Toddler Firsts

Nora may be rapidly approaching two, but she still has so many new things to experience!  This month has brought several firsts for Nora that we wanted to share with the family.

First Orioles game!
Since "sitting still" is not a skill Nora has shown any interest in mastering, we didn't think she'd be attending any games until next season.  However, Billy's aunt and uncle were recently unable to use their tickets to sit at the bistro tables in the all-you-can-eat section.  Since this would make it easy for us to be up and down with Nora, we appreciated the chance to take her to the ballpark!  As a bonus, Nora got to share the experience with her grandparents, great grand parents, and great aunt and uncle!  She and I also did one lap around the concourse, and she was quite a hit in her little Orioles dress.  She even knows how to cheer "Go Orioles!" and learned to shout "charge!" at the right moment while at the game. But I think eating chocolate ice cream with her dad seemed to be her favorite part, which is my own most distinct memory of attending A's games with my dad when I was a kid.

First Navy Football Game!
Although I took Nora to join the family at the Navy tailgate for one of the games last year, she was only there for an hour or two.  This time, we drove down to the stadium after she woke up from her nap to spend the whole afternoon there, and she loved the whole experience!  Although she didn't last long in the season ticket seats, she loved dancing around on the lawn in the general admission area.  Once again, she got to share this milestone with plenty of family members-- Gram, Pop, Uncle Brian, Aunt Vickie, and Tres all joined us for a great day!

First Haircut!
I trimmed Nora's bangs when she was a few months old, but it has been growing out so nicely since then that we've just let it grow.  And it sure has grown!  Lately, though it has been getting tangly after the bath and her curls have lost a lot of their spring.  We took her to a local kids haircut salon, but even they weren't quite prepared for her unique features.  She was so short and her hair was so long that the stylist couldn't really cut it well until she had Nora stand on the floor.  It wasn't easy to get her to look in the right direction, but she was calm and cooperative otherwise.  We were a little sad to say goodbye to her impressively long locks, but her layered clavicut is right on trend and her curls are full of bounce again!

Go Navy, Beat Army!

Today Navy beat Army for the tenth year in a row.  The game is always Navy's most important game of the year, but this year it was especially meaningful after the Mids lost to Air Force and failed to qualify for a bowl game for the first time in several seasons.

Nora, Billy, and I headed up to Billy's parents' house, where Vickie joined us to watch the game with Chuck, Patti, and Brian.  Being away from most of my family makes me extra appreciative that Billy's family members are so enthusiastic about welcoming us for all occasions, big and small.  It is heartwarming to see how delighted they are every time they see Nora and it is a big comfort to know that we have so much support from Billy's family as we learn how to be parents.  When Vickie started joining the DePriest gatherings last year, it was hard to imagine how family life in Maryland could get any better, but now that we have Nora, family gatherings are even more enjoyable.

Before Nora was born, I kept my plate so full that I very rarely got to enjoy a relaxing Saturday afternoon on the couch.  Especially during a year when it would be easy to dwell on the negatives, I am thankful for the way pregnancy and parenthood have forced me to slow down enough to recognize how fortunate I am in life's most basic ways.  I'm proud of the many academic and professional achievements I've accomplished, but they wouldn't mean much if I didn't have such wonderful people in my life.  To top it all off, Nora was more content today than she has been since before she got sick, which we hope is a sign of things to come!

A Team for America

Yesterday, we attended what is likely to be our final Navy football game of the season.  They play again at home on October 22, and though it's possible Baby D will not have arrived by then, I doubt I will want to sit through a football game when I'm over 40 weeks pregnant.

Last week's game was cold and drizzly, so it was nice to have a return of perfect weather this week.  Our friends Amy and Brian left their nearly 9 month old daughter Jenna with Amy's parents, so it was fun to have them join us for part of the tailgate.  As new parents themselves, they had some funny stories to share with us about their first few months with Jenna.  Navy was playing Southern Mississippi, and we ended up parked next to a whole group of their fans, but they turned out to be super friendly.  I was sorry I could not partake in the Bourbon Slush they shared with us and Billy was sorry that his recently developed shrimp allergy prevented him from enjoying some of the jambalaya they spent the entire morning concocting on the grill.

