Kathy and Kris Site

If parenting is supposed to be such a wonderful experience, then WHY do people feel the need, at any and every chance, to equate the baby’s arrival with something akin to a trip to the guillotine?

“Enjoy your freedom while you can”

“You’ll never (insert adjective here) once the baby comes”

“Enjoy (sleep/peace and quiet/contenment/breathing) NOW, cause once that baby comes…”

“Say goodbye to your life”.

Now I have in no way assumed that this whole parenting thing is going to be a cakewalk–far from it. I have far too many experiences with friends and relatives babies to know that it’s certainly some hard time you have to put in. I never once assumed that we were going to have the perfect, cooing Gerber baby who never makes a peep, and with whom we could breeze through our old life without any change. Of course not!
I’m at the 10-week point (10 weeks more or less left), so the paranoia is already starting to kick in. So why, I ask you good people, do some people feel the need to compound this paranoia?

Don’t even ask me about the house. We’re doing all we can and I have confidence we’ll get things finished, but living in a construction zone isn’t helping the panicky feelings I’m having. We haven’t even started creating the baby’s room and we’ve bought practically nothing to prepare. My nesting instinct is kicking into overdrive, but I don’t have a nest yet. I have visions of me simply “forgetting” that the baby is arriving and, having not prepared, having to use a bathtub or open drawer as a makeshift crib (well, that’s what the pioneers had to do…er, right??). I also have nightmares that my forays into the first few weeks of motherhood are not unlike that “I Love Lucy” episode where Lucy is “practicing” putting a diaper on a baby doll, and holds the doll upside down and diapers his head instead. As long as I’m not cooking a turkey the same time as I’m holding the baby and I accidentally switch the two…OK this is getting morbid, I’ll stop! (plus I’m even more glad to be a vegetarian for that reason! hard to confuse a kid and a carrot).
I’m imagining that everything I’ve read (which is now getting all mushed up and I’m getting all the information confused. Do I wait 3 weeks or 3 months before I do such and such?) will get instantly forgotten and I’ll end up one of those frazzled moms on Nanny 911 because I skipped an important developmental step, and my child is now destined to be The Unibomber instead of Ghandi.

There’s really nothing I can expect anyone to say to me to make it all better. I know, parenting IS hard, and I’m sure parts of it really DO suck at first. But please, just for these last few weeks that I’m in a hormonal hurricane–convince me that it’s not like a death sentence!!!

This past weekend we drove to Jersey again to see my sister and attend the first annual All Points West Music Festival. APW was supposed to be the northern US’s answer to Coachella and Bonnaroo. Plus, Radiohead was headlining and they weren’t playing too many other nothern U.S gigs, so we really wanted to go! We were also psyched that Grizzly Bear, CSS and Underworld were on the roster.

We drove down on Thursday evening and hung out with the sis, bro-in law and the nephews. They are getting cuter and more of a handful by the minute! We ate some yummy Indian food from a great place down the street from her.
Friday we got to the festival early…or at least we tried to. We took the train from the New Brunswick station, and then took 2 light rails to get to the festival. The festival website said there would be plenty of signs (there were none!), and that the light rails would take you DIRECTLY to the festival…well it didn’t. When we got to the park, it was literally over a mile to get to the festival. No exaggerating–it took us a 1/2 hour to walk there…in the heat…on the asphalt…with me and my big pregnant belly. No one else seemed too thrilled about having to walk, either. Bad form for APW.

When we got to the festival we discovered that the bands weren’t going to be staggered, thereby causing us to have to choose between one band vs. another instead of sneaking over to see bits and pieces of each. We were bummed! That kind of seemed like a rip off after we payed to see all of those bands.

You also weren’t allowed to bring in any outside food, an umbrella or a blanket. What kind of a festival is it if you can’t even sit on a blanket? what are you gonna do, smother someone with it? C’mon people…

they had a “beer garden” from which you could purchase crappy beer in a plastic cup for the “bargain” price of 10 dollars. Yes, that’s right, 10 bucks for warm, crappy beer! you could only drink it in a designanted area and you were only allowed 5 total drinks. With prices like that who could afford more? Not that I drank anything, but Chris had one…and that was enough for him.

Food selection was good-at least we were able to find a few good vegetarian things. We tried this interesting corn and mozzarella cake called a Repas, which was good, and we had veggie burritos and corn dogs. Food was overpriced but at festivals it always is.

