Three Months Later

Was it really less than three months ago that Kathy and Shizuka showed off their oh-so-pregnant bellies, days before Shizuka had her baby? My how time flies!

People keep telling us that it goes by so fast, and here's the proof of it. Before too long, Kazumi and Emelia will be considered the same age, but right now Kazumi at 12 weeks is a giant compared with Emelia at 9 days. Of course they were too young to interact during Shizuka's visit, but there'll be plenty of time for that in the months and years to come.

New Baby

[Updated below; updated again] It'd be one thing if our pregnancy were the only one going on in our lives, but it hasn't been. We got together this past Sunday with Shizuka and Eric, the former being one of Kathy's best friends from college, and the latter being Shizuka's husband and the man with whom I made our celebratory beer. Shizuka was due the day after we got together. As the picture shows, she was VERY pregnant.

I wonder if our children will ever understand how wonderful this picture is, the end of an era for two close friends, and the cusp of a new one. Not to mention that they're in the shot too, plainly visible in the fabric of their mothers' clothes.

Kathy's really been enjoying having Shizuka nearby. Both Shizuka and Eric are college professors, and while Eric works at the University of Maryland, Shizuka had been living in Northampton, Massachusetts until a month ago. She had already scheduled a Sabbatical and was going to be living with Eric for this upcoming academic term even before they knew she was pregnant. I have trouble imagining being in a marriage where I lived hundreds of miles from my spouse, but it's worked for them. In fact, there was probably at least as much anxiety with how they'd get along being in the same house full-time as there was over the baby coming into their lives.

Speaking of a baby coming into their lives, Shizuka was induced on Wednesday. There had been no sign that she was ever going to go into labor by herself, and her doctor was concerned about needing a C-section if the baby grew much more. It took a while, and there were concerns that a C-section would be needed after all, but ultimately she dilated, and out came little Kazumi.

We were able to visit the next evening, and Kathy was on Cloud Nine as she held Kazumi -- I think she could have stayed in that position forever, but for the fact that visiting hours ended at nine (and that Kazumi needed feeding). We also partook of one of Eric's bottles of the Soft Spot Stout we brewed, and I must say, it's quite a tasty brew, although not quite as hoppy as we thought it might get.

Shizuka and Kazumi got out of the hospital yesterday, and we're going to try to visit them (and Eric) soon, perhaps even today -- Kathy's cooking up a storm to bring over a few dishes that Eric and Shizuka can eat over the next couple of weeks. Update, 5:15pm -- I made a bad assumption. While both were scheduled to get out yesterday, Kazumi turned blue for about a minute on Friday morning and has been admitted to NICU. The doctors don't believe it's a heart problem, but they don't know exactly why it happened (and it's happened a second time), so she remains in NICU. Kathy and I are both anxiously awaiting news that everything is ok.

It may have been an external one, but this baby was certainly a milestone for us in measuring the progress of our own pregnancy. The next one will be in another week or so, when another of Kathy's (and Shizuka's) good friends from college, Brenna, has her first child. Update, 10:20pm -- we found out this evening that Brenna had her baby Friday morning, and all is well. Brenna's out in Minneapolis, however, so we'll have to wait a bit to see him in person.

I am Not Going Through a Mid-Life Crisis

What inspires someone to get up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning? More importantly, what inspires someone to get up at 5:30 on a Saturday to go skydiving?

Tom really wanted to go, and invited me. I can't say that it was something I was passionate about, but I was interested. And although Kathy had her doubts, after I examined the activity's safety record and showed it to her, she said ok (though still she'd punctuate e-mails with phrases like "don't die tomorrow"). (Speaking of which, she had breakfast with a friend of hers yesterday and told him what I was doing today -- he was flabbergasted, not believing that I would do such a thing while expecting a child. For some reason he had trouble remembering that right after his wife told him she was pregnant, he quit his job to run a start-up company.) Our neighbor Bruce is an adrenaline junkie (he's raced cars, among other activities), so when Tom mentioned it to him, we had a threesome. We were going tandem, which means that an instructor is strapped to your back (connected at 4 different points), and he's the one with the parachute.

