I realize that I have been remiss in reporting funny Hazel anecdotes, illustrated by unbelievably cute photos of our little girl. Just so you know, this post won’t really have much to say about Hazel, but with her First Birthday coming up in just two weeks(!), she’ll have much attention lavished upon her. For now, let’s focus on two occurrences that happened this week to pull Ragozzine optimism into a pin-wheeling nosedive.

First off, let’s turn the clock back a few nights. Hazel was slumbering peacefully in her crib, affording Megan and I the chance to sit back and watch some good old fashion network television. With upwards of four static-snowed channels provided FOR FREE by our rabbit ears antennae, a veritable world of entertainment waited for us in our living room. One of us was already sitting on the right-side of the futon when the other came in and sat down on the left-side of the futon, and with a KER-THUMP! the left-side of the futon frame collapsed to the ground, leaving us askew and laughing. That futon has been through a lot, including holding up the heft of O³Paul (One Ounce Overweight) on several occasions with nary a crack nor a sag. But its time has obviously come, so we resolved ourselves to buying a new couch with our well-timed economic stimulus check.

We settled on a sofa from IKEA’s Ektorp series. Not only will this match our Ektorp loveseat, but now we have twice the reasons to randomly bark out “Ektorp!” in a nigh passable German accent. Ektorp! And yes, we realize that IKEA is a Swedish company. But just like Paul, Ektorp has a distinct German connotation to it. However, unlike Paul, our soon-to-arrive Ektorp sofa won’t set off any “too much weight” elevator alarms.

I suppose now would be the best time to wish Paul a happy birthday. We hope to be making fat jokes about you for decades to come, so here’s to your long and joyous life!

The second ill-fated happenstance bubbled to the surface yesterday morning. In addition to May flowers, April showers brought us another flooded basement. We just got too much precipitation in too short a time earlier this week and the excessive water found its way inside again. Since we already have everything of value off the floor following the last flooding episode, nothing of great importance was lost except for some tag sale stuff, a few more cardboard boxes left over from our move, and all of our surplus stock of toilet paper. If you know me, you know that the latter actually may impact us fairly hard, but I’m trying to be positive.

After 5 hours of work with our utility pump and wet/dry vac, the tides seemed to have turned, so Megan and I went downtown for some lunch (Hazel having been magically whisked away to Grammie house). When we returned to the basement after about an hour or so, all the water had come back. Clearly our methods were not keeping up with the rate of ingress. Lucky for us, though, a new Lowe’s store opened up just 4 minutes from home and were offering 10% off on all purchases to celebrate their opening. So we were able to buy a larger, better pump with an electronic on/off sensor along with a few other things necessary to get our affairs in order. After just three more hours of work, the pump could now keep up with the water’s continual entry and we could take the rest of the night off from mopping and such.

All told, I wound up moving about 300 gallons of water by bucket and vacuum container up our bulkhead steps. In a moment of desperation, we also tried moving the many bags of tube sand off the floor drain (covered over by me based on a theory that it is not so much a drain as a forever-on faucet for groundwater) to see if it would do what it was designed to do. After hoisting 540 lbs of sand up the stairs to the backyard, we discovered that the drain is definitely where the water comes in; when I lifted up the last bag, water began gushing in like a leak in a submarine. So back down came 420 lbs worth of tube sand (the two last bags were just too many) and we picked up where we left off with water removal. If we can agree that one gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs, then I moved about 3400 lbs worth of water and sand yesterday up and/or down a half dozen cellar stairs. That’s close to 1-3/4 tons of stuff that I personally relocated, which ain’t half bad for a guy who hasn’t been to a gym in five years!

I’m happy to report that no new water has gotten inside, so things are looking up once more. In closing, I think this week can be most adequately summarized thusly: EKTORP!

We are back refreshed from our mini-vacation to the green southern lands of Connecticut and Manhattan. Seriously, flowers are growing down there while here in Maine all plant life is dormant and mostly brown. In fact, the only green grass I have seen is on Hadlock Field as we drove through Portland yesterday and in this one house’s lawn on my drive to work, most likely right above their leach field. Driving down to CT to visit my folks is almost old hat for Hazel. She’s really a champ at spending 6+ hours in a car, especially considering she travels strapped into a backward-facing seat by way of a five-point harness the whole time.