The lack of any kind of shelter was concerning, as it poured several times throughout the day, intermixed with a scorching heat that made you feel like you were in a deep fryer (no shade or shelter plus 30,000 sweaty concert goers= purgatory!).

But enough bitching and moaning for a second. We’ll try to be positive for a minute and talk about the actual reason why we went…the music. Here’s a writeup of who we were able to catch:

First up was Pawn Shop Roses, a band that evoked a Black Crowes sound on a low-fi caliber. Not bad, not amazing either (1.5 stars). next up was Lowry, a band whose sound was so bad I can’t even guess what kind of image they were going after. Normally it would sound like a good idea to mix a violinist with a keyboard player and an electric guitar…but not if they were all playing out of harmony! Lowry…you kind of Blow-ry. (1/2 star).

Little Brother was playing next door at the Bullet Stage, playing hip-hop beats. The hip hop was too much like any other kind of hip-hop, not very unique, and way too many bitch-ho references to gain our interest. (1 star).

We were starting to get dissapointed in the lineup until The Duke Spirit came on and saved us from our ennui! Their sound evokes 60′s British rock with a female twist. The lead singer, Leila Moss, was sassy and sexy as all get out (think a young Debbie Harry with PJ Harvey’s wardrobe) and had unique, deep vocals. They had real stage presence, renewing our faith in the festival. (3 stars)

Next, we headed over to the main stage and grabbed a veggie burrito on the way–9 bucks but it tasted good. The Go! Team, an almost all-girl group dressed in 80′s garb, brought back the Bananarama revival. They looked like they were having a lot of fun but unfortunately the microphone volume wasn’t high enough, and we could barely hear them over the background noise. They do get some points for wardrobe selection though–high knee socks and all. (3 stars).

Despite the scorching heat by this time (at least the festival had the decency to have one “misting tent” to keep people cool), the festival was at an upswing. Michael Franti and Spearhead performed on the main stage, and their world/reggae mix is enough to get anyone moving. They have been festival performers for ages and it shows–these guys had it going on! (3.75 stars).

By the time Franti was wrapping up his set, it started to POUR. good thing we had our ponchos with us! Mates of State, however, were so cheerful that they made is forget all about the crappy weather. The duo from Connecticut have been performing on the indie scene for several years, are married and have 4 little daughters. The little girls were waiting at the side of the stage, and every once and a while they would pop out to wave at the crowds or dance along to their parents music, unbeknownst to their parents. They were very cute! Cheers to them for cheering us up and putting on a sweet, upbeat show (3.5-4 stars).

Forro in the Dark played next door, with an eclectic mix of Brazilian pop and African world jam beats. Fun, danceable stuff! (3.5 stars).

Since Duffy was too lazy to start on time (she gets a zero in our book for that), we headed over to the Queen of the Valley stage to await our beloved Grizzly Bear, whom, aside from Radiohead, we were most looking forward to.
They didn’t dissapoint as usual. Grizzly Bear is one of those rare bands that engages you from the first song to the last, and you are sad for the show to end instead of wearily wishing they’d stop already. They played a flawless set, complete with “Little Brother”, “The Knife”, and a couple of very cool new songs. Still wish they had played “Shift” and “Lullaby” but oh well, you can’t have it all…(4.5 stars)

CSS, those sassy Brazilians, were up next. The crowd went insane to their danceable beats and catchy/kitchsy song titles like “meeting Paris Hilton” and “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from above”. They threw balloons and confetti off the stage and were dressed in a wardrobe bizarre enough to make Bjork proud. A ton of fun!!! (3.5-4 stars)

The night was starting to come to a close, and folks crowded in for the big headliner-Radiohead.
Underworld kept the main stage going with techno that is any computer geek’s wet dream. They even had images from old games (like Asteroid) running on the video screens while they played. Chris, being an adorable computer geek, was in heaven! (4 stars).

By the time Radiohead was nearing their set, the crowd had grown to over 30,000 people strong. Radiohead made the 9 hour day of standing in the heat and rain and smelly crowds completely worth it. They put on a stunning 2 hour show, and came back for 2 encores.

