He Wants Donuts!

We got an oil change today. I promised Anders donuts since a nice salesman at the dealership gave him one last time. You might be wondering why we get our oil change at the dealership? I'll refer those questions to Anna. While there were Chick-fil-a breakfast sandwiches, there were no donuts. So when we arrived home, Anders and I went for a stroll in search of donuts. There are a lot of shops that might sell donuts, but don't in the strip malls near our house. I eventually found donuts at Randall's (a grocery store). We sat at a table, and Anders sat "like a big guy." He was excited for "Anders, one donut, Daddy, one donut!" He likes to share the donut experience. We finally went out for my birthday at our favorite seafood restaurant in downtown Sugar Land. I love their honey-glazed chipotle shrimp tacos. We had birthday dessert at Ben and Jerry's. It has been beautiful here today 68, crips, not a cloud in the sky. I hope we will carve the pumpkin tonight and make it a "funny pumpkin." Anna's trying to get Anders weened off the sippy cup by drinking "big guy milk" out of a cup. This might prove to be another epic battle of wills.

Body Slam!

Anders' cautious nature is well documented. Last night he started doing something a bit reckless and quite funny. I'm not sure how it started, he might have just jumped on me or I might have encouraged him. Regardless, he fell on me while I was lying on the carpet in his room and I told him he'd done a body slam. He liked this idea and repeated it, "Body Slam! Body Slam!"

He just falls on me without trying to hard to catch himself. Sometimes he rolls over me, sometimes he gets me in the face, and other times he catches me in more sensitive areas. I'm just excited that he's having fun in a way that doesn't include singing the ABC Song or counting to thirty. Along with his willingness to go down the slide sometimes, Anders is getting more sure of himself regarding physical activity. I have to keep reminding myself that he only started walking 6 months ago even though he's sort of 2 plus now.

By the way, Saturday is Anders Liberation Day (ALD). I'm hoping that Anna's allergies will be under control enough that we can go out for my birthday/ALD. Fourteen weeks ago, I was living with my in-laws in the north woods, while now I'm settling into the buckle of the Sunbelt. For Fourteen weeks two years ago, we waited and waited, and Anna pumped, and we waited some more. We saw summer turn to fall, and blew through fall to winter.

It was 90 here today, again. It's supposed to be cooling off so that the Floodwater Mosquitoes might start to die tonight. Along with meeting throngs of the Floodwater Mosquitoes at the zoo, they seem to have also found a natural habitat at the bathroom closest to my room at school. My door opens to the out-of-doors (the Rushmore Quad) so I'm lucky they haven't found their way to my room yet. Tomorrow our highs are supposed to be in the 60s, but it's going to take more than a weather forecast to convince me that it won't be 90 tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. This might be too much of a good thing. I do think, however, that all the sunshine has made my disposition more pleasant.

Good night and ...Body Slam!

Divorced Dad Weekend

I have a new found respect for divorced dads who run around with their kids to amusements all weekend. Anna was sick this weekend and rather than canceling the planned fun, I kept up the schedule. On Saturday morning, we drove up to the only Dunkin Donuts in Houston where Anders scarfed down a whole glazed donut. He sat on a chair without a booster seat across the table from me. Then we drove down to Galveston where we waded in the water, walked out to meet the waves, and wrote letters in the sand. Anders fell asleep before we were off the island and slept all the way home.

A quick aside, I've mentioned the native Iowan, Tim Heller, who does the weather on ABC 13. Well, he is obsessed with Galveston, which I also quite like. This had led Anna to many comments about weather-obsessed, land-locked Iowans who can't get enough of Galveston.

Yesterday, I took Anders to the zoo where we met Alan and his parents. Unfortunately for the Bayou City, the mosquitoes hatched late last week. I have spent many summer nights in Minnesota, four years of church summer camp. and summer evenings in Lindsborg, but I cannot remember being attacked by such a swarm of mosquitoes. Theses suckers bit through my shirt! It was maddening. But how did Anders react? By laughing, "Skitoes, funny. Skitoes! Skitoes!" He was laughing himself red in the face as the mosquitoes swarmed around and bit him.

I wondered why the new minor league baseball team we are getting in town next spring will be called the Sugar Land Skeeters, now I know. I would almost be willing to pay for a luxury box to see former Twin Gary Gaetti and putative Skeeters manager slap at Mosquitoes for 9 innings. If you've never seen GG, he looks more like a plumber than a former professional athlete.

We didn't see too much as Zoo Boo, but Anders did enjoy the kids in Halloween costumes, the funny pumpkins, and riding in the wagon with Alan.

I hope Anna feels better soon and I hope this cool down at the end of the week kills some of these pests. While back they they are girding for winter, it was 91, humid, and mosquito-ful today aka July 4th in the Upper Midwest.

Anders asked us to be careful as he went to bed tonight. He is his mother's son. Conversely, we went to HEB to pick out a pumpkin tonight, and when I get separated from Ann and Anders I don't look for them, instead I listen for Anders. He talks, songs, chirps, and announces his way through any and all public venues.

He also noticed Anna's eye color. He looked up and told her, "Mommy, blue eyes." Later, he did the same for me. It wasn't until a few years ago that Anna told me my eye color. It was never something I even thought about.

Breaking news, it sounds like Mizzou will stay in the Big 12 for now. I was really rooting for Houston to get an invite so I could see KU Basketball games in town, but UH is headed to the Big East.

More breaking news, if MN Steve still reads this, the McRib is back.

I can't decide if I'm rooting for St. Louis or Texas in the World Series. I can't stand LaRussa and Pujols, but I love that they have a player named Jon Jay. Perhaps we will negotiate a treaty that effectively gives the World Series to the Rangers (some history humor). Conversely, I'm sick of seeing the awkward high fives between Nolan Ryan and W, but I like Ron Washington. I guess I hope it goes 7 games since I like having sports on TV in the evenings and I'll see what happens then.

Anders at Home and at Children's Museum

Sweatshirt Day

Mark it down, Oct. 18, 2011 as the first sweatshirt day of the year in Sugar Land. I took Anders to the playground at the elementary school near our house. Anders loved playing on the big plastic "allgador," "rIno," and "tuhtle." I even got him to go down the slide next to me a few times. That was the most remarkable event, that he went down the slide and seemed to enjoy it. He was even more interested in playing than reading letters that he incidentally found on the playground.

One of the sweetest things he does, as I am walking and rocking him to sleep at night, is to tell me "long day" at the end of our night time ritual. He also repeats "so much" to me after I tell him I love him " so much." He likes to recap the day with me as I rock him to sleep. He retold our evening on the playground. I love his night time summaries!

We took Anders to the zoo last week with my advisory of 9th graders. It's a great job when you get paid to go to the zoo! We became members of the zoo, which means that we can now go to the zoo and bring a slew of visitors for free through the end of Nov. next year. There is a walking mall of jackolanterns or "funny pumpkins" as Anders says. The zoo is part of a bigger Houston park, Hermann Park, in a nice area of town near Rice and the hotel where Bill Murray's character gets attacked by bees in Rushmore (that one's for you Lucas). The zoo has all the essentials, but is not too big. The Columbus Zoo is the #1 Ranked zoo in the country, and for good reason, it's amazing. The problem is that its too big for a toddler. The Columbus Zoo is perfect for a curious 9 year old. The other nice thing is that parking is free at the Houston Zoo and you can go there year round.

