Christmas, 2008

Christmas 2008 was a success. I'm not sure that, in my adult life, that I can say I've ever had a what I would call a truly unsuccessful Christmas. Nevertheless, it is always a pleasant surprise when the holiday turns out well since I often dread the worst in some form or another. The problem is that there is always such a buildup to the occasion that the pessimist in me can't help but anticipate a letdown.

I picked my dad up at the airport here in Denver on the morning of December 20th. I am, of course, always happy to see him. He was a bit tired after getting up at 4 AM to battle the bitter cold and a snowstorm to catch a 7 AM flight out of Milwaukee. It was cold here in Denver also, but at least there was bright sunshine which was a welcome change for him after several days of rough weather in the Midwest. Justin picked up my mom that evening, who came in on a later flight. Her flight had been further delayed for several hours by bad weather out east.

Both of my parents were thrilled to see their granddaughter, Rachel. It had been several weeks since either of them had seen her and she has been changing so fast that she is almost like a different baby now. Since the last time they saw her in October, Rachel is much less fussy and is much more interactive. Overall, she is just way more fun to be around right now. That's not to say that she still doesn't do her share of crying or have her periods where she insists upon being walked around, but on average she has become a much more grandparent-friendly child.

Mondy the 22nd was my 39th Birthday. For years now I've stopped looking forward to birthdays as good things. Although I still don't feel "middle aged", I will admit I'm a bit achier than I used to be and turning 40 will be a milestone I face with quite a bit of trepidation. That night Bree was working, but she had been thoughful enough to bake me a birthday cake during the day which I shared with my parents and brother after a nice dinner of hommade birthday chili.

Tuesday night Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to babysat for Rachel so that Bree and I could get out to see a movie. It's been a long time since we have been able to hit the town for a few hours together by ourselves. We saw Woody Allen's most recent film, Vicky, Christina, Barcelona, which was shot on location in Catalonia.This is a place we have discussed visiting on one of the many trips we have planned for the not too distant future. Javier Bardem played the male lead. His character was not nearly so compelling as the one which he played in No Country but it showed a very different side of him as an actor, this time portraying a charming artist and womanizer. I thought he did a great job, especially during the heated exchanges with his ex-wife, played by Penelope Cruz. For a variety of reasons Penelope Cruz happens to be one of my personal personal favorites. After the movie we even got to stop in at Sobo 151 to catch the last round in that evenings round of trivia. I'm afraid my presence didn't help much. Our team wasn't doing well when we got there, and we did even worse afterwards.

The morning of the 24th my dad and I drove up to Buena Vista where we would be spending Christmas eve with my aunt Debbie, uncle Jerry and cousin James. We met them at the Catholic Church, St Rose of Lima, where my uncle is the new music director. They had asked that we arrive early so that we could see James perform before the mass. Although we arrived in plenty of time, I ended up missing his performance because no sooner than I sat down did Rachel have the biggest blowout I've ever had the pleasure to clean up. I was pleased to see that there was a small changing table in the men's room of the church, but found that when I went into the diaper bag that there were only four wipes left. Occasionally that might suffice, particularly for a Number One, but was barely enough to scratch the surface of this disaster. We used moistened paper towels from the dispenser to handle the rest. Her onesie was deemed a total loss and discarded in the trash. Forty minutes later I emerged, not in the greatest of Christmas spirit, I'm afraid. Half way through the mass I had to take Rachel out and feed her again, but after that things went smoothly and my mood quickly improved.

Justin had driven up a little later in the day with my mom, and as soon as the mass was over, we all went up to Debbie and Jerry's new house about 7 miles north of town on the lower slopes of Mt Colombia. We had a nice dinner, some wine, and sang a few songs around the piano before the Hogan family had to go back to church for the 11 o'clock mass. I was exhausted and felt badly for them that they had to go back out, but for whatever reason I was still awake when they got back. This was Rachel's first night away without her mother so I think that I was a little on edge and had a very hard time relaxing after putting her to bed in the Pack n' Play.

When Chistmas morning arrived I was still tired from the night before but Rachel mercifully slept in until after 9 which allowed me a little extra time to pull myslf together. After a wonderful brunch of leftover ham and an egg and mushroom dish I strapped on my snoeshoes and with James in tow, we headed up the slope in back of the house toward the national forest. Their home has the advantage of having no other houses behind it to the west. If one had the ambition and stamina he could walk for 30 miles or so due west without hitting another road. At this time of year that would be a considerable feat, so we only mile or so. As we went further and further up the slope, the snow got deeper and deeper. At one point a large heard of elk moved out of the trees and stood directly in our path about 50 yards in front of us, watching. James thought we should turn around, but I assured him that the elk would surely move on as we got closer. A few seconds later the elk turned around and moved back down into the draw from where they had emerged.

There was little traffic on Christmas afternoon and the drive back to Denver along US 285 went quickly. Mom and Justin spent Christmas night in Buena Vista so Bree, my dad and I had a quiet Christmas dinner together at home followed by watching a couple episodes season 3 of The Wire. Bree told me that, for Christmas, she had gotten us a three day pass to the Rockygrass Festival in Lyons, CO for next July. This is a great gift and I'm very excited about going. We don't have camping accomodations set up yet and the on-site campground lottery has already taken place, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. It will probably be Rachel's first music festival. http://www.bluegrass.com/rockygrass/ I don't think she is looking forward to it as much as I am, though.

