B: the magember crunch

Like every summer, I have allowed myself to become so busy at work that I am totally burned out and desperately in need of some time off. To combat this and avoid going all Tyler Durdan on my family and co-workers, I am taking Labor Day week off. I have already planned so much stuff for that week though that there is really no way I will get to do everything that I want. At some point I am going to need to add some scheduled relaxation.....I am an idiot.

We are really coming down to the magember crunch. I am doing absolutely nothing for the big 31. I think that is really the only way to note the occasion...by trying to ignore it. Mandy and I are having our 5 year anniversary this year, Lily is turning 2 and then Mandy is turning 30....holy crap that a lot of stuff for September. If we had another September baby we would have a 4 in 30 chance of hitting an already important date. I like them odds!

Other stuff....I sat next to this guy and his obese body guard/homey in the terminal at LAX cuz they were next to the only free laptop charging station. He looked less crunk in person.

He was just kicking it doing some FORTRAN programming or something on his laptop and listening to what I have to assume was Bach. Nervous teenagers kept coming up to get his autograph. After much debate I had him sign my golden chalice. It isn't as nice as the one that he is pictured with here, but it special to me and now it's a highly valuable collectible.

They weren't on my flight though, so I didn't get to fulfil my plan of befriending him and convincing him to: (a) explain the origin and meaning of crunk, (b) feature me on a future track, and (c) teach me the meaning of love.

Oh well.

PS..

We had a delicious dinner made from scratch my Mandy last night with our new mystery friends mentioned here.......link..... I think it went fabulously and they probably don't hate us yet

PPS

Strapless panties continue to be our most highly hit post ever. Those people ought to be paying us.

and no, not that kind of piece

.
I've had a crappy Ikea dining room table for years. I think I bought it for less than $100 when I moved up to Seattle and realized I didn't have any furniture to put in my apartment. It's been moving around with me ever since. When we moved into the house here in Sac, we wanted something a little more unique and ended up buying a nice picnic table to have in our dining room. It was fun, but not quite what we were going for and if you sat too close to the edge of the bench you'd fall over when the other person on the bench stood up. Not so good.


About a month ago we stumbled on a very cool furniture store in Sac and were walking around looking for bookshelves/toy storage when I saw it. I immediately turned to B and said "that's our new dining room table." There's something about the dining room table that needs to be big and sturdy and welcoming. We love to eat. Good food and a good place to eat it is important. We need a good table. A table that you can sit around with your family and eat good food for 100 years. A table that our children can grow up on and eat Thanksgiving dinner with grandma and aunt 'chele. A table that looks as good on Christmas day as it does covered with homework papers. But unfortunately they don't make those tables anymore.


Oh but we found that table. Built in the late 1800s out of solid French Oak. Can't you just picture it living in a farmhouse in the french countryside?

We're pretty happy with it. It could probably seat 8, but we got 6 chairs with it. It's definitely got personality, and it could use a little bit of love, but we can handle that.

The only problem with all this is now we've got this beautiful oak "piece" in our dining room and the rest of our furniture is still mostly ikea-ish. I suppose this means we're going to have to start looking for more "pieces"? This sounds expensive.

B: I fought the law...

and the inlaws won.

They are finally gone today, but leaving us totally exhausted in their wake. A's parents and sister left this morning after a full week of visiting and playing with the baby. It was nice, but we are just wiped out. Sure we have had 4 days short of 8 months to get used to the baby and all, but we just aren't. All it takes is one small thing changing in our routine and we lose all feeling of control on our little world.

The laundry isn't done, we are out of food, and we haven't had a chance to unwind in a week. At least the house is as clean as it gets. We had some cleaners come in and I steamed the rugs and stuff. We still spent a week dealing with disapproving looks about how our child is clearly growing up in a sty.
Fuck it dude....


We dined at Cremant in Seattle on Saturday night. The inlaws baby sat so that we could go fetch us up some french food. It was tasty though the portions were too large. That was the case in Paris also, so I have to believe it is just a restaurant thing. I got my steak medium rare, and it was the rarest medium rare I have ever had. I guess that part was true to the spirit of french cuisine. A had the duck which was good and the onion soup was excellent. They are currently serving a Rhone that is stellar if you like such things.

A and I were thinking we would love to make a movie about us wanting to make a movie about us, but not knowing what the hell to make a movie about. Sort of am Adaptation meets Seinfeld thing with a Woody Allen vibe. We would try to get Wes Andersen to direct. A will be played by Gweneth Paltrow (ala Royal Tannenbamms including the wooden finger cuz why not), and Luke Wilson would play me (I could also go for Hugh Grant [it would be fun to be british in my movie]). Some of you might be in the movie too. Who should play you???