Sugar Land has really come alive in the past couple of weeks. October is like April back home. After a long summer, weather gets better and people come outside. I've been told by more than one person that from now to the end of the year is the best time of year weather-wise in Houston. It's such an odd experience to have 95 degree days in October, and I hope those early Oct. days are a thing of the past. It's interesting just how similar temps in the 70s in Houston's mid October elicits the same reaction that temps in the mid 70s conjure in April in Decorah.

This post has been a bit disjointed as I have been popping up to put Anders back to bed. He climbed out of his crib last week for the first time last Wednesday, the same day we went to the zoo. We asked Anders how he got out of the crib after we put him back in the crib. He responded by wordlessly climbing over the fence and plopping on the floor. He demonstrated his vaulting escape again on Skype for my mom on Saturday.

Anna was totally prepared for this eventuality. She put false door knobs all over the house and turned the crib into a toddler bed that afternoon. It was a decisive, well-planned, and efficient move by Mommy.

The other reason that Anders is up and down is that Anna is out with friends. Anna has become Little Miss Sugar Land. She has a very full social calendar. Anyone who knows Anna is waiting for the joke, but this is no joke. Something just clicked for her down here. She decided to go into Friend-Making Mode and it seems to be working.

When we made friends in Athens, the common thread was commiserating about how much we hated Southeast Ohio. When we meet people down here, a common conversation piece is how much more we like Sugar Land than we thought we would and how much more we like it than the place from whence we moved. It still feels odd to live in a place where people like living and are moving to in droves. I guess that's the last 40 years of US history in a nutshell, the migration from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. I'm so excited for this time of year when Sun Belt living pays off big time.

The other reason Anders was up was that his favorite blanket is smelly. I held off on giving it to him, but when he simply refused to sleep, I gave in. Now he finally appears to be down. We might have a bit of a Linus on our hands.

Galveston, Oh Galveston I still hear your sea wind blowin'

14,15 and A,B Song

Anders went to his first football game on Thursday, the big Episcopal game. I'm still not sure entirely why, but they are the despised rival. Anders enjoyed the cheering, but he was also a bit freaked out by it. He liked the scoreboard and the big "M" for Mavericks at midfield. At one point, Anders made a break for the students' section. A number of my students met Anders. He was quite charming, he even got a couple of cheerleaders in trouble with their coach for running over to meet Anders. Anders and I left at halftime because it was bedtime, but he remained awake on the ride home and told Mom all about it. Anders now refers to this experience as 14-15, since he saw St. John's score 14 points, by the way St. John's won the game.

Anders has also had some recent fun feeding the ducks. I should take a picture of the duck pond. There are a bunch of aggressive ducks that waddle up to anyone who appears to have food. These ducks have actually taken food right out of Anders' hand. leading Anders to say "Ducks bite hand!"

Anders knows Lincoln is on the penny. We ask him, "Who is on the penny?" "Lincoln!" he answers. Anders also knows the current president, whom he calls "Oh Bama," much like he would say "Oh Ernie" or "Oh Bert." Obama is like a Muppet to Anders, which puts him in Anders' highest regard. Yesterday, he even said Sirte, after hearing about Libya on the news. Anders still enjoys nuck (milk) and news.

Anna taught him to say, "Oh, no, no, thank you, Sir," which he says over and over. He also picks up Cheerios from the floor, saying "thank you" as he picks up each cheerio from the floor.

We took Anders to the Houston Children's Museum on Saturday. Anders loved the stackable letter blocks best. He also enjoyed playing with my colleague Jason's son, Alan who is a couple months older than Anders. Today Anna and Anders had a play date with a friend of Chris Heine's wife who lives here in Sugar Land. You know who else lives in the Sugar Land area? TV's Bo Duke, yes, John Schneider. I'm not sure if Luke Duke lives in Katy, but I bet Coy and Vance live no closer than Lake Charles. Anyway, Anders had a great time. Anna said he laughed harder than she's ever seen him laugh at the antics of the almost-three-year-old girl on the play date.

I had Columbus Day off. I was working on grades and writing comments, which I turn in with grades. Wednesday, my advisory of 9th graders and my family are all going to the zoo together. Then, Thursday, Anna and Anders are attending Anders' first friend's birthday party.

The weather is much better now. We had a true rainy day with inches of rain yesterday. For the first time since we moved here the high temp was not in the 80s. It smells really good outside now, not cool and crisp like in the Midwest, but it smells sort of like March in Arizona or December in Los Angeles, smells that I love.

Anna and I still talk about Athens, usually at dinner time. We recently had a discussion about when we exactly hit rock bottom in Athens. Anna maintains it was the Sunday morning last fall when we were heading to the emergency vet in West Virginia to treat Trudy for fleas that had reached her via one of Anna's students. For me it was last March when I was hundreds of miles from home interviewing for a job I didn't want and knew I wouldn't get and learned that home inspectors found bogus problems with our basement imperiling our fragile agreement to sell the house, along with the fact that Anders was ill and admitted to that Mickey Mouse hospital in Gallipolis. Those are the nature of our discussions when we remember Athens.

Oh, Anders also loves playing with the football. He enjoys stacking toy pirates from the splash table on the car. Anna forgot about this one time, thus taking the pirates on a joy ride. Later that afternoon, we found the pirates aground on Greenfields Drive half a block away!

Not only does Anders loves Dallas, but he loves the Texas grocery chain, HEB. He loves finding those letters and excitedly shouting out H E B! A new HEB just opened in Sugar Land. Texas is unique because it's the only place I've been in the last three years where they are still building retail outlets and houses. Like Anders, I genuinely like it here.

I almost forgot, Anders know can sing the complete ABC song!