I had to work on the 26th and Bree worked that night. While Bree was at work, we took the opportunity to watch The Dark Knight. I had actually not seen the movie before and Bree was not especially interested in seeing it, so we watched it while she was away at the hospital working. I liked it a lot, although I'm sure it would have been even better on the big screen as opposed to my dated TV with it's lousy sound.

My folks were supposed to leave the next day, but found out after I dropped them off at the airport that their flight had been cancelled. They were rebooked on a 7 pm flight on Sunday night. That gave us the chance to spend another evening with them at our house. They helped with the leftovers, after which Bree and I roped them into playing a board game with us for the next couple of hours. Justin left to go and watch some Ultimate Fighting Championship thing on pay per view at the bar rather than stay home and play games with us. My aunt and uncle were actually supposed to drive down to Denver that morning and have brunch with us before going to see The Nutcracker, but they never made it out of their driveway which had been blocked by snow drifts.

Sunday afternoon was warm and sunny which gave us all the opportunity to go for an hour long walk around City Park. It was nice that my parents had the chance to spend some time outside in the sunshine before having to head back to the midwest. Shortly after getting home from our walk, they said goodbye to Bree, Rachel and myself and left with Justin for the airport. I hope they come back to visit again soon.

Finally, I would like to send a special holiday thank you to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for his willingness to stand up and fight to hold on to his job as governor in the face of all the pressure to resign. This could have been a problem that was quickly resolved, and the story basically forgotten about a few months later as in the case of Elliot Spitzer last spring. Instead Gov. Blagojevich has dug in his heals and appears willing to drag this out for as long as he possibly can. I am not really taking a great deal of partisan pleasure in this. My pleasure comes mainly from seeing an Illinois politician live up to the hard earned reputation for corruption that so many politicians from that great state worked so hard to cultivate. In 2006, the Chicago Sun Times reported that "in the last three decades, at least 79 local elected officials have been convicted of a crime, including three governors, one mayor, and a whopping 27 aldermen from the Windy City." What a truly amazing track record! And it goes back much further than the last 30 years. In the late 19th century Chicago's first political machine was created by Michael Cassius McDonald which started a great tradition that lasted through the administration of Dick Daly Sr. So much for the Land of (Honest Abe) Lincoln.

I look forward to 2011 when Charlie Sheen is slated to star in in a new Oliver Stone film now tentatively titled "Rod".

It's been an uneventful month here in Denver. I've gotten out for a couple of short hikes. Bree has gong back to part time and has been home more. I bought a used Saab wagon, which I am loving so far. Rachel continues to get bigger and continues to grow more coordinated and interactive. A couple of days ago she had her five month birthday, which for obvious reasons, held a significance for me. Bree had been asked by her manager to go into work but I told her that it might not be a good night for her to work and that I preferred that she stay home. I hope that in a few months I'll be able to start relaxing a little bit, but we'll see.

I think about how Owen was when he was five months old and try to compare how he was to Rachel, but it is hard to do. I often think about how old Owen would be now, had he lived, and what he would be like today and what kinds of things he would be doing. His second birthday would be coming up next month. We probably would have thrown hims some sort of party. I imagine that is old enough for a little boy to appreciate having a party and getting presents. I realize that these types of thoughts are not necessarily productive for me, so I try not to dwell on them too long but still miss him terribly every day.

I caught a bad cold a few weeks ago. It even kept me out of work for a day, which is pretty unusual. I prefer to save my sick days for other things, like paternity leave or the very occasional day off with my wife. Just about the time when I was getting over it Rachel came down with the same thing. I had been afraid that I would pass it along to her and thought we had dodged the bullet, until she started sniffling and coughing. Each sneeze seemed to produce rush of thick mucus which would get everywhere if Bree or myself were not on it in an instant with a tissue to wipe it away.

Poor Rachel seemed so sick and miserable it was painful for us as parents to watch. When Bree was away at work, I fretted over whether to give her any baby Tylanol and if so, how much. She had a fever, but I don't think it ever got too high. Mostly she just had a bad cough, a wheeze, and a runny nose. I knew she wasn't feeling well, but I wished she was able to talk already so that she could tell me exactly what was wrong so I could choose the best course of action toward fixing it. Rachel is better now, but it seems like every time I go to pick her up at daycare, some snot-nosed little kid is using her as a Kleenex, so I imagine that the chances are that it won't be very long before she catches her next cold.

On another note, I saw in the paper this morning that we just lost Bettie Page. This came as a bit of a blow, especially since I hadn't even really been aware that she was still alive. She hasn't exactly been in the news a lot lately even though she had undergone a resurgence in popularitly in recent years. We have Bettie, at least partially to thank for my wife's current cute hair style. A few months ago I watched The Notorius Bettie Page, with Gretchen Mol playing the lead. It wasn't as compelling as it could have been and movie didn't go into any great detail about any one part of Bettie's life and seemed to only scratch the surface of what it could have, but I did come away from it feeling a greater appreciation for Bettie as a person, her integrity and the unique challenges she had to face. She was sort of like the Rosa Parks of Porn. It's just too bad she had to become a born again Christian and sully her whole glorious legacy. We will forever remember you for who you were, Bettie.

