My Albums of the Decade

Compiling "Best of" lists is a fool's endeavor, yet I persist. Today I offer my favorite 40 albums of the Aughts (in alphabetical order). I bolded my favorite 10 of the bunch, but otherwise I don't see much point in trying to rank them -- suffice it to say that I hold these albums in very high regard. The rules I applied in making my selections -- no jazz, no live albums, no compilations, and no more than one album per artist.

Arctic Monkeys -- Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)

The Avett Brothers -- Emotionalism (2007)

Belle & Sebastian -- The Life Pursuit (2006)

Blind Pilot -- 3 Rounds and a Sound (2008)

Bright Eyes -- Cassadaga (2007)

Calexico -- Carried To Dust (2008)

Neko Case -- Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (2006)

Clem Snide -- End of Love (2005)

Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers -- Songs In The Night (2009)

Death Cab for Cutie --Plans (2005)

The Decemberists -- Picaresque (2005)

Steve Earle -- Jerusalem (2002)

Kathleen Edwards -- Failer (2003)

Alejandro Escovedo -- A Man Under The Influence (2001)

Jay Farrar & Ben Gibbard -- One Fast Move or I'm Gone (2009)

The Flaming Lips -- Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Fountains of Wayne -- Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)

Sarah Harmer -- You Were Here (2000)

John Hiatt -- Crossing Muddy Waters (2000)

The Hold Steady -- Boys and Girls In America (2006)

Interpol -- Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)

The Jayhawks -- Rainy Day Music (2003)

Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings -- 100 Days, 100 Nights (2007)

Aimee Mann -- Bachelor No. 2 (2000)

Anaïs Mitchell -- Hymns for the Exiled (2004)

My Morning Jacket -- It Still Moves (2003)

The National -- Boxer (2007)

The New Pornographers -- Twin Cinema (2005)

Radiohead -- Hail To The Thief (2003)

The Sadies -- Favorite Colors (2004)

Richard Shindell -- Somewhere Near Patterson (2000)

The Shins --Chutes Too Narrow (2003)

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros -- Streetcore (2003)

Sufjan Stevens -- Illinoise (2005)

Vampire Weekend -- Vampire Weekend (2008)

Varnaline -- Songs in a Northern Key (2001)

M. Ward -- Transfiguration of Vincent (2003)

The Weakerthans -- Reconstruction Site (2003)

Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Yo La Tengo -- Summer Sun (2003)

The Agonizer

I did it with a camera purchase, and now I'm making that seem like impulse by comparison. I'm talking about my thinking about whether to buy a new car given that our family is expanding.

We have a 2002 Honda Civic, and that purchase was the fallout of Kathy's post-9/11 freakout. She wanted to have a way out of the city if there was another attack, and I went along with it, even though I wasn't comforted by the possibility of being stuck in traffic with the rest of the city's residents that were trying to flee. Having no car at that time meant that it would have been a royal pain for us to do a lot of comparison shopping, so in November 2001 we went to the Honda dealer, liked the Civic, and bought it then and there.

And for 90% of the time, the Civic is all we need. It's got us covered for any around-town travel. For leaving town, however, it's rough, though with the loss of Junebug, it's at least feasible. Once #2 arrives, however, anything more than a weekend requires a bigger car.* As would camping, as we were packed to the gills with just the three of us. And the Civic isn't as comfortable as we'd like, though I think that has more to do with our aging than the car's aging. Kathy was on board with getting a new car, but the truth is, I'm the one behind this push, and she'd be ok with whatever I decide.

So I started looking in August -- I didn't see many station wagons, which would have been my first choice, and minivans get such lousy gas mileage that we didn't want one, which left us looking for the most part of SUVs. Not that SUVs get great mileage, but at least some of them are in the 20s, which is way more than what the minivans get. We started with the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V, but didn't jump at them because the price wasn't good enough to justify stopping our search. I started considering the Ford Escape, even though its storage was a bit less than the Honda or Toyota, and it's a noisier car, because it's cheaper and I liked the idea of buying a vehicle that's union made in the U.S.A. The Subarus, Outback and Forrester, were interesting, but we don't need 4-Wheel Drive and didn't like the cost it added or the mileage it subtracted. Then we read about the upgrade to this year's Chevy Equinox, and would consider paying more up front to get the best mileage in the class, but it's a larger car in exterior size, even though its interior is comparable to the Escape rather than the Honda or Toyota.