Ashiki Option Again

In 1993, Ashiki Preston, the starting quarterback for the Kansas Jayhawks, ran the option offense. Great, your saying. What does this mean?
Well, first it means that this is an Anders-lite post, but I hope someday he will read this piece knowingly as he looks back on his verbose father and his own wonderful friends.
This morning I'm waking up in Chicago after my friend Lucas's wedding to his wonderful new wife, Sarah. This happy occasion made me think about friendship. One of the best things about weddings of my friends is that they give me a chance to see other friends of mine, so in this case Brad and Styvos (STE-voze), Jason Styve, or as my mom would say Justin Styve. Styvos called my house almost every day from 1991-1997, but it was only a 50/50 bet that my mom would tell me Jason was calling, all the other times it was "Justin." My mom called him Justin because he reminded her of my even earlier friend Justin Myers in Marquette. Anyway, Styvos would almost always be the first person to call the night that I returned from long trips to Kansas in the summer or Christmas.
Styvos, Lucas, Brad, and myself were a package deal, especially in Junior High. If Styvos would invite me over to his house, I would assume rightly that Lucas was already there and there would be a 75% chance that Brad was coming over or was already there as well. We didn't really do that much. I think we used to watch Cubs games and of course hone our offense, the Ashiki Option, which we also worked on at school. I was QB, Voze was fullback, Brad was left halfback, and Lucas was right halfback, and we would just run imaginary plays against an imaginary defense. Yes Anders, your father was a really cool dude in junior high.
I am learning the value of brevity. I gave a speech as I usually do at the weddings of good friends. No, I've never been the best man in a wedding, but I always seem to find my way to the microphone. I was sitting between Styvos and Brad, and we were at Table 2, right next to Lucas and Sarah. We were actually closer to Lucas than his family's table.
I had a ball. I had not seen Styvos since my own wedding over nine years ago. After some initial awkwardness and trips to the bar, we fell in line like old times. I forgot how much Styvos could make me laugh. He still says the most randomly inappropriate things, which get me every time. The great thing about hanging out over 9 years later is that he didn't have to search for the laughter, he knew right where to go. He had me going to the point that Lucas's parents, Stan and Deb, looked over at me and started laughing themselves.
If you've never heard me laugh, my laugh is a hybrid of the laughs of Eddie Murphy and Chewbacca, and I've been told it's infectious. Of course Styvos should be good at this since every day at lunch during 8th and 9th grade, he tried to get me to spit out my banana during lunch, an event that became known as The Banana Laugh.
One of the hardest things about moving to a new place after eight years in another place is trying to make connections with new people who might become friends at some later date. Spending a night like last night with some of my oldest friends was priceless. One of the most refreshing things Styvos did was not ask me a thing about myself or my life. This stilted, awkward conversation is part of what weddings are all about and I did my fair share of that yesterday, but not while next to Styvos. He just started talking in his usual stream of consciousness manner and it was, in the words of Anders, "mazing."
I also want to pay Brad a compliment. Brad is a medical fellow who will be a full fledged pediatric anasteseologist next year. I respect what he has accomplished so much more after teaching for a while at St. John's where they have organic chemistry and other advanced science classes in high school taught by world class faculty, some of whom hold terminal degrees in their fields and are associated with NASA. Brad had to compete with these people to get into medical school and beyond by "relying" on his high school science background. Our high school science department consisted of a diffident hippie, a bio teacher who only talked about nuclear annihilation, and a chemistry teacher so overwhelmed by her subject that Brad essentially taught the class. Don't get me wrong, on the whole Decorah High School was fine, but when your goal is to compete with the best, then it seems insufficient. Brad succeeded anyway, even if he has some crazy ideas about orange juice.
Styvos is self-employed and running two or three businesses. Lucas works for a burgeoning Internet start-up company, and I work at one of the best schools in the country. I'm really proud of my friends. We've come along way since the Ashiki Option.
I guess that since I gave a short speech I had to ramble on the Internet...
Teaching in high school for the first time makes me miss my friends on a daily basis. It's only human nature to compare and contrast my high school experience with that of my students. They have me beat in almost every way, but I doubt they have me beat in the quality of friends I made. I hope Anders can have as good friends as I did growing up. I remember at the end of high school my mom marveling at all my good friends. I didn't really appreciate it then, but she said I would in the future and she is correct.
A night like last evening can tide me over for a good long time.
I go to Decorah a couple of times per year, but Decorah's not home anymore. Home is where your friends are. Home is where your memories reside. Home is with Mama and you, Mr. Bear, in Sugar Land, but home is also at a restaurant in Chicago or a canyon in Colorado or a ridge in Massachusetts or whenever your friends still gather years later to share the best moments of their lives.

New House, Old Camera

4, 5, Fun for 500

This is the 500th blog post, which is a pretty good clip since Anders has less than 800 days under his belt. Anders' code for water in which he can play is 4, 5 since he fixated on the 4 and 5 ft signs at our local pool.

Someday I need Anna to write a post about what goes down at the library each Wednesday or at a SLAM (Sugar Land Area Moms) playgroup.

Anders now likes "news, sit, nuck," which means sitting on the couch and watching the news as he drinks his milk. He's a fan of the CBS Sunday Morning trumpets and the John Williams' NBC Nightly News theme. He of course likes the weather. Anders would not be my son if he did not.

Some of the senior girls in my econ class stumbled out the picture of Anders at my desk, which led to cuteness-related shrieking. It was pretty funny, but startling.

Yesterday, I dusted the stroller off and took Anders to a duck pond near our house. We brought some stale bread with which Anders and I fed the ducks. Anders figured out how to get a little distance in his bread throws, along with noticing the ducks on all sides of him. Some of these ducks could start in centerfield for the Royals with their ability to snatch bread out of the air. But the goose...not so much. Every piece of bread I threw at him hit him in the neck.

We picked up our new camera, so we will have some decent pictures to post soon of today's trip to Galveston. I like Galveston, maybe not as much as Glen Campbell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIUPCfIihQ4 but I like it. Anders enjoyed having the waves crash into him. I took him out a bit deeper. He enjoyed having the waves crash into both of us. He walked with Anna along the shore, but once he realized that they could write letters in the sand it was all over for him. At one point, Anders looked out, pointed, and said "clouds, water."

But what kind of water? I'm a Carlyle-Group-Trilateral-Commission-One-World-Ocean guy. Anna, meanwhile, maintains that we were not at an ocean today, rather we we left our pink house for a vacation down by the Gulf of Mexico. I believe that geographers or oceanographers have just named different facets and corners of our one world ocean. This argument continues.

We might have to try the Kemah Boardwalk next time. If you don't know what that is, look it up in your Southwest Airlines in flight magazine next to the Landry's Steakhouse ad, which Galveston also has.

Funny No No

I wanted to get this one down before it got away from me. Last week as Anna was disciplining Anders in a stern fashion for throwing his food. She looked him in the eyes, he made a funny face, and she lost it. As she removed him from the table for a timeout in his crib, she was shaking with laughter. Anna hauled him away as he repeated over her shoulder "Funny No No, funny no no." It's the Anders and Anna Show now. They are a laugh per minute together. Anders is totally dialed into Anna. Sometimes I think he forgets I'm here, but that's the way it should be.

Well, our dish washer broke on Thursday. We should be getting another this week. I now openly discuss what will break next. My money is on the stove. It's pretty old and if you want to use the front two burners, they must be lit manually. Our air conditioner sounds like a trapped cat is trying to get out when it cycles off. Meanwhile, we are headed back to triple digits this week. Last week was nice with cool mornings of low humidity. It felt like Fort Collins.

Iowa lost to Iowa State and the Vikings lost the Chargers. It could be a long football season. I might jump on the Texans bandwagon. They have a very 2009 Vikings feel with good skill position players, suspect glue guys, and a mentally over-matched head coach.

I finally took the advice of my 10th grade English teacher, Ms. Cantine, and got involved in high school dramatics. I played an off beat creative writing teacher in a series of webisodes. I want to be on the ground floor for the next Wes Anderson. I could be the next Kumar Palina aka "Mr. Littlejeans" from "Rushmore."

My Anders Favorites

My favorite Anders Book is "Put Me In the Zoo."

My favorite Anders Song is "Old King Cole."

We finally dropped below 100 degrees on Saturday and we should remain so for the near future. It's truly amazing how nice 90 feels after a month of 102 and sunny, with the odd 109 degree day sprinkled in there.

Houston is no where near getting over losing out on having a space shuttle placed in H-Town.

Since we moved in, we have had put in a new hot water heater, two new bathrooms sinks, a new toilet, a new garage door, a sprinkler system in the lawn, and a newly reinforced foundation for the house. Our landlady paid for those things. Tomorrow, our new recliner is delivered, and after that I hope we will be truly moved into our "new...house! (as Anders says).

dinner conversation

Last night at dinner, Anders was going around the room naming us, "Daddy! Ah-ners! Mommy!"