The only unfortunate damper to the event was the incredibly loud and obnoxious drunken couple behind us. They came later in the day only for Radiohead, but were so drunk and loud that they weren’t even listening to the band and they would NOT shut up. At this point, we were so irritated because this is what we came all the way for to see, and I know most people felt the same way. Lots of eye rolling was pointed in their general direction. I finally had it, when I couldn’t even hear Radiohead over their endless sqwawking. I turned around and said to them “I know you guys might not realize it, but you’re talking so loud that most of us can hardly hear the band. Would you mind lowering your voices just a bit? I’m not trying to be a pain.”. Well, the girl looked me straight in the eyes and said “Ok, BITCH!!”. I was dumbfounded. Chris said “don’t you dare talk to my wife like that!”. I was feeling ready to punch this lady but I’m not that kind of gal. I calmly said “I’m not trying to be a bitch, I’m just asking if you guys wouldn’t mind keeping your voices down is all. We’re all here to enjoy the show”. Thank goodness her boyfriend had some sense and tried to calm her down. He apologized to us and said they’d try to keep it quieter. Thankfully they did! But that didn’t keep me from secretly wishing someone would throw her off the ferry later that night…

Radiohead played all of the songs from “In Rainbows”, a good amount of songs from “Kid A” intertwined with even a few faves from The Bends. It was amazing to see them and they made the dissapointments at the festival worthwhile.

After the show was a complete cluster of you-know-what. Imagine a good number of that 30,000 concert goers trekking it back to the light rail station–only to find that there were no extra light rails to be run that night, you’d just have to wait in an INSANELY long line to board the train and get home. People were shoving each other like it was doomsday, and even after Chris reprimanded a kid for rudely shoving me aside, he was met with only a snort. (A wee bit different from the attitude at Osheaga!). We waited in line for over an hour just to board the first train, and a good extra hour after that to board the second one. We almost missed the very last train by 5 minutes, which would have meant we’d have to wait another HOUR before another one ran. We were exhausted and spent and sick of crowds at this point, but we finally DID make it home–a good 3.5 hours LATER!!!

Not sure if APW is anything we’d ever plan on going through again, kids or no kids.

We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing with my sister and the nephews, who made us laugh with their antics. It’s always depressing when we have to leave them because times that we get to visit are few and far between, and the kids are growing up before our eyes. But we do hold on to the times we can and we have fun.

Just thought I’d update you folks halfway through our vacation week. We just got back from a wonderful time in our fave new city “a la francaise”–Montreal.
The Osheaga music festival went off Sunday without a hitch–the skies hinted a lack of cooperation, but no big storms came–just a bit of spitting rain here and there. We had our ponchos and umbrellas, and camped out on a towel on the ground-so we fared O.K.
Although the lineup was not as stellar as last year, the bands were still great. It was a very eclectic lineup-ranging from soul to hip-hop, punk to techno. I’ll put in a little review of each band we got the chance to see (4 bands were playing on 4 different stages). We rated them out of 5 stars.

Louis XIV- a rock in roll band with a real live rock and roll attitude. They put on a fun show, the lead singer reminded me of what Bob Dylan would sound like with a hard-core edge. (3 stars)

Beast–this group made a surprise performance because the band that was supposed to play in their place, Foals, cancelled at the very last minute. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because these guys ROCKED!! They were a “trip hop” band (kind of like Portishead with street attitude) and the lead singer was this cool woman with a shaved head. We were really surprised at what a cool band this was!! (4 stars)

N.E.R.D–These guys have been around the hip-hop scene for a while (Pharrell Williams is probably their most noted member). They disappointed us by taking way too long to set up (I mean, every other group took less than 10 minutes to set up because they were all on a tight schedule. These guys were getting WAY too picky about the sound and didn’t start until 1/2 hour later, putting everyone else behind). Aside from that, they put on a pretty engaging show. (3 stars)

Spiritualized–how to describe this guy? Trippy, chill-out music with angry lyrics. Like the Flaming Lips on sedatives, with soul backup singers. Not bad, but not up our alley either (2 stars)

Sleeper car--one word: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz. (1.5 stars)

Metric: a born-in-Montreal group with a sound similar to last year’s Stars, a fun group with a cute female lead singer. Nothing too unique about them, but fun (3 stars)

Duchess Says: Little did we know, when hanging out at the MEG stage, that the innocent-looking redhead standing in front of us was the lead singer of this Montreal-based punk group. When she took the stage, she became a screaming banshee who jumped into the crowd and started slinging mud at people. CRAZY, but definitely entertaining to watch! (2.5 stars).

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: Sharon Jones has been a soul legend for years, and from seeing this performance we can understand why. This band has AMAZING talent, Sharon Jones has so much energy, she was like the female James Brown! Not a single person wasn’t dancing when she came on, and the crowd went wild. The whole band was vibrant and TIGHT. A pleasant surprise for us, and one of Osheaga’s best acts! (5 stars).