Our schedules were such that we had to pick a weekend two months in advance, but it was certainly worth the wait. Any of the previous five weekends would have left us sweltering and sticky, but today was a fantastic day -- it was actually cool in the morning, and the sky was a perfect blue. There also was very little humidity.

I really wasn't that scared when we drove over there, but my first moment of doubt came when we signed waiver forms agreeing not to hold the company liable if anything went wrong. Anything included negligence and even pilot error. The guy on the video (with a beard that made the ZZ Top guys look tame) explained that it's because, well, shit happens. After a moment's hesitation, I realized that no one had any interest in anything going wrong -- my tandem instructor had it in his best interest to be safe and make sure everything went well. Once I got past that initial fear, I was fine as we received our 15 minutes of training, got our gear together, got on the plane, and began the ascent. It was only after we'd reached our altitude of 13,500 feet and the door to the plane opened, the people before me jumping out while we're sliding into position that I really started getting nervous.

When we jumped out the plane, the brief lesson I was taught vanished from my brain as we began picking up speed. After a second or two, I remembered what I needed to do to properly orient my body, and then we were all set. Free fall is an amazing experience -- we were hurtling toward the ground, but we still were so far up that once I was properly oriented, the fear of smacking the ground never really entered my mind, even though I don't think I ever took my eyes off the ground. We were in free fall for about a minute, before my instructor signaled to me to reach around him to pull the rip cord. I had a bit of trouble, and he decided not to wait before pulling it himself, which was ok by me -- I have a much greater sense of survival than I do of independence.

With the chute opened we slowed our descent, and finally I was able to bring myself to look around at the gorgeous views. We also could have a conversation, once the wind was no longer screaming in our ears. After a little while where we just let gravity take hold, the instructor showed me how we could steer, and then he took me in a spiral, i.e., a rapid descent while turning in a tight radius. A couple of turns of that, and I begged off, my stomach not really agreeing with continuing. He then went into a sashay, which involved big 90-degree turns back and forth. That wasn't quite as nauseating, so I rode it out. Finally we started our final descent back to where we started. He led us right in, and I put my feet down to complete the touch down. My legs were shaky, but held firm. I had made it through intact, though my stomach remained queasy for a couple of hours -- not sure whether it was the jump/adrenaline, the fact that I only had orange juice and a banana in my stomach, the exhaustion of a short night's sleep, or some combination of these factors. Once I handed in the equipment I called Kathy to let her know I'd made it (she wasn't there because dogs aren't allowed, we'd be away too long to leave them behind, and no one was available to dogsit).


Tom's Instructor Shane, Tom, Me, and Bruce

Tom is ready to start doing this all the time, and Bruce definitely wants to go again. Me, I don't think so. I enjoyed it, and I'm really glad I went, but I didn't enjoy it so much to justify the high cost. I do, however, plan to go with Tom on the next adventure, rafting through Class V rapids.

Name My Beer

Shizuka, one of Kathy's best friends from college, is also expecting her first child (~10 weeks before Kathy's due). Shizuka's husband Eric lives ~20 minutes away, and a couple of months ago I suggested to him that we needed to brew a celebratory beer in honor of the children-to-be and to aid our wives' lactation. Eric embraced the idea. Good thing too, since he's the homebrewer, having made dozens of them over the years (though not that many of late), and he was the one with the equipment. I've helped on a few homebrews over the years but never have done one on my own.

After consulting with Kathy and Shizuka, we decided to go with a stout. Eric proposed a recipe that uses his favorite type of hops, but I didn't like the composition of the rest of it. So I found a different recipe that was more to my liking (and which still used his favorite hops), he suggested a couple of tweaks to it, and we were good to go. The recipe was labeled a "Robust Porter," which might as well be a stout, given that historically, porters came before stouts, and in fact, stout was originally called "stout porter" before the name got shortened. Today, this is what is meant by Robust Porter -- as you can see, the style allows for a pretty wide range of characteristics, most (if not all) of which you'll find in some stouts.

We scheduled a day to brew, and only the day before did it dawn on me that we had coincidentally chosen Father's Day. Over the course of several hours, Eric led us through the necessary steps (and I hope I have them right) -- put the grains in hot water, then let the mixture steep several hours; sparge the mixture in order to remove the fermentable sugars, thereby creating wort; boil the wort and add in the hops; cool the wort and add in the yeast; and seal up the mixture so the yeast can get busy.

