10 NOV 2009 : TUESDAY

Amanda was on call all evening, but we thought we might luck out and she would not have to go in. Alas, there was a laboring woman, so after picking her up from SIHB we drove to Swedish. There was massive traffic in between, so although we only had to go a mile, it took quite a while to get there. Of course, Amanda was already working, so there was no need to get stressed out by the traffic… the hospitalist (who would be there anyway) would take care of things until she arrived.

We thought we could have dinner in the cafeteria, but since it is H1N1 season, children under 12 were barred from the facilities. The Kai was very disappointed as he thought he was going to have an adventure, and he and I left Amanda at work and went back home.
I had partially made dinner (orzo with wild mushrooms), but since Amanda was not around I stuck everything in the fridge. I had not added any stock, so it would keep until later. We just had leftovers. Amanda had another laboring woman come in, so she ended up just staying at the hospital.

11 NOV 2009 : WEDNESDAY

The Kai and I left in the morning to pick up Amanda from the hospital. She did get some sleep that night, fortunately. The Kai had gotten up very early, but spent the the time after 5am using me as a mattress and break-dancing every few minutes.
Since Amanda was post call, we went out for bfast at Geraldine’s Counter. As it was Veternan’s Day, there place was obviously much busier than normal (although I have never been for bfast during the week). The one waitperson was very very very busy.

After bfast we called up Ann and Mike and arranged to meet them at Madison Park which is not surprisingly in the Madison Park neighborhood. After many days of rain, the sun had come out, but it was still a bit chilly. The holiday and sun had brought out many people and kids.

We saw a fellow daycare parent Elaine there which her kids Sylvie and Eva. Sylvia had been in Lonan Kai’s infant and waddler rooms, but she is a few months older and is currently in the toddler room. We found out that she lives a few blocks from us and also knows our neighbor Kelly B. because they were in the same residency program. The are Family Medicine people around everywhere. She had the position in Kent that Eve took; she now works at Swedish because she got burned out doing community health care. Family Medicine is a small world it seems.

After LK’s nap, he and Amanda went to visit one of her coworkers Laura. I did a bit of gardening and harvested some chard for dinner. There was a kid there who thought I was Native American (Amanda would be shocked. Shocked!) I finished making the orzo and mushroom dish from the previous day, sautéed the chard, and made Garlic! Bread! as LK would say. As Ann noted, Lonan shouts everything. We had an inexpensive pinot (“apple jus!?!” according to Lonan) as well.

12 NOV 2009 : THURSDAY

Thursday is Amanda’s long workday, but she managed to get home by 7pm. We had veggie chili made with our own canned roasted tomatoes and chili. It was scrumptious. Lonan Kai loved it as well.

13 NOV 2009 : FRIDAY

We had an early start to the day. After dropping off LK, I took Amanda to Swedish so that she could round on patients. I got a tea and waited for her in a little cafe. After dropping her off at clinic, I dropped the car off at the shop to get some new tires mounted and various other things done. I walked to the Central Library and worked on things.

Now I took a break to write this entry, although it was started on Wednesday. I will pick up the car later this afternoon. Hopefully, I can get back home to make dinner before retrieving the Kai and Amanda.

I love the grunt sculpins at the aquarium. Lonan Kai does not really appreciate them, though.

It is still raining. Amanda is on call tonight. Yesterday, she went on a ride along with the “house call” company she might work for part time. I filled out a bunch of insurance forms last night as I am changing from one catastrophic health plan to another. It’s crazy how close am I to being automatically denied for such things (Washington has a standardized insurance score thing that everyone uses). Health reform can’t come soon enough for me.

I bought a heavier water-resistant coat thing for the Kai (with a coupon and 50% off…Susan would be happy). It would be nice to get him a really waterproof coat, but they are too expensive and he would grow out of it in a couple of months. And he does not like jackets anyway, so layering will be the solution for him.

I took this picture of Armando with Amanda’s new cell phone that just came in the mail. It is has a much nicer digital camera than most phones (which is why Amanda got it). And it is through AT&T since she gets a price break on it through Swedish. Tomorrow we will get a new phone for me as well and transfer our numbers from Verizon.

21 SEP 2009 : MONDAY

Amanda has Mondays off, but she usually works most of the day charting. This Monday was no exception, although I did take her to work so that Lonan Kai would not be distracted by her. My Mom spent the day hanging out with her grandson. As did I.
Amanda and I had our third date night of the year (shocking, I know). My Mom watched the Kai. We walked to Columbia City and went to Verve Wine Bar and Cellar.

I had been only once before a long time ago with Amanda (she had also been wine tasting there with Eve), but then they were just serving crepes. They had many more things on the menu now, and since we were there early we took advantage of their Happy Hour specials… a bunch of small plates for $3 and $3 off flights of wine. I noted that everything had some sort of wine or alcohol ingredient.

Our waitress was pretty funny. For some reason I thought she was Australian.

We got:

• cheese of the day (a cherve) with tasty crispy bread things
• grilled figs with honey and cheese (I forget what)
• grilled brussell spouts
• some sort of risotto for Amanda
• rare salmon with lobster mushrooms for me
• flight of Northwest wine for me
• flight of classic French wine for Amanda

Amanda wanted to get a chocolate torte for dessert, but they were out! The chef agreed to whip something up and made a chocolate covered cheesecake thing for her with a paired port. She liked it. I got a pistachio and something bread pudding with another sweet wine that I don’t recall.