Anna: Oh, Anders, you're just so...

Anders: CUTE!

Anna (laughing): Yes, so cute!

Anders: Funny!...Laughing....

"The Mexican Food Sucks North of Here Anyway"

That's a lyric from a mediocre pop song from the middle of last decade, which I used to hear while working out at the Ping Center at OU.

We finally made it to the mighty Galleria today. What a mess. That place was hot, flat, and crowded. Despite being flat, it made no sense. We ended up eating at a Mexican restaurant by an ice skating rink. The important thing to know, which you could easily guess, is that mediocre Mexican restaurants down here are better than good ones in the Midwest. That, and the table salsa is much hotter. Anna allowed Anders to dip and eat chips, after warning him about the salsa. It didn't phase him. Mind you, if this salsa was served at a gathering of my in laws it would be sampled by one person who would stage such an elaborate production that no one else would touch it again. Anders just nonchalantly chowed down.

The other funny thing is that Anders loves to say "Dallas." We try to get him to say the name of other cities including Houston, but he keeps coming back to Dallas. This won't help Houston's inferiority complex. It's the Milwaukee of Texas. Austin is the Madison and Dallas is the Chicago. People are always trying to explain why Houston is better than Dallas. I like Houston, but I find the chip on its shoulder amusing. Now, Anders adds fuel to the fire as he can't get enough of Dallas, his new favorite word.

Anders Rallies Fingerprintees

Anna has most of the good Anders Adventures since she is with him during the weekdays. The best stories are now second hand to me. Yesterday, Anna took Anders to Katy to get her fingerprints in her long quest for a Texas Teaching License. Texas is an interesting paradox because they require an unreasonable amount of documentation and paperwork to due anything official but their dearth of government offices to attain this paperwork makes attaining that documentation difficult. So, that's why Anders was in Katy while Anna attempted to get fingerprinted. And no, Katy is nowhere near Sugar Land. So the computer system was out and there was a two hour delay in Anna's finger printing appointment. The waiting room lost some of their humanity and they became Waiting Room People. Anders then turned it on and worked the room. One woman said he'd lifted everyone's spirits as they waited. Another woman openly declared he was smarter than her three year old. Another guy left, came back with fries, and shared with Anders. He also showed Anders his phone with pictures of his dog on it. Other people were showing Anders their phones and letting him play with them, but that's a dangerous game, as I know. One woman said, "I could have been in Lake Charles by now!" Lake Charles, LA is a gambling hotbed whose motto is "Like Vegas, only hotter." So Anders owned another room and after the two hour wait as Anna and Anders were leaving Anders turned to the room and said, "Bye, bye Friends."

Of course Anders is 2 so he followed up that virtuoso performance by come home and eating dirt. He got it way in his mouth, crunched around some small rocks, the whole deal. Anna was mad at both of us as I was watching Anders. Usually before Anders does something wrong he makes a football move toward the "no no," looks back for disapproval, and then does it. I lost my head as I opened his mouth and saw just brown. I started making short, choppy, spastic moves around the kitchen without actually accomplishing anything, and somewhere in the back of my mind I realized I had become my mom. Whenever I did something similar as a kid, my mom hustled around for a couple of minutes without actually doing anything before she regained her wits. Luckily I had Anna to think clearly and suggest I brush his teeth, which worked well. His toothbrush was just black. What did I try to do? I lifted him up over the sink, grabbed a sippy cup with a little milk in the bottom, filled it with warm water, and tried to force Anders to drink it.

I had a busy week so I didn't see Anders as much as usual. We are going to make up for it this weekend. We'll go swimming this afternoon along with visiting the Galleria for Anna's birthday today. I want to take Anders to the Astros game tomorrow as its the Dog Days promotion, meaning people bring their dogs to the game, which he will love. Monday we will attend a SLAM (Sugar Land Area Moms) BBQ.

One of the interesting thing about living in a new region is the different critters. We have an alligator preserve about 20 miles south of us. I've heard that it's not uncommon to see gators around the water even in Sugar Land. Even crazier is that Texas has a feral hog population of over 2 million! There is a large javelina population in Fort Bend County, where we live. One of my students, who lives in Sugar Land, said there was a stampede through his neighborhood a few years ago. As a result, a new law came into effect on Sept. 1 making it legal to kill feral hogs from helicopters with high powered rifles. If my friend James, a former subscriber to New Zealand Pig Hunter (http://www.amazon.com/New-Zealand-Pig-Hunter/dp/B00007KZKY), reads this, there is no doubt that he will visit us on his next trip to the states. Businesses have sprung up in the past couple of days to take advantage of the new law.

I've gone off topic enough and Anders is waking up, gotta go. Happy Birthday, Anna!

August Cooldown

The temperature was under 100 degrees today! It was 95 in Houston on my drive, but a temperate 88 by the time I made it home to Sugar Land. This is our first day living in Sugar Land where the temperature did not reach 100 degrees.

I celebrated by taking Anders out for a walk. I found a park not too far from our house. It was perfect for Anders as he could walk up to the slide and refuse to go down it along with two harness swings for him to freak out in after three swings back and forth.

We found a bench swing along a path overlooking a creek and football practice. Anders and I sat on the green bench swing and enjoyed the sunshine, coolish breeze, and low humidity until the ants started biting.

Anna's out for dinner and a movie with her Sugar Land Mom Friends. Anders continues to call out for "Mommy!" from the crib.

Anders now does something that reminds me of my mom. When we used to drive to Kansas for Christmas, every few years my mom would try to get me to sing in tune and on pitch in the car if I absent-mindedly started singing along to Christmas songs. I say "every few years" because these "lessons" would make me so mad that she would not try again for a few more years or else I would remember not to sing in the car, I don't remember which one it was for sure. So now Anders cues me to sing in the car if Anna has started singing "Old McDonald" or "Farmer in the Dell." Anna will be singing, I will think the situation is under control, and then I hear from the back row "Daddy!" and if I don't sing "DADDY!!!" So I sing. At least Anders hasn't started to correct my pitch or tune, yet.

Anders is still not sleeping, so I better go in there and walk him around a bit.

Gallery Furniture

"This place probably isn't street legal, but it is awesome." -Anna, today.

They were unable to fix our foundation today due to an unmarked gas line, so the foundation people will come back later. The good part of this news was that we then got to take a little trip up to Gallery Furniture. If that name sounds vaguely familiar, it's because they sponsored the now-defunct Galleryfurniture.com Bowl.

We did a bit of rearranging and decided we need another piece for the living room. The night we had dinner at the headmaster's house last week our table suggested that we visit this place if we liked Ikea. Enough with the set up.

When you see it from the road, it has spires like a castle.

There are inspirational saying painted into the lines between parking spaces.

They have a slew of final sale furniture set under a large permanent tent in the parking lot.

When you walk in the store you are greeted by chairs Poppy Bush and Bill Clinton sat in on a visit to Houston, along with a giant statue of Elvis.

There are little cart cars with cup holders in them, which we used to move Anders around the store.

The front desk has cut pieces of vanilla-strawberry cake, bottles of water, and fresh Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. Anders had one and a half cookies, part of which he was wearing along with a sugar grin.

The snack bar in back of the store has free Dr. Pepper and Pepsi.

