Monday, and the rain and wind have been unending. I haven’t seen so much rain in a while. On Saturday we got a brief respite, and I used the few hours of sunshine to trim the fountaingrass bushes in the front yard with the new electric trimmer I got and deliver a borrowed bed to a new owner. The weekend was also a busy time for baby-prep, with the nursery coming pretty close to “together” over the past few days. This entry is really just a boring weekend recap, so nothing that special.
Friday we dropped a sizeable chunk of moolah on Lil’ Chino’s little white crib, matching white dresser/changing table, and “pack and play” (the modern day combination of playpen, bassinet, portable crib-thing, and a whatnot. Then, we swung into the local hardware warehouse and picked up two gallons of pink paint, one darkish, one lightish. Somehow, knowing there’s not anymore logical “breaks” between now and the baby (for instance, the time prior to now was broken up with things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, India, etc.), it’s really hit home that we need to move into preparation-overdrive; trying to avoid a New Orleans-esque spending of billions to fix the levy after the hurricanes. Sharaun’s last first day back after break is the 3rd, and her last day back before the baby is the very next 3rd… that’s soon, y’allz… that’s soon.
Sunday morning, the last of our new living room furniture got delivered. At the time, I was cleaning the house, more specifically the kitchen when the doorbell rang. I had Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois blaring on the stereo, in all it’s am-I-religious-or-not white-boy glory. Opening my front door, I was greeted by a smiling man who asked me where I wanted the furniture, how my New Year was, etc. As he headed back to his truck to get the goods, I left the front door open for him. Then, I did something strange, almost unconsciously. I went to the computer, from which was the last chords of an ending Sufjan track were fading out to silence, and I switched tracklists. But guys, I didn’t just switch tracklists… I switched tracklists to the Little Brother album, The Listening, which I downloaded a while back on some website recommendation, didn’t like at all, and just hadn’t yet deleted. What’s the significance of this? Little Brother is a hip-hop record, and the furniture delivery guy was black. I did turn down the volume so that it was barely audible from the room where he was working, but it’s the fact that I did it in the first place. What the hell? I felt really stupid really quickly, and changed it back to Mr. Stevens in all his WASP glory. Racist? Me?
Let’s do a random link-rodeo, since I’ve got a lot of stray sentences that need to be wrangled. First off, there’s a good, but long-winded, read entitled “What I Heard About Iraq in 2005” here. Second, I just got around to watching the History Channel’s excellent Banned from the Bible documentary. An outstanding account of the canonization of the Bible and examination of several apocryphal writings. It’s worth it to set your TiVo for the re-airing. Finally, congratulations are in order for Ben and Suzy, as they’ve agreed to tie the knot.
Time to kick rocks, goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- gray day - 2021
- I’m no parent, or anything - 2008
- stronger than zyrtec - 2007
- newborn year - 2005