After one week, Eric transferred the beer to another container, and two weeks after that, we were ready to bottle the beer. Conveniently, this past weekend Shizuka was in town (she and Eric are professors -- she teaches in Massachusetts, and he's at the University of Maryland), so on Sunday the four of us got to hang out for an afternoon of lunching, talking, bottling, and of course, World Cupping.

I wish that bottling were as simple as pouring the beer into bottles, then cap them, but there's also the matter of cleaning and sterilizing all the bottles before using them (we also had to add more fermentable sugars so the beer would carbonate). The truth is, every step of the process required cleaning and sterilizing, but given how many bottles have to be sterilized to hold five gallons of beer (made slightly less burdensome by our using 750ml bottles), we were at it for a couple of hours. A sampling of the beer at this stage gave us every reason to think we'll have a great beer in a few weeks (which makes the decision to wait until the end of October to open it a little more difficult).

One thing we haven't been able to do is come up with a clever name for our beer (Mothers Milk Stout has been used many times before). If anyone can think of a good name for our beer, let me know. If I use anyone's suggestion, I'll put a credit on my blog, and if you're around D.C., I'll be happy to share a bottle with you.

--
I'm going to be pretty busy for the next few days, enjoying soccer tomorrow night, followed by the RateBeer Summer Gathering that runs all weekend, and then I'll be going out of town for a week. In other words, I'm not promising any posts for the next dozen or so days. Pictures when I return.

Stoop Sale

For about six years, Anna has lived in the basement apartment of the rowhouse five down from us. We'd see her on occasion on the steps, reading and/or having a cigarette. Or coming into or out of the house with her son. About a year ago, however, she started dating Tom, and before long Tom had moved in. And from the time he moved in, it seems that he's been out on the steps, greeting whoever passes by. And somehow, over a period of time, that got my introverted wife to start talking with Anna and Tom. From there, we've quickly become friends with them, and these days we frequently find ourselves all hanging out on their steps drinking beers or wine (or in Kathy's case, water) into the evening.

But as I said, Tom moved in recently, and as a result, they have a lot of stuff crammed into the apartment. So they decided they would have a garage sale this past Saturday, only they don't have a garage (or a yard for a yard sale), so I guess you can call it a sidewalk or stoop sale. They let all the neighbors on the block know in the hope that a bunch would all have a yard sale going at the same time, to attract lots of folk. Their efforts at handing out flyers to everyone on the block resulted in one other couple joining in the sale, but at least they were next door, allowing us to hang out all the more.

We had plenty of stuff to get rid of. There were a few kinckknacks, some lighting fixtures that were removed as part of the renovation, a couple of pieces of furniture, some movies that kathy doesn't watch any longer (or which she's bought on DVD so has no use for the VHS version), and some wedding gifts that never have been used. And there were clothes, lots of them, bags and bags worth, all being Kathy's. We basically did no preparations, so we only grabbed whatever we thought of right then and there, instead of what we might have put outside if we had done any planning.

Speaking of no planning, none of us actually put up any signs until the morning of the event, and even then our efforts were slightly haphazard. For example, as Tom and I drove around with the signs he made, I decided it would be a good idea to write in the date and time on them.

Fortunately, it was a bright sunshiney day. Unfortunately, it was very bright and very sunshiney, and it climbed to around 90 degrees on the day. Fortunately Kathy's only in her fifth month of pregnancy, because if she were in month eight while sitting outside in that lovely weather, and getting a sunburn on her neck (where the rays snuck in under her hat), she might have really been miserable rather than simply exhausted enough to fall asleep at 8:30 that evening.

Somehow or another, Kathy and I ended up splitting the "how much to charge" decisions, as one of us was always unavailable while the other was being asked by the friend with the stickers how much? So it was to my surprise when, for example, someone decided to buy an unused ceiling fan, still in box (though the box had been opened), for $2. That being said, the price on the label doesn't mean much when the person wants to negotiate downward. And while I'm ok with that, especially when it's late in the day, I wouldn't have minded if Kathy actually threw out a counteroffer rather than accept whatever price was offered. Then again, if I had been out there at the time, rather than having gone inside to watch the US-Italy match, maybe I'd have a legitimate right to complain.