My Mom apparently had litle trouble bathing Lk and putting him to bed. I think we tried to watch a streaming Netflix movie but failed.

22 SEP 2009 : TUESDAY

Amanda worked and was on call all night. I kept the Kai home again to spend more quality time with his Lola. We just stayed at home and let him burn off energy by running about outside.

Amanda had a delivery, but managed to get back home before I took my Mom to the airport for her redeye flight back to the East Coast.

She apparently had an interesting flight. Right as they were just about to take off from Seatac, there was a loud grinding noise and the airplane lost power and all hydraulics (according to the pilot). Oops. Good thing that whatever had happened did not happen right after take off. As it was, they had to get towed back to the gate. There was another plane available for a flight next morning, so they were able to leave albeit three hours late.

23 SEP 2009 : WEDNESDAY – 25 SEP 2009 : FRIDAY

Life as usual. Amanda is all call all weekend. Friday was American Indian Day, and Amanda had the day off, but she had to go in to handle a delivery all day. But she should get the day off another time.

26 SEP 2009 : SATURDAY

I took the Kai to South 47 Farm for the annual Harvest Celebration and Farm Tour. Amanda wanted to go as well, but since she was on call she had to go into the hospital and round on patients. We have been to a lot of the farms on the tour before, but South 47 is probably the closest and is good for little progenies. We had gone last year with him as well.

This year we met up with Ann, Mike, Connor, Jackie, Jeff, and Calvin. Lonan Kai was very interested in the farm animals. He kept calling the alpacas “llamas”, but afterwards throughout the day he chanted “a-paca” at random intervals. We took a hayride around the farm. Afterwards the ride the imperious Kai started screaming about something and I had no idea what because we were surrounded by possibly interesting things. I just dropped him and he ran directly to the fresh cider donuts. How about that.

I briefly stayed for the beginning of a cooking demonstration, but then decided to get the Kai home before he passed out. As it was, me fell asleep in the car, and once home I could not get him to sleep despite trying for almost two hours. So he basically slept for perhaps 15 minutes whereas he normally sleeps for a couple of hours.
Amanda came home around 2 pm bearing gifts of banh mi. I love banh mi… who can argue with what is basically a foot long sub for under $2. Of course, I probably could’ve eaten three of them.

We went out on a adventure to Oasis Water Gardens to get a few fish for our new water feature. It was a little cold, so it was hard to tell how vigorous the fish were, but I did try to choose lively ones with all their fins intact.

I dropped LK and Amanda off at the community center at Genesse Park while I returned home to drop off our newly acquired three fishes. Piglet was outside and immediately investigated the bag that I dropped into the water barrel. I hope that does not bode ill for them.

I returned to pick up Amanda and LK and we went to El Sombrero for dinner. We had been eating out a lot, but I had some money from my Mom that she gave me for the express purpose of eating out. Thanks Mom! I think we have eaten Mexican food for the fourth time in the last seven days, but Amanda loves it. This time, they make Lonan Kai up a little plate of fish and rice and beans just for himself; usually he just scarfed up the fish from my tacos.

Afterwards, Amanda had tried to buy me a gift sneakily at the gallery next door, but I walked in on her purchase. It was a magnet that looks like Armando!

Armando has more white on his belly and a little white on his nose, but it does look like him.

We also stopped in the bookstore and got Mr. Kai a couple of used children’s books.

Now, the formerly rampaging Kai is asleep, and he did so quite easily. Through the afternoon and evening he had been saying “what? what?” and “I’m not tired!” (well, in toddlerspeak), just like the Pigeon in Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late. Funny.

We are home from our vacation down the coast. Hopefully I will actually recap that later.

Today we rode the new light rail train to downtown to meet Eve and Karl for brunch. We walked to the station in Mt. Baker, which is perhaps 3/4 of a mile away.

The new station and train were very nice and new and clean, but it has only been open to the public for a week or so.

We got off in Pioneer Square. The light rail uses the old bus tunnel underneath downtown. I had never been in it as it had closed for renovations a month after we moved to Seattle (renovations for the new light rail trains).

We met Eve and Karl at the Elliot Bay Cafe at the bottom of Elliot Bay Bookstore. I don’t think I had been since I poked my head inside when Lainie first visited four years ago. Although I have been to the bookstore itself since then. We had breakfasty things and I took Lonan Kai out for walks when he got too fidgety. It was good to see them as always; we don’t get together enough but having kids does drastically affect one’s daily schedule.

We got a few children’s books for Lonan Kai. I also got an autographed copy of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies“. I can’t wait to read it. I am actually on the wait list for it at the library, but I think I am like 500+ on it, which means I will never get it (they remove you from the list after a year has passed).

We had to run down the tunnel to catch the train on the way back, but we made it in time. Of course, another would have come in ten minutes, but Lonan Kai was about to pass out. Which he did walking home.

It was $8 round trip for us to take the train… $0.25 more per leg than the bus. It was quick and pleasant, though, and I think would be faster on average downtown (with the walk to the station) than even the express 7 route bus. If we had a transit pass it would be a no-brainer really to take the train, but since we don’t it is still better for all of us to drive downtown and pay to park if necessary unless we were going to be there for more than a couple of hours.
Lonan Kai is still asleep. We have been cleaning and unpacking from the trip. I do not know what the afternoon holds. It is hot, so perhaps we will walk to the Lake and have LK splash in the water.