October in Wisconsin, Part II

Shooting guns and drinking beer wasn't the only thing we did while we were in Wisconsin for the weekend. Our first day Bree, Rachel and myself climbed in our rented Hyundai Sonata and drove up to Terry Andrae State Park in Sheboygan County. The park is now known as Kohler-Andrae State park adjacent state parks on the shore of Lake Michigan were merged. It was a cool but sunny Friday afternoon and there were very few people which made for an especially nice afternoon of walking the boardwalks through the sand dunes and strolling along the beach. This was Rachel's first trip to Lake Michigan, an event to which I afforded some significance. I grew up only a few blocks from the lake and spent a great deal of my childhood going to the lake, at all times of the year. I have spent many good days walking or biking along the lake front and often feel a nostalgia for it. Bree always likes getting down by the water herself and my mom obviously had a great time with us and her new granddaughter as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohler-Andrae_State_Park

I remember when I was very young making trips up to Terry Andrae with my parents as well as my grandparents on warm summer afternoons. It used to seem very far away to me. Now it seems that it is just an easy drive up I43. The drive itself is something that I appreciate more now than I ever did before. After years of living in Colorado, driving through the pastoral countryside of southern Wisconsin is something that I get a great deal of satisfaction from. I love looking at the old barns that dot the landscape in various states of disrepair as well as driving through the small towns whose residents can often trace their ancestors back several generations to those same small towns. Most of Colorado has been very diluted by newcomers such as myself through the past few decades which I think has taken away from the communal sense of identity shaped from a common history and geography that I seem to feel when I visit my home state.

On the drive back to Milwaukee I kept off the interstate and took the country highways past dairy farms and through the corn fields. I made a point of taking us through downtown Port Washington where Bree and I popped into an old style butcher shop which had all sorts of delicious looking meats, cheeses and sausages in the display cases, along with a wide selection of craft beers. I commented to my wife that if we had a store like this in our neighborhood we would never have a need to shop anywhere else. www.berniesfinemeats.com

After dropping my mom off at her house in Fox Point and a quick change of cloths, we were off to meet my dad and our friends Brian and Kirsten and their two young boys, Sam and Caleb, at the popular Lakefront Brewery for a traditional Wisconsin Fish Fry. The Lakefront Brewery hasn't been around all that long by Milwaukee standards, but it has become very popular in its trendy location down on the recently gentrified Commerce Street. They serve a tolerably good fish fry (I had the bluegill), they have outstanding beer, and they host a polka band every Friday night. Rachel got her first taste of The Chicken Dance that night. Unfortunately I doubt she will remember it, but she did look as though she was having a good time. Brian's kids were having a ball. Neither of them seemed especially interested in their meals, but the did like around, or in some cases flopping down on the dance floor. The whole scene was very festive and enjoyable and was loud enough so that when Rachel cried Bree did not have to feel self-conscious about disturbing the people at the next table. And after a few East Side Stein Beers I felt comfortable enough to get up and dance a polka or two with my wife while grandpa kept an eye on Rachel.

After dinner we all went over to Brian and Kirsten's. After picking up some Schlitz down at corner grocer, the night took a diabolical turn. My dad sat down at the old, out of tune, upright piano sitting in the dining room and started to play. One thing led to another and the next thing we knew dad was on his way out to the car to get the sheet music for Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Leave it to my dad to be driving around with sheet music in his car. I can't help but love that about him.

Kirsten sang the vocals for Somewhere over the Rainbow, and shortly thereafter I took the lead in a rousing rendition of Desperado. Everybody was thoroughly impressed, especially Brian. From there Kirsten broke out the children's song book and had my dad play a few numbers that Sam and Caleb might appreciate and be able to sing along with such as The Itsy Bitsy Spider. For that hour, I think we all felt a little connection to an earlier, simpler and more wholesome time when friends and family would gather around the piano and sing songs rather than sit in front of the TV or even the radio.

I had arranged with Bree's cousin Karen to have us meet at her at her aunt Dorothea's (Sweet's) home in Wauconda, IL on Saturday Morning. Bree's other cousins Janet, Julie and her two kids, and Bree's grandmother Kissane were also there to see us and meet the new addition to our family. Sweet had layed out a magnificent midwestern style spread complete with headcheese, various kinds of pickles, mustards and other lunch meats and breads for everybody to enjoy. She had also gotten a couple of apple pies from Apple Holler for which she had taken a very long drive to get as Apple Holler is actually north of the Wisconsin border. My big mistake of the day was not trying a piece of that apple pie. According to Bree it was the best pie she's ever had. Sweet claimed that they use something on the order of a dozen different varieties of apples in each pie. I am skeptical of that claim but the pies looked great nevertheless. www.appleholler.com

Everyone was thrilled to meet Rachel. She got passed around quite a bit because everybody wanted to hold her. Karen even changed a couple of poopies although as we learned, she may have been wanting to get a little practice. After several years of trying all sorts of different proceedures, Karen had just learned that she was pregnant. A few weeks later after the ultrasound, we learned that she is expecting twins. That seems like it will be a terrific amount of work for her, but she is thrilled, and we are all thrilled for her. Even though Karen lives a couple hours to the west in Sterling, I think that the support group that she has in her mother and sisters will be indispensable, not to mention that I believe that Karen has the perfect sort of temperament for motherhood. My fingers are crossed for her.

A good part of the opportunity I spent playing with Julie's 8 year old daughter, Jade, who had just come in from cheerleading practice. She even showed us some cheers. Later she had me help her clean the spider webs off of her playset in the backyard which was no fun for me. For how much she doesn't like spiders, I probably like them even less, and some of the specimens we found were huge, ugly and hairy monsters. We tried playing catch with the football, also, but Jade was too afraid to catch the ball because she was afraid that it would hurt. So I wound up chasing her around the outside of the house with it and pegging her in the back. She was a good sport, though and I'm sure we're still friends.