While in CT, Megan and I were able to see our niece, Carolyn, and her brand new baby brother, our nephew, Tyler. Plus, we had a wedding to attend in Manhattan. Due to the lateness of the event, it only made sense for us to leave Hazel in the competent care of Grandma and Poppa (née my Mom and Dad) for some much needed quality time. My old college chum (once you graduate, college friends become chums — it’s a fact!) Big Dave married Aislinn, a delightful lass if ever there was one. Their blessed day was, by far, the fanciest wedding I have ever attended. But it wasn’t fancy in a wearing-uncomfortable-rented-dress-shoes sort of way; despite the posh that dripped from every corner, the mood was relaxed and all attendees were contented throughout the entire evening. Blonde was even able to wear a napkin on his head without being jettisoned by the wait staff.

Without going into every minute detail, I think you can sum up the impression of this wedding with one word: bagpipes. We knew we were at the right church when we heard the bagpiping resounding off the tall buildings of Park Avenue. It was a nice way to stake their claim on this section of the Big Apple, but our kilted serenader wasn’t done once the ceremony kicked off. Following the grand hitching, his delightful piping greeted the assembled as we left the church and continued as he led all 200 of us through the streets of New York, making our way from 38th and Park to just north of Grand Central Station. Even without Shriners doing figure-eights in teeny cars and winging candy at passersby, it was still a hell of a parade.

All in all, it was a good think that we didn’t bring Hazel into NYC with us, as she would have come across many a Mets fan. She really doesn’t like Mets fans. Like, really really.

I headed down to Vermont on Friday for Big Dave’s Bachelor Party. Seeing as how we left the state over a year ago for the Narnian splendor that is Midcoast Maine, I looked forward to getting back to our old haunts. I cruised into VT around 7 p.m. on Friday with much honking of horns and flashing of headlights. Oddly, none of the Vermonsters I saw seemed to recognize me as that guy who lived there for two whole years. Oh how soon they forget.

The plan was to rent a house near Mt. Snow and spend days skiing and nights steeped in debauched ribaldry. Due to cash flow, I was planning on skipping the skiing, and a good thing I did, as it rained on Saturday as if my name was Noah. First it poured, then it poured harder, then a deluge fell upon the Earth, and just when we thought it was safe, the weather gods figured out a way to heft the entirety of the Amazon and Nile Rivers into the stratosphere so as to give Vermont a really good soaking. In other words, no way was I going to ski in a monsoon. A few guys went anyway, much to their own chagrin and that of their “waterproof” clothing. Mother Boyle would not have been pleased.

Despite the weather, all involved had a fine time. Our house came equipped with an air hockey table, two billiards tables, a ping-pong table, a lap pool (which I didn’t use), a Jacuzzi (which I didn’t use), a sauna (which I didn’t use), a home theater projector with surround sound, two fridges for stocking, and two kitchens for cooking. Plus, everyone had a bed of their own; no crashing on the floor or in the bathtub for me! Much fun was had, much Ninja Warrior was watched, and Big Dave even won a dance competition (see the stills at Paul’s Photo Page). All in all, I give this bachelor party two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Back in Vermont, we would typically get about 100 or so kids during prime trick-or-treating time. Our first Halloween there, we ran out of candy very early and I had to make an emergency supply run, getting caught in the town Halloween parade on my way back home. The next year, we stocked up on extra sweets and made it through…barely.

Now that we live on a cozy Maine cul-de-sac, we figured on a slew of candy grabbers for Hazel’s first Halloween. We decorated, dusted off Megan’s gorilla suit (sized for a fifth grader but fitting so nicely), and readied ourselves for a costumed onslaught. We ended up getting one group of four teenagers in quasi-costumes whose attitudes ranged from politely snarky to downright surly. The example of the latter is a boy - about two weeks away from needing to shave daily - wearing a Superman t-shirt and jeans. Megan the Gorilla asks, “And what are you dressed up as?” to which he responds, “I don’t know.” I would have almost preferred a sarcastic gibe rather than an apathetic shrugging off.

But we still had fun. Hazel’s friend Scout came over to hang dressed up as Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web - complete with extra legs tied to her arms, additional eyes on her head, and an abdomen featuring lifelike spinnerets. Very crafty.

