Good thing your father has been in Africa, Kim.

The Ebert bedtime television ritual is usually a combination of the following: House, ESPN, some police reality show, and a rerun of some UFC fight. Mind you, we don't spend four hours watching TV as we nestle into sleepy mode. Derrel has what we in the field call Remote ContrOCD. In our studies we have learned that often times, he will change the channel merely out of habit, and not necessarily because he is unhappy with the current programming. When I say 'we', I mean wives, and 'the field' would be husbandology. This should not be confused with the breeding and raising of livestock. That was their mother's responsibility.

But I digress. In the blip of Sports Center that we caught last night, we heard Dallas Stars hockey player Sean Avery make a very crude comment in reference to his ex-girlfriend dating other hockey players. We didn't hear all of the interview, but the term "sloppy seconds" found its way in and, thankfully, that was the trigger that got us over to channel 58 (for a second). This morning the front page of our internet had a picture of Kim Bauer, Jack's ridiculous daughter in the world that is '24'. She is the American Idol to my Arrested Development; the Cameron to my House. I clicked on to the back section of the internaper to make sure she didn't mess with January 11's launch of season 7.

Turns out Kim Bauer is the ex-girlfriend of the gentlemanly Sean Avery. Apparently the gal likes hockey. Whatever the reason, let's just be grateful that her antics will keep her out of CTU. You're a lucky guy, Sean. Had he not been helping African kids to asylum in the U.S., Jack Bauer would have been dropping down from the Teletron during your game, in a hail of gunfire.

Proud Parents

Satchmo (and his folks) had his first dog park experience this weekend at Lake Padden. We were a little nervous about cutting him loose in this suprisingly large field with all the other kids but, after some initial nervousness, he made a lot of new friends.

In all honestly, it was actually a pretty sweet experience to just watch him play with other dogs. At one point, he got an opportunity to show off his mad frisbee skills in front of his playmates. Lake Padden also has a "dog water exercise area," which we had to take advantage of. Ever since I first saw Satchy diving for toys at the bottom of grandma and grandpa's pool I've been anxious to see how he does with non-man-made bodies of water...like a... lake.

Hmm...wait a minute.

Our Home and Native Land

Right off the bat, we had to go on a business trip for Derrel's new job, which he's very happy at:

We went to Cologna, Canada ( or Kelowna, as it's spelled everywhere else outside of this blog). Seriously, there's some Frenchness going on in Canada, I just assumed some silent letters were involved somewhere. After four hours of gorgeous scenery and at least three partial renditions of "Oh Canada" from my oh-so-cultured husband, we reached the waterside nugget.

But that's when things got interesting. The bridge we had to cross to get into Kelowna was trying to earn its place into the Guinness Book of World Records...

...for the longest bra-chain. Seeing as it's National Breast Cancer Awareness month, a local radio station decided to give it a go. The string of ladies undergarments crossed the bridge three times, amounting to a length just shy of two miles (over 3000 bras). Of course, when we were crossing the bridge, we didn't have this information. We thought that all of the women fallen victim to Canada's male-centered, oppressive rule were finally speaking out. The oppression continued, however, as I had dinner with the other nine men attending the league meeting. I would like to call this particular episode of our lives, "Ego and the City." For a moment, it did feel like I was dining with nine other women, all talking over each other about men and other women, drinking wine and hitting on the restaurant's staff. Only this time, it was men talking about themselves and baseball and hitting on much younger and more married female wait staff. They did still drink wine. I'm so grateful that the game and "the game" have never caught up with Derrel the way they have with the other attendees. It was a definite case study. I knew I should have packed my safari hat.

I was recently reminded that our lives have had a pretty major change, and that I should probably mention it to the blorld (blog world).

We just recently finished the 22-hour trek to Bellingham, Washington; about 90 miles north of Seattle, and just close enough to the Canadian border to be picking up radio stations in French. Satch kept a close eye on our folks in the U-Haul behind us, and we blazed the trail in just about two days.

So far, we LOVE it! We've played in the downtown area quite a bit (which is a bit Davis-like), we've gone hiking (which is a bit exercise-like), and have really enjoyed napping through overcast afternoons (much more us-like).

Derrel started his new job yesterday and seems to like it. We're off to Kelowna, Cananda, this weekend for his league meeting, so the adventure continues!

Being Bellingham

Our first venture to Bellingham was an adventure. We didn't have much opportunity to enjoy the city beyond it's residential offerings. After two non-stop days of looking for a place to live (there are actually entire societies out there that survive without fences), we found a GREAT place to live, with a nice, grassy backyard for Satchmo. And, as of a few hours ago, it is officially ours!

Here are some shots of our trip:

We went to a trendy little pizza place downtown and got "The Spuddy":a pizza with bacon, chives, sour cream, barbeque sauce, and a potato sauce. I don't know how a potato sauce comes about, but it was pretty awesome, and something that I think Rodney would totally dig. Because Washington has enough trees for everyone to hug, Bellingham is a very eco-friendly city. Everything in this pizza place is completely compostable. All of the to-go cartons and utensils are completely made of corn! Crazy. Then we went for ice cream at Mallards, the downtown hipster hangout. It's Leatherby's all grown up... with massive dredlocks. It can never be Leatherby's but, then again, Leatherby's can never have dredlocks.
And that's our new house!!!

Two years ago...

at about this time, I was sitting in a labor room watching Rodney eat hospital food because Stacy was 18 months pregnant and not interested in eating it herself. Until about noon o' clock I was looking forward to what I thought would be a day full of Arrested Development, sporadic pauses to let Stacy know she was having a contraction, and at the end of the day, a baby. In just over an hour we will have found out that Stacy was going in, Nathan was coming out, and that all of our lives would be changed forever. At 12:51 I'll probably get a bit teary-eyed. Oh, I guess 10:50 is as good a time as any.


Happy Birthday, Nathan. We thank God everyday for the blessing that he's given us in you.

And may I say, AHHHHHH
For those who may have missed the sky-writing, I no longer like my job. The past few months, in particular, have completely erased my memory of any silver linings.

I get to start my day talking to vendors that have dropped the ball on delivering furniture and are talking fast to keep business. I spend the middle parts of my day scheduling/ having meetings with vendors that either lie or talk to me like I'm stupid. Then, I get to wrap up my day by explaining to an appliance company that no, I didn't ask to pick up the stove. Why would I have negotiated for free delivery if I was going to pick up the stove and not have you deliver it?
Then, just as I'm seeing the light at the end of the daily tunnel (not to be confused with the Daily Double), I get to talk to a slimy car salesman who, again, talks to me like I'm an idiot. So the day comes full circle. The bonus? The sexist joke the salesman wraps up with.

Do you think "overabundance of misery" sets a good tone for a resignation letter?