We snapped a few pictures, so I thought I'd share those.

 

Once the game started, we were extra glad the weather was so delightful because Navy's play left much to be desired.  The Mids drove the ball all the way down the field, but after they were stopped at the goal line, Southern Mississippi blocked the field goal attempt and ran it back for a touchdown.  From there, it just got worse.  Navy didn't look much like the team we are used to seeing, so we are hoping they can turn the season around quickly.  I wasn't too uncomfortable sitting in the stands, but I wasn't sorry to leave after the third quarter, either.

I love this picture of me and Billy at the game last year, and I thought it would be funny to recreate the same picture again yesterday to prove that my belly has reached ridiculous proportions.

Here's to hoping that next season, we can pose for the same photo again with me back in my favorite Navy tee and with little missy taking the place of the baby bump!

(A Team for America is a forthcoming book about what the 1944 Army Navy game meant to a country at war.  Sounds interesting!)

Preparation

I haven't updated in a while because I feel like I haven't been doing much of anything that might interest anyone.  Mostly I have been hanging out with Billy and trying to enjoy the peace, quiet, and slower pace of these last few weeks before our time alone together with Oscar becomes "the old days."  In case you're curious what we've been up to, though, here goes.

The baby and I are doing well.  We had another OB visit this week, which confirmed that she continues to grow healthily.  The nurse thinks the baby is head down already, which corroborates my sense about her position based on the movements I feel constantly.  I really enjoy feeling her move, and it is fun to feel pressure on the inside and be able to tell it is probably her foot by feeling my belly with my hand.  She weighs about 5 pounds now and it certainly feels like I'm carrying a 5 pound child around inside my body.  I'm getting fairly uncomfortable, and the frequency of her movements makes it even harder to get comfortable.  I try to remind myself that she's probably pretty uncomfortable in there too, so we're in this together, except that at least I know what's going on.

We enjoyed a nice labor day weekend.  With it came the first Navy football game of the year versus Delaware, which the Mids won 40-17.  The day was beautiful but hot.  I was glad when the game began and took my mind off of my discomfort, and I was glad again when some cloud cover appeared during the second half to cool me down.  There are two more games I should be able to attend, and I think Vickie might even be able to join us for one of them, so I'm hoping the weather will be a bit cooler next time.  We have our south end zone seats again this year, where plenty of touchdowns were scored, so it was another exciting game.  The team has had a dominant quarterback for the past two seasons, but he graduated, so it was fun to see that his replacement is likely to do well.  Here he is rushing for a touchdown.

After a few weeks of not working, I guess I am settling into my "maternity leave."  I am glad most of my maternity leave will be spent with a baby because I am bored.  I don't miss working, but I miss being on campus and being in the mix of everything.  It was hard to see all my friends go back to school and realize this is the first time since I was 4 that I did not participate in the ritual.  Thankfully, I have been able to stay a little bit involved.  The one credit theory colloquium class I attend every semester is open to everyone, registered or not, and there are three sessions scheduled before the baby's due date, so I have long planned on continuing to attend those.  There are normally about 10 or 15 people in attendance, so when around 40 people showed up for the first session, I was quite shocked.  Then I began getting nervous because I am due to present a paper on Katherine Anne Porter at the next session on September 23.  Everyone will read the paper and a few complementary articles beforehand, and then I'll spend about an hour answering questions about the paper and the project.  It's a great opportunity to get feedback on your work, and I have been looking forward to it since I made the arrangements with my professor in the spring.  But even if only half as many people show up for my session, that means a lot of really smart people who spend most of their time reading really smart things will have read my paper, but I am trying to avoid developing too much anxiety about it.