They have exotic topical birds scattered around the store, including toucans.

They have themed bathrooms like the "Presidential Suite," the "Jungle Room," and "The Prison Cell." They also have a giant mural of Elvis and giant inspirational phrases written on random walls.

Giant Texas flags hang throughout the store.

The coup de grace was not the giant TV replaying the Packers preseason game, no. It was the monkey cage in the center of the store. Yes, a furniture store has half a dozen monkeys. Anders was enthralled, especially by the white-faced monkey in the Texas state flag diaper. He was squealing with delight, and Anders liked him too. These monkeys came at Anders from above and below to check him out. The door didn't seem like it was locked too well, but it held. Anna noted the ethical problem of holding animals this way, but on the other hand she also noted that Anders would never get to be so close to a monkey at a zoo. The monkeys seemed to be having a good time, but the birds should be in a zoo or a preserve. The fact that I'm even having this discussion about a furniture store is bizarre.

We did not find any suitable furniture, but we sure made some memories.

Anders was pretty beat by the time we got home. He said a few "no, no, no, thank YOUs" and then when to bed. We read part of "Owl Babies" and he said the babies had to be "brave" and then he fell asleep.

Dub-Dub Becomes W

Whenever an older parents speaks nostalgically about how fast his or her child or children grew up, I always pretend to sympathize, agree, or understand. In fact, I did it just yesterday with one of the HOA pool regulars. Today, I started to feel it as Anders said "W" instead of "dub-dub." We loved dub-dub because it was cute, snappy, and smart. We think it makes much more sense than "double-U."
I did not mind when he stopped calling me "Dee" or when he stopped calling his shoes his "doos," but losing dub-dub will be hard. Anna said that tonight he said "dub-dub" as if to make her feel better.
Tonight as I was walking Anders around before bedtime, he started making the noise of a suckling calf even though he had no milk and is not bovine, to my knowledge. There was no reason for this, which made it even funnier. I started laughing silently, which made Anders laugh, and made me laugh more, to which he said, "Laughing....laughing!" He usually says "funny" in that situation so he's learning more descriptive words.
We took him back to the dry cleaners yesterday where we found a third Vietnamese-American who popped out of the back room to be impressed by Anders. This guy had Anders up on the table in a half-hug naming letters as an older African American man marveled at him. Tom Friedman would have loved that moment. As Anders and I walked back to the car where Anna was waiting, she said his chest was puffed out and he looked 10 feet tall.
We also hung out with our friend Lauren the Lifeguard at the pool. Anders calls going to the pool "Five!" since that is his favorite depth at the pool. He also likes seeing the turtle, crab, and fish painted on the bottom of the baby pool. He can touch all around the baby pool, but he prefers to glam onto his floating fortress of a father. When we go in the big pool, I make Anders kick and float a bit.
I felt like I had to make up some time with Anders yesterday because on Monday a spontaneous opportunity sprung up to go to the Texans preseason Monday Nighter vs. the Jets. I had not been to any iteration of an NFL game until then. We had seats 29 rows up on the 45 yard line, pretty sweet. They were a donor/alum's seats. I'd love to see a regular season game, but I hear those tickets are hard to come by. I think I could get behind the Texans as they remind me of my 2009 Vikings. They have a lot of stars, lack intangibles, and have an intellectually over matched coach. I'm not going to say much bad about the Texans in public because that last time I made the aforementioned points was in a bank lobby to a man I came to find out as our conversation progressed was mentally challenged.
Regardless, Reliant Stadium is an impressive structure. It's amazing how they can effectively air condition all of that space. The stadium makes the Metrodome look like the UNI Dome! Oh, they also do that lame Golden Gopher 1st Down cheer for the Texans. I don't know how they expect to win, ever.
Also, the 8th Wonder of the World, the Astrodome, is still standing. The Astrodome is in BAD shape, but they can't tear it down because of the potent amount of asbestos in the building. It would cost $100 million or thereabouts to take it down. Someone suggested that Lakewood Church could commandeer it if Joel Osteen needs to expand out of the old Summit. I drive by the Summit everyday on my way to work.
Anna and Anders have begun honing their act in the Anna and Anders Show. I'm so happy that Anna get to have this time with Anders, but I'm a bit jealous because he's so much more fun this year than he was last year at this time. Once he started walking in April, it became a lot easier and more interesting to play with him.
Trudy continues to struggle, but things are improving. We finally found a scratching post that works for her. We've also allowed her in the backyard, which she enjoys. We've decided that Trudy is interested in buying the house next door to us. She wants to stay close, but needs a break from Anders. She enjoys the house's shrubbery in the front yard and the white tile patio in the back yard. Whenever Trudy escapes, that's where she goes--house hunting. She has no collateral or assets, but she is intrigued, which counts for something in this housing market.
Anna took Anders to library story time here for the first time, which ran smoothly with 40 kids and two librarians. They had crafts and skits and plays. It sounded pretty amazing. I rag on Athens about a lot, and with good reason, but not library story time. Amy did a really good job and it was a highlight of my week. This library sounds like it's just at a whole other level.
We continue to love Sugar Land. I'm partial to the somewhat New Hope-esque suburb east of Sugar Land, Missouri City--The Show Me City (its actual motto). The Dry Cleaners are in Mo City as is one of the Targets and the HEB grocery store at which I want to start shopping. Anna gets a kick out of my nonsensical affinity for Mo City.
I think I mentioned earlier that our school has a chef, not like KFC has a chef, but a real one. Anyway for the first day of school we had crusted tilapia and a squash medley. They also had a beginning of the year breakfast this morning where the headmaster was in back slinging hash with the cooks. I had a great first day. The students and I vibed well. They seemed to get my sense of humor, which was not usually the case in Chillicothe. My best connections in Chilly were times that I discussed 80s music with my non-trad students.
Things aren't all rosy, however, as our foundation needs to be fixed. That will be an all-day Saturday project for which one of us must be around. The bad foundation was the cause of many of our problems. Once it is fixed, then we can get a new garage door. So maybe by next week we will be settled, literally, in this house.
I was talking to me friend Jeff who also left Athens once upon a time. He compared this feeling of exhilaration to that of getting out of prison. My friend Bill also compared his time in Athens to doing time. MN Steve rejected another year of OU History Dept. funding, choosing to move back in with his parents rather than stay in Athens.
People are so nice and friendly and competent every day! I keep expecting to wake up from this dream. I don't even mind that the temperature has been over 100 degrees every day that we have lived here. They put "99" four days out on the five day forecast just to give people some false hope. It may not drop below 100 until my birthday and it will not sour my Sugar Land honeymoon.