Bree's Grandmother seemed to be doing pretty well, also. She spent a lot of time holding the baby and for a woman in her late 80's she didn't seem to have much trouble getting up and walking around. I was glad that we got to see her and that she had the chance to meet Rachel. Overall the day was a great success and I decided that I liked Wauconda more than I had before. Sweet lives only a few blocks from the old downtown area which is situated on a good size lake. There was an old mid west style supper club on the lake that looked like it would be a fun place to go sometime.

We listened to Bob Uecker do the play by play for the Brewer game on the way back to Milwaukee. The Brewers were in the playoffs for the first time since 1982, when I was just a kid. They, of course lost the series to the Phillies who went on to become the World Series Champions. When we got to Milwaukee, my dad had gotten us some pickled herring, cheese and braunsweiger for dinner, all of which are personal favorites of mine. We didn't stay out too late though, and were back at my mom's place to get to bed at a reasonable time.

Sunday of course was spent out in Washington County visiting my farm and Jeff and Michelle. On Monday, we got a leisurely start to the day reading the paper up at my mom's place. The rest of the day we spent primarily at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Bree had never been there, and I liked it much more than I remember. A few years ago they put on a beautiful new addition that was almost worth going to see all by itself. The temporary exhibit that they had going was an interactive computer art exhibit. I can't say that I would have characterized any of it as great "art", but it was a lot of fun. Several hours later, just about the time we were going to view the Georgia O'Keeffe section, Rachel did a number 2. After changing her that was basically our queue to move on.

We walked from the museum up along the lake to the Alterra coffee shop that now inhabits the building where the old municipal water pumping station used to be located. It's not an especially large building. However, I think that Alterra really did a nice job converting the old cream city brick structure into coffee shop. They even cleaned up some of the old pumping equipment and left it in place to serve as a sort of museum exhibit within the seating area of the restaurant. Bree and I sat outside so we could take in the crisp autumn afternoon air. Rachel usually prefers sitting outside herself. If anything, exposure to the elements have had a calming effect on her, at least so far in her life.

After finishing our coffee, we walked up the hill and over to Brady Street, scaring up a big fat hedgehog from the trees along the way. Brady Street comprises an old style commercial retail district in Milwaukee. Once upon a time it was the center of a very Italian neighborhood. Most of that Italian character has been disappearing with the passing of the years. A few remnants of that past remain in the form of Glorioso's Grocery Store and Sciortino's Bakery. For years, an older gentleman named Frank Pecoraro, used to walk around from bar to bar with a cooler full of wares shouting "pepperoni, cannoli" over and over again trying to drum up business from the hard drinking local crowds. To be honest, I never actually bought anything from him and I'm not even sure if he is still making the rounds anymore, but for a long time he was a neighborhood fixture. www.gmtoday.com/content/best_of_2004/W_84_01.htm
There wasn't anybody on the east side who didn't know the Pepperoni Cannoli guy. It is often the slightly off center guys like that who are out there and visible that really help to make the character of a neighborhood. Art Smart's Dart Mart and Juggling Emporium is a small shop on the corner of Brady and Humboldt is a store that has been in business since 1985 at that location, but until this visit to Milwaukee, I'd never set foot inside. Although I'm neither a juggler or dart player, but I have always appreciated that such a quirky little place could survive for so long in this little eclectic neighborhood where so many retailers have come and gone throughout the years.

We were scheduled to fly back to Denver Tuesday morning on a a 7:20 AM flight. This is pretty early for us but we made sure to have everything packed up and organized the night before. My mom assured me that her alarm clock would work properly but after checking it and rechecking it to make sure it was set properly, no alarm was heard the next morning. The big problem with this was the awkwardness of having to call in to work and try to explain to them why I wouldn't be in that day. No mid-level manager at a big company wants to call in and tell his boss that he won't be in because his mother's alarm clock didn't go off. Other than that, things worked out fine. We at least got a little extra sleep, and had a chance to have coffee and breakfast with my mom in the morning. We were able to get rescheduled on an afternoon flight at no additional charge. Before we went to the airport, we even had enough time to stop in at the Renaissance Bookstore downtown for an hour or so. The Renaissance Bookstore isn't for everyone. In fact, I doubt most people would properly appreciate it. It is a gigantic used bookstore founded in the early 1960's taking up 5 levels of an old furniture warehouse. It is reported to house well in excess of a half a million volumes. The place has a character all its own, though. The building smells musty and it is hard to believe that it has not collapsed under the weight of all the books. The stairs are worn, the plaster is falling off the walls and dust covers some of the old periodicals in the basement so thickly it is hard to read the titles. But if you enjoy picking through the stacks looking for gems you would never find in a Borders or Barns and Noble and don't mind an extreme amount of disorganization and allergens, it might be worth a stop. I can't imagine there is any other bookstore in the country quite like it.

Goodbye Milwaukee. Until next time.

Wisconsin in October Part I

After polishing off 8 or 9 cheap beers on Sunday afternoon in Jeff's garage on his semi rural property outside of West Bend, Jeff and I decided that it was time to start carving some pumpkins. He reached into a drawer in his workbench and pulled out the tool we would be using, a short barrel .38 Special. He went back in the house and came back with a box of hollow point bullets. This is widely considered to be the best ammunition for most pumpkin carving jobs. Sometimes a standard smaller caliber round is what you want if you are doing more detail work, but since I was a beginner at this I decided to stick with what we figured would get us the best results under the circumstances.

