Union Pacific's Great Excursion Adventure

Coffee! STAT!

everyday glory, kids, quote of the day No Comments »

Wednesday – 31 May 2017
I’ve gone on the record – many times over – saying, “I love my kids.” And, it’s true. Parenthood has been… an interesting experience, but one that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

What I would like to trade, however, is the lack-of-sleep that Team DiVa occasionally affords me.

Case in point: Last night…

I got into bed about midnight (early night for me…).  I read and chatted for a little bit before I realized that I’d been doing a lot of extended inner-eyelid studies. So, I decided that it was time to call it a night and go explore The Dreaming.

And that’s just what I did.

Less than an hour into sleep, I woke up because I felt a weight on the bed, by my legs. I turned to find a kinder-form sitting on the bed. Staring at me. Too groggy to do much more than grunt, I motioned for her to come up and get under the covers. She did. A few minutes later, she was ready to head back to her room. She asked if I would carry her back to her bed; I told her that she could walk. (C’mon… I was all snug and comfy in bed.) She climbed down and ambled back to her room. I fell back asleep.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, weight on the bed. Again.

This time, there was a bad dream involved:

“Can your body parts fall off?  Like your crotch and your bum… can they fall off?”

“No.”

“Oh.” *crawls under the covers and falls asleep*

At this point, I was relegated from the comfort of half a queen bed… to approximately one-sixth. For the rest of the morning.

Let me clarify a few things: I love getting cuddles from my kids and welcome them whenever they are given… especially since I know that in a few years, there is a better than average chance that they won’t be nearly as freely given. On the flip side, I like my sleep. I don’t usually need a lot of it, but I do like it.

But, there I was: Doing the delicate balancing act of not falling off the bed and not squishing my kid.

Oh, and not sleeping well.

Thus, I’m here at my desk… mainlining my coffee, wishing that I could just configure it into an IV drip.

But, it was totally worth it for a kid who slept soundly and at peace.

Namaste.

Midweek: Mother’s Day and Other Things

art, baseball, books, comics and animation, computers, everyday glory, games, geekery, history, movies and TV, music, opera, trains/model railroads, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...?! No Comments »

Wednesday – 17 May 2017
Stuff and Things.

This past weekend was… busy. But also awesome. Saturday saw the usual ballet and swim morning routine. I missed the swim portion, as I was judging a game tournament. Then there was a little break – filled by running a couple of errands. Next, early dinner and dropping Team DiVa off at their grandparents’ house, so that Sara and I could see Utah Opera’s Don Giovanni. Again. (We saw the final dress rehearsal, with the little ladies, but went back Saturday for opening night.) I enjoyed the production. They updated the sets and costumes to place it in a noir setting. This changed a couple of scenes, but worked for me on the whole.

Sunday, was Mother’s Day.  Sara had been wanting to go to Spiral Jetty for a while and Golden Spike National Historic Site is just a (long) hop, skip, and a jump from there. Thus, we were up early to pick up DiVa and meet friends at Golden Spike and Spiral Jetty. The first time we went to Golden Spike, the locomotives were in the Engine House for the season; that was not the case this time. We arrived just before the Jupiter made its appearance.

About half an hour later, No. 119 rolled up.

The presentation that the rangers provided also informed us that the engines were fired differently: Jupiter is wood-fired, while No. 119 is coal-fired. You could also tell this from the way they smelled as they approached – Jupiter smelled like a camp fire, No. 119 smelled like a coal-burning oven.

 

After a while, we made the drive to Spiral Jetty. Fifteen miles. Forty minutes. Over bumpy dirt road. The water level was a little higher this time – still not up to the jetty, but only 20 or so yards away to splash pools and just past that to deeper water.

 

 

 

All in all, it was good weekend.

Stray Toasters

And that’s a wrap.