Sunday, August 6, 2006

Sunday morning






Busy week, busy weekend.
"Baby, I Love You" -- Wynton Marsalis & Bobby McFerrin (The Magic Hour, 2004)

Farewell Pilar
Friday was Pilar's last day here as our nanny. We had a great time together---all the girls went out for lunch and manicures. Mommy took a nap while Pilar and the girls went to the pool. We all took our time about getting prettied up and enjoyed a cocktail preparing for supper out. When Tito arrived after work we all played some music together and went out to eat. It was a really wonderful day/night and I found myself wondering why we'd never done that before. I hope to do it again soon. Pilar is coming over next Friday to hang out and go to the pool with us. Its nice to not wonder about when we'll see her again

I'm so proud of her. She came here from Peru five years ago, enrolled in classes to help solidify her academic credentials in organizational psychology and see if she could find a place in the American professional world. Along the way she took a job with us, met Tito, married, bought a home and there she goes---off to live her American dream. I'm proud of the small role we played in supporting her through it. I'm happy for her, for Tito. I'm glad she's part of our life.

Happy Birthday Mom!
I hope my Mom had a great celebration yesterday that didn't involve a lot of hours sitting in the RV or cooking supper, washing dishes.

I got to spend the morning yesterday at an exercise which was essentially a demonstration of technologies developed over the last three days to assist with information collection/dissemination in mass-casualty emergencies but could also be deployed in public health situations. It was very cool to see the whole network spring to life---I couldn't even imagine most of it when we began. On the AID-N project, I was like a kid in a candy store---imagining lots of public health solutions for these guys to develop. Total fun. I think we may extend what we've done a little bit to help us with Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) inventory. That would be a coup.

10th wedding anniversary
Rob decided what he most wanted for his anniversary was a Goldendoodle puppy. We've attempted to bring a second dog into our home through rescue organizations and have had our hearts broken a couple of times when we grew to love a dog that just really wasn't appropriate for our household or family. I think when you have kids you have to leave the rescue work to those that don't. So a Goldendoodle it is for Rob. Its sweet to me that Rob wants a puppy to love and raise for this occassion. So it was that yesterday afternoon, all five of the Mullen's drove to Oxford, PA to collect our new puppy, Noodle (the doodle). Some surprises came out of the drive: I realized how much I'd like to live in a less urban setting---big house, big lot, kind of removed from stuff. More surprising, Rob finds that appealing as well (he's such a city boy). I think we may begin looking around for a plot of land to purchase and build on at another time or as an investment against this idea. I might like to do that in Virginia somewhere so we could potentially qualify for in-state tuition at any of the very fine VA state colleges. Do you know how much it costs at UVA? Or what kind of SAT scores a kid needs to get in there as an out-of-state student? We're talking about Stanford, Harvard kinds of scores. Yeesh. But it is a gorgeous, wonderful, fabulous school. Not that UMD isn't a great school but it is much more modern and urban. It just doesn't have that same regal feeling. College Park is decidedly yucky.

Noodle
Does this name reveal what a sweet heart my husband has or what? Noodle is extremely sweet and cute. He looks like a little lamb with his frizzy white puppy coat. At 8 weeks he is as tall as Otis. He is very content among the girls and plays well with Rob and Otis. I'll take and add pictures later.

Other stuff
I have lots of babies to be knitting for....that's all I'm going to say... but oh boy, am I excited!!!!
Cara's Baby Brights sweater is going very well; the sleeves are being worked on US5 dpn's and they're making my fingers hurt. It looks so cute. OH! NO way am I pregnant! I didn't mean that. All I mean is that if there's a girl on board I might have to learn to do intarsia so I could make a cherry something or other... I don't want to blow anyone's cover so an announcement needs to be made SOON.

Haley's 8th bday is tomorrow. Its wonderful to be able to interact with her in a more mature way and she is so lovely but dude--how did that happen? I still think of her as that little cutie in Calvin Klein overalls with a big diapered booty. And here's a really frightening thought---we're one year away from 9---that being the 50% point. Half of her kid-life, all the time I'm guaranteed. Leave it to me to think of that.

Music
In our cars, the driver gets to set the music and doesn't have to tolerate any whining about it. But I really was NOT up for a long drive of sports radio or trip-hop. As I remain unable to drive for the next week, I wasn't able to exert my preference by taking the wheel. Thankfully Rob agreed to non-ESPN, XM radio. I heard a bunch of early 80's rock: Pat Benatar, Billy Squier, .38 Special. It was only fun for a little while. But it definitely reminded me of how much I used to love Pat Benatar and REO Speedwagon.

"Baby, I Love You"--this song really gets to me; its infectious. So much joy, so simple---Bobby McF has the most expressive and liquid voice. He is such a vocal master. I actually think if you're only going to buy one jazz cd this year and you've already got Lyman's, it ought to be this one. It has a remarkable range of styles, all expertly rendered. I love Wynton in the small ensemble format. I think its really obvious how much fun this smaller group was for him.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome Noodle!!! We hope you will come over and play with Bailey (and Me and Dave!) soon!

Anonymous said...

We've just had such big weeks. Lots happening. Love Noodles X, he's as cute as can be. Birthdays, Anniversaries, new puppies and babies on the way. I'm waiting for a hard copy of the baby news. I couldn't wait and spread the word to friends, told family last week. Somebody better get busy and give their personal perspective of what's happening now. LYFE

Donna