Category Archives: My Life

Blogging in a vacuum

Life these days: bike rides with The Dude, warm fall days in the park, making full use of my new gym membership, settling into the one-nap-a-day schedule . . . .

All-in-all, not bad, but I’m a little blah on the blog.  For me, an important part of blogging is interacting with other bloggers: reading, commenting on, and being inspired by what others are writing.  Keeping up with a toddler doesn’t leave much time for me to check email and write my own posts, let alone stay up to date on the numerous blogs that I enjoy[ed].

I have no idea what’s going on over at Simply Bike, or what the Eco Cat Lady has been saying.  While I have plenty of post ideas, I feel disconnected, with little inspiration to take the time to write.   Although virtual interactions are no substitute for face-to-face relationships, they’re still important, and I feel their absence these days.

I hopped off the plane at PDX with my babe and a carry-on

Hi there!  For those not in the airport code know, we recently returned from a little trip to Portland, Oregon.  With a 14-month along for the ride, it was most definitely NOT a vacation, but all-in-all, things went well.

We enjoyed our time and our adventures eating, biking, and hiking our way around Portland and surrounding areas.  We definitely had the too much to do/too little time issue, and between that and the aforementioned babe toddler, we stumbled, rather than hopped, off the plane back in StL.

Unfortunately, Portland tales and pictures will have to wait until later in the week, because we returned home to no internet.  Long story short, let’s just say it’s a shitty situation (literally), and I’m in serious email/blog/net-surfing withdrawal.

Checked bag

I’m sure I’m not the first person to consider this method of simplifying travel with a baby.

It would be well worth the checked bag fee, though it would need to include a warning: Caution — Live cargo; beware of teeth!

Snapped

One morning last week, I knocked my glasses off the night table as I fumbled for them in the early morning hours.  They’ve hit the floor a couple of times with no obvious damage, but the noise I heard this time just sounded bad.

I assumed a cracked lens or some such, but when I turned on the light to assess the damage, I found that my instead of glasses, I now had two monocles.  The plastic bridge snapped almost right in the middle.

Seven years ago, when I switched from full-time contacts to mostly full-time glasses (something that seemed unthinkable when I was finally allowed to get contacts at age twelve), I picked out a nice pair of frames and high quality lenses.  I remember questioning the durability of a plastic frame (versus metal, which was all I’d had previously) at the time, but I really wasn’t seeing anything I liked in the metal frames, and the molded plastic seemed very comfortable.

Granted I’ve been fairly careful with them (never leaving them in the car, almost always on my face or in a very safe place), but I really was pleased with how well they’d held up as the years passed.

When I bought a nice new pair of glasses with metal frames three years ago, I stuck with the old faithful plastic frames, with the new pair as the back-ups.  Fortunately, I did have the good back-up pair when disaster struck.

I wasn’t terribly optimistic about the chances of a decent repair, but after two days in the back-ups, I bought some super glue to attempt to salvage my favorite spectacles.  At first it didn’t seem like it would work at all — it was very difficult to hold the two pieces together in just the right position without gluing my fingers to the plastic in the process.

However, I managed a fairly decent, if not quite perfect, repair job.  They’ve held up through a couple days’ wear, though I’m not sure it’s wise to go to far from home without the back-ups.  Either way, I’m happy to have my comfy plastic frames back in action for now, and I’ll probably look for something similar the next time I’m glasses shopping.

Another year, another festival

With the exception of my first summer in St. Louis (when I wasn’t in the know), I’ve been to the Festival of Nations every year.  In 2010, I wrote about the efforts to “green” the festival.

Last year, we deemed it important enough to attend with a seven-week-old.

I can hardly believe he was ever that small — he looks SO different now!  I don’t remember much of last years event, other than the  fact that using the festival “shuttles,” which were school buses, was rather tricky with a big ol’ stroller.  Biking would have been much easier, but we weren’t biking with him at that point.

Our plan this year was to leave immediately from the festival to head to the garden for the rest of the day, so we drove the car, which is probably the first (and hopefully the last) time I used that form of transportation to get there.

In the background are the Nigerian and Iranian food booths, a couple of our favorites from past years, conveniently right next to each other.  Unfortunately, the Iranian booth did not have baklava this year, but the Nigerian booth had our favorites, African honey beans and honeyed yams.

We also tried a couple of new items from the Thai booth: a curry mushroom puff and sweet, sticky rice roasted in bamboo.

We enjoyed sharing the delicious, unique flavors with Gabriel, who was quite happy to dig in to the spread.  It’s crazy how much a year (or two) can change things — from no baby, to a tiny baby, to a curious, active almost-toddler.

We compromised and used their paper plates with our utensils.

After eating, we wrapped up our trip with a visit to the main stage, and Gabriel made friends with the man sitting next to us and jammed out on his “drum.”