We ended up selling about $130 worth of stuff. Subtract out the $15 for the rack rental (to display Kathy's clothes), $15 for our share of the lunch, $20 for the infant car seat we bought, $2 for the books I bought, and $15 for the table Kathy bought (countertop high, she want to use as a changing table), and we made $63 on the day. That being said, saying you've made money on selling items for $2 that you bought for $20 is a peculiar way to interpret the phrase "made money."

Chasm

People tend to associate with like-minded people. It makes sense that one doesn't want to confront strong disagreement, or grit one's teeth, regularly. Especially when you're talking about a situation where you have a choice, as compared with family. And with family, most people have good enough manners to try to stay clear of controversial topics (not sure that I do, but at least most of them do).

On Saturday, I received an e-mail from P, a friend from back home, showing a group of soldiers praying and asserting that the ACLU was trying to prevent soldiers from praying. At the end of the e-mail was a Christian prayer. It took only a four-second Google search to determine that the claim in the e-mail was false. I sent my findings to the many people that P had e-mailed, and P's response was "Nicely done with the fact checking, thanks. The ACLU is still rotten though." P and I also had a couple of e-mail exchanges, which I found equally disturbing -- "I believe [...] that there is a clear, left-wing media driven attack on christians, and battles in court by the ACLU by the ACLU and others against Christians and values of Christians."

In case you haven't already figured it out, I'm liberal. Many of my friends have similar political viewpoints, but not all of them. A significant portion of my friends lean libertarian or are economically conservative, and I don't have a problem talking politics with them. But other than on the RateBeer political forum, I don't often encounter social conservatives (and there, given how many social conservatives treat alcohol consumption, social conservatives are a tiny minority). I have a number of religious friends, but they share the same basic take on religion that I do -- religion is a personal choice. In short, I can't really think of other friends who I'd consider part of the Religious Right.

Kathy and I talked about my exchange with P at length afterwards. We searched for an explanation of what it is that makes it difficult for either of us to stomach the Religious Right. Two things in particular stood out (and of course, this is generalization, where I define the Religious Right to be those people who want to impose the consequences of their beliefs on others). First, they want to impose their beliefs of what is acceptable behavior on others. Second, they don't argue the way we do, in that they have little interest in arguing on the basis of logic. For example, on the gay marriage issue, what I hear them say is that it goes against traditional values, or that an amendment banning it would strengthen marriage, or even that allowing gay marriage creates a slippery slope that'll allow marriages with minors or sheep. But tradition is a terrible reason to maintain a practice -- slavery was traditionally acceptable but that didn't stop society from deciding it's a bad thing to allow. And the contention that the amendment can strengthen the institution of marriage is a phrase that's rotely recited but makes no sense. Similarly, I fail to see why they think that a union between two consenting adults can't be distinguished from all other types of unions. Still these are the arguments I hear put forth in the face of any logic to the contrary, e.g., it doesn't affect you or your marriage; and your church wouldn't have to marry gays any more than it would need to marry people of a different faith.

Interestingly enough, one of P's close relatives e-mailed me, thanking me for determining that the e-mail was a hoax. She was saddened by P's thinking, but as she put it, "as long as there is dialogue, there is hope." It got me to back away from my cringing, Monty Pythinesque "run away" mentality of wanting nothing to do with P ever again. Too many times Kathy and I talk about "fleeing," be it to Canada due to our government's policies, or to a rural area where we can be left alone. P's relative reminded me that if we want the country to improve, we need to continue the dialogue.

An Unquiet Evening

My friend Margie drove through town over the weekend, arriving Sunday night and leaving the next morning. She's found a job in New Hampshire, and was moving up there from North Carolina. Margie has stayed with us often, and we have found her to be the consummate low-maintenance houseguest.