I miss my dad.  I missed him when I got the email about this year's "Staff Development Day," which reminded me that my required attendance at this event last year ruined the trip home to Oregon I'd planned. As it turns out, that trip would have been the last time I got to spend time with him while he was "healthy."  I missed him when there were no text messages on my phone after the Navy football game.  I missed him when I thought about his friends gathering with our family in Lompoc with for the LHS alumni golf tournament.  I miss him when notable events like that one remind me just how many people are missing him and how much less laughter there must be in the world now that he is gone.  I missed him when the Oregon Ducks started the season in a highly anticipated, nationally televised game and I realized he had been alive for their last one.  I missed him when I realized that the first few days of a Grand Slam are still difficult for me to watch because they remind me of how excited I was about the Australian Open but how quickly the plans for that trip went from all of us going, to me and Billy going, to none of us going, to watching it in Dad's house on his TV while we packed up his stuff.  I miss hearing what he thinks about Federer's performance so far in the tournament, and if Fed ends up winning it, as I think he has a decent chance of doing, I will miss hearing Dad say you should never count out a champion with a killer instinct.  When people share their excitement about the baby with me, I know my dad would have shared it, but I miss experiencing in real life the ways I know in my head and heart that he would have acted.  I miss hearing how glad he would have been to have Nate back in Bend and how much he would have enjoyed meeting Ashley. I miss how proud he would have been of the work Vickie is doing and how much he would have been looking forward to her upcoming trip to Portland.  I miss him in moments when I expect to miss him and in moments when it catches me completely off guard.

Otherwise, I've been keeping busy by watching the US Open, trying to get some reading done, going to the gym, and continuing to get the baby's room ready.

It was fun to see Andy Roddick turn in several strong performances this tournament, especially since he has been plagued by injuries this summer.  He even beat #5 ranked David Ferrer, to whom we watched him lose while we were in Austin.  I thought he had a chance to make it competitive against Nadal yesterday, but he looked absolutely spent from the time the first ball dropped... and Nadal looked like Nadal.  After watching the way the matches have gone as a result of weather delays, I have a new appreciation for what a best of 5 set match does to the body.

As for reading, I've finally finished Katherine Anne Porter's 500 page novel, Ship of Fools, which means I've read all the fiction she published.  It also means I can join the ranks of everyone who thinks she was at her best when writing short fiction.  I've now moved onto Bonnie Kime Scott's The Gender of Modernism anthology.  The experience of reading this is equal parts "wow, this is fascinating!" and "dang it, I thought I was going to make that point in my dissertation, and someone else said it 20 years ago."

I still try to get to the gym about four days a week, and I've had to cut out a few of my lifting exercises as my body changes.  I spend about the same amount of time there, though, because I have to give myself more time between sets to prevent my heart rate from getting too high.  At some point I may need to stop the weights altogether and stick with walking, but I'm not there yet, and I'm getting so strong!  It used to be a little hard to lift a gallon of milk, but now I feel like I could throw one across the room, overhand.  My discomfort may be increasing, but overall I feel very fortunate that once I got help with the nausea, I've had a pretty healthy pregnancy. I think that is at least partly a result of being in good shape when I conceived and trying to stay active throughout.

And the baby's room is almost done.  Now that we have all of her things, we have a better idea of how much storage we're going to need, so we decided to use the money we've been gifted to get a new dresser and bookshelf for the room.  We are picking up the glider chair from Jay and Allen next weekend, and Mom is working on sewing us a window valance and a crib skirt with the fabric we picked out.  Once we get those pieces in place, the room will finally be ready, so we are looking forward to shooting a quick video of how it looks for those of you who won't be able to see it in person.  For now, though, here are a couple photos of the newest additions, carefully assembled by yours truly.  (I may be the only person in the world who enjoys assembling furniture.)

