Hey Riley

You, my beautiful new son, were born at 4:20 (well technically 4:22, but...) on November 29th. You were 9 pounds, 4 ounces and 21 inches long. You came out with a conehead from all that pushing on mom's pelvis, but thank god it's flattening out; I love you and all, but seriously it was a little freakish.

I was telling kc! today that it's a little tough for me to put this into words, so I beg a little leniency and I apologize.

We went into the hospital at 5:30. After a couple minutes in Triage, and another view of someone putting vingers up in my wife, we found out she was at 4 centimeters which put her immediately into a birthing suite. The moms showed up and told war stories while Biffy went through her contractions. And while it did turn out very difficult to watch her in that much pain, it really took so much focus to be there with her that it became a little secondary.

Biff finally got an epideral (man I really don't know if that's how to spell that, and don't have the time to look it up), and no longer had that 12 year old with his leg caught in a bear trap look on her face. After many, many hours, the nurse (that reminded me a little of Hellby) told her to begin pushing.

I really have to say, Biff was not only the biggest trooper through the whole pregnancy, but she just shone like the sun during the contractions and pushing. You got yourself a pretty amazing mother there.

After about an hour and a half of pushing, they told us that a C-section was in order.

I tried to keep all of my attention on keeping Biff from being too scared, but couldn't help being amazed at the casual conversations all those doctors and nurses were having while cutting into her; it was like they were just doing a simple jobby job.

I heard you cry first, and everything seized up. I couldn't breathe all of the sudden, I kinda forgot how to for a second. Someone laughingly told me to stand up and look at the baby, see what we had. I gotta tell you buddy, I was so sure you were going to be a girl that I was flabbergasted by the sight of your johnson hanging in the wind. Biffy asked breathlessly what it was, and when I heard my own shaky voice say, "it's a boy", I lost my shit.

I cried those immense, blissful tears that come only once every so often; the ones that run with force when you're granted for just a moment to understand how truly amazing the world can be.

Those tears came again when I put my hand on your shrieking, red and bloody body, when I said softly, "hey Riley", and you immediately calmed down. The Hellby nurse had to prod me into touching you, I was afraid to break you.

Oh, and after I picked you up and you looked into my face for a second with those already familiar eyes, and I told your smiling mom you had blue eyes, I was overwhelmed all over again.

Everything since has been pretty blurry; the attempts at trying to get all the calls made, the crying, the vain sleep attempts the changing of diapers filled with this awfully sticky proto-poop. But those are the things I remember clearly, that and thinking that Doug Martsch singing in the backgrounf while your mom tried to push you out into the world seemed so right.

I gotta get back to the hospital now and see you. I already whispered this to your sleeping ear last night, but even when you turn 16, and all those "sins of the father" turn around to bite me on the ass, when you are so damn sure that you hate my guts, I will still be somewhere with my arm around you to keep from crying and smiling at those funny little murmurs you made.

I love you like crazy Riley Phillip. You've blown an amazing hole in this already amazing world and I can't wait to take this trip with you.

Hey Critter, Again

Had I written a post yesterday, it probably would of read like something a homeless dude on PCP wrote on a BART station bathroom wall with a mustard packet. I was out of it, and emotionally drained. Things aren't a ton better today, not a whole lot of sleep, but we're gonna try it valiant readers, we're gonna try.

I probably would have remembered to tell you that the clouds broke long enough for me to see the Olympics covered in snow on that walk home from work on Tuesday, that Tuesday that seems like weeks ago, on someone else's calendar. Had I posted this yesterday, I probably would have told you that seeing the mountains, and thinking of you coming so soon made me cry, and certainly not for the last time.

Had I posted yesterday, I would have told you that you kept me up far longer than was necessary, and put your mom through a lot. But today, I cannot blame you for anything. You are way too beautiful when you fall asleep on my arm.

Had I posted yesterday, I would have ended with the No!vember songs of the day: No Surprises by Radiohead and No Quarter by Led Zeppelin.

Chill out, I'll be right back...