Finally, a couple of weekends ago, someone mentioned the Volkswagen Sportwagen TDI, and I was back to looking at a stationwagon. It's a fair amount more expensive than the others we were looking at, but its mileage is so much better, as in ~34 MPG. I test drove one a couple of weekends ago, and enjoyed it. Kathy liked the idea of being in a car rather than an SUV. And if the dealership had had one that had the features we wanted, it's likely we would have bought one right then.

But they didn't. And it's not an easy car to find -- they come off the lot about as quickly as they arrive, and most dealerships have back orders. No price negotiation, and the ones showing up are generally fully decked out with features I don't need and certainly don't want to pay for. So the price differential is even more than I'd originally thought.

And so here I am, back to wondering if we can live with the Civic for a little while longer, all the while considering the possibilities. One possibility is that we could get a roof carrier, even if we're not sure we could lift it onto the top of our car. All I know is that I need to agonize about this decision for a while longer, because that's what I do.
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* -- I recognize that "require" is a relative term, but you try telling Kathy that she doesn't need to pack so much stuff, or that Nora doesn't require her own seat if she comes.

Two Videos of Emelia on Halloween

Saturday morning, full of energy, and can't wait for her friends to arrive and go Trick-or-Treating.

And finally, it was time to get into costume. How exciting!

Song du Jour -- Diamonds and Rust

For the past couple of months, I've been trying to post a "song du jour" on Facebook, and while I've tried to mix it up somewhat, looking at the totality of my selections makes it pretty obvious that my tastes have mellowed over the years. Once upon a time, I was into hard rock, and even metal. These days, I like a broad swath of music, but its center is in the alt-country/Americana range.

Back in my youth, one of my favorite bands was Judas Priest, and perhaps my favorite song of theirs was "Diamonds and Rust," a song that seemed to be just a bit deeper than the average metal tune:



It wasn't until years later that I learned that Priest wasn't the original performer of that tune -- they had merely cut out a verse or two and cranked up a folk tune by Joan Baez, about Bob Dylan:



And now, I love both versions, and I can't hear one without thinking about the other.

Damn -- has it already been a month?!

Guess I need to post something, so here's a video of Emelia at her cousin Karolina's birthday celebration while we were up in Stowe.

A Man Walks Into A Brewpub

So yesterday, Kathy, Emelia and I stopped in at a brewpub in upstate New York for lunch on our way back to DC from Vermont. We get there at noon, right as the place opens. The greeter is in fact the co-owner, and after he assures us that we haven't arrived too early to be seated, he asks if we know what was special about the day.

I immediately answer, "It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!"
"Uh, it is? Well, that's not what I was thinking."
"Oh right -- it's Rosh Hashanah."
"Is that so? Well, it's also the start of Oktoberfest in Munich!"
"It is?"
"It sure is, and we're about to tap our Alt in honor of Oktoberfest."

Even though we weren't on the same page as far what made Saturday special, I did try the beer they had made in honor of Oktoberfest, and thought it was pretty decent.

RIP Junebug

Yesterday we had to put Junebug to sleep. It was something that we knew we would probably have to do before too long. She was 12 1/2, and in addition to being deaf, she had very arthritic back legs, to the point that she was having trouble standing, and climbing stairs. She had also started losing her house training. Still, the end was unexpected when it happened.*

I'm not going to remember Junebug as my favorite dog. She was a pain in the ass, plain and simple. We got her from the pound, where she had been staying with a foster parent, her second one. We were told she was house trained, and while that might have been true, the separation anxiety she felt when the foster parent left overwhelmed everything else. In addition to going to the bathroom, she destroyed carpet and anything else in her path. We tried keeping her in a crate during the day, but she was so freaked out that she broke out by overcoming the soldering, earning the nickname Houndini. And so the destruction continued. Kathy and I alternated as far as wanting to get rid of her, never both agreeing to it at the same time. Despite the burden she placed on us, we didn't feel comfortable with what it would mean to Junebug to leave her abandoned one more time.

