Trains and Monkeys

The last couple of weeks have been as hectic as any, and yet we don't seem to have much to show for it. We're getting ready for winter, I suppose, blowing out the sprinkler system, trimming some particularly threatening tree branches, listening to Cal give a sound drubbing to Colorado State (42-7) and then a more modest win over ASU (24-14). Oh thank heavens for live streaming KGO radio on the iPhone. It's almost as good as listening on an old fashioned transistor radio!

Alex has been enjoying his green ride-along train lately.



Sometimes he puts his feet up on the steering wheel and leans back against the back rest. It's startlingly casual.

It may have been the best $4 second-hand toy ever.

Now here is a picture of a little boy in a box:

For lack of time or energy to do much else in the evenings, I've been playing my guitar a bit more. Alex calls it the "gii-car" or "geet-car". I'm no better now than I ever was, and probably worse. But Alex doesn't seem to notice, especially when I let him strum and pluck the strings. Once last week he even pulled out his big green alligator xylophone and played along with me.


I'll be honest with you. We are exhausted most of the time. Money is really tight. We don't see all that much of each other, between work and school and commuting. The house is falling apart and is a perpetual disaster area of dirty dishes, baby toys, and paperwork. We have pieced toghether a patchwork web of small blessings, contingencies, and outs that get us by: Ryanne (the world's greatest nanny, fills-in-all-the-gaps, stays late, Alex's #1 fan), frozen meals (Bertouilli's frozen pasta skillets are a nice treat when they're on sale), walks around town, parks with swings and slides, kids videos from the library (Richard Scarry's Best Videos really are just that), and now we have a newly minted babysitter Priya who can watch Alex when she hasn't got too much homework.

So we get by. We're definitely not DINKs anymore. Let's not talk about 401(k)'s right now.

Auntie Ali sent Alex a ridiculously cute monkey costume for Halloween.
It even has a banana. Can you believe it?

Here's what makes it all worth while:

Why not come to Colorado?

Over the last few years Dana and I have talked a lot about where we want to live. There are a handful of places that I think we would feel truly at home; the Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest, and Northern Colorado top that list, followed by a handful of familial hold-outs - San Diego, Washington, DC, and New York among them.

We continue to come to the same conclusion: Colorado is a really nice place to live. I think it's safe to say we love it. We have the Rocky Mountains on one side, and the Great Plains on the other. We have big cities and small towns fighting it out for the crown of "best place to live." We have beautiful weather -- beautiful in both its variety and its moderation. We have a thoughtful cross-section of American politics, culture and quirkiness. We have an acceptable balance between being well connected to the world, and being just a tiny bit removed from its most tumultuous extremes. We have the luxury of being "about two hours" from anywhere else in the lower 48.

We try hard to find opportunities to visit our friends and family elsewhere, and we enjoy every trip. But why not come to Colorado?

Come and stay with us. Let us treat you to long hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park. Let us take you to our favorite Indian restaurant. Let us revel in drinking a couple of pitchers of cheap beer and singing karaoke at the corner pub. Let us spend the day at Denver's museums and zoo. Let us "hand you the keys" to Alex for the day and watch him delight in the simplest pleasures at the park up the street. Let us take you to the abandoned parking lot up the freeway after a big snow storm for a physics lesson in how to drive in the snow (and have a ball doing it). Let us learn how to make money in investment property in a place where you can actually afford to do it. Let us sit around a huge, roaring campfire telling stories and warming up after paddling a canoe all day.

Someday, we want to have a big homestead, or estate, where we can gather all of our loved ones in one place. Maybe not to live and stay forever, but at least anytime they so choose. We can come together and play and share and enjoy each others' company. I think Colorado would be a fine place to build that dream.

San Diego

The weekend before last we took a last-minute trip out to San Diego to visit Dana's Mom. Our once-favorite airline, Frontier, made a dramatic change to their frequent-flier program which would render about 25% of our miles useless, so we decided to put them to good use instead.
We had a delightful time with Susan and Herb, including walks on the beach, visiting with Dana's Aunt Leslie and Uncle Shimshon, an afternoon at the pool with Dana's friends Martha & Jeff and their delightful daughter Veronica, outstanding food, and even a rare "date night" thanks to Susan and Herb's generous babysitting.


Alex had a mysterious and inexplicable fever throughout most of our trip, one night, much to our alarm, topping out above 104F. He had no other symptoms, and as long as we kept him on Tylenol or Motrin, he had no fever at all, and was happy as a clam. By the time we got back to Denver he was feeling fine.

Since we returned from the coast, it has been a busy few weeks -- hence the rather infrequent blog postings here. Dana has a full class schedule, taking both day and evening classes Monday-Thursday, working about 15 hours a week at a reputable Denver Intellectual Property firm, and then one more class Saturday mornings, just for good measure.

Meanwhile Ryanne is taking a biology class in the evenings, and Dan is taking a "Citizen's Academy" class from the Larimer County Sherrif's Office. We had to sit down with a piece of graph paper and work out a weekly schedule so we could figure out when Dan, Dana and Ryanne could each watch Alex. It is rather complex.

Now for some more cute photos -- Alex eating big macaroni pasta for dinner this week: