Resolved

I was going to make a bunch of resolutions this year. Start exercising in the morning again, cut down on the booze, deal with unpleasant situations in a mature & direct way, all the usual bullshit we say we're going to do. But the one promise to myself that I must keep is to start writing again. One blog post per week MINIMUM.

I'm not going to give myself a minimum number of words to write because I know that I can force myself to type until I've reached whatever arbitrary limit I set and I'll end up kind of just . . . trailing off instead of finishing my thoughts.


I already know that my "go to" topic for a quick post will be recipes and food. Food is the new hotness these days and I'm 'bout it, 'bout it too. Everyone's talking about food; Mrs. Obama is up on food's tip, food in the schools, DC Healthy Schools Act. Food, it's everywhere you want to be.

Since WifeRat and I got together nine years ago I've been cooking more and better food. And for the last 6-9 months I would say that I've really been "feeling my flavor." Everything I do in the kitchen is just a little bit sharper, a little bit better & tastier these days. When I dice an onion now, the pieces are uniform. My temperature on meat & fish is getting close to perfect. I seem to be able to avoid typical home cook kitchen disasters either through careful preparation or simply having the confidence to try something to save the dish.

It's a nice feeling, having command of your kitchen. The freedom to start branching out into making new recipes and new types of food is almost like being able to fly. We started eating a lot of Indian food over the last 12-18 months and now I've started making it at home. I make a pretty good potato & cauliflower curry, but the thing that real makes the crowd go wild is my palak paneer. My newest challenge is to stop paying $10 for paneer cheese and start making it myself.

Food occupies a central place in our household, we have a beautiful open kitchen that's the heart of our home. In consultation with the rest of the family, usually I'll plan a week's worth of meals and then take the kids with me to the grocery store to do the shopping. I'm happy to trade off whatever drama & stress (minimal IMHO) taking two kids to the grocery store entails to ensure that I always have food I want (in the quantities I require) to eat in the house.

Since I like to cook in a clean kitchen, I also serve as the de facto scullery maid in our home. I feel like Sisyphus with the constant loading and unloading of the dishwasher. Most days it's the first thing I do when I get up in the morning and the last thing I do before I go to bed at night.

I actually enjoy cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the counters and stove after doing the dishes and then wiping them down is like a form of meditation for me. It's a way for me to show my family how much I love them each and every day and connects me to the lessons my parents and grandparents taught me about how to live.

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March Family Programs

March Family Programs at the National Building Museum   A Day of Flying Sunday, March 15, 2009 Model Airplane Workshop 9:00 - 11:00 am Construct your own rubber-band-propelled model airplane with the DC Maxecuters, then try a test flight in the Great Hall. Ages 8 and up.  Prepaid registration required by March 12, 2009.  Learn More. Flying in the Great Hall 11:00 am - 4:00 pm Watch as the DC Maxecuters fly their model airplanes in and across the Great Hall! FREE. Drop-in demonstration program. All ages.   Summer Camp at the NBM Two-week sessions for campers entering grades 3-5 in fall 2009 Sign up today! Building Artists July 13-24, 2009 Discover the Museum's great architecture through different artistic mediums. Learn about the building arts through creative movement, visual art, pop up architecture, and even puppetry! Worldly Builders July 27-August 7, 2009 Take a trip without ever leaving D.C. to three regions from around the world to explore their structures and cultures. Discover through hands-on activities what makes Russia, Greece, and Alaska "green", aesthetically pleasing, and exciting. Young Designers August 10-21, 2009 What makes D.C. a great U.S. capital? Using visual art, photography, storytelling, and building arts activities, redesign a new capital that celebrates the ideas and diversity of young people today!     National Cherry Blossom Festival Family Day & Opening Ceremony March 28, 2009 10:00 am - 5:30 pm Join the National Building Museum and the National Cherry Blossom Festival in celebrating the annual opening of Washington, D.C.'s cherry blossom season. This annual family day invites visitors of all ages to enjoy hands-on activities, captivating martial arts demonstrations, and exciting indoor and outdoor performances that explore Japanese arts and design. Learn More The National Cherry Blossom Festival(R) Family Day and Opening Ceremony is sponsored by Target(R). The event is also supported by The Home Depot, The Washington Examiner, and Westwood College.