Oh, and we've survived all the bad weather relatively unscathed.  Since Sunday, Billy's weather station has registered 8.93 inches of rain, which is about twice what we normally get for the whole month of September.  Since all of this arrived after the ground was well saturated from Hurricane Irene, the low lying areas near us are having a really tough time with flooding.  Billy found the picture below, which shows that the restaurant where we held our wedding reception is under water.  We feel fortunate that the worst effect we've suffered is a few hours of lost power.

That's it from here, I think.  If you've made it this far without getting bored to death by my ramblings, you deserve a reward, so please check out how adorable and funny Krista's girls are.  If our little girl is born on time, her arrival is under 40 days away.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

(Preparation is a short story from a Robert Olen Butler collection I love, titled A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.  If you like short fiction, I recommend all of his collection, and his novels are pretty good, too.  Some of the short story collections have really fascinating themes, like the one he wrote based on the inscriptions on vintage postcards he collects (Had a Good Time) and the one based the stories on real tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams).

The Saturday Evening Post

Well, today was a full day.

I woke up shortly after 6 so I could get some grading done before we left for the Navy game.  Billy, Vickie, Brian, Chuck and I got to spend an unseasonably warm day in the sunshine.  Vickie and I enjoyed mimosas-- I was struck by this stroke of genius when I purchased a bottle of champagne earlier this week for my office mate (she passed her comprehensive exams!).  When we got home, I responded to student emails and made it through 75 pages of my reading assignment for the week.  So one the one hand, I feel like I took an entire day off from schoolwork to spend time with some of my favorite people, doing one of my favorite things.  (Navy won when my favorite player came up with a stop on defense during the last play of the game!)  On the other hand, I did actually spend approximately six hours working today.  And now that I'm done with my novel, it's well past my bedtime, so I'll stop writing sentences that probably don't make sense and just share the pictures we took today.  Look at that sky-- I didn't even mess with the color on the pictures.  Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday as much as I did!

(I'm not sure I've ever held a copy of The Saturday Evening Post, but back in the day they used to publish some of my favorite authors.)

Anchors Aweigh

Still no time for words.  But here are some pictures!  Navy lost, but the sun was out, and we had fun.  And I got to take a bit of a break from all this craziness.

I took this next photo thinking, "I can just flip it around and the M will be right side up!"  It didn't occur to me that the whole world would then be upside down.  I think I'm brainfried.

So I tried again.  The marching band on the big screen above the Mids' seating section.  (How do they pack them into such a tight space at the stadium in Annapolis?

Other news in brief:
-We lost our second softball game via slaughter rule.  For some reason unknown to myself, I tried to dive for a ground ball that went between me and the shortstop.  I did not get an out.  I did not even stop the ball to keep it in the infield.  I just ripped open my knee and am now developing the only scab I can remember having in recent memory.
-We went to our friends' new house for a housewarming party on Saturday.  Billy can now add beanbags to the list of tossing games he excels at.
-I finished the syllabus for the class I'm teaching.
-I had the distinct pleasure of wading my through the single worst/most difficult text I've been assigned in grad school in between all of the above.  I managed to say something about it in class tonight that I don't believe was completely idiotic.  So I will count that as a success.
-I have had very little time to follow the US Open.  This depresses me.  I'm trying to carve out enough time to watch a match in the case that Nadal and Federer both make it to the final.  I like Rafa's chances this year.

(Anchors Aweigh is apparently a very popular book title.  I don't know what any of these books are about, but I must go to bed if I am going to accomplish a full week's worth of reading tomorrow.)

Five Apples

We're just plugging along here in Millersville.  I'm trying to get as much work done as I can each week so I can finish up my semester successfully.  I'm ready for a real break!

Today, I went with Billy, Anne-Marie, and Katie to see the Cezanne and American Modernism exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art.  In honor of Five Apples, the only painting from the exhibit that came from Gertrude and Leo Stein's collection of Cezanne paintings, I'll recount for you the five memorable moments from my week.

