A Day in Palo Alto

Shane was teaching at some Jazzy Workshop at Stanford so we went down there to hang out with him. It was fun there. We got snacks in the town of Palo Alto, where the folks at Starbucks had some trouble interpreting the concept of "Iced Coffee With Extra Milk," so they required Kali to tell them the "recipe" and then they drew guiding marks on the plastic cup. No lie.

We went to a sculpture garden to eat our snacks.


Then we went to see Shane play. Everett and Mahalia were excellent audience members, jamming out and doing what's known in the Jazz Community as a Jazz Yelp. Whooh!

Everett chilled on the unfamiliar material, grass, in his old-man outfit.
Mahalia set my phone to "speakerphone" and it took me two whole days to figure out how to turn it off. Rumor has it that she ordered the Disney Chanel with the remote control at home. She's a freaking technological genius.

The Zoo Was a Total Bag

We went to the Zoo on "free day," which turned out to be a HUGE MISTAKE. It costs like $16 bucks to go to the zoo, which I think is slightly rip-off-ish, so I heard that the first Wednesday of each month is free, and that coincided with Kali's visit, so I was all, Let's Go to the Zoo! Note the "thumbs down."

We met my friend Annalisa, and her baby, and EC's special girl friend, Elke, there. You can see how much Elke was enjoying the zoo.
But can you blame her? I mean!


Kali was feeling the same way, so...

She and Mahalia had to retreat to the relative calm of the duck pond.


The whole scene was what my BFF Caitlin refers to as a "Total Jailbreak," which means any super-chaotic, out-of-control situation that you'd rather not be a part of. We decided to leave after seeing maybe four animals. When we were leaving, we wanted to tell the millions of people streaming in, "Go Back! Save Yourselves!"

The meercats were way cute.

Inappropriate Produce Usage

My friend Kali, and her baby, Mahalia, are here visiting from Brooklyn (we were pregnant roommates in Bed-Stuy). We went to the grocery store and found this funny, tiny potato. It reminded me of a very special potato Kali found at the Farmers' Market a couple of years ago.



The patrons at the semi-uptight hippie joint, Rainbow Grocery, didn't think it was as funny as I did.

EC's First Seashore Experience!

I gathered with all my siblings from my father's side in Rhode Island last week. It was perfect beach weather, let me tell ya. For those of you who know me, you understand exactly how much that matters. EC was semi-unimpressed with the whole "swimming" experience. I have movies to prove it, but that'll be later. Until then, here's a few stills to "tide" ya over!

Fun With the Confuzer

I have been taking random shots with the "PhotoBooth" application on my computer. Someone has a little too much time on her hands, maybe.

It's Not Funny Anymore!

Mom!!! Cut it out!

(Be sure to watch till the end.)

Call Me Scorsese

Heaven have mercy on you all, I am figuring out how to make tiny movies of my offspring.

Special Visitors from the Southland

So. Some of my most bestiest pals were here on Alabama Street. Jen Cha (some of you may remember her as the ringleader of the famous Chachettes) and Caitlin and Mark (Caitlin being my travel buddy and BFF, Mark being her husband. They're moving back to Jersey. Don't get me started.) made visits to NoCal. In classic style, I got minimal (ie., none) pictures of our activities, so here are some of them just being in my bedroom. Oh well.

Banana? No Thank You.

At the St. Francis with EC's mostly companion, Elke. That's what he has to say about bananas.

SUPERBABY!

The Dawning of a New Era

Well, we are pretty much in touch with the fact that all bets are off, supervision-wise. The babe is crawing and standing now, and that equals lots of possible injury scenarios. We're so f-ed. But look how proud he is!

Ummmm...Bathtime in the Sink?

I mean, I can't freaking take the cuteness!

Fort FUN-ston!

So, we had a little FFT (That's Family Fun Time, for those of you not in the know), at Fort Funston. We even called it FFFFT, for Fort Funston Family Fun Time!!

It involved a beach walk, a picnic, and EC's first beach sand experience!


There was a little bit of a face-plant situation, which produced what Julia and I agreed was the highlight of FFFFT--the Baby-Hitler-Sand-Mustache!