Cat Power: We got burned once before by Cat Power at Mass Moca years ago. She has been notorious for inconsistent live performances that run from spellbinding to sheer histrionics. Honestly Cat Power was more solid this time around, she appeared to have taken her medication this time (there was a writeup of her in Rolling Stone recently, chronicling her bad performance history and addiction recovery). She did however hide at one side of the stage while she performed, and near the end of the set she botched her songs so badly that they were barely recognizable. That said, at least she didn’t run off stage crying like at Mass Moca. I love her music, but seeing the girl live is not worth it. She is in her own world and nobody else can go there with her. (2 stars).

Devotchka: This band gives a whole new meaning to eclectic. Band members hail from Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania and they combine these influences with haunting melodies that range from polka, punk, dance hall and soul. What’s even more impressive is the fact that each band member can aptly play more than one instrument, and for the set they switched between such instruments as the cello and trumpet, the violin and accordion, the drums and the sousaphone. Oh, and they apparently did the soundtrack to little Miss Sunshine. A really impressive show that was hard to describe! (3.5 stars)

Iggy and the Stooges: When I first heard that Iggy Pop was going on a sort of “reunion tour” with his old buddies, I was excited but also skeptical. Judging from how some recent reunion tours have fallen short (Genesis to name a few), I was afraid I’d see a tired, old Iggy playing new stuff that just didn’t have the raw, visceral energy that the old Stooges emanated. Well I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised to see Iggy screaming and writhing around like he had been in the 70′s. The crowd went insane! It was hard to believe he had aged at all, which just goes to show–sometimes you can’t take the rock and roll out of the person. I was happy to hear that he didn’t perform much from his new album, but instead chose to perform most of the tried and true punk anthems. He completed the set by letting everyone and anyone come up on stage and mosh into a crazy free-for-all (don’t worry I didn’t do that!) (I was amazed at how civil most people at Osheaga were. Not one single person tried to push or shove us at any of the performances. In fact only one person bumped into us and apologized profusely (gasp! using MANNERS?? What is THAT???). Canadians are just so nice…)

Oh, and of all the performances, which one do you think the baby got excited about? Did she kick for Metric? NERD? Cat Power? Sharon Jones? (well, a little bit for her). No, the music that our kid kicked up a storm for was Iggy and the Stooges! That’s right; our kids gonna be a hardcore punk…

Booka Shade: It was pretty magical stuff to see this techno group perfoming in the MEG stage, tucked away in a little corner of the forest, the stage lit up by the glow of their audiovisual screen and glow-stick enamored turntable. Booka had incredible energy that got everyone jumping. It felt like a rave. These two German guys know how to get a party going! (4 stars).

The Killers: these guys were the big headliners, and they didn’t dissapoint. We were happy to hear a few faves, but to be honest, at this point our legs were killing us from standing for over 9 hours and we were starting to get tired and cranky. (God, we’re getting old!). So we didn’t stay for the whole set, but we were happy with what we saw (3.5 stars).

All in all, Osheaga was again an amazing event! We were so happy to have gone. Everyone was extremely cool and nice there, and we felt like we belonged. Even though there was a lot of drinking and pot-smoking going on, no one was acting out of control and it felt pretty safe. Only one person that we saw started acting out, at which point security immediately booted him out (and held him down!) before he disturbed anyone or anything. There were actually quite a few people this year with small children; they came well-prepared with special headphones to block out the noise for their kids and they seemed to be pretty darn content. Which gives us hope for next year, maybe??

Everytime we go to Montreal we find more reasons to love it. This time of year is festival mania, with hundreds of festivals going on all summer long. To name a few, our visit there was sandwiched between such festivals as the DiversCite LGBT festival (which we were sorry to miss; after realizing THAT’s why many of the streets were blocked and it was impossible to get to our hotel-we missed the drag queen parade!), the Anime Festival, The International Film festival, The International Gourmet Festival, Fetish Weekend (which Chris was sad to miss, lol), The International Graffiti festival and the Montreal Blues Fest. Wow, and that was only in the first two weeks of August!

We ate at an Asian vegetarian restaurant which had some pretty unique faux meat options, such as veggie goat and eel. I tried veggie sweet and sour chicken, and Chris had veggie herb-encrusted “fish”. Both were actually quite good! I’m not sure what veggie eel would’ve been like…slimy?? We also grabbed dinner one night at our fave veg. buffet place, Le Commensal. Each morning, courtesy of our hotel (Hotel St. Denis again–can’t beat the location or price),we had breakfast at Pacini. The waitstaff there were very nice.

