D-Town Goodies.

Well, that was fun.

We are back from Denver, and we had a really nice time. We got to see the family, and we got to show off the newbie. It was stressful at times, but fun over all. What family visit isn't?

We started off Thursday night with a massive pile of luggage and two car seats that needed to come with us. The boys behaved very well on the airplane, and Jackson was very excited. He's still talking about it. Joey just fell asleep. Jen and I are a good match, sometimes in ways that I never imagined. Case in point: Neither of us get sick to the point of throwing up on airplanes or boats, but we both get mildly nauseated. For some reason known only to airplane people, if you are travelling with an infant, you have to sit on the right side of the plane. So the way the tickets shook out on out teeny tiny little plane, Jen was in the window seat on the right side, then there was a big fat guy next to her, then the isle, then Jackson and I were on the other side. The Dude in the isle seat was eating this massive sandwich that he brought from home. He kept adding packet after packet of mayo and mustard the whole time he was eating it, and it was making our collective nausea that much worse. Blegh. We were happy to get off.

Friday, we just bummed around town visiting various people, mainly to show off the kids. We had some lunch at Angelo's after hanging out at Pablo's most of the morning. We did get to meet Jeremy's new girlfriend, who is awesome, and he should hang onto that one. :) Then we had to go back to the house in the sky, as Jackson calls it, for a nap. Travelling with children is very very different than being on your own. Basically, you have the morning to get anything done. Children wake up at ungodly hours in the morning, but they need a nap in the afternoon. So our little schedule usually requires everything to stop around 1:00 so we can get Jackson fed and down for a nap, which lasts at least an hour and a half, giving us just enough time before we have to start dinner to not get anything done.

We went to the White Fence Farm for Dinner with Jackson's pseudo-cousin Emily and her family. They make farm food there, meaning that if anything is remotely healthy, they either deep-fry it, or add mayonnaise, nipping that shit right in the bud. Yummy. The kids got to feed sheep and get that "farm experience" That we could get 50 feet from our house. It did have a playground out front, though. So they basically ignored the food and played. Friday night we went to Sputnik, and had a lot of fun. We left fairly early because we were both tired, so it you didn't show up, there is your out next time I see you.

Saturday we collected my dad and his wife, and went to the Children's Museum. Holy cow, did Jackson have a fun time there! If you didn't know, one of Jackson's great loves in life is trains. Making complicated track systems, then making the trains go along them are some of the most fun he has, as it feeds his OCD* the equivalent of comfort food. He just zones out on it for hours. Well, The Children's Museum has a whole room dedicated to this purpose. He had such a good time, that when we tried to show him other parts of the facility, he would duck out when we weren't looking, and run back to the train room. We had a lovely lunch, and some naps. We shopped a bit on the 16th Street Mall.

Saturday night, Tim took me and Aaron Taylor to the Hockey game. I can't even say how cool this was. I'll try in increasing levels of coolness: Hockey - Avs on TV - Avs in playoffs on tv- Avs in person - Avs in playoffs in person - Avs in playoffs in person in club level box - Avs in playoffs in person in fully catered club level box - Avs in playoffs in person in fully catered, including booze, club level box - Avs in playoffs in person in fully catered including booze club level box with a TV showing the Avs game!!!! They won. They advanced to the second round. I won. Everybody won. Except Jen, who had to stay at home with my Mon and not eat a real dinner because my mom's on some diet. Jen didn't win. Sorry, sweetie.
Sunday, Tim and I took Jackson over to Millennium park and to the kiddie Park on Speer. Jen went and had a lovely breakfast with Turner.

Sunday afternoon, we hung out with my Dad, who has a train set in his basement. Yay for Jackson. We then went to a Pizza place off Leetsdale for dinner, where there was a train set. Yay for Jackson, who refused to eat in lew of there being a train set there.

Monday we basically packed and went home. The trip home was a bit more of an ordeal. After the crew was delayed on an earlier flight, we sat on the tarmac for a while while they looked at a mechanical problem, which didn't go away. We had to de-plane(just as Jackson fell asleep), wait an hour, and get on another plane. We got home 2 hours late. oh well. at least we are home.