Coming Soon

Got the call. I was at work for a whole of about 7 minutes when Biff called and told me it might be time to come home. And so I walked right back, all the glorious Pixies that my ipod could dish up couldn't wash out the heart palpatating news that we could have a baby today.

Currently at home, waiting on contractions to increase, moms on their way...

Oh and hey, by the by, something I never need to see again (besides The Cutting Edge): A doctor placing his hands up inside my wife's vajayjay and saying, "there's the head". At least this time he managed to not say, "2 fingers going in".

Then again, I guess this is something I'm going to need to watch at least one more time.

Hopefully news soon, we're jumping in.


No!vember song of the day: Oh No! by Camper Van Beethoven.

Hey Critter

On the day that you were due to be born, Mandy ran her first marathon. She rocked it like star she is.

We also got our first snowfall of the winter in Seattle. I had a nice couple of minutes walking through it to the store to get an eggplant. Apparently eggplant has something in it that can help getting labor started. We'll see how the eggplant parmesan works tonight.

It's time to come out, there's a lot of folks who can't wait to meet you.


No!vember song of the day: Ain't No Right by Janes Addiction and No One Else by Weezer.

Thanks

Much like the Thanksgivings of old in San Francisco, when we would sleep in, go see a movie or three and come home to make ground turkey burritos, Bif and I managed to avoid any family drama (directly anyway) for Thanksgiving. To which I give thanks.

Being she can begin having a child at any moment, she decided she did not want to make the hour to an hour and a half drive to Bremerton for the family Thanksgiving celebration. We had dinner at Mandy and Jason's, just the 4 of us, and just delightful. To which I give thanks.

We got dropped a small bit of family drama in that as Biffy's mom and dad have come up here to be with us with the impending baby, Thanksgiving itself was in jeopardy. In a glorious, passive-aggressive move from a grandmother who had attempted some other delightful passive-aggressive moves to keep the parents-in-law from leaving Los Angeles, the news came down the wire that Grandma did not know how to cook a turkey. As it turned out, the other grandmother claimed to not know how to cook a turkey either.

Okay, what? Not only did these two woman hail from the generation where they cooked every meal ever eaten in the household as the husbands obstinately refused to cook - and this is DEFINITELY true of these ladies, cooking a turkey is not akin to roasting a pig in a pit with hot coals. How did Thanksgiving go down when mom-in-law was too small to cook the damn turkey for them? What happened to their cookbooks?

And then other family members began jumping into the fray and throwing blame on popular family scapegoats... Whatever, family drama. As I was saying, we managed to avoid the great brunt of it. To which I give thanks.

Dinner? Just a giant slice of fantastic. There was turkey of course, which Jason also did not know how to cook, but managed to do it without purposefully trying to cause trouble and make people feel sorry for him at the same time - he's awesome. There was enough mashed potatoes to make an actual sized replica of Devil's Tower, gravy, sweet potatoes (and not that sickeningly sweet variety of them), corn, cranberry sauce from scratch, stuffing with apple and walnuts, brussel sprouts (thank you again Eric), and homemade rolls that I managed to burn on the bottom a little - sorry guys. There was also pecan pie and Mandy's chocolate pudding pie creation. Insert sound of smacking lips here...

Good dinner, good friends, inappropriate conversations and board games. Apparently Mandy will not play Scene-It with me anymore though...

Thank you M&J for having us over, for a great dinner and for a brief reprieve from the formless fear of what's to come any minute now.


No!vember song of the day: An Ode To No One by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Into Every Life...

As it is getting to be winter, we're getting into our rainy days. And we're getting into those intolerable days where born and bred Seattleites start bitching about the weather. I've said them before, I'll say them apparently as long as I have to endure the prattle: 1) It's Seattle, it rains here. Don't like it? Move. 2) It's winter, the weather's supposed to be crappy. Suck it up.

And yes, we've been inundated with biblical deluges up here; people are building SUV arcs, gathering spoiled lap dogs and trophy pets in twos. Whole towns have been washed away, which would theoretically be horrible if we hadn't lost a whole crop white trash, current regime supporters.