Cezanne, Five Apples

1) Cezanne and American Modernism
Attending art exhibits usually just makes me feel insecure about how little I know about art and the artistic movements that coincide with the literary movements I know so well.  I was hoping to learn something about the connections between artistic modernism and literary modernism, but I was still interested to see how American painters were influenced by Cezanne's work.  It was exciting to see a painting that used to belong to Gertrude Stein and which used to hang in her house in Paris.  Even if she did tell her brother she'd keep the Picasos and he could have all the Cezannes when they decided to part ways.  Plus, it was fun to get lunch and have a chance to spend some time with Anne-Marie and Katie away from campus.

2) Navy/Hopkins Lacrosse Game
I've been to precisely two lacrosse games in my life-- both of them between high school teams-- but I'm glad Billy and I decided to check out this matchup yesterday.  It turned out to be a nice day, and the game was really exciting!  I always enjoy watching sports I don't understand.  It's fun to try to figure out what's going on.  Navy fell behind 0-5, but they ended up winning 9-8 in overtime, so that kept things interesting.  Afterwards, the announcer said that Navy had previously lost to Johns Hopkins 30+ times in a row, so then it made a lot more sense that the players and fans stormed the field after Navy scored the sudden death goal.  We got to the game a bit early for the "closeout sale" of Navy merchandise, so Billy got a few new items and also this cool picture of the empty stadium.

You can read Billy's recap of the game here.

3) Happy Birthday Nana!

On Wednesday, we went over to Nana and Mr. Dick's to celebrate Billy's grandmother's 79th birthday.  She has been pretty sick lately, and spent a bit of time in the hospital, so it was good to see that she seemed to be feeling much better.  We tried out some new pizza that I liked and Mr. Dick's lemon cake was as delicious as always!

4) Priscilla Wald Visits UMd
Our department is currently recruiting Duke University professor Priscilla Wald.  She came to campus on Wednesday to give a lecture and talk to graduate students.  I found her enthusiasm for her work and teaching really inspiring.  Her current project works on the intersections between science and narrative, so I was pretty interested in her suggestions about why the sciences and the humanities need each other.  I am hoping I get a chance to read her most recent book, Contagious, over the summer, even though it doesn't relate to my own work.  And I am really hoping she decides to join our faculty!

5) O and the O's
Last night, after the Orioles lost another lead and fell to 2-16, Billy snapped this photo of Oscar's dejected expression.

Luckily, the Orioles finally won their third game today, so he is feeling like himself again.  He's currently walking around the back of the couch as if he were a cat.

The Californian's Tale

I'm not sure how many people who know me from my life in Maryland realize that I was born in California. Most know that I am from the west coast or that I grew up in Oregon, but I guess I don't feel much like a Californian anymore. I remember plenty from my first ten years there, but when I visit the town where I grew up, it doesn't feel at all like "home." Pleasanton's population has nearly doubled since my parents first moved there in 1983, and I hardly recognized anything besides Main Street the last time I was there. (As a side note, though, I'm reading Juaquin Murieta this semester and hoping there is at least one scene of him Zorro-ing his way through Pleasant0n.)

Although I never lived in either, the two places in California that remind me most of my youth are Lompoc, where my dad's family has now been living for generations, and Santa Barbara, where my mom grew up. This year, thanks to Mimi and Papa (my dad's parents), Billy and I were able to visit my family in both towns between Christmas and New Year's Day!!

After spotting John Waters in the Baltimore airport made me feel like some kind of official Baltimorean, we arrived at LAX (where, incidentally, we saw no celebrities). Our first stop on our drive up the coast toward Santa Barbara was at an In-N-Out Burger in Sherman Oaks that was seriously exceeding its 50 person capacity. Despite the crowd, we were actually in and out, and Billy gave the food the thumbs up. I forgot to ask them to hold the pickles, and Vickie informed me later that you can get your milkshake Neapolitan style. Perhaps my "Californian" card has been revoked, after all.

