Big week for Connor

Connor had a very big week this week.

He was watching me the other day as I was drinking a glass of water; staring intently at the glass as I raised it, drank, and lowered it, then staring at me until I drank again. So I asked him if he wanted some and put the glass down near him. He pulled it in and I guided the rim to his mouth and he started gulping at the air until I was able to tip the glass enough to get some water to him. A little sputtering, but I was quite astonished by the whole event and how he's really starting to try to mimic us.

Connor also found his feet this week and he's starting to sit up with less support. If you put him in his very reclined buzzy chair, he ends up looking like he's doing crunches, trying to sit up.

We also went out to Bark In The Park this weekend which is a half day event sponsored by the Mecklenburg County Park & Rec. (LA's in LA County, San Diego's in San Diego County... Charlotte's in Mecklenburg County... go figure) We took the pugs and the stroller, but we had to park so far away from the park in the lot of a local church that by the time we had walked back to the park both the pugs and I (pushing the stroller) were ready to go home. But we stayed long enough to see Pam, our friend and realtor, who was there working a booth to help a friend. It was quite an event, and I'm sure one day we'll go back and have a lot of fun once Connor gets older, but not for several years.

BTW: I've been promising you some photos. Here's the latest batch that we've put up online.

I'm excited to see what the coming week holds.

Baby's First Passover

My sister and her husband and 14 month-old son came over for Passover dinner last night. I'd wanted to do something because we've been trying to get together for weeks but the boys' sleep schedules haven't really permitted an easy meetup. Also, Passover's a bit of a Thanksgiving event at my parent's house and since they're now 3,000 miles away I figured it would be good to assume the east coast mantle of Passover Host.

I cooked up a surprisingly good (in my humble opinion) chicken matzoball soup. Most surprising because I've never made chicken soup before and my cooking skills are limited to only a step or two above Kraft Dinner. Of course, some of the ingredients (read: the matzoballs) were from a jar, but the rest was all me. And Food Network. They deserve some of the credit for the recipe, though I did take my own liberties and changed it up where I needed to to get by.

I also got a great Haroset recipe from Food Network, which included walnuts, pecans and almonds. I used a Baron Herzog Merlot instead of Manachewitz so it wasn't as sweet, but some honey sweetened it up nicely without making it overly so. My brother-in-law gave it high marks, and he's not even Jewish!

My sister prepared the main course and brought dessert. She made some thinly sliced checken breast in olive oil with thyme which was simple yet surprisingly good. And then there was also a gouda cheese gravy that went over it which was delish, though quite rich and a little went a loooooong way.

I had a great time and I hope everyone else did too. But before you congratulate me on pulling off a traditional seder, I must confess that the extent of the religious aspect of dinner was a quick "The Pharaoh enslaved the Jews, but God brought the plagues and had Moses lead us to freedom. The end". That, and my lamb shank was a bone from a chicken drumstick. I'm hoping it was the thought that counts.

Really though, it was just good to get together with family and have a nice dinner and nice conversation. The end.

Connor's First Haircut

You'd think "wow, 4 months is a little early for a haircut", but considering the number of people who are now mistaking my son for a girl thanks to his long curls, it was time to take him in for a trim.

Poor thing cried the whole time in the chair. I was holding him, of course, considering that he's only just able to control his head and still not able to sit up on his own. We took home the traditinal envelope of "Baby's First Haircut" clippings and took plenty of photos. I'll get these up online this week sometime.

Twitter... twitter... twitter

My friend Mike got me started back again on Twitter. I'd first heard of it over a year ago and signed up on a lark but only posted once and then let the account sit idle. Sometimes if things seem really cool I like to get in early so I can reserve the nickname I've used online since my college days: DixonHill.

If you haven't heard of Twitter, it's like a blog, except your entries are limited to 140 characters. So you really can't say that much except for "Going to bed" or "having trouble figuring out how to install my dishwasher" or "really hungry" or somesuch blabber. As such, it's basically a stream-of-consciousness what-are-you-doing-right-now view into the lives of other tweeters (those who use twitter)

Anyway, I'm out there in the twittersphere again now, tweeting from time to time. You can send in tweets (updates) via Instant Messenger or your cell phone, so that makes it easy to shoot off a casual tweet from time to time when the urge hits you.

Twitter also actively tracks your "followers": people who have "subscribed" to your twitter stream. If you follow someone, on your main page you'll see all of your posts and all of theirs, in the order they're written. Strangely enough, I seem to be attracting followers. Not sure if it's because I have anything interesting to say or just because I've got a bunch of SciFi and Disney stuff in my profile.

Anyway, if you're curious or bored, check out my twitter page to see what I'm up to: http://www.twitter.com/dixonhill

You what?!?!?!

Recap of a conversation between my wife and the girl building her sandwich at Subway the other day:

Misha: "Can you also add some avocado to my sandwich?"
SubwayChick : "I don't know what that is..."
Misha: "... Avocado? ..."
SubwayChick: " "I don't know what that is..."

Excuse me while I cry...

Art Sale!

My friend Meredith and her husband Sean in Los Angeles are art distributors who represent several up-and-coming artists. I do their web design on the side (http://www.thehowsecollection.com).

Anyway, they're selling off some of their older Amy Lynn originals at amazing prices. One of my favorite pieces is on the block: "Speakeasy"...


... which was featured in the dorms on the recent season of Hell's Kitchen along with another Amy Lynn piece called "Mix & Mingle".

Here's the link to the originals that are on sale:
http://web.mac.com/sean311/iWeb/Site%2072/sale.html

If you get a chance, check out the pieces and pick one up. I'm a huge fan of Deco so these really appeal to me. (We're probably going to get 1 for ourselves.)

Bad Carl...

I just realized I posted a grand total of 2 times in February.

And one of those posts I had to change the post date on since it was already March.

Bad Carl.

Well, now that the Gallbladder saga is over, and the parents have all departed, and my sister has moved into her new house, and Connor's no longer as fussy and is actually sleeping for pretty long periods at night, I might just have more time to air my insignificant minutiae to anyone interested in reading it.

Besides, some of the stuff that went down last month... it's just better to let it lie like the sleeping pit bull it is.