It is a blissful Saturday morning. I’m in training to learn how to use the blog since Wayne is the main entry maker. I’m in my 29th week of pregnancy. We spent an hour talking before we actually got up. It’s nice to take that time. Chewie continues to do acrobatics within my womb at regular intervals. We talked about what to name her, what we have to do to get ready, etc. This is the ultimate blind date. I have all the normal pregnancy anxieties. Will my labor last 48 hrs? Will it hurt alot? Will I be a zombie for the next year from sleeplessness? Is it as bad as everyone says? How drastically will this change our lives? The nice thing about this blind date is that I’m already smitten.
August 30, 2003
August 28, 2003
Victoria, CA
We spent a short vacation in Victoria BC last weekend with Karen’s Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin. We drove up to Port Angeles on Friday and then took the Victoria Express ferry across the Strait. It should have been termed the “Upchuck Express” and the small boat on the rough water wasn’t one’s perfect image of an outing on the water.
As one passenger said, the best thing about seasickness is that as soon as you get on land you start to feel better. That was the case. We checked into this very cute place (the James Bay Inn) a couple blocks south of the Empress Hotel. We then proceeded straight to the Empress and managed to snag an appointment for high tea at 3:30 (jumping ahead of the snobs in line who looked down their nose at as and said, “You need an appointment for tea”). The tea was wonderful as usual and hit the spot for those of us who’s stomachs had recovered.
We then walked down the main shopping street, stopping at the bookstores and various souvenir shops. We then returned to our rooms, taking a detour to watch a street show from “Scott Free”. I got some nice backlit pictures of some of his stunts. We then had dinner at on ok chinese restaurant, it pleased the youngest in the group and was basically comfort food.
We got a fairly early start the next day and had breakfast at the nicest spot in town. MURCHIES — the picture above tells the whole story. We then spent some time in the mall, Karen found some nice maternity clothes and her cousin found some nice charms for her charm bracelet. We spent the afternoon in the BC Museum and watched a wonderfully cheesy IMAX movie about a 16 year old girl who has a really bad trip after sniffing some spores from a “fossilized” dinosaur egg.
The evening was going to end with a trip to Buchart Gardens, but by this time we were all very tired and it was quite cold outside. (12C) So we didn’t go to the garden. Good thing, because at dinner that night Karen started feeling ill and we had to leave the brewpub in a hurry to get her back to the hotel where she could lie down and recover.
The trip back was aboard the Coho, on ocean liner compared to the small Victoria Express. The seas were not as rough and sickness was avoided. Of course driving back through the Kingston ferry on a Sunday took hours and we just barely made it to our ‘Prairie Home Companion’ concert before it started. (The concert was wonderful and we met a very nice couple who were new medical residents at UW from Hawaii).
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August 19, 2003
Microsoft?
What are they thinking? With last week’s virus, followed by a virus that combats the original virus, followed by a “SoBig.F” mail virus- computer users haven’t been able to catch their breath. I imagine that this will only escalate/continue until folks get VERY fed up with Microsoft.
Anyway I felt frustrated today at the barage of e-mail in my inbox from infected computers, even though my computers (Mac & Linux) are immune. So I saw the following posted on Microsoft’s home page.
So I gave them a call. But alas there was no answer. For some reason that made me happy… I can’t explain it, it just made me chuckle.
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August 17, 2003
Baby’s R US…
Wow…. it just now hit me. We are having a baby in a few months. Karen convinced me that I needed to go with her to start looking at baby stuff. Well we saw baby stuff alright. We started at the registry department. The woman was very nice and started talking about all the latest crib and co-sleeper gadgets with Karen. It was WAY over my head. I did get to hold the cool, hi-tech laser scanner though. As long as I got to point the laser scanner at bar codes and “shoot” the items with the Star Trek phaser, I remained blissfully happy.
Actually, after looking at about 50 different strollers ranging from truly elephantine strollers that allow car seats to be inserted right into them, to super high tech carbon fiber and aircraft aluminum models, to the simple yet functional umbrella strollers, my head started to hurt.
Then for a bit of fun, I got try to on a thing called a “Baby Bjorn”. It’s this kinda cool thing that straps across your back, and you slip the baby in front and hold them close to your chest. As they grown it can expand and they can face forward. Seems like it would be very functional for going on walks.
Then we hit the cribs/playen section. I only thought I had choices with strollers. At this point my mind really started reeling. Thoughts of, “oh my goodness, if I don’t get the exact right sleeping arrangements, I am going to scar my daughter for life” started flying though my head.
Fortunately very soon after, we found the glider rocking chairs and I was just able to plop down in one and lose myself in the smooth rocking motion. We are definitely going to have to get one of these masterpieces of modern furniture technology (even though they are very expensive). This rockling chair is going to be very useful in helping me get to sleep during those first few weeks. (I have heard rumors that I won’t be getting a lot of sleep those first few weeks).
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