Jeff fired off the first set of rounds from a crouching position about 50 feet out from the gourd we were working on. He took careful aim, pulled the trigger taking out a large chunk right off the top. I took the gun and tried it from the same distance. Squeezing off the first round when firing a handgun is always a little bit of a shock. It's louder and there is more recoil than you'd ever think from watching people shoot on TV and in the movies. Nevertheless, I gave the effort great concentration and emptied all the chambers on the revolver, missing every time. I didn't even come close. That's another misconception from the movies I think is that it is easy to hit a target with a pistol. It is not. Not even after several beers which I was sure would have calmed my nerves and help to steady my hand thereby improving my aim.

I kept having to walk back into the garage to get more ammunition as I was getting frustrated by my lack of success. I considered putting a few slugs into the chicken coop or some other object that would have provided an easier target. After a while Jeff went to get a scuffed up old .25 cal. semiautomatic from Michelle's bedside table. Jeff and Michelle never bother to lock their doors, even if they are going to be out of town for a while, but ironically she likes to keep a semiautomatic within easy reach when she crawls in bed at night. Rather than point out the irony I instead hastily took the gun back outside with a pocket full of bullets and a fresh beer and got back to blasting.

After a while Jeff offered to take us for a walk down the road to visit his neighbor Gary the Farmer. Gary was a stereotype of the quintessential Wisconsin small farmer. He said he grew up about 11 miles down the road in Saukville and that out of all the kids in the family, he was the one who had moved farthest away from home. He had a weathered looking face that did not betray very much emotion. We watched him pull a hopper full of grain with his old 1950's tractor into the lower level of the old barn. The grain was unloaded onto a conveyer belt that carried it into a large trough which a group of a dozen or so black and white steers would come and eat from. I thought I liked the look of some of the cows as they gazed back at me with that gentle, curious cow look, and I asked Gary if it ever bothered him to take any of the cows to market. He looked back at me like it was a really stupid question and answered "Well.......I ain't had a complaint yet." Gary must have liked us ok because he came back over to Jeff's garage with us later for some beers. Jeff speculated that all the farmers like to come to his place for beers because their wives don't let them drink at home.

I liked Gary and actually came to respect him a great deal. He knows that there is no way he could make ends meet just by running the farm, even with the extra acreage he is leasing. So he works at a factory as a machinist putting in upwards of 40 hours per week before coming home every evening to do chores around the farm. He said that if he won the lottery that he would just buy as much land as he could possibly farm. That's all he really wants to do, aside from some hunting and plenty of beer drinking. He was a very honest sort of character and is an example of someone who is helping to preserve the old, honest lifestyle of the small family farmer. It's more of a labor of love for Gary, but without men like him, small farms would disappear.

By the time we got back to Jeff's, Jim had arrived and was sporting a bigger, shaggier beard than I had ever seen on him before. It was something that had clearly taken a lot of time to cultivate. We were glad Jim had made it out that afternoon, although by this time it was running late, I was getting pretty loaded, and my wife was starting to think about heading out. She had been there, not drinking, and for the most part watching Rachel all day and was starting to think that maybe this was too much of a good thing. All the cigarette smoke billowing about in the garage wasn't helping things either. Before we left, she asked me to change Rachel's big 'ol poopy diaper. Trying to be a good husband I readily agreed, and took her upstairs and laid her out on a blanket on the kitchen floor and went to work. I remember it being a terrific mess and feeling pretty miserable at the time as Rach cried and carried on while I struggled to get her cleaned up while doing my best not to get poo all over Jeff's kitchen floor, but we finally got it taken care of. After a long series of goodbyes, we set off on the lonely country highway heading back for my mom's house. I could tell Bree was a little miffed, but overall we had had a good time that day. It's always fun when to go out there for a visit and when we do we can always expect to get some new and entertaining stories told with humor and enthusiasm. Unfortunately we had not been there the next weekend when they were going to be throwing their big Halloween party when they would be serving an an entire pig that was to be roasted while stuffed with bratwurst and saurkraut (a Wisconsin favorite) and Jeff would giving hay rides around the property on a trailer he would be towing with his 1950 Ferguson tractor.

Back to Work

The moment my wife and I have both been dreading has finally arrived, although we have been dreading it for somewhat different reasons. Last night Bree went back to work. After over three months off on maternity leave, Bree finally had to go back to the VA Hospital to her job on the lock down psychiatric unit. She has not wanted to go back to work partially because she has not been liking the job particularly, and because she does not want to leave the baby. I don't want her to leave the baby either. She is wonderful with Rachel. Our daughter responds to Bree like nobody else and it is a beautiful thing to witness. While Rachel seems to like me a whole lot more than most strangers, she still does not seem to like the idea of spending more than a few hours alone with her daddy. Although she finally is eating from me a little bit, especially when I break out the rice cereal, she has a hard time going for very long without crying hysterically.

Trying to sooth a crying baby isn't any fun. Often the only thing that works at all is to hold her in my arms, facing out, and walk around. Standing still won't do. Rachel isn't happy unless she is on the move. Sometimes I will cradle her in my arms and pace up and down the block. She seems to like the cool night air, it shocks her into not crying anymore, at least for a little while. As an especially nervous daddy and even on those rare instances when she does fall asleep, I often sabotage it by grasping her and or her foot to make sure that she is alright.