We hired Bryce as our dog walker to help reduce the time Junebug was left humanless. And over time Junebug grew more comfortable with us. The messes happened less frequently, though we were reminded not to leave food or hardback books within her reach. And her reach was legendary -- anything on a kitchen counter was fair game, and she learned to open cupboards and drawers. Bryce wanted to install a camera just to see how she got to some of the things she did -- once at Bryce's, she got into bread that was two shelves above counter height. Houndini indeed.

One of the reasons we kept Junebug in those early days was because she had such a sweet disposition. Truly. And when she was young and mobile, it was a joy to see her when she was running, be it on the beach, in the snow, or in a field. It was there that one really saw her at her happiest. And we grew to love her in spite of the difficulties she presented, because after all, all she really wanted was a little bit of loving. And when you get down to it, that's not so unreasonable.

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* - I don't want to dwell on the end, but for anyone who wants such details, here you go.

Junebug's End

Kathy woke up Sunday morning to the sound of Junebug throwing up, something that's unpleasant but not uncommon. With Kathy's pregnancy gag reflex in full force at the moment, I had the displeasure of cleaning up the mess. Junebug threw up a couple more times, and when I walked the dogs, she ate grass to throw up some more. The first sign that things were worse than usual was when she didn't eat her breakfast. She also threw up some water a little later. Finally at about 11:30, she threw up something that appeared fairly solid. It was disgusting, so I didn't examine it too closely, but I was hopeful that things would be ok from there. They weren't -- she still wouldn't eat and when she drank a little bit of water, she threw that up too.

So I took her to the emergency vet clinic, where they admitted her for the night, ran some blood work, and gave her some anti-nausea medication. At around 2:30am, she apparently threw up what the clinic described as a "baby bonnet" -- I have no idea whether it was one of Emelia's hats or some of her doll clothes. No matter, even with that additional blockage removed, Junebug still threw up some water at around 11am. When the vet called a little after noon with that news, I figured things were looking bad. I had the clinic do x-rays, and the report was that there appeared to be a bell in her stomach, and while it didn't show up on the x-ray, the accumulation of gas suggested there was an additional (cloth?) blockage in her intestine. The options were to perform surgery or to put her to sleep.

I went to tell Kathy, and we both knew the correct alternative was to put her to sleep. We both were crying over making the decision. Emelia was sleeping, and we asked our friend Bryce to stay at the house while we went to the clinic. We were given time alone with Junebug, but in some ways we were already too late. She briefly acknowledged our presence, but then lay down and didn't respond to us. When the vet came in, we asked if she had been sedated, and she said no, and that she had been doing ok until the x-ray, which seemed to take a lot out of her. We were crying, but hearing that made us feel better about our decision -- if she could hardly handle an x-ray, then surgery would almost certainly have been too much. Kathy waited outside when the doctor administered the injections that put Junebug to sleep. Even though Junebug didn't seem to know I was there, I stayed there to the end with my hand on her side, figuring that it was the least I could do for her.

Aaron's Diet, Part 1*

I hit the scale a little over a week before I went to Cooperstown and showed up 1.5 pounds above the weight I have long said I never wanted to exceed. I have several reasons for why I set that weight limit, but the basic reasons are tied to my health, most significantly that my bad back doesn't need to have additional strains placed on it by having to support a large gut on the opposite side.

Given that a beerfest weekend is completely antithethical to a diet, and to give me a target start date, I didn't start dieting until I got back from there. So essentially, my diet began on Monday August 3.

Goal: Lose 20 pounds from that peak, pre-Cooperstown weight, by the end of October. In truth I'm ok with being a couple of pounds more than that, but because I expect to put a couple of pounds on once I stop dieting, I've set my target accordingly.

My diet rules:

1. Severe curtailing of alcohol consumption. In the time I've been dieting, I've had one evening when I went drinking (4 beers), and a total of 1.5 beers otherwise. I've had no other alcohol.
2. Don't impose my diet on the people around me. Kathy wasn't happy about her weight at the start of her pregnancy, but that doesn't mean she should be losing any weight now. It's not up to Kathy to change the foods that she and Emelia want to eat, it's up to me. As such, I'm the one who needs to have willpower. Essentially then, on the food side of things, I'm eating what Kathy is eating, but I'm taking significantly smaller portions than I was previously, and I'm doing my best to limit snacks. What that means, for example, is that we've still ordered pizza, and all that's different is that I try to have fewer slices than I ordinarily would. Also, we went out for Mexican and although I had a full entree of fajitas, I successfully resisted eating any chips and salsa.
   