A good trip, but I wish I had more free time to hang with friends. Whenever we bring the boys, I feel obligated to let the grandparents spend as much time as possible with them, and I don't yet feel comfortable leaving the boys with them without one of us there too. As they get older, that will ease a bit. I hope.

So, yeah. Pics here.



Enjoy.



-JP



*Jackson does not actually have OCD.

Kibbles 'n' bits

1)The entire Oklahoma Powers Klan will be in Denver this weekend. Those of you who live there and want to see me should give me a call. You know who you are. Since we will have bits kiddies and time is short, a lot of our time will be spent with family, since the Oregon Powers will be in town as well(I have a hankering to make "Powers Family Reunion" T-shirts). We all usually hang out at the coffeeshop more than is healthy when we visit, so chances are about 70-30 that one of us will be there at any given moment. Jen and I plan to "whoop it up" at least one night. I think Friday. I don't know when. Depends on the wee folk. Maybe Sputnik? Anybody have a better idea?


2) This made me laugh out loud at work: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/77275


3) As some of you know(or more accurately, will think: oh, yeah...), Jen quit her job with the Cancer People in order to take care of the wee folk. She could do this because we have a cheap mortgage and virtually zero debt. We still just about break even. So in order to have some extra scratch and maybe help fund our kid's college careers, Jen was looking for a party-timey, makey-money type of thing. She has plans to make and sell some children's products, maybe do some bookkeeping for her mom-the-CPA, you know. Things where one can make money without actually having a job. So then a post came along on Craig's List for someone wanting a baby-sitter/nanny for the late afternoons and evenings, times when daycares don't often operate. Jen looked into it, and after a few emails and a visit, it looked pretty good. She'd be getting paid (a lot) to do what we do anyway: Play with kids in the afternoon, feed them and get them ready for bed. The little girl is a total sweetheart named Scarlet, and is 15 months old, right between Jack and Joey. Pretty perfect, right?

Well... What is weird about it, is what we have come to find out about the mom. She just moved here from California, with basically just the kid and the clothes on her back to get away from some sort of abusive relationship. She's working as a massage therapist and is roommates with the receptionist. They seem to have known each other for a long time and seem to be sharing the child-rearing responsibilities. Okay. Sure.


Turns out that it is the kind of massage parlor that has theme rooms and throws around words like "discreet". When describing the staff, all of whom are pictured on their website in the masseuse version of Hooter's gear, they say things like: "An brunette beauty with a winning smile who can take you to new levels of blissful relaxation". Yep.


And the mom pays us in cash. Nightly. So there's that. Think what you will.


4) There is no fourth thing.



-JP

Drama on a Saturday, or: My wife is a hero....

Because she saved a little girl's life last night.

Jackson went to his grand parent's house tonight, so we were free to pal around a bit. We went to the natural food market, stopped to get some coffee, and then were heading to a big box store to get some paint for the living room. As we were driving along, we spotted a 5 year old little girl running barefoot in the middle of the street, with a bunch of traffic backed up behind her.

"Is that a little girl?!" she asks.

"I think so," I say.


Before I could even get the car stopped, she was out the door. I stopped the car in such a way that I was blocking both lanes, and started to call 911 on my cell phone. Luckily, a few people on the other end of this started doing the same, and a few more people had their cells out as well. Jenn managed to get the girl stopped and sitting down between her legs, and she had a death grip around the little girl's waist. There was obviously something, I don't want to say wrong with the little girl, but you know what I mean.

I was still on hold with the cops. Actually, after being transferred to the police, the phone was still ringing. Jen had one of the other people who stopped to help get a big white teddy bear that Jackson swiped from his grandmother's office a few weeks ago out of our car. They gave it to the girl and that seemed to be calming her down a bit. About this time, in a weird twist of fate, a lady came up saying she knew the girl, because she taught at the local elementary school, and the girl's brother was in her class. Turns out the girl's name is Willow and she is autistic, and a runner. Teacher Lady calls home, and has her husband look up the parents phone number in the school directory.