A Formal Affair

The family went out to a wedding this past weekend, which was EC's first opportunity to wear (and throw up on) a collared shirt. There's lots about the wedding on The Trife, and even a special section from EC's point of view. Enjoy!

Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day by me yelling at Evan in the morning because he wasn't stoked enough about the coffee and bagel I brought him in bed. I guess I blew it, Father's Day-wise, by doing the yelling. But then we went out to do some "boheming" (that means hanging out at a sidewalk cafe and drinking coffee, maybe getting some snacks, in case you didn't know) at the St. Francis, which we love, and then later I gave Evan some special CDs and EC wore his best bib. So I guess it all turned out OK.

EC and AJ

Aunt Julia is, for the time being, done being our nanny.


We think it's really sad.

Random Acts of Cuteness

A Very Ecoli Birthday

I got Ecoli! I can't even go into how gross it was, but if you really wanna know, click here. But promise me you'll still be my friend after. I guess I shoulda read this article first about safe gardening practices, because my new theory is I got it from handling manure out in the garden and not washing up properly. What an a-hole!

Sadly, I got no photos of myself repeatedly contaminating my friend's bathroom, staying a safe distance from her children, visiting the ER, giving a stool sample, lying in a darkened bedroom for 48 hours, flying back from Portland at the height of my illness, or visiting the ER again, but I did take some after-shots of important Ecoli Documents and Artifacts. Here is one of the note I passed to Evan in the ER. In case you aren't able to read what was too humiliating to say out loud, it says, "I shit my pants coming up the ramp, and had to throw out my undies."

This one is my official diagnosis, but I had to photoshop out the really gross, embarrassing symptom.

Here is the awesome "Bland Diet Kit" they gave me in the Hospital: straw, napkin, salt, pepper. Huh?

I learned a lot this week. I learned, "Wash your hands thoroughly after handling cow feces." I learned that if you look like you are about to die, have an infant, and are crying hysterically, they will let you on the plane if you left your ID in your friend's car, but they will make you go in a funny booth that blows all kinds of air up your skirt. And I learned that the cheerful term for the receptacle in which they collect a stool sample is called a "Hat". Yay!

Funny Stuff

I find this new look of the boy's to be hilarious.

EC/DC

To see the latest Trife EC Update, click here.

Doug

This is Doug. (Evan names all the toys: Mikey Monkey, Wilhelm Worm, Perry Parrot, Kevin the Elephant, but Doug came with his own name tag. OK, Douglas is the name of the toy company, but I thought Doug the Lamb was funny.) He is EC's mostly companion. He was a gift from my pal, Kristine Smith, who is basically awesome. EC really took to Doug right away, and he needs to cuddle with him for sleeping purposes. And also I might have rubbed Doug under my arms a little, so that he would smell like me, which is what they tell you to do with your child's Transitional Object. And then I got a little panicky that maybe we might lose Doug, and that could be a trauma Down the Road, so now we have three Dougs. Phew! Potential Crisis Averted! If you are looking for a good baby gift, I really recommend purchasing a Doug or three.

Growth Situation!

So, on occasion, I like to take photos of EC and his main monkey friend, for scale-assessing purposes. Look how he's grown! Also, possibly less terrified of Monkey.
before
after!

New Look!

What do you think of the new new look for the blog? I didn't make it up, it's a template from the good(ish) folks at Blogger, it's called "tic-tac." (possible copywrite infringement?) Anyway, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE orange tic-tacs, and this was all kinds of orange, so I WENT FOR IT! Totally goin' for it.

When We Miss the Baby

Sometimes, when he's been asleep for about three or four hours, I suddenly Miss The Baby. And so this is my Transitional Object. Our freind Maggie gave it to us, she threw our Epic Baby Shower. She's always coming over with awesome stuffs.

You have to imagine it's like three inches tall. Sometimes we anthropomorphisize it and pretend it's doing little kicks and stuff, just like the baby would be doing if he were awake. It's really Everett's toy, but I get the most use out of it. It's from this really awesome company called Haba, it's German (because they are such a playful people?). They have funny names like Knuddelinchen Maus. Looking at their toys online is sort of the eqivalent of looking at porn for me. I so love their Hot Cross Buns.