Girls night in Arlington

Tonight was an exciting night for Arlington. Christine is in town and Stacey went out and had her first post-Nate-al (get it?) glass of wine. In fact, I was ordered to have the glass of red waiting on the table for her so she could start drinking as she lowered her butt into the booth. Timing the wine in between feedings is key, I guess.

It was great to see Christine after almost 2 years. As you can see - none of us are aging. We all look as fabulous as we did in our 20's. (Granted, I'm not in this photo but this is the fantasy I tell myself so let's just go with it.) For those of you interested in Christine - she is still seeing Fletcher, she is enjoying her job (which was bought by another large medical device company but I've already forgotten the name), she travels to Europe for business and has a vacation in Spain on the horizon. Seems like just yesterday she was moving in to her Belmont apartment with Mike and her couch was stuck in the front door. Christine is one of those people that everyone says "Oh, Christine is so nice!" I used to be jealous about that but I've come to realize it's more fun being someone that no one says that about.

He'd hate the American Mothers Political Party, too

Mom and Sumner popped over for a Mom's day visit. We enjoy when Sumner ventures out and joins us.

He's a hoot. I like to get him going about politics which isn't hard to do. He won't be happy until everyone associated with local, state and federal government raises their collective hands and admits to the world that they suck. He hates them all, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party-ans, Whigs, Dixiecrats; you come up with one, Sumner hates them equally. He recently sent me an article in the mail deriding something the government did; I don't even remember the topic and it doesn't matter. I retaliated by sending him 10 pages worth of articles on why it's great to be an American. He got a kick out of it and now he says he owes me a rebuttal.

In addition to the banter being fun I like the idea of mailing things - old school. In a time when our grandkids will grow up rarely using email because it is too slow; not instant enough; it's nice to slow down the world and let our U.S. post office casually hand carry our barbs back and forth to each other.

Sorry Mom for getting Sumner going on a rant. I should have given you a break on Mom's day. I just couldn't resist.

Love you Mom. Love you Mom E, too.

Our first date with Nate

Bill and I were introduced to baby Nate yesterday. We were impressed with his sharp wit, his intelligence and his rumored ability to projectile poop.

Bill was very excited to hear that the name Nate was chosen from a book that he gave Stacey by Adam Corolla side kick Theresa Strasser. When everyone else was giving ducky blankets and onesies, Bill gave Stacey a book called "Exploiting My Baby".

Next stop Harvard Square for dinner and David Sedaris at the Sanders Theater. The first question to him at the end of the show was "How much do you miss your mother?" The next was "What is the stupidest question you have ever gotten in a Q&A session?" I can only assume that the sold out house - minus one - was thinking of the first question of the evening.

Bill is really into ties now - this one is my favorite.

Joey Has a Girlfriend....Really!!

Joey's girlfriend, Lauren, came over tonight to meet us. We had pizza and told embarrassing stories about Joey. We hit all the highlights including classic Joey quotes ( "I thought it was gas, but it was more" and "Beats me") and even played his greatest hits CD (Joey singing along with Taylor Swift and Johnny Cash) that he made Bill for Christmas. Lauren was very nice, personable, joined into the discussion, and laughed at our jokes. "You're going to be our blog post!!" we promised.

We forgot to take her picture.

sleepo de mayo

Jennie and I whooped it up for Cinco de Mayo

Take out pizza and to bed by 8:00pm. I returned home today from California after getting only three hours sleep and being squished in a middle seat on the flight.

The little yellow guy on Jen's shoulder is a Frito Bandito rubber eraser. I used to have one growing up and loved it. (Jen and I were confused why our town's mexican restaurant had balloons with Italy's colors. Those ... are ..... Mexico's ..... colors ..... too. We're losers.)

The Royal Treatment

It's hard to believe I have not mentioned the royal wedding on the blog. Laura came over that morning and we watched while we ate our breakfast. Then I scampered off to do a promotional radio spot on WNBP at 7:45 am so that all the Newburyport elderly and shut-ins would know about the festival.

