Oh, Shiny!

Monday night I get a text message: This gorilla is in labor.

Backstory: As I zipped up my suitcase in NYC in February, getting ready to head to the train station to Casey Jones my way up to Boston where I was staying with Eric and Annie, my cell phone gave the DING! of an incoming text message. It said, "this gorilla is in labor," and the number was Annie's. It was a month early for her, but that's not unheard of, and I had seen the photographic evidence that said this kid was on the fast-track. But my very first thought? "Sh!t, where am I going to crash??" So I called Annie, who said she hadn't sent me a text message. There was a pause as she pushed a couple of buttons on her phone, followed by, "Eric! When did you learn to text message?" Needless to say, it was a false alarm.

Monday night, though, was the real deal. I texted good wishes, sent word south to Em, and sat back to wait. OK, I went to bed, but whatever. Tuesday, no word from Boston, an excited g-chat with Em, but we figured we'd hear when there was news. Wednesday, no word. I g-chatted with Em on the Metro ride to the opera, and then left a message with Eric - what news? He left a message while I was ensconced in the restaurant, but Em talked to him, too - the baby had been born the night before (!) and all was well. Except for the fact that he still didn't have a name. Details, people, and it's not like they didn't have anything to call him - what's wrong with Egg Tooth? I have a tiny cell phone pic from Annie with that monniker.

Today I got an email, his name is Andrew, and this is what he looks like:
How ridiculously beautiful is he? He already looks like he's thinking about something that will lead to trouble. Now, his initials? A.D.D., so we're going to hope that doesn't say anything about his attention span, but that it instead ADDs up to some mathematical genius - he gets it from him father. Momola, however, thinks that he spells attention deficit for his parents - why else would they forget to name him for 24 hours? Therefore, in keeping with a current family joke, Momola is referring to little Andrew as "Shiny" to mark his ability to distract.

I'm planning my visit.

delinquint and distracted

I was chastized (by proxy) for not blogging more lately. The thing is, I've been working enough that nothing really story worthy has happened to me, with one exception, but it's not my story to tell. When not working I confess to being distracted by Facebook and Twitter, but 140 characters isn't astrowahoo, and I've got a few half-composed blog posts in my head. Many revolve around one topic, and I wasn't really ready to discuss it here, I wanted to work it out a bit on my own and in more controlled settings. I was pretty sure that life changing decisions granted you a two-year grace period before the next came along. But what the hell, let's lay it out there.

I'm thinking about going back to grad school. Not BU. Not astronomy. I'm about to start talking to a professor my client has lined up about getting a degree in applied mathematics. So now you can all tell me how crazy I am and I'll keep you posted on the famous J----- family decision matrix.

Also, I'll try to post more often.

new and improved

I can now blog from my blackberry. This, when discovered last week, seemed like the penultimate blogging leap forward. Now, however, I can twit (I like that better than tweet) and discovered tonight the ability to connect blog- and tweet-ospheres. True madness envelopes the world, but really, I'm thinking it's a good thing. I'm new to Twitter, but the appeal of the mini-blog was always clear. I like an audience (who doesn't?), I like to tell stories (why else would I be here?), and I like to think others wouldn't mind reading my comments on my world. So I've added a new feature to the sidebar, and will let that be my excitement for the day. It's either that or the hour long sitting session while waiting for the hotel shuttle to pick me up after my meetings today - turns out they thought I wanted to be dropped off at the campus, and were wondering why I hadn't come to the lobby for my ride... Hint: don't ask for my cell phone number if you're not going to use it to locate me. I'm just saying. I'd have gone back to the museum to see the Rodin collection if I'd've known.

Now, after three and a half hours of work phone calls after a full day of meetings? I'm packing it in. Enjoy the twitterific snark, or the snark-tastic tweets. Just don't blow the whistle on my fun. TWEET!!

that's right, sports fans...

Last night while packing I went to run through my mental list of power cords to go in the plastic ziploc inside my suitcase. Rather than rewind the cord in my living room, I went to the computer bag of my new work laptop and grabbed the signature black rectangle that is the PC power cord, already wrapped up small - still in the plastic! - and put it in my travel bag. I've been up for over 16 hours now, six of which were spent on the plane next to weird sleeping man, one of which was spent jostling through the back streets of Palo Alto in a door-to-door van from the airport, and half of one was spent convincing the hotel restaraunt to give me a salad and a big glass of wine. I get back to my room, planning to wind down reading my favorite blogs, checking Facebook, etc. only to find that the new Dell power cord COMES IN TWO PIECES! The reading I did on the plane killed my battery, so now I'm stuck until I can get back from the all day meeting tomorrow evening and walk to the electronic store half a mile away - and I didn't pack walking shoes this trip. Forget the work I was going to try to do in the morning, because I can't log in from a machine with no juice. And I already checked - no spare power cords at the front desk.

In case you're wondering, it too soon to tease me about this.

At my favorite bookstore in August, I came across a book that looked fascinating, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. A bunch of well-know authors wrote essays about secret eating habits from their single days. Next time I see it in a store I'm buying it. We all have eating habits that we don't indulge in when others are around - I had a friend in grad school who ate cereal for dinner every night. For months. I remember a time when Meredith's favorite meal was white rice with butter. Jared admitted on Facebook recently that when his wife wasn't in town he eats Taco Bell - yuck!

My super secret food behavior isn't a type of food, rather my last step of food prep. When I eat alone, the last thing I do in the kitchen is to pre-cut all of my food. That's right, as if I were feeding a small child who can't be trusted with a knife, I cut my food into bite-sized pieces. This enables me to eat one-handed, freeing up my other hand to hold a book and turn the pages. There's nothing worse in my book (hah!) than having to put down whatever I'm reading between bites in order to pick up my knife.

Now, when I'm eating on my own in a restaurant, I feel lke I can't do this. Instead, I let my available reading material determine my food choice. If I've brought a magazine, newspaper, paper, or something that lays flat I order meat or anything that requires two hands. If I've got a book with me, then it's pasta, a salad, or some other meal that I can eat with one hand.

It's what works for me.

Radio Silence

I've been quiet lately, with a lot of the usual excuses, work and travel - there was the family trip to Boston for Christopher's wedding, which I have pictures and stories from. I'll post some of that this weekend. I used train rides to write a couple of posts in my blog journal, too, so I just need to get them up here. But this week I've been getting back in the swing of things at work while thinking potentially life-changing thoughts. And those thoughts are taking a lot of energy. So bear with me for a while while I ponder life, the universe, and my place in it.

But hey, I've figured out how to get on the blog site from my blackberry, so that could be fun.

Things lost in bars...

• Favorite winter hat (Boston, MA, Washington Square Tavern) - I loved that herring bone cap with the pink ribbon.
• Favorite winter scarf (Boston, MA) - that was also the night I saw a girl friend get kissed by another girl and picked up the only straight man in a gay bar - worth it.
• Brand new khaki jacket (Boston, MA) - present from Momola, but that doesn't count as lost - it got stolen.
• iPod (Seattle, WA) - fell out of a jacket pocket making the transfer from cab to street at a conference. I was heartbroken and had to go buy myself a replacement immediately.
  
• cellphone (Boston, MA, Beacon Street Tavern) - going away dinner after a good-bye party (and a lot of tequila) at the office - losing your phone the night before people gather to help you move out of your apartment? inadvisable.
• blackberry (Boston, MA, Washington Square Tavern) - last night in Boston on this recent trip, blackberry was the casualty of Daddo's scotch tour. At least that's how I'm telling it.
• We don't need to discuss the number of times I've lost my dignity.