Dry Cleaners

I took Anders to the dry cleaners this afternoon as I was running errands. Anders was sleeping by the time he arrived, so out of a dead sleep he flipped the switched and charmed the Vietnamese family running the dry cleaners. He started bellowing out letters. I asked them to watch him as I took my suits to the car and brought in my shirts. Before I knew it, Anders was behind the counter in the arms of the grandmotherly woman running the place pointing and naming letters. She and her son were thoroughly impressed. The man wondered how I got Anders to name all those letters. I didn't have a good explanation, he just kinda picked it up.
I had my first day of orientation today on the movie set. The most intriguing thing I learned about is "Senior Tea." At 1:40 pm from Mon-Thurs the mothers of the seniors set up an opulent buffet in the quad. If you've seen Rushmore, the quad is prominently featured in the movie. The "tea" is open to all seniors, faculty, and staff. Guess who has two thumbs, a free period then, and a room on the quad--this guy! My joke about gaining 50 lbs this year may not be so far fetched.
I've decided that ABC will be my local news station. Not only do they have the Voice of God Guy who probably goes drinking with Dan Rather when he's in town, but the Nightline lady gives VoG Guy a shot out during the news, and they have an Iowan on Weather. Tim Heller, formerly of KGAN in Cedar Rapids, who obviously could not compete with Craig Johnson at KWWL or Denny Frary at KCRG, had to tuck tail and run to Houston. Hey, I'm a former Iowan in Houston, I could do the weather--it's gonna be 102 degrees and partly sunny--everyday. Boom, pay me mid-6 figures...

Ikea Story

Another day, more love for SE Texas...

I figured out how to get ABC smoothly on the rabbit ears. Working the rabbit ears is a lost art, I learned on my uncle Fred's TV in Park City, KS. My other homes growing up had the mounted antenna. Someone just a few years younger than me probably has no idea what I just said.

Today we bought a desk and chair at Ikea. I was in the warehouse with Anders. We picked up one of those wide carts you use to move the boxed, unassembled furniture. Anders wanted to drive, so I let him. With just a few nudges from me, he was able to wheel the cart with two large pieces of boxed furniture all the way across the warehouse. He even took time out to pause and smile at a pretty lady! Dorene witnessed that move. It was hilarious.

We also ate at Yao Ming's restaurant. It's pretty classy joint, run by his parents, no souvenir t-shirts, and food that's more authentic than you get in Athens.

I also finally got keys to my room. Getting keys to the high school I attended was easier than getting keys to the high school at which I work. I told one of my colleagues that I, along with many, many other students, had a key to my high school. He was incredulous. I guess that's the difference between rural Iowa and the 4th largest city in the country.

Oklahoma Was Never Like This

What an adventure gang. What have we learned?

I'm going Larry King/Sid Hartman style since a lot has happened...

Oklahoma is the new Indiana. Both KS and TX are hot and dry, but OK takes "hot and dry" to another level. Once we left KS for OK, it immediately looked much dryer than KS. Anders started saying, "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" as we looked out the window.

Oklahoma must lead the nation in people just standing around and staring into the middle distance.

It was 106 degrees as we sat in a random OKC traffic jam. OKC is actually building a skyscraper! The OKC terrorist attack memorial is well done and moving.

Dallas had an extensive light rail system, but Houston doesn't?!

Atlas Van Lines crushed about half of our nice wedding bowls and glass. If it was a wedding gift that Anna liked, then it was probably pulverized in the move. The grease marks on Anders' toys indicate that they went through his toys looking for valuables since valuables are often hidden in toys. I had a moving allowance, so we let it rip, but next time we are using U-Haul, if we can ever muster up the courage or gumption to move again.

It's hot here.

Anders enjoyed seeing many of his old toys and his old bedroom rug. He loves running around our house yelling. He calls himself "Captain Poop" and then he says "funny." Anders is basically a chilled out entertainer. Anders just shouts when he's in an open space. He likes to rule the air with the sound of his own voice. He did so at Ikea the other day and at Target tonight. He loves shouting "Anna!" at the top of his lungs. Yes, he knows our names, Anna, Jon, and Doreney--Anna's mom is watching Anders as we settle in. We could not be this moved in without her.

It was a five hour process today to get our car registered and get me a driver's license. Anna did not have enough documentation on her for a license, so MN is sending paper work reinforcements. We thought things would be loosey goosey in the South, but not here.

I love Sugar Land. It has everything. I would probably never leave were my job not in Houston. The suburban comforts are pretty nice. I got a haircut, chair massage, hot towel, and head massage for $16 as I watched Sportscenter! Three ladies cleaned our house for four hours for only $80! Even Dorene, the cleanest person I know, was impressed.

"Texas is like a fascist state, it's really conservative, but things get done there." New Orleans native, former Dallas resident, and friend Jack Epstein, May 2011. Jack, by the way LOVED living in Dallas...

The ladies who cleaned our house came on Sunday morning, as did the movers, and our landlady, Vera Cheng, to bring us a bunch of Chinese food--on Sunday MORNING! The next day, all at once we had the technician turning on our gas, two guys fixing our garage door, and Vera's handyman trying to fix our plumbing. It's amazing. People do stuff here. They show some hustle.

Now, granted, we still lack hot water, but our landlady is on the problem and I am confident that it will be fixed. The reason we bought a house in Athens in the first place was that we could not get our landlord to respond to our maintenance requests. He left a sink running for six days before he showed up. We had trouble sleeping at night because we heard water running. That place was such a nightmare. I can't stress enough how much better the quality of life is here. People help you with a smile on their faces. They more than show you where things are, but take you to those things. One worker at the Home Depot randomly stopped us and tried to get us a better deal on the air filter we were buying.

Another plus, is that we need not get basic cable here just for TV reception. We bought digital rabbit ears for $21 so now we get a slew of stations that come in crystal clear. We get some interesting stations, including Communist China Television or CCTV. There news studio is in Beijing and their English is just a little off and their graphics are all red. I like the channel because I for one welcome our Red Chinese overlords. Having health insurance taken care of would relieve much financial worry...

I think we had more square footage in our old house, but this one has more living space. We didn't spend a lot of time in our basement during the cool and cold months.

There is only one DMV office in Ft. Bend County. There is almost always a long line snaking out the door. I packed containers of water, granola, more documentation than one would need for a CIA security clearance, safari hat, flip flop crocs, and red mesh Decorah Letterman mesh shirt from the Dick Wuest Collection. I was still sweating gravy when I got inside the DMV building the room. I look like a criminal in my DMV picture. I love the TX tags. I couldn't get my Ohio tags off fast enough.

Our hall toilet is broken. Vera's handyman will try to fix it this weekend.

Anders takes all the repair guys in stride.

Anders played with all four colors of balls for a discrete and prolonged period at Target. I think "Red Circle" keeps those balls in the toy section to amuse toddlers while parents shop. I don't think they expect anyone to buy those balls.

I love how everything at my school is named after someone. For example, my room is on the quad, where many of the scenes from "Rushmore" were shot. Needless to say, I could not be happier! Anyway, in the "Diana Poteat Hobby (yes, like the airport)" North Quadrangle is my room, the "Hally Randall Carver Risher, David and Will Randall by Fairfax and Risher Randall." I don't know who they are yet, but I'm happy to be there!

I think Iowa played at the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl one year. Well, they are a single store on the west side of Houston. I don't think they have that bowl anymore. It would be fun to be inundated by Iowans for a minor bowl game should that opportunity ever present itself.

I did not imagine that local news would be so concerned with the weather in the Caribbean. They are actively rooting for a hurricane.

Young Arthur ben Ari will not need shunt in his head after all!

We we wake up in the morning the windows are fogged up almost every day. I don't even mind the earlier sunsets here as it means that it will get slightly cooler.

We now buy food at Ikea since we live close enough to do so.

Atlas better honor our claim or else Anna will seek Texas Justice.

When I got my new driver's license today I had to "surrender" my OH license. They have signs saying "the eyes of Texas are upon you" as they both scare you and ask for your help spotting criminal activity.