Most of this evening has been pretty rough on both of us, but for a while just now, we lay on the bed together playing and talking. Rachel was very responsive and seemed to be in especially good spirits. I hope that much more of our time is like that in the nights and weeks to come, as
Bree will be spending most nights away, either working or at class. I'm sure that our dogs, Oscar and Masha feel the same way. I think we would all like a little bit more quiet around the house right now. I'm sure things will get easier, though, and I look forward to coming home and seeing this little baby every night. Despite all the abuse to my eardrums, I thoroughly enjoy the privalage of being able to be a father again.

Mount Shavano

A couple of weeks ago Louis Morton and I endeavored to climb Mount Shavano, in the southern Sawatch Range. At 14,229 feet, it is the 17th highest in the state of Colorado. Those of you who follow this blog will remember Louis Morton from a previous entry when I wrote about our ride from Boulder to Ward. Climbing up one of these peaks is never easy but Louis is usually game for just about anything. Plus, it had been a while since either of us had climbed a "14er", which seems to be a bit of a shame, since I live so close to all of those fine mountains.

We drove up the night before and stayed at my aunt and uncles house just outside of Buena Vista. They just moved here from Florida and seem to be perfectly happy in their new surroundings which consist of 40 acres on the lower slopes of Mount Columbia (35th highest). We were going to take a motel in Salida, or even camp, but since we were going to drop off Masha at their place anyway and they had extended the offer, we decided to spend the night. This turned out to be a good decision, and we had a very nice visit.

I was up by 7 the next morning, not bad by my normal Saturday standards, but not nearly as early as I would like on a day I am planning a climb. Even though it was the end of September, and the summer monsoon season should really be over, it is still best to get an early start. To make matters worse, so to speak, it was bitterly cold in the morning and my aunt and uncles hospitality made it hard to get out of house until we had had several cups of coffee and some delicious bran muffins made with Grandma Betty's old special recipe.

After we finally got on the road we still had almost an hour to drive to get the trail head, which is down near Poncha Springs at the southern end of the Arkansas River Valley. The morning weather was gorgeous, and it looked like we were going to have a fine day out on the mountain. To make things even better, the golden fall colors of the aspen trees were in full bloom. This was surely one of the nicest times of the year to be up in Colorado's mountains.

We were in good spirits when we started out on the trail. Although the morning air was still very brisk, we soon heated up as we began the long uphill grind. I got so hot that before long I even took my shirt off, which is not something that I have felt especially comfortable doing lately after putting on a little extra blubber. Those additional pounds weren't exactly helping my effort at getting up the mountain either, but I wasn't doing too badly. In the meantime, Louis was going like a bat out of hell.

The lower part of the trail follows part of the Colorado Trail. This was a pleasurable stretch where the grade was not too steep and we were often walking through brilliantly colored aspen groves. The going got much tougher as we turned left on to the Shavano Trail itself. Unfortunately for Oscar, this is one of the few mountain trails I have hiked in Colorado where we didn't cross any streams, so I had to let him drink from my own personal supply which probably did not give him quite as much as he otherwise would have liked to have.

Once we got above timberline, the views were exceptional looking back toward the southeast. The long valley below us was full of the color of thousands of aspens. Beyond that stretched the golden plain of the Arkansas River Valley. To my dismay, however, there were clouds that appeared to be building fast. While it was only 10:30 or so, the sky was already showing some ominous signs.

I have a long ingrained fear of getting struck by lightning when I am high on a mountain, away from the cover of trees so I was watching the developing weather with great trepidation. By this point Louis had opened up a sizable lead on me and although I could see him up ahead, I knew he would be listening to his I Pod and would not be able to hear my calls for him to hold up for a conference. So we went on and on, climbing toward saddle high above where the route would lead to the summit ridge.

By 11, I was starting to see bolts of lighting flashing from the black bank of clouds hovering over a mountain several miles to our south, but it was still not looking too bad where we were headed. After another half an hour, though, some very threatening looking clouds started billowing over the ridge for which we were headed. I passed a few people heading down who had obviously gotten a much earlier start on the trail than we did. They all said that things didn't look any better on the other side. Louie had found a comfortable rock to sit on while he waited for me to catch up. He was actually looking a little concerned also, as we were beginning to hear the occasional distant rumble of thunder. We went on a little further hoping for some miraculous clearing, but it the thunder only got closer. He and I finally decided to turn back. We figured we had reached about 13 thousand feet, easy striking distance of the summit, but Shavano would have to wait for another day.

Somewhat despondent, we made our way back down the mountain. This part of the day seemed to take a very long time. Descending is never my favorite thing anyway, its much tougher on the knees and feet than going uphill. After reaching the bottom we had an early dinner at Amica's in Salida and drove up to Buena Vista to pick up Masha and say goodbye to Debbie and Jerry. By the time we got up to their place, the weather was really bad. there wasn't lightning, but a front had definetely moved in and it was cold, windy and an icy rain had started to fall. According to Jerry, Masha had sat by the front door all day looking out the window. I'm sure she felt bad that she wasn't able to come with us. Old dogs never understand their limitations.

Inability to Post

Yesterday Bree was gone all day on a field trip of sorts for her herbal medicine program. She left early in the morning to go high up in the mountains of Boulder County to harvest osha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osha) with her class. Although I was somewhat dreading having to look after Rachel all day by myself, I anticipated being able to get caught up a little on some of the things which I wanted to write about in this blog.