Hyperbole aside, we have apparently broken records for rainfall - again. Didn't this just happen not so long ago? Yes, we've broken records that have been kept for a total of fifty-some years. None of this changes the above bullet points people, shut the whining.

Last night, in a less harsh and judgmental mood, I stood at the window in the living room and watched shifting patterns the rain was making in the halo of the street lamp on the saturated street. It was a calming, sort of Zen moment.

I remembered, being a child, curled up in the silent living room, bathed in Christmas tree lights and listening to the rain hit the roof.
I remembered a little film called Regen that we watched in an avant-garde film class, one that I fell in love with.

Regen is a Dutch short that was made in 1929 and is essentially made up of varying shots of rain throughout Amsterdam; rain on windows, rain on streets, rain dripping off of cars. It's all a languorous song with a melancholy and hazy feel to it. This memory in turn made me lament the sort of child like wonder of filming that around you that fascinates, the ballsiness of creating beauty from something as simple as the rain and how this is missing from most popular film makers.

Anyway, if you're in drier climes, check out Regen if possible. It's available on some experimental shorts collections out there, possibly at the library even, and it's about 10 minutes out of your day. If you're here in Seattle, settle down, relax, enjoy the show out your window for a little while.

Everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving.


No!vember song of the day: Ain't No Good by Cake.

A Special Place For Special Moments

The day has come and gone, the day that I predicted like a drunken Nostradamus. I awoke from a fevered sleep the week before last with the words "the 19th" clinging to my dry, chapped lips. I became fairly certain that Biffy would have the baby on that Sunday.

No go, my flu induced psychic abilities have been debunked. But it's coming folks, it's close, it could be any minute. There's a lot on my mind, and more than anything, it's the memory of Shakey's.


Shakey's was a pizza parlor that had flourished around the Seattle area when I was a kid. It was a place that we went to for special occasions, like birthday parties or after baseball games. There is a little Kodak Instamatic picture that I remember very clearly of me, Kenny, Tom and my brother at the Shakey's near Kent's East Hill, where I believe it was a birthday celebration, and I want to say I have a Greedo action figure in my hand. The Shakey's was also so very close to the Skate King!

Shakey's had this old timey thing going for it. The guys making the pizza used to have to dress like this:

There was a player piano, and the one in Kent would often show old Laurel and Hardy shorts on a projector. All the signs in the place were made of wood and had like this "Robin Hood" font.

Shakey's was started by a man named Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson in Sacramento, so named due to nerve damage caused by malaria. Ahh, back in the day when people weren't afraid to take a malady and make a nickname out of it. I can't say why, but this makes me want to snigger behind my hand like I just overheard the teacher fart.

The pizza at Shakey's had this thin crust with an almost overpowering beer/yeast flavor. Eventually the Shakey's developed a buffet style deal where you could get fried chicken and freaking mojo potatoes. Sometimes I see those seasoned, fried potato discs in my dreams...

On thinking back on it, the pizza was probably not so good, the mojo potatoes even less so, but the memories! All those drunken memories...

This was before you could call up and have a pizza delivered, and back before there were many pizza parlors out there at all. At least in Kent, WA. If you wanted pizza, and much like today I always wanted pizza, you went to Shakey's or made it yourself. Pretty soon, other places like Godfather's and Pizza and Pipes opened up. The Chuck E. Cheese's took over the special occasion pizza market for awhile. And then it just became easier to have some stoner 19 year old bring you a pizza and a 2 liter in his battered Honda, free if it took longer than 30 minutes, than to take the kids out.

Shakey's is now apparently huge in the Philippines, but not really anywhere else. There are about four left in and around the greater Seattle area. There was one left in the Hollywood/LA area a couple of years back that I went to after my brother-in-law's wedding. But this wasn't a particularly good memory as I was tired, hot, hung over, and had spent a majority of the night before cleaning up someone else’s regurgitated Filipino Bar-B-Q. Irony?


No!vember song of the day: a 2fer Tuesday selection, a double negative, of No Children by The Mountain Goats and No Love Lost by Joy Division.