Shell seems to have a monopoly on Houston area gas stations.

We were missing a piece so we could not get Anders' crib fully assembled. A new piece should arrive shortly.

I've never lived in or visited a place with as many furniture commercials as Houston.

People like to give themselves knick names, like a TV lawyer ad for "The Hammer." Tom Delay's office is in our GPS for some reason. I'm looking at Anna.

After my friend Jeff Bloodworth left Athens, he said any place you move will be so much better than Athens. We agree so far, but this heat is no joke. I love the sunshine. It reminds me of the summer of '05 in Athens when it didn't cool down until the second week of October. I remember a day when we had a heat index of 122. That said, summer in Athens has nothing on this place.

Summer is to Texans as Winter is to Minnesotans. Both states have much pride and think they are the center of the universe. There are more similarities than I expected. It's kinda fun to live in a state with a superiority complex. I was congratulated on moving to TX by a utility company employee as I set up service. KS, IA, and OH all had inferiority complexes.

Perhaps early tomorrow I'll take Anders on a walk. He wants to go outside, but it's too brutal.

Even Trudy doesn't want to go outside, and cats are desert animals. We debated whether or not to let her roam our fenced back yard, but Trudy settled the argument.

I might back track later as I think of other things, but that's it for now.

Hey, a Central Time Zone advantage is being awake to watch Jimmy Fallon--he's really funny!

103.7 The Adult Alternative might be the only time Anna and I have ever been excited to listen to the same radio station.

Ok, I'm really out this time.

Update

Arthur, the little boy I discussed the other day, will not need chemo or radiation! It looks like the best possible outcome, what a miracle!

In other news, our stuff was loaded in a truck and assigned a driver last night according to "Bev." Now, whether or not that stuff has left Columbus, I do not know. The new estimated arrival day is Monday August 1st. I'm guessing they'll roll in at 4:59 pm CDT because at 5 they have to start paying for stuff.

We leave Zimmerman tomorrow morning with our first port of call being Uncle Fred's house in Marquette, KS.

Anders' 2nd Birthday, Nordic Dancers

Anders enjoyed his second birthday party today. He had both his grandmas, Grandpa Greg, and Anna and Jon there. Yes, Anders calls us Anna and Jon to wind us (Anna) up. He can fully enunciate "Grandma" and "Grandpa" too.

We had a 60th anniversary party for Anna's maternal grandparents. Congratulations to Dennis Lokken and Joyce (Ytterboe) Lokken. We found out that the minister who married them later became a librarian/professor at Luther and a member of our church in Decorah, First Lutheran. The Saab driving-leather jacket wearing-straight talking Leigh Jordahl. I must have told him around my sophomore year at Luther that I wanted to get a Ph.D. in history. Thereafter, every time I saw him, he didn't say "hi." Instead, he immediately started where he left off the last time trying to convince me that doing so was a bad career choice. He was also my friend Chris Hein's Paideia professor.

Tomorrow Mamie and Matt Airplane will come out to celebrate Anders' birthday. Anders still talks in hushed, reverent tones about his aunt Mamie Airplane.

We were going to leave on Wednesday, but our stuff has not left Ohio so we will stay in MN another day. Our stuff was picked up a week ago and delivered to a Columbus area warehouse, but it has yet to be assigned a driver. One would think that in the age of computerized logistics a complex algorithm would exist whereby our stuff would depart for Texas soon after it arrived in the warehouse. Yet, the way "Bev" at Atlas Van Lines explained the process, it sounds like our stuff will leave for the Lone Star State whenever Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy decides to amble in and mosey down to Houston. So, we're going to cut down on the number of nights we camp in our house. I still have faith that our stuff will arrive, but Anna isn't so sure anymore.

"Nordic Dancers" aka "The Section Where I Reminisce About Decorah And Anna Asks What It Has To Do With Anders When She Reads This Post In Two Months"

Today is also the one year anniversary of the death of my old Nordic Dancers pal and DHS tennis doubles partner, Chris "Speez" Spilde. I've thought about him often over the past year. I remember in particular one dark summer night driving back from Chillicothe last summer I heard an obscure song from the 60s, something KVIK would only play late on a Saturday night and I felt his presence. It sounds weird, but it made the hairs on my neck stand up.

Then last week, I found out via Facebook that the two year old son of one of my old Nordic Dancing partners, Mary (Grimstad) ben Ari's son Arthur, had a brain tumor. The doctor thought it demonstrated characteristics of a benign tumor, but they won't know for sure until tomorrow. He had surgery on Friday and they were able to take most of it out. He will still have to have chemo regardless of whether it's benign or not, just to make sure they zap it.

I went to see them on Friday, despite not having seen his mother since our 5 year high school reunion. I know firsthand that it's nice to have visitors even if they are somewhat random. Arthur is a sweet kid, he insisted on shaking my hand even from his hospital bed. Mary was surprised to see me.

I carried a lot of Anders-related baggage into that room. On my drive down, I told myself two things: 1. Talk minimally about yourself 2. DO NOT CRY! These are the two worst behaviors by guests of sick babies/toddlers. It's about them not you, and the stressed out parents should not be the ones comforting anyone. While you might imagine that not talking about myself was the harder trick, it was actually not crying. The other person does want to hear tell of the outside world, but not ad nauseam. I welled up and one point, but I didn't crack.

I enjoyed dancing with Mary back in the glory days. Get ready for boring stories... We were postcardized under the Maypole as we marched in the parade during Nordic Fest 1990, a postcard that you could still buy in Vanberia as of last summer. We made it in the Decorah newspaper a couple times dancing the "Old Rhinelander." I had bad rhythm and was heavy on my feet, but my enthusiastic bull-in-China-shop antics were infectious to some people, including Mary. She appreciated showmanship as she later majored in theatre at NYU. I especially liked having Mary as my assigned Old Rhinelander (it's a dance we did at each performance, which is one of the best loved dances in all of Norway and one of my personal favorites (the inside jokes are pretty heavy in this post, especially for people who don't even know what a "Decorah" is)) during our sullen teenage years. I had the teen angst like anyone, but when it was time to perform, we had a show to do, damn it (If you don't understand, write a letter with a self-addressed stamped envelop and he'll explain it for you. Hi Dan!). A lot of the other dancers remained sullen or too cool for school, but since I wasn't cool or pretending to be cool, I owned it. Now, Mary was more sullen and cooler than me. We did not fraternize outside Nordic Dancers, but I could almost always make her laugh. I would do a funny face or tell her that I had just farted, something outlandish like that to crack the facade. Those sorts of things horrified most of the other girls, which is why I had few dance partners. I know it's a long digression, but my visit put a smile on Mary's face, which was all I was ever trying to do.

BD Vikings shirt

Birthday Party with Grandmas and Grandpa

KS Birthday and CO Wedding Trip (Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park)

Anders' Peterson Family Birthday

Anders' Lokken Family Birthday Party

Sloppy Joe

Anders can now have short conversations with people. He mentions a word and then waits for your response, sort of like Larry King. So, he might say dark, hot, Down! and then add a "no" or "Doodee" (Trudy). He seems to understand most of what we say to him, which is scary. He winds Anna up by calling her "Anna" rather than Mama. He also calls me Jon, but I don't give the same satisfying reaction to Anders.