It turned out to be an especially exhausting day and I couldn't get myself to shift gears away from focusing on my fussy little girl even for a few minutes to do any of the writing I had planned. Instead I carried her around the house while she screamed and watched over her nervously during her brief naps. Rachel still has a strong aversion to taking the bottle, but has shown some interest in eating runny rice cereal mixed with breast milk from a tiny spoon. Although this type of feeding is very time consuming and incredibly messy, I think it is all that got us through the 9 hours or so that mommy was out of the house.

I fell asleep almost as soon as my wife got home and am still tired and out of sorts at work today. Rachel and I are not looking forward to next week when mommy goes back to work and will be gone most evenings. Perhaps things will start going better for Rachel and I and I will be able to handle a few more posts. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Dreaming of Homer

Lately I've been finding myself feeling unsettled. This happens to me from time to time. I get frustrated and dissatisfied with my current situation and start thinking that the grass might be greener somewhere else. I think a lot of these feelings just stem from boredom. Other times I just get so frustrated sitting in Denver traffic jams that I get the strong urge to go anywhere that doesn't have traffic problems. My job can get pretty dull at times as well. I'm not getting any getting any younger and I often feel like I'd like to have my own business of some sort. A lot of people want to be their own boss, or to build a successful business from the ground up and I'm no exception.

The other day I was perusing the Businesses for Sale section of Craigslist as I have done often lately. I came across a listing for a small bed and breakfast in Homer, Alaska. I read a little snippet about Homer somewhere last week and it sounded very nice. The bed and breakfast itself sounds very nice too. It is in an old building on a hillside overlooking the bay. Since then it has held a sort of romantic appeal for me. It is located on the southern tip of the Kenai Penninsula, about 190 miles southwest of Anchorage. It is a small fishing town located on Kachemak Bay with views of mountains and glaciers rising out of the water on the opposite shore. It is billed as the halibut capital of the world, which I find particularly appealing since I love Halibut. What a great thing, to live in the halibut capital of the world. I didn't even know such a thing existed until the other day. Some of the fish caught nearby can literally be several hundred pounds. The salmon fishing is supposed to be fantastic as well.

Right now, I find the idea of the relative solitdude very appealing. Were I ever to move to a place like that, I'm sure I would miss the city. I've always been a pretty urban-oriented guy, even eschewing the suburbs for a grittier and colorful setting. Nevertheless there are times when the peace and quiet and the slower pace has a very strong appeal. I like to think that I could spend more time engaging in artistic pursuits. I could hone my skills as a photographer, practice writing or learn to paint. Maybe I also like the idea of living somewhere more wild, where there are still places to be explored. I have often thought I would have made a good explorer four or five hundred years ago.

My wife is not thrilled with the idea of going anywhere that the weather might be colder than it is here in Denver. There's also the issue of a lot of darkness during the winter months. Neither of us would like that I don't think. And there is the problem of being just that much further from our families. Denver is already plenty far from Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina or Florida and adding a couple thousand miles to the trip wouldn't make visiting our families any easier. But it does seem like it would be a safe and wholesome place for my daughter to grow up. While there would be plenty of dangers to watch out for, I believe that they would be of a different nature than what she will be facing here in the big city. Somehow bears and moose don't seem as bad as muggers and pedophiles.

I'm sure that Bree and I will stay here in Colorado for the time being. Overall we have made a very good life for ourselves here. We both have good jobs, even if we aren't always completely satisfied with them. Rachel is 2 and a half months old now and it seems she is smiling more and more every day. We have so much to look forward to with her. She is already making noises like she is trying to talk, and it will only be a matter of time before she is walking. Now if only she'd settle down at night so we can turn the lights off a little bit earlier it would be perfect. So for the time being, I think Homer will have to wait. In the meantime, Rachel has some Halloween preparations.

We are going to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks. This is something that I am looking forward to very much. I hope that Rachel has the opportunity to spend some time there in the coming years. I feel a strong connection to the place, and I hope that she can share that feeling some day.

September Weekend

Friday night I got to go to see the Rockies play the Dodgers at Coors Field. I hadn't planned on going but my company had some extra tickets that had been reserved for the yearly Owners Conference. Several of the attendees left Denver early because of Hurricane Ike. While I was sorry to leave Bree at home with Rachel by themselves on a Friday night, it ended up being a nice change of pace for me, as well as an opportunity to shake a few hands with some of our Franchise owners from around the country. Furthermore, you can always be sure that there will be plenty of beer being consumed at just about any of our company functions. Friday night was no exception. The company had leased out three contiguous luxury suites which were continuously stocked with beer, chips and hot dogs. The Rockies lost the game, but most of those in attendance weren't really watching it anyway.

Yesterday morning my friend Louie and I went up to Boulder to do a ride. I have been wanting to do the Boulder -Ward Loop for a while now. The problem is finding the time to do do it, because it is not a short ride. It is definitely not an easy ride either. We were on the road by 10:30 or 11 and almost immediately began the long climb up Boulder Canyon to Nederland. For the first several miles, the grade was manageable, and we kept a relatively good average speed, but as we approached Boulder Falls, the grade got noticeably steeper and it started taking its toll. Another problem with riding up Boulder Canyon is all the traffic. For much of the time there is at least some shoulder to ride on, but on a perfect Saturday afternoon, the line of traffic never lets up. It would be a great stretch of road for riding without all the cars.