As we drove into Santa Barbara, I began recognizing street names that had been buried deep in the catacombs of my brain. The strangest sensation, though, was driving by the Montecito Country Club, next to which my grandparents used to live, and recognizing the smell. I'm not making this up. I put the windows down, and it got even stronger... and then it was gone. My mom thinks it was the eucalyptus.

We got to spend several delightful, sunny days in Santa Barbara. My Gramma Kingston had gotten us a room at her beautiful retirement community, and my mom was already in town for Christmas. It was nice to have the chance to sit and visit with both of them. I think Gramma really enjoyed showing Billy around her little "nest" (as she calls her condo) and the grounds of the community. We gave her a photo album of different photos of us throughout the years, so it was fun to go through them with her and talk about where we were in each one. Talking with Gramma is always entertaining because she has such a diverse collection of memories to draw from. I can never even keep up with her as she moves from one topic of discussion to another, so I just dig in and prepare for the ride. It is unbelievable to me that at her age she still has such a great memory. She has experienced so much change and innovation in her lifetime-- this is a woman who was born a week after Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated-- before World War 1 had even begun! Though she likes to throw up her hands and declare "oh, this modern world!" she has quite a firm grasp on a lot of the things that are going on. We also got to watch the video from her 95th birthday party this past summer, which I was glad to see because I was sorry to have missed the celebration.

On Sunday morning, we found what must be the only dive bar in all of Santa Barbara, and Billy found out what it is like to begin watching NFL football at 10am. The Ravens lost, but I learned the appropriate drink for a woman to order in this environment: a mimosa. After that, my Uncle Dean, my Aunt Andy, and my cousins David and Patrick arrived. I don't think I have seen them since I was in high school, so it was fun to catch up with them and hear a little bit about what they've been doing lately. (Patrick is a junior at UC Davis, and David works in San Franscisco.) Vickie got in that evening, so we got to celebrate her birthday with cake and ice cream.

On Monday, our close family friend/surrogate grandmother, Mrs. Whitney, met us all for lunch right on the beach in Santa Barbara. The location was beautiful and it was warm! Then we took Billy for a walk along the beach in town and went out onto the pier to take pictures and look in some shops. Then I made them all go to State Street in search of Pinkberry, the upscale frozen yogurt that is a favorite of the celebrities. It was delicious, but since State Street is the shopping district in SB, the people watching was even better. I loved that everyone there was consciously constructing a "look," and that every different type of look I know was represented: tailored, trendy, boho, surfer, emo, green, and more. There was not a lazy t-shirt and jeans anywhere to be seen. Billy just said, "this is what I thought people in California would be like." : ) We ended the day with family dinner at Gramma's and game night, which was also a lot of fun, and during which the cheaters were vanquished. The next morning, Mrs. Whitney took us all out to breakfast, and this time Billy and I got to spend the whole meal chatting with her, which was delightful. She is the first person I've talked to yet who seemed to fully appreciate my excitement about finding Cather's letter to Mencken. Mrs. Whitney knows a lot about everything, including space, so it was fun to listen to her talking to Billy about his job, too.

(From Left: Mrs. Whitney, Liz, Billy, Vickie, Patrick, Mom, Gramma, David, Uncle Dean)

After breakfast, Billy, Vickie, and I made the drive up to Lompoc, where we were going to be staying with my dad's parents, Mimi and Papa. It was fun pulling up to their house with Billy, because they have lived at 1124 N Gardenia since long before I was born. The tree out front that I crashed into when learning to ride a bike is gone, and they have replaced the blue shag carpet that was great for pick-up-stix, but it still feels like "home" to me.