On Monday we wandered around Vieux Montreal (aka Old Port Montreal). The cobblestone streets, narrow passageways and decorated verandas elicited the charm of Old-World France. It was lovely to walk with Chris and explore all of the little patisseries and sundries shops, and watch the flower sellers and street performers. We stopped and ate at a gelateria that sweetened everything with maple syrup. Later on in the day we attempted to visit Parc du Mont Royal, the extinct volcano park from which Montreal got its namesake. Little did we know what a far walk it was from the metro stop, so we decided to head back. We wanted to see Hellboy II but it was only playing in French (with French dubbing, not subtitles), and the Cine Roboteque was closed on Mondays, so we had to settle for playing rummy at a little cafe called Second Cup.

Sigh….je’aime beacoup visiter Montreal! I certainly hope we can return again someday soon, even with a little Renee in tow (she does afterall have to get in touch with her French Canadian heritage).

Later on this week we are heading to New Jersey for the All Points West Music festival and to spend time with the sis and nephews.

More updates and pics to come within the next week or so!

Last weekend we went to the annual Dion/Casey/Martineau family reunion in Turners Falls, MA. (It’s my Dad’s side of the family).
It was a pretty quiet year with not much turn out, but kind of nice that way. Theresa came up with the kids which was nice. Jeremy’s favorite word is now “No!”, but he’s still awfully cute. Jakey is getting bigger (and heavier) by the minute. Chris’ nickname for him is “S.A.P (sack a’ potatoes)”, cause that’s what he feels like when you hold him!
We got to see some relatives from Virginia and New York, and of course we got lots of congrats and tummy rubs (mine, not Chris’ ). The weather held up so all in all it was a pleasant weekend.
We even got to see some fireworks from my Aunt’s house as their was a boating festival on the river.

In other news, our house is yet again in a shambles as we try to prepare it for the baby. Note to self: starting several projects at once in a SMALL living space plus non-compliant weather for things like painting and spackling equals chaos. But we’re doing ok and I think we’ll be in good shape once the baby comes. Chris just laid the last tile in the shower, we just have to mud around it and do some trim and then we should be good to go! the project took a lot longer than we expected due to the walls in the condo being uneven. Who knew? Oh well…

This week we are going on our last official vacation without a baby–a “babymoon” if you will. Sigh… it’s kinda bittersweet.

Hopefully it will be fun though!
We are spending a few days in Montreal for the Osheaga music festival, and then later on in the week we’ll spend a few days in New jersey with my sis and go to the All Points West music festival. Since both festivals are outdoors, we’ll pray for good weather. I’m sure we’ll have a good writeup when we get back!

In other ramblings, Chris and I are addicted to the show Dexter (thank you Netflix watch instantly!). It’s macabre but the writing is really good and you can’t help but like the guy!

Here is a really yummy, simple summer recipe that we’ve fallen in love with since peaches are in season:

cut a couple of peaches in half and de-pit them (this is challenging but it CAN be done)
grill them for about 4 minutes
then put a dollop of ricotta on them (in the part where the pit would be)
and drizzle with honey.

Yum-tastic!

Well, folks, we accomplished the unthinkable (or at least maybe some of you would think it was unthinkable?). We went camping while pregnant! (well, at least one of us was…).

Thankfully mother nature cooperated with us and the weather remained mild and on the cooler side for most of the trip. The wind helped keep away the bugs (I hear mosquitoes can’t resist pregnant women!). And it only rained for 10 minutes on Friday. Unfortunately we forgot our screenhouse at Chris’ parents, but Chris, being resourceful as he is, fabricated a makeshift lean-to for our picnic table out of a tarp, and it kept all our goodies dry.

Chris was also nice enough to ask for the campsite that was closest to the bathrooms–with me having to pee every hour or so, it was a good thing!

We always love camping in at Pinederosa Campground in Ogunquit. It’s peaceful, clean, and pleasant. There are always lots of folks from Quebec who speak French, so sometimes you feel as if you’re camping in Canada, not Maine. We stayed Thurs. through Sunday.

Each evening we walked on the beach, about a mile to downtown to get ice cream (although, since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve had to forgo “dessert for dinner”, or, as I now call it “din-sert”, for a REAL dinner beforehand, THEN ice cream for dessert. But hey, ice cream is ice cream!). The ocean felt nice but FREEZING, especially on Friday!