One of the wonderful things about Moji (a nickname she got in college, maybe to be told another time, often shortened to Moj) is that she loves animals. When she comes to town, she often brings rescue animals that need rides from North Carolina to the DC area. This time, however, animal rescue was seeking a driver for six 3-month-old, alleged German Shepherd pups, to take the dogs from North Carolina to New Hampshire (and a couple of cats to take to Delaware from NC). Moj couldn't say no, and even rented a trailer so there'd be room to put the dogs in the cab of her truck. She was also bringing one of her dogs and two of her cats (her husband is still in NC with the other dog and two cats). She tried to find someone associate with animal rescue to house them for the night, but we told her we'd welcome them -- if she's going to do all that driving with and for them, the least we could do would be to make things as easy on her as possible. So for the record, the population in our house that evening was 3 adult humans, 4 cats, 3 adult dogs, and 6 pups.

When Moj arrived, she and Kathy let the pups out to go to the bathroom, but either the cold or the location didn't appeal to them, so only a couple of them peed. Until they got into the house. Within the first five minutes of arrival, we cleaned up four pees, and six poops. Then they had dinner. Then we cleaned up another six pees and six poops, followed by a couple more pees and poops during the rest of the evening. Other than the use of our house as a giant bathroom (an activity repeated this morning), however, the damage caused was surprisingly light -- a chewed electrical cord (though still functional and no shock was applied) and some damaged dog toys was pretty much the extent of it. And of course as puppies they're ridiculously cute, a trait that I'm sure Darwin would argue was for survival of the species.

As for our dogs, Junebug was largely bemused by all the puppyish activity, watching most of the activity while on a chair. Meanwhile, Nora wanted nothing to do with them, occasionally barking at their playing and frolicking -- the poor pups didn't understand why a dog just their size might not be up for joining in the fun.

Marriage Manifesto

Yesterday we received a letter from good friends of ours. I thought it worth sharing, as it's one of the more unique announcements I've received:

Marriage Manifesto

For over 10 years now, we've been in a relationship that belonged to only us. No government or 3rd parties were involved. Nothing has been wrong with our relationship that a government contract could fix. I've always thought that the question, "Why don't you get married?" was akin to "Why don't you turn in circles 3x before you lie down?"

Furthermore, we didn't want to join an institution that is denied to ~10% of our brothers and sisters. Though we have had the option of the marriage bonus in the past, it hasn't been nearly as large, nor has it occurred during a time of such wasteful and immoral use of taxpayers' money. Also, student loan debt acquired during marriage could be strapped onto a surviving spouse or divorcé, whereas pre-marital debts don't follow the spouse.

As many of you know, I've been struggling with unemployment for over 7 months. You may have heard me lament that my tuition tax credits are going to waste because I'm too poor to pay taxes. It occurred to me that I could not use my credits but anyone (well, one man) who married me could. I was worth $3000 to whoever married me by Dec. 31st. It was a tough choice. I looked at how bad I needed the $$ and how much I didn't want to join an unnecessary and discriminatory institution. I also considered how the governemnt would spend the $3000. We decided to approach it as one might the terrorists. Hit them where it hurts. $3000 for us is $3000 less for the war and corporate subsidies.

We want to let you know we were married Dec. 29th. We would have loved to have a party but time did not permit. Maybe we'll have a Marriage Bonus Party when the check comes in.

Love, C & M

Congratulations to C & M -- I hope they're happy with their decision!

Between Visits

One of the nice things about living in DC is that it's a destination, which means that friends are always swinging through here for work or leisure.

When I got back to work on Tuesday, I had a brief e-mail waiting for me --

From: Maria
To: Aaron
Subject: Happy New Year
--
Any chance you and Kathy can meet me for dinner on Thursday evening in DC?

Maria is a law school friend who still lives in Tallahassee, and was coming to town for a conference (at this point she's the only friend from law school that I still keep in touch with).

Last night she came over and we went out to our new favorite Thai place (conveniently located in walking distance to our house). We had a great time catching up -- it had been about four years since we'd seen each other. During the course of the evening, she related to Kathy one tidbit from law school that I'd forgotten about -- while we sat next to each other in Civil Procedure, I occupied my boredom by trying to list all the CDs in my collection. She thought I was nuts, and as I assured her last night, I still am (an assertion to which Kathy readily agreed).

--

I woke up this morning at 4:15 with Nora licking some part of her. After about ten minutes of trying to go back to sleep while listening to a small dog meticulously attempting to address whatever grooming inadequacy she was encountering, I gave up and went into another room to try to sleep. Sleep, however, had no interest in joining me, so here I am.