3. Accept that I'm going to be hungry. I've read about dozens of diets (without even looking for them) and in selling themselves, each tries to say it's easy. I don't know if they're correct, but my "eating less" diet isn't easy for me -- I'm hungry most of the time. To prevent eating every time I feel hungry, I remind myself of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Most of the time, that does the trick.
   
4. It's not cheating to have limited indulgences. This is a key to me. I don't think it's constructive for me to feel like I'm failing when I give in to the hunger, indulge a sweet tooth or actually consume a beer. The bottom line is that I'm taking in far fewer calories even if I have those "lapses," so I treat the occasional treat as part of the diet, not a break from it.
5. Exercise. I don't burn many calories going on the walk-jogs I've been doing roughly every other morning since the first Wednesday of the diet (currently about 1 3/4 miles jogging, and 1 mile total of warm-up/cool-down walking), but I am improving my conditioning, and of course that's something that's important for my general health. The key question is whether my back and other aches will interfere -- currently I feel much more sore on my jogs than I did at the start of my regimen. Jogging is hard on the joints and frame, but I don't need any special equipment or to go somewhere to jog -- I can just roll out of bed and go. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep it up.
   

Status: As of August 27, I've lost seven pounds, so I'm roughly one-third of the way to my goal. I have travel and other events that may make it difficult to keep going as well as I have so far, but I accept that I may have a rough week or two (see Rule #4).

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* - Disclaimer: I'm blogging about this primarily because it's a big thing in my life at present, but also to put pressure on myself to reach my goal by making it public. It is not to brag about my limited success, to suggest to others that they need to diet, or how anyone else should diet. Ok, maybe I'm bragging a little too, though I have no idea why I should be over seven frickin' pounds.

My Little Girl is Growing Up So Fast!

We're down to the last four days of having a nanny for Emelia. She's shared Avery (Nana) with Jonah for over two years, but this spring we decided that Emelia was ready for something different. On Tuesday September 1, she starts in a Montessori program on the Hill.

Emelia has been excited about going to school for a few months already. In May she went to the school for a little while so the school could see how she responded, and she LOVED it. When it was time for her to leave she started crying because she was having such a good time. Ever since, she's been asking when she was going to go to school again.

For me, the hardest part of the change isn't that she's growing up. It's that we're saying goodbye to Jonah and Avery. Jonah's still around the corner from us, and we'll have many chances to get together. But Jonah has been a pseudo-sibling for Emelia (ironically, Avery says they're sometimes mistaken for twins when she takes them to the park), they get along so well, and it's clear that they're a positive influence on each other. They'll go from seeing each other three times a week for 9 hours at a stretch to a couple of hours every week or so. We told Elisabeth of our plans to switch to the Montessori program and thought she might want to do the same with Jonah, but she wanted to stay with Avery. And so the two kids will take different paths, and it's left me feeling wistful. I don't think Emelia realizes that starting school means no more Nana and Jonah.

As for Avery, we've been happy with her, and know that she's been a major part of Emelia's growth and development. When we told Avery of our decision, she agreed with our assessment that Emelia's ready for something new, and that the Montessori program will work well for her. Avery had thought that we didn't need her next Monday and had made plans to watch Emelia's "replacement" Jack (Jonah is switching to a Tuesday-Thursday schedule starting this week), but as soon as I said we still needed her for that day, and asked if she could watch Emelia and Jack together, she immediately said she'd tell Jack's parents that she'd start the next day, and beamed over the thought of having one last day alone with Emelia. Avery has offered her services if we need some assistance due to Kathy's pregnancy or because of the birth.

To accommodate the school's five-days-a-week schedule (8:30-3), Kathy is returning to work five days a week, five hours each day (she'll pick up and drop off Emelia), compared with her current schedule of working a full work day on Monday through Wednesday and being with Emelia on Thursday and Friday. We're not quite sure how it'll work -- Kathy's taken advantage of those days off to run errands or have repair people over. We'll also avail ourselves of the school's after care some days, given that Kathy's work will occasionally require her past 3pm.

Regardless how it goes, it's another chapter in the adventure known as parenthood.