getting knocked by backpacks with very jolty start and stop, trying not to throw-up. At Rosslyn an older, cloudy-eyed woman got on.  She had a Seeing Eye dog with her.  There was a sign on the leather harness that read, “Please don’t feed me or flirt with me.  I’m working.” The good thing about blind people is that you can really stare at them and they’ll never know it. She was probably late fifties, slight and brusque. We both got off at Ballston and she asked, loudly to no one in particular, “Which way to the escalator?”  I don’t give directions to blind people and I’m really bad at it.    I volunteered, “To the right!” Without thinking that her right were the train tracks. “Um. I’m going that way, would you like to follow me?” She said she would, but her dog walked at a pretty fair clip and I ended up jogging behind her giving unclear and totally irrelevant instructions. Fare machine ahead!  Down escalator on your left!  Every time I spoke, I realized about five seconds later that there was a better, more helpful way to have said it.  Or worse, by the time I described the danger, she was already there and figuring it for herself, “There…it looks like…the down one is broken.  The escalators, there’s stuff on the right. Equipment. Careful! It’s repair stuff!”  By this point she was holding onto the barricade that had been set up to keep people from walking into the gaping hole at the base of the silent escalator and “Freddie” was steering her up the stairs.  I was totally useless and worse, kept switching sides on her as she wove through the crowd and I dodged oncoming commuters. Nothing makes you feel worse than a blind person talking to their right when you are on their left. People.  If you are reading this, thank your eyes.

What do you have to say for yourself?

Apparently this.

Let's just say all the Armstrong Williams hullabaloo has complicated my life at work.  Thank god we never paid anyone to say anything nice about (my contract).

Congressional investigations are usually not a good thing. More here.

The 7th Sign

WHFS Changes its Tune to Spanish

This may not mean much to people outside of DC, but OMG.  Hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, mudslides, now this.  God hates us.   I hit number 1 on the car radio last night driving home -- 99.1 and the number 1 button by no accident -- and heard the Spanish.  I laughed pretty hard and thought to myself, "Those nutty HFS-ers.  Thank god there is still a radio station in this country where Djs can fuck around."

Folks will take this pretty hard.  HFS was an institution and the annual HFStival drew about 70k people to hear some of the best bands. I have some good, solid, fuzzy memories of various festivals: drinking in the car, running around barefoot through muck and cigarette butts in the RFK parking lot listening to the likes of Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill while watching a girl get her nipples pierced. I just sighed so hard that some of you may have heard.

More talk here.  And a petition.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

I have lots going on at work, so I haven’t had as much time to post lately. (Lordy, how many blog entries open with pathetic apologies? My guess is far too many.) I get home from work late and tired and all I want to do is climb into bed with my son.  I took Latin.  I know how that sounds.

The only thing interesting that has happened at Casa X is that Beck has rolled over.  One minute he’s lying there on his back on his play mat, lifting and dropping his legs with big thumps, and then he’s holding his ankles and tipping to the side, and then he’s flat on his face.

We were at a friend's house when it actually happened and the suspense was terrible! We all stood slowly, watching, "Beck's gonna roll over," and then the cheering started and the throwing of the arms right to left willing him, like an NFL coach running down the sidelines. HE. COULD. GO. ALL. THE. WAY! And he did.

We congratulated each other and high-fived and basked in pride and left the poor kid face down on the floor.  Stuck. After a minute or soo we heard this sad squeaking sound that translated into, “Little bit of help here!  Can somebody help a brother out??” Then, of course five people jumped to help him roll back over onto his back, which is apparently a lot harder.

Here are a few holiday pics. The first is Beck in a festive hat, and the second is Beck and me on New Years. I am actually wearing, in addition to the everyday drooly collar, make-up!  Never got to the hair though...

I watched this and my future flashed before my eyes.

Cheer me up

Another series of awful  events have transpired and I now jump when the phone rings.  My neighbor terminated her pregnancy at five months after learning that the baby's heart was terribly defective.  Options were limited but it still kept me up for a few night wondering what I might do if faced with the same circumstances.  Wait for my body to reject the baby and miscarry? Have a stillborn baby?  Have a baby that might live but only for a few days? And is this really my decision or is it God's?  There is guilt imagining such tragedy and another family's pain while listening to your own healthy baby squeak in his sleep in the next room.  There is also guilt for privately double-guessing and condemning another's choice.

In other depressing news, my brother-in-law's college-aged nephew was in a terrible wreck in a snowstorm in Nebraska. He and three buddies were driving to Colorado for a ski trip when they lost control of their Explorer during an ice storm and it flipped repeatedly. Joe was driving and is in ICU.  They have fused portions of his spine but they are not sure he will walk again.  Two of the other guys are in critical condition.  His best friend is dead.  I googled the local news out there and there were hundreds of wrecks due to the weather....many deadly.  If you have any prayers left over, and if I haven't worn out my prayer requests, send good thought to Joe, his friends and the family of his buddy.

There was one thing that made me smile the past few days -- a friendly (believe it or not) conversation overheard outside the Halls Hill 7-11 between a bunch of young black kids and an old black man in green coveralls.

Young kid: "Whut up ol' niggah janitor!"
Old Man: "Hey there young buck. Stay outta trouble and respect your elders!"
Another young kid: "Aww man. Go clean something."

Other things that make me happy:  Fat Boy naked and asleep in my robe on my bed.

And my uncomfortably attractive Australian cousin who spent Christmas with us.  I can't kiss him ladies, but YOU can.  Line forms at the left.

Babies, cute boys and now puppies. Time for the blood  sugar check.