Old or New?

Just a quick question for all you Democratically-inclined:

Who did you vote for - Old Michael Jackson, or New Michael Jackson?

I Almost Forgot.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrr!

A Sense of Place

Well, we're moved. Mostly. And it sucked. Really.

I don't like moving - never have. In my Not So Humble Opinion, there's just nothing good about moving. I can't seem to find an upside. Unless you count the feeling you get when it's over. But if you're going to use that reasoning, then there's an upside to abdominal surgery. So let's just drop this right here.

My biggest problem with the move was the fact that Jake (our perfect baby boy) spent the night with Rah Rah and Pa (his grandparents on his mother's side. The monikers were bestowed upon them by Jake's oldest cousin when she was a Much Younger Girl) while we applied ourselves to The Big Move. It was necessary, but we didn't handle his absence well.

Jake, for the most part, didn't miss us much. He was, after all, at Rah Rah and Pa's holiday camp. The report from Rah Rah is that Jake did just fine until they put him to bed, at which point they put on his Bedtime Music (a lullaby CD that Pa gave him and which we play for him every night). It seems that when the Bedtime Music began to play, Jake perked up, grinned a huge grin and looked repeatedly around the room. But when he looked and looked and his parents failed to manifest, he cried and cried. Poor little guy.

Truth be told, I cried a bit when I heard about it. Jake doesn't usually get sad about anything. He's just like his mother and father - he doesn't get sad, he gets angry. He must have felt pretty abandoned to be so sad. Poor little guy.

So, needless to say, we have no intention of spending any time away from our son any time soon. Luckily, he seems to be okay with us going to work, but outside of that we don't want to push our luck.

Jake's also finally gotten used to the new place. I think we've finally gotten enough of our crap out of boxes to make the place feel like home to him. Or, more likely, to feel like home to us. Jake's not even 9 months old yet - I'm sure he hasn't yet developed any real sense of place. He does, however, strongly react to what we're feeling. So the more comfortable we get here, the happier he is.

I won't be completely at home here, though, until the move is well and truly over. With the baby, we knew we were unable to move our lives completely in a weekend, so we payed two rents for the month of June so we could take our time. Last weekend was The Big Move because we rented a truck and moved all the furniture. I'm still stopping by the old place every day on my way home from work to fill the car with miscellaneous crap.

And it's kind of sad, every day. This is an odd feeling for me, because I've never felt sad about leaving a place before. I've liked every place I've ever lived - even loved some of them - but leaving a place behind never made me melancholy before. It's got to be because Jake was born while we lived there. It's the only thing I can think of.

Whatever the reason for my emotional attachment, I don't think I'll be able to really let go of the place until I no longer need to keep going there. Which will be next week - we have to finish this weekend.

Then I'll be ready to come home.

Out With The Old.....

Hello again, World.

It's been a long time. Sorry I haven't been around - I just haven't been able to find the time. Simply put, I've just plain had better things to do with my time. Namely, my perfect baby son. Pretty much spent the last 8 months on the verge of exhaustion and loving every minute of it.

Anyway, I got thinking about this blog the other day, and thought maybe I should revisit it. Thought it might be fun to try to write a little something once in a while. For now, at least. We'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

At the very least, though, the shape of this thing will be changing - both on the surface and underneath it. And they will continue until I really get a handle on the shape of things to come.

The only thing I'm sure of at this point is that posts here will be less frequent and more substantial. Outside of that, I make no promises. Hell - I won't even promise that much.

But I'll give it some thought.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Coming up in a couple of days! Prepare to be boarded! Aaarrrrrr!

Daily Lit

Read about this today at Lifehacker. It's one of those ideas that's so damned great I wish I had thought of it. They send you a classic novel, one E-mail at a time. You just pick the book you'd like to read, and every day you'll receive a one-E-mail-sized slice of it. So if you can't find the time to read a book, but manage to read your e-mail every day, check it out.

Genius. Sheer genius.

Doberman on guard duty whacks 100 teddy bears

On Tuesday night, at a tourist attraction called Wookey Hall Caves in western England, Barney, a Doberman pinscher guard dog, briefly ran amok among a collection of teddy- bears, including a 1909 German Steiff bear called Mabel that was reputed to have belonged, once upon a time, to Elvis Presley.

Photographs of the dog in British newspapers on Thursday showed the Doberman with what may or may not be an expression of canine contrition, sitting on his haunches amid a detritus of stuffing, glass eyes, amber fur and ursine innards.

Is anybody surprised by this?