--

Yesterday afternoon, I came back from a meeting to find the following e-mail --

From: John
To: Aaron, Michael, Katy
Subject: Coming to DC!
--
As I have finally, mostly shaken this cold, I'm planning on driving down to DC tomorrow (Friday the 6th) and hopefully staying thru Monday or Tuesday. I have a friend who works for Booz Allen and was going to drop by his office on Monday and see about possibly Interning there next summer. Do any of you know anything about them?

What availability do you all have this weekend?
John

To which I responded --

They're a major consulting firm, but beyond that, I really don't know much about them.

So will we see you at all?

He came back with the following --

I was hoping to still crash at your place.
Is that still ok?

Call me
John

Maybe it's just me, but the two short-notice visits have a certain qualitative difference. Then again, this is John, someone who's always danced to the beat of a different bassoonist, and someone I've known since I was 7. To be fair, a couple of months ago he had asked about such a visit for sometime in January -- he's now in law school ("I told you I was going to law school." "You asked how I did on the LSAT -- I thought it had to do with you having worked for Kaplan."), and as the e-mail indicates, looking for an summer internship.

When I called him back he said that he had a backup. I told him that of course he was welcome, and that it was no big deal. After all, we live in DC, so we expect to have visitors.

Mr. Bad Example

Friday night we went out with friends to an Ethiopian restaurant. Our friends have a 21-month-old boy, and before dinner he asked what I was doing on the notepad I'd brought with me. His parents told him that I was rating beer, which indeed I was. The dinner itself was quite tasty, and the adults agreed that we'd need to return.

It turns out that these friends didn't know who Wallace and Gromit are, or why we're so excited about going to see the new movie (which we haven't done yet). We offered to loan them one of the short movies, but they no longer have a VCR, and we only have the movies on VHS. So with Saturday being rainy, we invited them over to see Kathy's and my favorite of the three movies, The Wrong Trousers. The couple enjoyed it quite a bit, though their son was asleep upon arrival, and so missed it. Not a big deal, I suppose, because he's not quite to the point of appreciating even short movies.

It was a little after noon when we finished watching, so we asked if they wanted to order pizza. They said yes, and we went downstairs to wait for the arrival. To keep her son occupied, Ann borrowed pen and paper we had at the kitchen desk. After he had been drawing for a while, Ann asked what he was doing. The response, clearly enunciated, was, "Rating beer."

The Odds Must Be Crazy

Turns out that friends of ours are also doing IVF, and are about 1.5 weeks behind us. We had gotten together for dinner while the women were taking their pre-procedure medications, and there was lots of comeraderie. Still, with our odds of success being ~40%, and theirs being ~25% (she's a couple of years older than Kathy), I later mentioned to Kathy that the odds weren't good that both couples would get pregnant -- in fact, the odds were 45% that neither couple would get pregnant, 45% that one would, and just 10% that both succeed. I pointed this out to Kathy because of the realization that there could be a strain on the friendship if one couple was successful and the other wasn't.

Today we found out that they are also pregnant, so the 1 in 10 chance happened. Hurray!

Brush with the Past

May 2005 -- Walking into work, I spot a familiar face reading a newspaper as he's walking. I head in his direction and he looks up before I arrive.
"Aaron, how ya' doin'?"
"Hey Charlie."

July 1993 -- Newly arrived in DC, I'm crashing on the sofa of a friend's place, my worldly possessions are in a rental truck out in the apartment complex's parking lot, and the truck's due back in one more day. The room for rent I'd pinned my hopes on has finally fallen through, and I'm desperately trying to find somewhere to live, somewhere that will take me, my stuff, and most importantly, my dog. I can extend the truck rental if I have to (though being unemployed, I certainly don't want to have to), but my brother's bringing Rosie up in a couple of weeks, and I can't keep her at my friend's apartment.
"Hello?"
"Yes, I'm calling about the room for rent?"
"Yeah? When can you come over?"
"Right now if you'd like."
"Yeah, ok."
"My name's Aaron."
"Mine's Charlie."