I finally get hold of the cops, and give them the run down. I tell them we're between Yale and Sheridan on 101st, but that's not good enough. I have to get out, leaving Joseph in the car which is parked across the only two lanes of traffic. The lady finally gets hold of the parents. Then we wait. In the middle of the road. With an autistic kid with a giant teddy bear in Jennifer's lap, and me trying to direct traffic on one side of the road, and teacher lady on the other. With asshole drivers speeding by and honking and giving us dirty looks, which was freaking out Jen and the little autistic girl who wouldn't budge from her spot. The fact that she was even letting Jen touch her, let alone have a death grip on her, was a freaking miracle according to the teacher lady. Jen tried to calm her down as best she could. She would struggle to get up from time to time, but Jen just talked to her, and sang songs (which the girl didn't like very much, and lightly hit Jen on the head to make her stop) and rocked her, and let her play with the bear. We waited for what seemed like 20 minutes. And guess what? The parents showed up before the cops did. In fact, the cops didn't show up at all.

The mom shows up and explains that they were all eating dinner, and Willow was calmly playing with some dolls on the patio, right outside, where they could all see her from the dinner table. She was there one second, gone the next. Usually she goes out the gate into the neighborhood, but this time she scaled an 8 foot privacy fence, on the other side of which was 101st Street. They noticed pretty quick, but were coming their neighborhood, not outside it. We all have hugs and thank yous and what not, and I call 911 back to tell them not to bother, but can't get through, so I hang up. Some EMTs in an ambulance showed up right as we were leaving, and get the low-down from the mom. We go on our way, full of adrenaline.

Over the next hour, as we wander the isles of the big box store, The police department calls my cell three times. Twice to get directions to where the problem was, and the other to see if I had an emergency.

"I did," I tell this last one, "almost two hours ago."

"Yeah, were really busy tonight," she says.

Good thing I wasn't bleeding.
I can't tell you people how proud I am of Jennifer. She ran out into Saturday night traffic to help this poor little girl without batting an eyelash, while I stayed in the car, on the fucking phone. She's so good with children, and was the absolute perfect person to happen to be driving by, because she knew exactly what to do, or figured it out pretty damn quick. The second best person to happen to be driving by would have to be a teacher at the girl's school. How freaking awesome was that? But still. Jen did a fantastic job and I truly believe she saved that little girl's life.

I totally married the right person.

-JP

Fold-ins, Dions and Women of Ill repute.

Okay, this is about the coolest thing I've seen in a long while. I keep going back to it.

Every even slightly nerdy boy in America went through a phase where Mad Magazine was about the coolest thing ever. I actually started reading Groo: The Wanderer specifically because Sergio Aragones did the little doodles in the margins. I think he still does, actually.

This is Jackson with a Dinosaur. Over Easter, he kept making his Nana take picture of him holding each of the .99¢ Dinos that he got in his bucket.

This is Joey throwin' gang signs

His flow be fresh.

Oh, yeah. So they finally put a lock on the gate they put up to block the bridge I used to use to go over the train tracks to get from the parking lot to work. You get all that? Too bad. The bridge has been unsound for car traffic for about ten years, and is now unsuitable for foot traffic as well. Instead of repairing it or knocking it down, they just blocked it off. All that doesn't matter. What matters is that my route to work is now two blocks and 7 minutes longer. Actually, that doesn't even matter for this story either. What matters is that when walking to work now, I go over a new bridge. This morning, just before I got to the base of the bridge, about a block away from the parking lot, a car pulls up. A woman gets out and the car speeds off. No bid deal, she's just getting dropped off, even though it's a really weird place to be dropped off because it's not really near anything. Why didn't they just go ahead and go over the bridge and drop her off on the other side. But then she doesn't go over the bridge. She goes under the bridge, where there is only a small space before the fenced-off train tracks start. And I thought to myself: Ha Ha! Crack Whore!

That is all.

-JP