 

 

 

Hazel’s costume was inspired by our shower buddy: Cap’n Pirate Ducky. It clicked in Megan’s head one morning that Hazel already had a duck outfit and a pirate hat. It was almost too perfect. Score one for cheapskate Macgyver Mommies and Daddies everywhere! 

So as you can plainly see below, Hazel got all hopped up on candy and crashed hard afterward. She was still reeling from a nougat and caramel hangover this morning, but Gorilla and Cap’n Ducky commiserated.

 

 

 

Having been born in November of 1978, I had to wait a long time for several of my first holiday experiences. Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving – I didn’t get to them until 1979, which is a real shame. Hazel’s lucky in that she was born before the boatload of important annual festivities. All she really missed out on were Groundhog’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Valentine’s Day; all acceptable losses though missing Henry Rollins’s Birthday was a bit of a kicker.

So, in preparation for her first Halloween, we had a pumpkin carving party over the weekend. Hazel was more of an observer than actual participant, as giving a five-and-a-half-month-old a large knife would probably wind up badly for all concerned. Megan went for a nature scene on her pumpkin and cut out some gently falling leaves. To juxtapose Megan’s tranquil scene, I freehanded an evil, uni-browed reptilian demon pun’kin – complete with forked tongue, protruding lower fangs, and a general bad attitude. After all, we want Hazel to be well-rounded (and not just physically like she is right now).

But I’m afraid that any manner of fancy gourd slicing couldn’t draw Hazel’s attention away from her hero: two-year-old Thomas, the son of Megan’s friend Becky. Hazel thrilled as she watched Thomas walk, eat things, have teeth, stab one of our chairs with a pumpkin carving knife, and begin to color our hallway a nice shade of Crayola mauve. A rule of kids that I learned real quickly is that they are always mesmerized by what slightly older kids can do. Before Hazel could sit up on her own, any child that could complete this feat was stared at agog like an earthbound saint. But of all the things that Thomas can do, I think the biggest source of Hazel’s envy was his ability to get at our cats whenever he felt like it. For her, trying to catch Casey Jones or Fleabag is like trying to net the wind. I keep telling her that soon enough, she’ll be hustling those felines around our house like Benny Hill after young British ingénue.

Obligatory Halloween costume pics coming up next!

Over the weekend, Hazel had her first run-in with JO friends of ours, JO standing for John Originating. I must admit that I was a bit anxious going in, seeing as how JOs tend to not be as big on babies as MOs (Megan Originating). I feared that we’d bore them with infant-friendly activities or disgust them with pre-toddler bodily functions. I should point out that two of the visitors are actually DO friends, sharing a Dual Origination with both Megan and myself. However, I will maintain that the male half of this couple has strong JO tendencies (general dorkiness, crude humor, comic book knowledge, sci-fi leanings). Being outnumbered, the female half is getting the JO treatment in this post, being guilty by association.

All in all, we had a great time. Although I did notice a difference between this visit and when pure MOs or family hang out with Hazel. Unlike those times, if my memory serves, not a single JO made any physical contact with Hazel all weekend nor sought this opportunity out. In fact, when Hazel had a slight diaper malfunction and set to wailing during a public feeding, the real line in the sand was drawn between MOs and JOs. At first, naturally, there was much inching away and aversion of eyes. The safety zone appeared to be about 15 feet from the baby. However, as Hazel’s consternation grew, so did her decibel level. Without any visuals to go on, a bystander would have thought we were boiling our baby alive, inspired by the Lobster Fest madness that gripped Rockland all weekend. This set the JOs to actually run across the parking lot and huddle in their car, fiddling with the cold, predictable logic of cell phones and mp3 players. Once Hazel was cleaned up and calmed down, the visitation could continue.

I can understand this behavior. When my sister had her daughter a little over two years ago, my first visit was very much the same. I didn’t really want to hold my niece, and when I did, it was most awkward and reminiscent of how I would hold a Nerf product. However, I did differ from your standard JO in that, when it came to diaper time, I was all in…to observe that is, like at a teaching hospital. The only butts I wipe are my daughter’s and my own, the latter of which is a mental picture I want you all to savor for the rest of the day.