401 F Street NW Washington DC 20001 | 202.272.2448 | Red Line Metro, Judiciary Square Free Admission | Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11 am-5pm http://www.nbm.org/

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#2

I think everyone who should know already knows so I can go ahead and post about this now, but WifeRat is pregnant again. We're all excited and happy to be adding to our family, especially BabyRat who is eagerly anticipating her new role as a big sister. WifeRat's baby bump is noticeable now and BR & myself spend a good part of each evening rubbing on it and telling "Sprinkle" (so named because that's how big the baby was, the size of a sprinkle, when we told BabyRat) how excited we are to meet them when they arrive the first week in July. I use a gender neutral "they" 'cause we keep it old school and don't find out the baby's sex until they're born.

I'm not a weird-o with a pregnancy fetish, but my wife is never so beautiful to me as she is when she's pregnant and aglow with the light of a new life inside her.

The life of a family man who is doing right by his fam is not an easy one. One of the advantages that men have over women is that we have the luxury of acknowledging our conflicting feelings about family life without being made to feel guilty about our occasional ambivalence. Unlike my wife, I have no problem saying, "Yo, shit is too hectic for me I'm going out with the fellas for a couple of cocktails tonight." I feel no shame for saying that my wife and kid are getting on my nerves and quite honestly I don't know why any woman would have a problem saying that either, but it seems like they do.

Right now I'm worried about what this second child is going to cost me. Not financially (I already know the answer to that: a fuckload), but in terms of how much of my life is left for me. Part of my feelings right now have to do with the time of the year. When rugby ends in the Fall sometime in early November, the holidays follow soon after, and then the NFL playoffs come right after that. The holidays and football provide me with some built-in excuses to go chill and get a couple of hours to myself every week, but once football season is over there's usually about 4-6 weeks before rugby starts up again where I'm just kind of stuck in the house all the time and tend to get a bit stir crazy. But there's more to it than just that right now.

I've got a pregnant wife, a three year-old who's getting ready to lose her status as the center of the universe, and a Mother who is grieving the loss of her husband of over 40 years. All of these people need me right now and they all need a lot from me, more than they usually do. I work hard for my family and to continue to work hard for them I need time and space to recharge my batteries, those things are in short supply these days. I feel as if I'm no one's priority right now; I'm getting ready to have a second kid and I'm still dealing with my Father's death, but that seems to pass by most of the people in my life almost without notice.

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Naked

What a day. The gamut of emotions that I endured today ranged from absolute elation all the way to soul destroying grief. As careful as I've (kind of) been about not revealing too much personal information, right now I don't feel like hiding. I don't know if I ever explicitly said anywhere in my blog or my tweets that my Father died a little more than three months ago. Consequently, it's been a weird few months for me.

Right now everyone in the house is asleep and it's just me and my laptop. After a month of posting everyday, it would be strange to not have something to say today so here I am.

First of all, I am glad this shit is over!!! Do you have any idea how nerve wracking and emotionally bizarre it is to have a three month lag between the death of loved one and the actual funereal service? Unless you have a close family member who was buried at Arlington Cemetery you probably don't; if you do, you have my deepest sympathies and condolences. After twisting in the wind for three months and trying to nurse my Mother and Sister through this thing from Fargo, it is a great relief for it to finally be over.

My folks were married for over 40 years and met a couple of years before that, so as far as my Mom was concerned nothing important happened in her life until she met my Father. Their marriage, while not perfect, was as strong and resilient as the people who entered into it. My Mother basically does not know life as an adult without my Father at her side. When she mourned the loss of her own her Father shortly after I was born, my Father was at her side and helped her through the tough days and nights that followed. My Father was there with her through thick and thin for 40 years and now she is alone.

