A nice little surprise

Gina informed me a couple of weeks ago that Mike Doughty's new CD was being released today (she figured it out when a 27 Jennifers ad showed up on the screen after a vox post she made). 

With all the craziness in our lives right now, we had failed to notice that my (our?) favorite artist was releasing a new disc. 

Talk about a nice little surprise.  I'll be picking up our copy after work today.

Let me see you shake your tailfeather

On Thursday, Nattie had an upper endoscopy (i.e. minor outpatient surgery) which confirmed that she has celiac disease.  In regards to that, either Gina or I will go into more details in the near future.  For now I'll just say that we made the switch to a gluten free diet on 1/21 and over time our girl has definitely returned.

With all the (bleep) we've been through the last couple of months, I can't put into words how happy filming these two videos made me tonight...

Nattie and G

Nattie Dancing

Impressions (for a lifetime)

How do you honor someone you never want to forget? 

There's a million answers to that question.  One of the ways Gina and I decided to honor Rory last week (on Gina's birthday) was with tattoos.  For years I've said I'd get one if anything ever happened to him.  I even told Rory about it during one of his healthier times.

Rory, Gina and I had a handful of conversations about tattoos over for years.  We all wanted to get one someday.  Our last conversation together on the topic was the deciding factor for Gina's tattoo.  Rory told us that if he got one he'd have the word "winter" tattooed across his back.  The main reference was to the Tori Amos' song (with the same title).  Gina decided to do the same tattoo on the front right side of her waistline.  While being fairly simple, it says so much at the same time.  

 

As I had assumed for years, my tattoo was of the batman symbol.  After much debate, I had it done on the top of my left foot.  It's the very first thing I think of when Rory comes to mind.  It was always how I had envisioned paying tribute to him if this day ever came.

In a way it almost seems morbid to me to have planned this out, in part, before his death.  The truth is that I think it was a coping mechanism for us and in the end I'm glad Rory knew about it.

I'm sharing this now basically so it's out there.  I don't want it feeling like it's something we are hiding.  Some people are going to think it is a really great thing and others will not.  Simply put, it's something we did for ourselves and we are both happy with the decision regardless.

I will admit though, having one takes a little getting use to. 

It's a horse a piece...

After much debate, I decided not to vote tonight.  Here's further proof why...

Generally, I am economically neutral and socially liberal.  I'm placed pretty well on the chart as an independent that typically votes for democrats.  As usual, no major party candidate matches very closely with me.

My guess is Obama wins the democratic nomination and I end up supporting him but any of the top four (other then Romney) could still get my vote and I am excited to see how things play out tonight.

I'll definitely have a candidate and vote in November, but right now I just can't quite support anyone fully.

Macie's a scooter

The title of this post is what Nattie says when Macie's motoring around the room.  Check out her form of transportation these days.  It's pretty funny.  While it's slower then crawling, she still moves quicker then you'd think she would.

We're guessing that she's not going to crawl.  I know of a few people on my dad's side of the family that did the same thing and everything turned out fine from a motor skills stand point.

She's definitely quite the individual...

The scooter