Fri. and Sat. morning we ate breakfast at the Amore Cafe. Most breakfast places have a long wait for seating during this busy season, but we never mind waiting at Amore because they serve you coffee while you’re waiting, and you can read the paper while sitting on their nice chairs on the porch. Makes you much less crabby if you have to wait 45 mins for a table. Plus, their lemon blueberry stuffed french toast makes the wait worthwhile.

The rest of our meals we fired up the mini camping grill for. We bought fresh corn from a farmstand down the road. It is the BEST when grilled in the husk, then patted with herbed chevre. And of course, we had to have the usual S’Mores and Jiffy Pop over the campfire.

Saturday we caught up with our friends Erica and Mark, who were vacationing in the area with their kids (Mark’s sis has a place on York Beach). They hung out with us for a while at our campground before they headed home.

Saturday night, after our ceremonial beach walk, we went mini golfing. We hadn’t done that in AGES. Bending over for me is becoming problem, so Chris was nice at placing the golf balls on the ground for me to putt at (though he wouldn’t place them in the hole for me instead, like i asked ). Chris won, but I beat him a few times at cards at the campsite earlier in the week, so I guess we were even.

Sunday of course came all too soon, but we were grateful for the short respite, one of our last bittersweet getaways before the little one comes into our life. So we enjoyed the free time and napping while we could! But we’re getting very excited for her arrival also.

I was extremely proud of myself for not needing a pulley system to get me up and out of the tent in my current state (although Chris did have to help me a little a few times in the middle of the night). But we did it!

We had a nice long fourth-o-july weekend visiting my sister and brother in law in Somerset, NJ. It’s a long drive but well worth it to spend time with the family and the nephews!
Jeremy is getting so big–already into the terrible twos; he can be a terror sometimes but also very lovable. He is really starting to talk now and get interested in things, like bubbles and cars.
Jake is almost 7 months now and he is a fat little sack-o-potatoes! He is a very cute, dimpled, giggly little guy.
He took a special liking to Chris and fell asleep on him a total of 10 times. He didn’t seem to like falling asleep on me as much- too lumpy for him probably…

Jeff’s daughter Alyssa was also visiting for the month from Texas. She is almost in 4th grade but she’s extremely well behaved and mature for her age. She helped out and was so good with the little ones. Jeremy is enthralled by her and is in her shadow 24-7!
On the fourth of July we went and saw fireworks in Bridgewater, NJ. They had a reggae band, which was fun to dance to. Jeremy is a natural-born reggae lover so he was having a ball. They had bouncy castles and fake tattoos for the kids too. Unfortunately just before the fireworks were set off it started pouring. We tried to seek shelter under a tree for a little while but it started to get worse, so we watched the fireworks from the car. Jeremy was so cute, oohing and aahing at everything. “Wow, the lights, I see them!” he’d say.
One thing that was VERY annoying was that we tried to leave early to beat the crowds, but the parking lot security folks wouldn’t let us. We explained to them that we had small children in the car who weren’t going to last long. They were rude and said they weren’t letting anyone out until the fireworks were over. Everyone was getting cranky and the kids were getting fussy. By the time the fireworks WERE over, everyone was in a mad rush to leave, and we waited in the parking lot for another 45 minutes to get out of there! There was NO reason why we shouldn’t have been able to leave, they had to right to trap us there. Grumble, grumble…

Saturday was unfortunately another washout, but we made the most of it by taking Alyssa and Jeremy to a children’s museum called “Imagine That”. Jeff was nice enough to stay home with Jake, who was too little to enjoy it.
The kids had a great time; Alyssa enjoyed doing art projects and exploring the displays. Jeremy loved playing with drums (anything that makes lots of noise is fun for him!), shopping in the pretend grocery store (he LOVES to organize stuff into categories), and watching a toy train go around a track. Every time the train disappeared into a tunnel, he’d yell “Hey Come back here!”. so cute

Sat. night we ate at a great Indian restaurant called “Hoysala”. It specialized in Southern Indian food, not what you’d find at your typical Indian eatery. It seemed pretty authentic (we were the only non-Indians eating there!), and they had a ton of vegetarian options. They kept bringing out appetizers for us to try. Yummy!

Sunday came all to soon. I was sad to leave my sis and the family. Living six hours away really sucks, and it’s so hard to say goodbye. I wish we all lived closer! But we try to make the most of our time together.