Marge was kind enough to send me some items to prepare for royal wedding watching. First, these handy tea bags with royal cartoon holders (of course I couldn't bear to use them!)

She also sent along some articles to catch up on all the royal kitsch. Its hard to see in this photo but they are mass producing things like William and Kate sick bags, plates, tea towels, teddy bears, and of course, condoms with the tag line: Lie back and think of England!!

I confess

Faithful blog commenter, Diane, will recall a breakfast at Stella's in Newburyport several years ago when Bill and I accidentally revealed what we will be like as a crotchety old couple in the not too distant future.

Bill: "There is a new electronic reading thing....I think it was called a Grundle..."

Jen: "KINDLE!!!!!!!!!"

(Ok, I'm the crotchety one in this scenario - but you all knew that was coming, right?)

Yes, dear friends and followers, I have a Kindle, but I can assure you all that it will not stop me from buying books - real paper and binding books - for the rest of my life. I'm willing to admit that the Kindle has a place in the reading world. Good for travel, good for immediate gratification, good for buying that book that you may not want to spend $25 on the hard cover but for $9.99 you're willing to give it a try. But while I may travel with a Kindle, my souvenirs will always be local books (shipped home by the store - I've learned my lesson).

I have officially read 1 book on my Kindle and I liked it. Although I found myself obsessed with the little progress report at the bottom of the page that tells you the % of the book you read. Going up each percent was an event. I kept telling Bill, "I'm at 33%!" I'm hoping I will get over that soon (and so is Bill).

Of course, I never go halfway on my purchases (in fact - I bought the 3G version assuming that because it was more expensive, it must be better) I also bought the cover with extendable light to go with it.

All this being said, I will always love what Bill calls my "yellow books" - here is one of my classics:

"This guy had taken over. He had my dog, my wife, my clothes, my ears. He was THE MAN WITH MY FACE"

NOT available on a Kindle.

I'm totally cheating tonight!!

Today was uneventful and rather than resorting to a resurrection of the "sink series", I decided to post a few shots from my uber-geek book retreat from last month.

Probably the most established author at the event was Chris Bojahlian. Everyone wanted a piece of him. I just wanted his orange sneakers.

These are our authors for the weekend - organizers Ann and Michael from Book on the Night Stand are in the back. (counter clockwise from bottom right - Ellen Meeropol, John Thompson, Chris B, Susan Greg Gillmore, Wendy Clinch, Jon Clinch, Steve Himmer, Elizabeth Stuckey French and Matthew Dicks.)

Bill is in California this week on a work boondoggle. (He will be surprised that I'm putting that on the internet since I would assume a stalker will come after me knowing I'm home alone....so I'll add that since Bill left I bought an attack dog and a big spoon.) Anyway, I thought I would post some previously unposted pictures of him so that it wouldn't seem like he wasn't here. He's cute, isn't he? Hurry home, honey!

Jane Eyre - Finally!!

My post-festival treat was an afternoon with Lisa - shopping, early dinner, and seeing Jane Eyre. Look how happy she is as she digs into her meal at Ceia Kitchen. We only ordered a few appetizers to save room for a large screening room popcorn.

Finally a post that isn't about the festival!!

Men WIth Style

Male fashions are varied this season but tend towards a celebrity look alike theme...

We have the Ira Glass look, dominated by the skinny tie and black glasses - often confused with the gay "Glee" look so popular now...

We also have the ZZ Top throwback to times when hygenically-challenged men would sing about a sharp dressed man...

Finally, the timeless George Clooney handsomeness of an artist who can combine a floral shirt and a plaid hat. Very few can pull this off....and even fewer try.

The after-festival party was very very fun and based on our pictures I realized we basically hung out with the same 6 or 7 people all night. We had a good time imagining scandal (or were we not imagining it?) between a one of the young college students and a certain prize winning author...where were they headed...why were there tears...??

And the gratuitous annual picture of, Andre, tending bar.

Onward to 2012....