I have no idea how to help my Mother. In a way I'm kind of glad that I've been gone, not because I don't want to help my Mother but for exactly the opposite reason. I would have helped her too much had I been here for the last three months. My instinct is to shield and protect my Mother from whatever comes her way, probably at the expense of my own family. It would have been close to impossible for me to allow her to deal with some of things that have transpired since my Father's demise had I only been a short distance away.

While I'm being totally honest, I know that my Mother feels that I prioritize my wife and child above her and she's right, I do. It's OK, this seems like something that every son has to go through with his Mom to some extent. Your Mother gives you so much, she loves you so much, she sacrifices so much for you as a child, that it's little wonder that once you become an adult and put another woman before her in your life that she does not like it. Still, I know that I'm doing the right thing; I'm following the example that my Father set for me.

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More Family

I come from a family where all the men cook. Both of my grandfathers were excellent cooks, BigDaddyRat and both of his brothers can throw down in the kitchen. These aren't guys who just BBQ either, my Dad and I won a cake baking contest when I was in sizth grade. Not only do all these guys cook well, but they scrub the kitchen like their life depended on it when they're done too.

I love my wife, I love the fact that she's a "modern" woman who expects me to do my share around the house, and I love taking care of my family by cooking and cleaning for them. My Mom had a similar attitude, she told me that she didn't want to raise a helpless man; so she taught me to cook and clean and I'll always be grateful to her for teaching me those important lessons.

Even so, there's nothing like having a bunch of doting aunts around fixing you food, clearing your plate, and generally treating you like a king. Yay Aunts!!!

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Family

Is there such a thing as too much family? 'Cause I feel like I'm straight OD-ing on family right now. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, obviously a big family holiday with lots of relatives around. Today we're heading up north for an 80th birthday party tomorrow night and as an added bonus, we're going to a funereal tomorrow morning. After we get back, it's back to DC for BigDaddyRat's funereal which will be attended by just about every relative we have on that side of the family. So let's total it up; we have a major holiday, a family party, and two funereals in the span of six days.

I'm estimating that of the relatives that I have semi-regular contact with, I'll probably be seeing about 80-90% of them in the course of a single week. It's funny because it's such a wild mix of people. In the next few days I will converse with goose-stepping GOP religious right fundamentalists and Black nationalists who want to see Obama looking out of the Oval Office in the "By any means necessary" pose. I will dine with one uncle who is an Assistant US Attorney and another uncle that's done time in so many different states that noone's sure what the total is. I will greet two cousins the same way, "Yo man, it's been too long, we gotta get together and kick it." One of those cousins is a Federal police officer, the other is a retired (we think) gangbanger. I will get pawed on by two sets of aunts, one set of aunts will be rural and White, the other set will be urban and Black; all of them will be throwing down glasses of chardonnay and scotch like it's their motherfucking job.

The one thing that binds all of these people together is their love me, WifeRat, and (especially) BabyRat. As different as my family is from WifeRat's family, they are also eerily similar in many respects. The loud, exuberant aunts and their soft-spoken, even tempered husbands with useless 2nd and 3rd cousins aplenty on both sides of the family.

Before our families were bound together, I would have never believed how similar a rural White family and an urban Black family could be. I wonder how confusing all of this will be for BabyRat, will she assume that every family is the same with a White half and a Black half, just like she has one male parent and one female parent?

As I type this I realize that I have a lot to deal with in the next few days and I have no choice but to lean on all of my family members for strength. They will all reach out to me, the ones that forwarded e-mails about Obama being a Muslim side by side with the ones who think he's the second coming. As I prepare to lay my Father to rest, the criminals and the cops will all fold me inside of the protective cocoon of their love and sympathy. The beefy, hard-working hands of uncles both Black and White will clamp down on my shoulder and give me a squeeze because they don't know what to say, but that small act has always said just as much as the most elegant turn of phrase.

So I guess the answer is, "No." You can't have too much family.

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Cast of Characters

I talk about a lot of people in my blog, my relationship with some of them is obvious and others not so much. I've kind of got it in my head that a list of the cast of characters in my life and my relationship to them might be helpful for future reference. Eventually I'll probably alphabetize them and put in HTML anchors, but for now I'm just gonna write them up as they pop into my head.