We took a break at Boulder Falls, which was about 9 miles or so up the canyon. I had two water bottles with me and I had already gone through my first one. It wasn't too hot, so in that respect yesterday was a nice day for riding, but it is very hard work and we were still both sweating a lot. Louie had brought only one bottle with him and had already finished it by this point. We kept riding and the grade continued on at a pretty steep grade. Louie, who had been racing on ahead for most of the morning was clearly beginning to struggle. A mile or so further up the road he said he was ready to throw in the towel for the day. He was getting a little dehydrated and it was taking a toll on him. I suggested he refill his water bottle from Boulder Creek which flows down the canyon. For the most part, the water should be pretty clean as it is all mountain runoff, but you're always taking a chance picking up something that won't agree with you. He agreed that it was a good idea and guzzled a bottle full and immediately felt much better. After this point, the grade of the climb decreased quite a bit as well, which we both were thankful for.

We made it to Nederland around 1:30 and stopped the little grocery store there for lunch. A half hour later we were back on the road beginning the rest of the climb to Ward. This was a much nicer stretch of road for riding on. The road was in great shape and there was much less traffic. Plus, once you get up on the Peak to Peak Hwy (hwy72) the scenery gets phenomenal. The Indian Peaks rose in front of us and to our left, recently dusted with fresh snow and the aspen trees were just beginning to change colors. In a few weeks they will be at their most brilliant. If there was a problem it was that we were already a little tired and this stretch of road has some pretty steep and sustained climbs on it also. Nederland is approx. 3000 feet in elevation above Boulder, and Ward is another 1000 feet above Nederland. Rather than being a solid 1000 ft climb, the Peak to Peak Hwy rolls quite a bit, so we got some short descents in there, but had to climb again and make up the altitude we had given up in the descents. This stretch of road was about 10 miles long and for my money is the nicest part of the ride.

The town of Ward is a funky little place, first settled in 1860 when gold was discovered in the area. This old mining town that thankfully doesn't see very much change from one year to the next. Currently the population sits at 169. Most of the buildings are from the old mining era, and there are rusting, broken down cars and trucks out in the yards representing every era since. There is one store that I know of, an old general store where an gray haired man was sitting on a chair outside on the wood sidewalk out front waiting for customers. The road through town is the upper entrance to Lefthand Canyon, although it isn't marked. Probably just as well, because that would inevitably lead to more traffic. This is my kind of place and I always enjoy passing through here.

For us yesterday, Ward represented our goal. From here on out it was almost all downhill back to Boulder. The grade out of town entering the canyon approaches 10 percent and we both hit about 45 mph going through here. Most of the rest of the descent through the canyon was more gradual, but a welcome change from the several hours of climbing we had endured to get to this point. Down near the bottom of the canyon we had the choice of either going straight, which would have led us back down to Hwy 36, or going right on the Old Stagecoach Road. We flipped a coin and the decision was to take the later. Hwy 36 would be a little longer ride, but with no climbing. The Stage road was a little shorter, but as we found out, it held the most wicked ascent of the day. The climb itself wasn't very long, but to make it to the top required a lot of getting up out of the saddle and cranking it out. Once we crested that rise, though, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way back to Boulder. According to my computer, I topped out at 51.7 miles per hour heading down the other side of the hill. For me this was a new top speed, the fastest I have ever gone on a bicycle.

Later that night Bree, Rachel and I met Louis, Fred and Justin out at Hooters for some beer and wings. It was Rachel's first time at Hooters and she seemed to like it just fine. We were sitting out on the deck overlooking Colorado Blvd, and while we were there a front moved in. The wind started blowing things things in off of the street and it began to rain. This came as a surprise because the whole time we had been out, we had nothing but nice weather.

Today Bree has class, so Rachel and I have been home spending the day together with the dogs. This is why I have had the time to write such a wordy blog entry. Rachel and I do fine together, but she does not like to take the bottle from me. So when she gets hungry, it causes some pretty major problems for us. I have tried different bottles, with different nipples, but for now she is being stubborn and only gets upset when I try to feed her. Bree was able to stop home for a half an hour over lunch and get some milk in the baby. Rach and I are hoping that tides her over for the next few hours so we don't have to get into it again with the bottle.

Brett Who?

A couple of nights ago on Monday night the Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings on national television. By the time I got home from work, my daughter Rachel was already geared up and ready to watch the game. Bree and I had been getting her pumped up for her first Packer game for a few weeks now and she was chomping at the bit for kickoff. Since the game started at 5:00 locally, I had to rush home from work and still did not make it for the coin toss.

Although Rachel was had not yet been born when Brett Farve was still the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, she was certainly privy to a lot of the drama surrounding his coming out of retirement and eventual trade to the New York Jets. While on the one hand she was disappointed that Brett started for another team over the weekend, her allegiances still lie with the Packers, that's not going to change.

Rachel fussed a lot during the first quarter of the game, when the Packers only first down came off of a forward fumble. When they pulled it together in the second quarter she had many smiles and seemed utterly pleased, although we could not be sure whether she was watching the game or was more focused on the Tiffany lamp in the corner. True to form, she fell asleep during half time and remained so for most of the second half waking up only occasionally and showing very little interest in what was going on on the TV.

The Packers ended up winning the game and we decided that this Arron Rogers kid might not be so bad after all.