Now -- We'd last spoken in the Fall, but it'd been several years since we'd gotten together. Strange, considering we work less than half a mile away, and I pass by his building whenever I walk to work. He finally looks older -- the perpetually boyish face showing a bit of what the years have brought, and gray finally settling into his dark hair. I want to know about the boys, which is good, because that's what he wants to talk about.

Then -- I move in on the evening of the same day. It's a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom rambler in Falls Church, right by Seven Corners. At some point before I decide to take the place, he tells me about his pending divorce, and his three sons, ages 6, 5, and 3. He tells me that they'll be living in the third bedroom about half the time. Somehow I miss such minor details -- I've found a place to live, a place that'll take my dog, sight unseen.

Now -- Conor is finishing up his sophomore year, and is doing great. He's in a magnet school, getting good grades, and doing great in sports. He was featured in the paper for a soccer hat trick he scored, but his favorite sport is football. Alex, finishing up his freshman year at a different high school, is also thriving academically and athletically.

Then -- It's strange, this totally alien environment of small children surrounding me while I'm still a mess from my ex. But strange is not the same as bad. Charlie is great in action with the boys -- that he loves them is never in doubt. He's very patient, hardly ever raising his voice, constantly giving them his unconditional love in a very difficult time for all of them. He never speaks bad of his spouse in front of the kids, even though she doesn't reciprocate. She's fighting for full custody of the children, while Charlie wants joint custody. Charlie ultimately wins the battle, but his ex is never ready to cede the war -- eventually, her determination to fight costs her even joint custody.

Now -- Shawn lives with his mother. He got kicked out of school in 8th grade, for smoking pot. At that time his mother swooped in and offered him a chance to start fresh. Charlie didn't say no, but he later came to realize that "fresh start" meant was that Shawn didn't have to face the consequences of his actions. Charlie feels that Shawn has become something of a lost lamb -- his mother indulges his laziness, for fear that he'd go back to Charlie. Shawn's about to graduate, and has found a New England school that'll accept him. He's interested in drama.

Then -- When the kids aren't around, we talk a great deal, about relationships, writing, music, and anything else. We also go to a few concerts -- he delights in taking me to Hot Tuna, in which Jorma Koukanen, from whom Charlie took some lessons, is front and center. Despite these interests, he has but a single devotion, and that's to his children.

Now -- "It was great seeing you Charlie."
"You too man -- I'll tell Shawn you say hello." We start moving past one another in the directions of our respective workplaces.
"Thanks, I'd like that. When do you want to do lunch?"
"Work's pretty busy, I usually work right through lunch."
"What else are you doing outside of work and the boys?"
"Nothing really -- all the activities for Conor and Alex keep me pretty busy. With the two of them at different schools, I'm constantly going all over the place."
"You need your own life too -- what happens when they go off to college?"
"Don't remind me!" More than a trace of annoyance, anger even, slips through in his response, and as we leave the meeting place, I worry that I have hurt him somehow.

Another Night, Another Meet-Up (or, Revising #91)

He says we'd gotten together since my wedding, but we both agree it'd been over five years. And I know it'd been two years since we'd spoken. There hadn't been an incident that precipitated a falling out. It was more my getting tired of always being the one to initiate communication, and when I stopped doing it and he didn't say anything, eventually I grew indifferent. After the e-mail I sent him on a whim bounced, I called him up to wish him happy birthday. We talked for a while, and he said a conference was bringing him downtown all this week (he was wrong, but it did bring him to a much closer suburb). So on Wednesday night, I got together with my best friend from high school, someone who lives in the suburbs of DC.

So much of the conversation during dinner and afterwards was recountng the past, and so much of it was catch up. At times we slipped into familiar patterns, like him talking all serious until I inserted a silly one-liner that sent him off on a tangent. But while the manner of communication seemed familiar, much wasn't. We're different people than we were when we last saw each other. He's got three kids now, and the oldest is 10. I'm not a newlywed -- I've been married for almost six years. He's much more a part of my past than any part of my future, and we'll have to see each other more frequently if that has any chance of changing. We're both interested in trying to make that happen, so we'll see.

One thing our meeting means is that I'll have to revise my 100 Things About Me -- over 36 years to come up with the list, less than two weeks before I needed to revise it.