WifeRat - My heart and soul, my life partner and a true inspiration to me. Yeah she gets on my nerves sometimes, but what are you gonna do? We've been married for five years and things are getting better all the time.

BabyRat - If there's anyone on the planet I love more than my wife, it's BabyRat. She'll be four years old in March and might be the smartest and most beautiful little girl on the planet, so says her proud Poppa.

SisterRat - My younger sister (I'm 39, she's 36) who also lives in DC. SisRat is a single attorney who owns her own home and drives a late model European luxury car. Single guys that have some game and are bringing something to the table, she's waiting for you.

MommaRat - My mother. Tough lady who earned a Phd when I was in my 20's. She's originally from DC and most of her family still lives in the area.

BigDaddyRat - My father. 32 year Army vet and civil rights stalwart that was once wanted for conspiracy to overthrow the gov't of Alabama. He died at the end of August, there will be a very long post on him one of these days.

Godfather Giggler (GG) - BabyRat's godfather and one of my oldest friends from high school and a fellow Army brat. He lives in Denver with his wife and they're expecting their first child in just a few months.

ButterBurger (BB) - One of my DC posse. He's originally from Wisconsin and is your typically reserved and largely unemotional midWest guys. He holds down the bar five nights a week at one of the best restaurants in Metro DC, Restaurant Eve.

SOS - Another one of my primary hangout partners and a bartender. SOS is an Air Force brat who just bought a condo with the Girlfriend of Hateration and recently quit smoking.

Go To Girl (GTG)- WifeRat's younger sister. A real estate agent who lives in Houston and the mother of N/G.

Bubba - Married to GTG and is originally from Montana, one of my several brothers-in-law and probably the one I'm closest to. I'm writing this from his parent's living room.

N/G - My nephew/godson and one of BabyRat's favorite hangout partners, he's 10 months younger than BabyRat.

??? - WifeRat's older sister that is kind of out of the picture right now. I'll come up with some sort of "nom de blog" for her later, but she should be in this original list.

Benny - Married to ??? and another one of my brothers-in-law. We enjoyed a hot and heavy bromance when WifeRat and I first started dating.

Snarf - An annoying co-worker who is named for the Thudercats character.

Deputy Dawg - Another co-worker. The deputy Program Manager of the project that I work on and a very cool older woman that rides a Harley. I've learned to turn to her for advice and wise counsel in most work situations.

The Boss - The Program Manager of the project I work on. A nice guy who likes me and has hooked me up repeatedly.

Sideshow - The President of my rugby team who lives about four blocks away from me.

Girlfriend of Hateration (GoH) - Live in girlfriend of SOS, so named because she's always complaining about stuff. If you gave GoH a million dollars the first thing she would do is start bitching about taxes.

Nanna - One half of the in-laws and StepMother of WifeRat. Tough, cool, and 100% from Minnesota; she's been nothing but good to me. When people tell me about Mother-in-law drama I thank my lucky stars that Nanna is my Mother-in-law.

Death Star, Inc. - Large (60,000 employees+) Defense Contractor that employs me. HQ for for my division is located in Reston but I pretty much never go there.

I will be adding to this list.

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Winnipeg Folk Fest

So one of the many activities that I'm participating in while I'm out here in the mid-West is the Winnipeg Folk Festival. This is a big deal for my in-laws and I was told in no uncertain terms by WifeRat that I was going and I was gonna smile and act like I was excited about it too. As you may or may not have figured out from reading this blog, folk music isn't exactly my thing; occasionally listening to the Dead and CSNY while I was smoking bales of herb back in college was about as close I ever came to developing an appreciation for folk music.

However as a music lover, I can find something to like about any kind of music that's been created with some real passion and honesty. And since it's not like you have a lot of sleazy Joe Simpson or Joe Jackson type characters out there pushing their kids into a career in folk music, if nothing else you can be reasonably sure that folk acts are going to bring some real love for what they're doing to the stage and that's something I can always get with. Then once I took a look at the lineup and saw acts like Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Ray Davies, and Lee "Scratch" Perry were scheduled to play I was actually kind of excited to go to this festival.