After visiting with them for a while, Dad and Judy arrived, and Papa took us all on a tour of the Lompoc Valley. He took us up above the valley so we could look down on it, and he pointed out Vandenberg Air Force Base and the places from which they launch the rockets, some of which are affiliated with Billy's job. Driving around town with Papa is especially fun because he says things like, "I leveled the ground for this development," or "my crew carved out this mountainside to give clearance for the wings of the space shuttle when they towed it down the road." Billy got to see my Uncle Steve's farm and all the crops, too. We made a quick trip to a bar called Jasper's to visit with my (great) Aunt Betty before she left town. Outside, an older, homeless looking woman shuffled by, which struck me as strange because I have never in my life seen a homeless person in Lompoc (I thought they had all moved to Santa Barbara). Billy and I had to try to keep from laughing when, after she walked by, Papa said, "she was in my graduating class at Lompoc High," before pointing her out as Mimi's "friend," to which Mim said "she said hello to you, Donnie."

All of my dad's siblings still live in Lompoc, so it was a great chance to spend time with different family members. Our cousin Mackenzee is 13 now, and she was a lot of fun to have along throughout our visit. I kept my mouth shut about her plans to quit dance and stick with soccer but it was fun to hear her thinking through decisions like this on her own. Her brother Dalton is 16, so he was busy with friends while we were there, but he still made some time to come to family dinner at Mim's and stop by for some football. He says he wants to go to the University of Texas, so maybe this will finally give me an excuse to visit Austin. Their parents, my Aunt Kim and Uncle Craig, were great to see, and since Craig and Dalton weren't able to make it to Maryland for the wedding, I was really glad Billy was able to meet them. I was not surprised to find that Uncle Craig is also a Rob Dyrdek fan or that Billy noticed how unique my Aunt Kim's laugh is. : )

We also got to spend some time with Dad, Judy, Aunt Carrie, and Uncle Steve at Carrie and Steve's house. They just put in bar in their upstairs room, along with a 60" television, so this was the prime place to watch Navy destroy Missouri in their bowl game and to see Oregon fare less favorably in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State. Aunt Carrie also made dinner for us on New Year's Eve, including some fresh artichokes from Uncle Steve's farm and prime rib from the cow raised by one of Mackenzee's 4-H friends. (We didn't get to eat any of Luau, the pig Mackenzee raised from 30ish pounds to 240 pounds, though.) My Aunt Dana joined us for this dinner as well as the spaghetti dinner Mim had made the night before, and it was good to have a chance to hear what she has been up to lately.

I am very thankful that Billy and I got to stay with Mimi and Papa, who went out of their way to make us feel right at home, as always. Billy got to experience some of their bantering back and forth and their interjecting into one another's stories. These two have always cracked me up. I hope that when we are retired, Billy and I get to enjoy a life together like they have. This gives me about 30 years to convince Billy that we should get a motorhome, because right now, he is not enthusiastic about the idea. : ) Mim even made us breakfast every morning without mentioning the fact that when I was young, I called her velveeta macaroni and cheese "disgusting."

One moment that I think gave Billy a pretty good indication of my "family life" in Lompoc revolved around a discussion of Mike Leach, the now former head coach of Texas Tech's football team. The questions about whether or not he locked a player with a concussion into a dark room kept being discussed on the tv. Mimi and Papa kept talking about how unfortunate it was that this young man has brought down this coach's career when nobody really knows what happened. Papa pointed out that one of the other coaches called the player "uncoachable." Dad pointed out that Leach would have to be stupid to lock up that particular kid, because his dad works for ESPN. My Aunt Dana sided with the kid and was ready to condemn Leach, suggesting that they should "put him where they put Michael Vick." Then someone brought up the fact that earlier in the season, Leach said his players were doing poorly because they were spending time with their "fat little girlfriends." My Aunt Kim said that was awful, and everyone else agreed, and then after a pause, my Uncle Craig said, "Well, were they fat?" Kim shouted "Craig!", Mim said "well, that was not nice," and Billy and I cracked up.

This is life in the Chambers family, Billy. Welcome to it!!

("The Californian's Tale" is a short story by Mark Twain about California during its prospecting/ Gold Rush days.)