Jeff was nice enough to detail our car one afternoon when he got bored, and it looked snazzy shiny for our ride home! Fortunately we didn’t hit too much holiday traffic–most of the traffic seemed to be headed southbound.

we have pics of our trip posted on Flickr. you can see how big my belly has gotten, it’s really popping now!

hope everyone had a happy fourth. That’s all for now..

OK, so this might be the last of our late nights out in Boston to go to concerts for…well…a LOOOONGG time (like when our kid turns 18). But we thought we’d do it up right with Ladytron at Paradise Rock Club.

Opening for them was Datarock, which might just be the most genius “nerd rock” band since Devo. The group (from Bergen, Norway!) came on stage wearing matching red jogging suits and ray ban glasses.

They totally got the crowd involved, doing silly dances in unison (very Devo-esque!), and having people sing along and clap. They rocked the scene with cheesy casio keyboards and mini guitars. At one point, one even pulled out a saxophone and played it rather well. How can you not love a band who brings such cheesy fun, and who has song titles like “Molly Ringwald” and “Computer Camp Love”.
Apparently, they have been compared to DEVO so many times that even DEVO themselves remixed a song of theirs and have become fans of them!

myspace page for Datarock: http://www.myspace.com/datarock

They definitely got us pumped up for LADYTRON…

At this point, the not-so-good sound qualities of Paradise Rock Club started to show. Any time there are more than a few instruments playing at a time, its as if the speakers can’t handle it and the sound becomes drowned out.

That said, although we couldn’t hear very well, Ladytron put on a very good show. They played most of their songs off the new “Velocifero” album, and a few goodies from “Witching Hour”. They created a good atmosphere with flashing strobe lights that enhanced their badass/dramatic dancehall vibe. By the time they returned for an encore with “Destroy Everything You Touch”, the crowd went nuts!

We were protected by a guardian angel bodyguard, who, after finding out I was pregnant and didn’t want to get too overheated in the big crowd, found a spot for us to sit and enjoy the rest of the show in relative peace. When the show ended, he even snuck us into a “secret” exit so I wouldn’t have to push my way through the big crowd. It was so nice of him, we kinda felt like VIPS! (very important pregnant people). We even wrote to the club to thank him.

It was a Monday night and we got home at 1:30 (relatively early compared to some of our other Boston jaunts!), well worth it. But we know we can’t pull nights like this too much longer!

This weekend we’re going to New Jersey to spend forth of July with my sister and the kids. Should be fun we hope…more later!

Thanks to the wonderful generosity of my Aunt, we were able to stay in her cute little beach cottage in Dennisport for the weekend while we visited our friends who had twins.

My Aunt’s little cottage is the quintessential beach cottage-a little bungalow with bright yellow shutters within walking distance to a nice little private beach.
We enjoyed sitting on her porch and playing cards (I beat Chris at Rummy!) while listening to the sounds of summer and feeling the ocean breeze.
The Dennisport neighborhood was nice and quiet, and within walking distance to a few yummy places to eat; our two faves: Woolfies bakery (really good pies and bagels, it always smelled like cinnamon in there ), and the Sundae School, an old fashioned ice cream parlor which had excellent homemade ice cream (“the baby” wanted to eat there every day, and did (hehe!)). At least we walked off the calories!
Dennisport wasn’t too far from Hyannis, which tended to have a more “happening” nightlife and a few more restaurant selections. We drove there for dinner Friday night and had Paninis at a little Italian cafe.
On Saturday we drove to Sandwich to visit our friends Sally and Shaari. It was our first time seeing the twins-now 3 months old! Sally and Shaari are moving from Sandwich back to the Northampton area, so we went to help them out with packing if they needed it. It turns out they were farther along with packing then they thought they’d be, so we spent the morning and afternoon together and helped out a bit with the babies. They are very precious-a boy, Julien, and a girl, Charlotte. They don’t look very much alike but they were absolutely adorable and sweet! When I held Charlotte, the baby in my belly kicked her, as if to say “Hey, I wanna play with you!”.
We took some nice family photos of them at their local beach. They said they were going to miss the shoreline but were happy to be moving back to familiar territory.