Too bad the weather didn't cooperate . . . at all. The forecast originally called for a high of 63; no problem, throw on a sweat shirt or light jacket and keep moving right? Wrong!! When we got to the festival (being held at a park that seemed to be only slightly smaller than Yellowstone) we were greeted with gusting winds and rain. My Father-in-law (FR) was ready to throw in the towel before we even went in, but I'll be damned if I'm going to take a trip all the way to Winnipeg just to be deterred by a little rain.

Once we got into the festival we all split up. FILRat got settled in to see an act right by the entrance and my sainted Mother-in-Law (MR) volunteered to baby wrangle, which left WifeRat and I to just wander around and hang out together. Wifey and I saw a bunch of duos on stage together which was kind of cool, but there were some seriously twee motherfuckers up on that stage.

After seeing a some people play, having coffee, getting something to eat, and having a beer the wife and I both started missing BabyRat; so we headed over to the kid's tent to find her. The kid's tent was kind of cool and the highlight of the day for me. I love seeing my kid enjoy herself, her Grandma was stuffing her full of tasty crap and she was tickled by the performers.

As a parent you find yourself watching some really horrible, boring, and strange kid's show an exception to these awful kid's shows is the Backyardigans. I dig the fact that they introduce kids to different types of music. Well one of my favorite Backyardigans episodes is one called "Riding the Range" and while we were in the kid's tent, the band the Aunts and the Uncles played the song "Riding the Range" which totally made my day.

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Grillin' & Chillin'

So I'm grilling yesterday while WifeRat, BabyRat, and SisRat are playing in the yard; the sky turns dark and rain begins to fall, suddenly and heavily. My three ladies quickly dash into the building and I'm left standing outside in the rain with food on the grill. I'm thinking I haven't started cooking the burgers or veggies yet, so I'll just finish up these shrimp real quick and do the burgers on the griddle upstairs and put the vegetables in broiler or something.

When I asked WifeRat to take the burgers upstairs, she gave me a puzzled look and said, "But we're grilling" as she ducked back inside. By the time I grabbed an umbrella out of the car and got back to work cooking I realized that the rain was letting up a bit and the situation was manageable.

As I continued to juggle an over sized golf umbrella, spatula, tongs, and a beer while trying not to overcook my shrimp and get some vegetables on the grill; I hear someone call out, "Hey, nice cooler!" I look over and see my neighbor Dan, who's cooler I was using.

We had gone swimming with Dan and his family at the Prince Georges Community Pool on Sunday and had inadvertently "absorbed" their cooler when packing up. Rather than drop it off right when we got home, WifeRat decided she would return it later in the week and that would give her an excuse to call Roberta, her current candidate for BFF.

One of the things I kind of didn't realize about starting a family, is that you enter into this totally different social network that revolves around children and family. I'm the social butterfly of the family, I've worked hard to keep my friendships up despite changing circumstances but now I'm obliged to enter into these strange whole family friendships. What's really wacky about initiating and maintaining these relationships to me is how much it ends up being like dating.

First you meet, either at a party of a mutual friend or at the park or some kind of "Third Place" like a coffee shop. Usually one parent from each family meets and then the spouses get introduced at some meeting in the future. After everyone has met and seems to like each other,
one party or the other has to take the bold step of asking for or proffering contact information. After the exchange of information is made both couples will then confer about taking the big step of actually calling or e-mailing and making plans with the other family; the big first date and things progress from there.

We've been dating Dan & Roberta and their kids for about six months now and things are going pretty well. Dan was outside playing with his two kids in the rain at the park that's right next to our backyard, so I invited him over for a quick beer. We could see the park from where the grill was and stood around BSing for about ten minutes while I cooked and we knocked down a couple of PBRs then Dan and his kids headed back home with their cooler and I finished making dinner.

It wasn't until I got upstairs with all the food that I found out the BabyRat was very upset that everyone had left her Daddy out in the rain.

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