On the Outside, Looking In...

Time for a Purge

Out with the old, in with the new. Just finished boxing up 10 place settings of China, used fewer than 10 times in an 11 year period. Will be sending to my brother, who just happened to be in the market for China. Good times, and a free corner cabinet in my kitchen. I think tomorrow is the day of reckoning, where all unused/underused items will briefly see the light of day, then will be boxed up and prepared for donation or future yard sales.

I have tried over the past few days to find a place to sell my aged, but mint condition Canon EOS Rebel S camera. An SLR from the days of film, I've had this camera since the early '90s. It has served me well. However, everything is digital now. Out of four places that I requested quotes for the camera body, 2 lenses, and a flash, only two were "interested", and by "interested" I mean "not really interested." The offers were $45 and $65 for the whole kit. For that price, I'd prefer to keep it and/or donate it to a school or something.

As for what I'd like to purchase to replace it, well, I have my eye on a Canon EOS XSi: see the hotness here. I have spoken with other shutterbug friends who report, with some unease, the relative heft of DSLRs once you also have to contend with carting a lot of baby stuff around. I get this point. After all, for a weekend getaway to my parent's place we managed to completely fill my car with Emerson and her retinue of stuffed/plush accoutrement. I believe I managed to cram a pair of jeans, clean undies, and one sock where the spare tire should go.

Happy Holidays?

Is it Festivus already? No? Well, we can hold off on the Feats of Strength, then.

It is the time of year to think of all the things for which we are thankful. Marantha and I welcomed the biggest one into our lives this year.

For those friends and family that we will not get to see this holiday season, we send you our love and thanks.

PS--in about 4 weeks we get the *second* biggest gift in our lives: Obama in the White House!

How do you feed a cold and starve a fever...

at the same time? Emerson now has the three horsemen of the apocalypse residing somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. We have a nasty ear infection, teething, and an upper respiratory infection. If she could talk, it would sound a lot like Jack Palance. All these things combined have pushed her to a 103.2 fever. Solid!

Luckily, we have another 36 hours before we need to travel with her.

Happy holidays!

JB

great sushi

There are few things I enjoy more than really good sushi. I had feared this would be a thing we left behind when we moved from DC to St. Louis, but (aside from a couple of really bad experiences) the sushi in the 'Lou has ranged from passable to good. This weekend, however, we returned to one of my favorite places: Wasabi (on Washington Ave. downtown). The sushi was *sublime*, especially the bluefin tuna...which is pretty guilt-inducing at this point, since it is being harvested to the point of extinction.

My favorite roll at this point is the spider roll, with softshell crab deep-fried inside it. Mmm.

There is money to be made

New parents, you will recognize the subject of which I speak. The market is saturated with all manner of baby equipment. While we have striven to not let our house be overtaken with brightly colored plastic crap, it still sneaks in, then proliferates under the cover of darkness. We awaken with baby stuff everywhere.

Yet none of this stuff prepared us for the horror of teething. No frozen washclothes, chilled pacifiers, or bottles of Baby Tylenol could abate the regularity of Emerson awaking throughout the night to howl at us. Night after night.

So here is the gauntlet I throw down to medical manufacturers--you have two options. Either design a soundproof, non-toxic acrylic shell into which we can place our beloved infants (they must not be able to injure themselves in these confines); or produce Baby Ambien. I'm voting for the latter.

Just think about it. You don't have to worry about the baby taking Ambien, then driving to the store or operating a forklift later. Just a good, sound night's sleep.

The dog has the shakes...

Clyde, our Great Pyrenees mix, developed "idiopathic epilepsy," which we had thought would be rare in mixed breeds and dogs of a relatively young age. Turns out, neither was correct. So after a battery of tests, and going from having no seizures to having a ton in 36 hours, Clyde became the recipient of a healthy prescription of phenobarbitol. For the first two weeks, he staggered, drooled, slept all the time (OK, no big change in behavior there) and didn't wag. He couldn't get up and down the steps by himself. But gradually, his body adjusted to the depressant. He got back to normal. Since going on the meds, he hadn't had a single seizure that we had witnessed, although I suppose it was possible he had them while outside alone.

Tonight, we heard him gasping. He was laying on the floor and his breathing came in jerks. He wasn't twitching violently like we had witnessed pre-phenobarb, but it was still unmistakeable. He was having another seizure.

That pretty much shatters all hopes we had of being able to eventually wean him off the drugs. They vet told us if he had no seizures (as in literally none) for 2 years, we could try weaning him. The up side is that he is on the lowest possible dosage (which, due to his size, is still a ton of pills), so the epilepsy is very well controlled. It's just so *sad*.