Later that afternoon we stopped by the Edward Gorey museum in Yarmouth. Edward Gorey is well-known for his semi-macabre illustrations and tales (probably most popular of which would be “the Gashlycrumb Tinies”– (C is for Clara who wasted away …). The museum was really neat, and it was interesting to find out that he was a great animal humanitarian and was quite prolific in his illustrations for children’s and adult literature, television (the PBS backdrop for “Mystery” comes to mind), and even broadway (“Dracula”). The museum was inhabited by several rescued cats, one of which was larger than our fat kitty Cosmo (quite a rare thing!). He was a vast, old black and white kitty named “Ombledroom”, after a made-up character in Gorey’s Utter Zoo Alphabet. Here is the link to the Gorey house: http://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org/index.html

Sunday morning came too soon, and we waited until the evening to leave to a.) wait until the thunderstorms passed and b.) hopefully avoid excessive shoreline traffic. On the way home, we stopped by a children’s consignment shore in Hyannis that our friend Shaari had recommended we visit. We were so glad we did! Everything in the store was practically brand new because the owner would only accept items in mint condition. We were able to buy a baby Bjorn carrier, a brand new “boppy”, a nice diaper bag, and some cute baby toys (like a crinkly playmat), all for under the price of what one item would have cost at full price! This store was AWESOME! We would have bought more if our car wasn’t already stuffed from a trip to Ikea on the way down.

All in all it was a lovely weekend that passed by too quickly, but it was nice to rest by the shoreline and visit friends, and spend some alone time with Chris (not too many more months before that will end!).

In other news, as you will soon see from newly updated pics, my belly is getting HUGE and the baby is kicking me more and more each day, as if to say “Let’s get a move on!”. Sounds like I’ve got a little drill sargeant in there!

Thanks to a coworker of Chris’, we were offered last minute tickets to see author Augusten Burroughs do a live reading at Mount Holyoke college last night.

Augusten is best known for writing “Running With Scissors”, and Chris and I are both fans of his funny/dark/sad memoirs and short stories, as a matter of fact we have his whole collection.

Augusten was originally from the Northampton area, and he seemed happy to be back on familiar turf (it’s funny to be reading a well-known author and have him mention several familiar things about the Hadley area in his novels). He was very congenial and got everyone laughing, even though his subject matter was macabre.

His latest book is called ” A Wolf at the Table”, and its his darkest of memoirs, about his relationship with his father. He read a few excerpts from it and answered readers questions. One of the best responses he had was to a woman who said she identified with a lot of the tragic events in his stories (molestation, being pushed around from foster home to foster home, being abandoned by parents, etc…) and wanted to know what is the best way to write a memoir of her own, and she also wanted to know if writing about it helped him to “heal”.

He told her that he thinks the term “healing” is a bunch of psychobabble. That people never completely “heal” from things, and to try to seek absolute healing after terrible tragedies is futile. There are certain things, he said, that you will never fully heal from. The loss will feel like a huge hole in your chest at first, and you will wonder how you can possibly go on. You’ll have to rely on others to ground you at first. But then an amazing thing happens. The hole doesn’t dissapear, but you begin to develop a “musculature of the soul” around the empty spaces, and you are able to carry on with your life. He said, “I am so full of holes that I’m basically a piece of swiss cheese that can stand upright and shop. But I’m happy, because I’ve stopped trying to be “complete”, and “whole again”. I’ve simply learned how to live with the emptiness.”
His answer about where to begin writing was to start at the middle, and tell the absolute truth, as dirty and terrible as it seems. He said the best memoirs are those that are deeply honest. An embellished one doesn’t sound nearly as good as one that’s honest, even if it’s about something trite.

All in all, the talk was very inspiring and reminded me of the memoir class I was taking last year at GCC. I haven’t been writing in a while and I really need that in my life. So hopefully I can get back to the pen and notebook, no holds barred!

Went to my cousin Joey and Kristen wedding this last weekend. What was really nice about it is I got to see several cousins that I hadn’t seen in a LONG time. Kinda strange how that happens in families.  It is one of those things that when you are with the people you havn’t seen in a while you realize just how much you miss them all. So it was great I got to see my cousin Tabatha, Trisha, June and Joey and his new wife Kristen along with their respected significant others. It was a nice wedding and was really great catching up with all of them, that is what I really remember about it. My cousin Tabatha is due a few weeks earlier then Kathy so it was cute seeing them next to each other. One thing that irks me about some Family holding some sort of grudge or whatever is the communication. I wish I knew my cousin June lives in Orlando. Me and Kathy go to WDW once in a while and we could have visited. I know one thing for sure we will definitly be seeing her next time we are down. Me, Kathy, Jen and company are going to make sure we see them all soon which will be great. We spent many hours when we where young with them so it is nice to reconnect.