Anders follows his grandpa's lead and scolds Trudy, "No! No! No!" as he wags his finger at her. Anders will stop in the middle of anything he's doing even a letter puzzle, which he loves, if that gives him a chance to scold Trudy.

Anders also swears a lot, unwittingly. He can't quite pronounce frog or fork. He says "shit" for the reaction. I laugh and Anna tries to correct the behavior.

He has a big vocabulary that is growing as he adds words together as he did with "Sloppy Joe" last night.

We flew to Denver for the wedding of our friend Marie in Ft. Collins last weekend. It was a lovely wedding at a beautiful sight with the mountains in the background. We loved how it was totally flat on one side and then there were mountains on the other side of the car. We spent our first night in Estes Park where we saw snow and I drove above the tree line on the highest continuous road in the USA. The effects of altitude are no joke. I'm surprised the Colorado Buffaloes are not a better home basketball team.

One of the interesting things about Estes Park and Colorado generally is how the political extremes live side by side. It's been my experience that usually a place is one way or the other. Athens, for example, was full of clever lefty bumper stickers while Junction City, KS has bill boards touting Obama as a Kenyan Communist, but you expect those things in those places. Estes had novelty secular humanist and bikers for Christ t-shirts in the same store, repeatedly. I guess money, not ideology rules the day in Estes Park. That and refugees from Nebraska. Paris in the 1920s was to American writers as Estes Park in the 2010s is to Nebraskans. They have an entire store devoted to Big Red. I mean there is not a piece of CU or Colorado State or Broncos gear in the entire store. I guess until Nebraska grows mountains, Cornhuskers will continue to flee to the purple mountain majesty of the Front Range.

Nebraskans really know how to take over a place. When we lived in Minneapolis, some friends and I went a few times to Joe Sensor's sports bar to watch the Hawkeyes. Well, the Husker Club had a deal with Sensor's whereby the wait staff had to wear a white pin in the same of the state of Nebraska with a flashing red dot where NU is located in Lincoln. They also had a pep band that brought in instruments. The band played the Husker fight song when they scored. That's dedication.

Regardless, I'm happy we did not take Anders as we had a 4.5 weather related flight delay on Friday and the altitude might have messed with him too. It all worked out and was a great weekend.

Marquette, Kansas TrIp

We took Anders to see my extended family in Kansas. He was a real trooper for the 1,400 mile round trip. Anders had a couple of really funny moments. First, we picked up my mom in Clear Lake, IA then we were about half an hour down the road when Anna and I coined a new game: "Iowa or Anders?" where we decide whether the smell wafting through the car was Iowa or Anders. We decided it was Anders not Iowa, so we stopped at the Boondocks. In order the change Anders, we had to see the cashier at the changing table to get the key to Billy J. Royal Memorial Shower #3 at the truck stop. We put Anders on the changing table, pulled down the pants, and found....nothing. Anders started cracking up. He was almost convulsing with laughter. He had played a practical joke on us and he understood that he had done so on some level. Even a couple days later, he was still laughing about it when we told the story.

On Saturday, we took Anders to my first barber, Kenny. Anders didn't take it as well as the first haircut. It started well enough, but then when the he heard the scissors next to his ears, he started crying. He didn't fight Kenny and he did calm down, but it wasn't his favorite experience. Then when I hopped into the chair, Anders got worried for me. Mom and Anna took him outside. Anders had his surfer hair chopped off. It's close cropped, but looks really good. I learned that my grandpa, Dick Peterson, used to complain that Kenny's dad Dewey cut his hair so close that it took two weeks for his hair to look decent. It's fun to have those sort of generational family connections, and one of the reasons Marquette is so appealing to me.

Anders also went to the grocery store, Piper's, where they had kid-sized green carts. He took one and drove it around the store. Anders was pretty handy with the cart. He quickly learned not to crash into the displays. By the third time at the store, we put a number of goods in the cart and he learned to maneuver the cart with groceries in them.

He went to the Marquette pool, his first trip to a swimming pool. He didn't like the baby pool because no one else was in there. I took him out to the basketball hoop. He enjoyed dunking the balls. By the end of our time, he figured out how to kick in the water. I even took a turn off the high dive. I used to be afraid to go off the boards. As I came to the top of the board, I realized why. The wind was whipping. The kids in the pool looked small down below. I could not back down since I saw Anders watching. Anna said Anders looked worried for me. I jumped in, with little splash, which would have benefitted me were I an olympic diver.

On our way back, we ran out of gas within sight of the Clear Lake water tower, where Mom's friend Paul was picking her up. It was a surprise as the gas gauge went down in a hurry. It went from two bars to a blinking half bar in a blink, then it only blinked for 7 miles. I thought the rule of thumb was one had 20 miles on E, especially in a PRIUS!!!

Oh well.

This weekend we fly to Colorado for our friend Marie's wedding in Fort Collins. We are leaving Anders with the grandparents. I'm excited to go back to CO for the first time in 24 years. Moreover, I hope to find out whether "Lloyd" from Dumb and Dumber was correct about "Colorado" in saying "that John Denver's full of shit." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80lM8ukLDns

By the way, as Anders learns words, he is inadvertently and advertently swearing a fair amount.

By by the way, Dan Seeley's dad looks just like John Denver. We have said that line more times than I could even begin to count over the years...

Agooga

We have decided that this is the name of Anders' home planet. He makes transmissions from the basement. He puts my finger in his ear to get the transmission. When Anders was still in the oven and we got the first pictures from the womb, I said he looked like an evil alien genius. Well, he might be a genius and he might be an alien.

We took Anders out to play in the pool a few day ago. Rather than splash in the pool, he wanted to read the letters on the side of the pool.

Anders enjoyed the Mall of America again the other day. It was big day. He met Reid and saw the Seeleys again. He also saw Mamie and Mack (Mandy and Matt).

Anders likes to try to negotiate the stairs and go to the basement where he looks at pictures of Anna's family and learns their names. He named Anna's cousin Michael totally out of context, which was impressive. He calls Anna's cousin Kate, "Cake."

That reminds me of another story of Anders and pictures. Anna's grandma gave Anna's mom a picture of Josh as a baby, which reminded her of Anders. Dorene then showed Anders the picture and said, "I wonder what Anders makes of this. I wonder what's going through his mind."

We learned immediately. Anders walked over to the hallway of pictures with the Josh baby picture and pointed to a 12 yr. old picture of Josh and said, "Josh." He made the connection between baby Josh and tween Josh.

I went for a jog today. I think that the 30s might be a decade of stupid little injuries. I know it only gets worse in subsequent decades. I tried to go out for a jog about a week ago, but the pain was too searing in my back and my achilles/ankle. Why? My back hurt because of the Houston HoJo bed, while I hurt my foot by walking too quickly in sandals at the AP Readings in Louisville. That's right, I injured myself by merely walking. A few years ago if you would have told me that I would hurt myself within the course of a month by walking and sleeping, I'd probably ask if I also through my jaw out of joint by chewing gum!

Meanwhile, Anna has been struggling with cold/allergies for a week. She was better yesterday, but worse today.

We are driving to Kansas on Friday, then we are flying to Colorado for a wedding a week from Friday. I hope we are all fine by these events.

New Camera

We will be getting a new camera soon without the Barbara Walters soft focus lens.

Anders and Reid