Lights out in Ballard

Shortly after going to bed Monday night, Jim and I were awakened by the baby monitor beeping. I was afraid there was something going on in Iris's room. We soon discovered the power was out -- in our house, on our block, and in our neighborhood. Iris, then, decides to wake up for a snack. We keep flashlights in our bedside tables for an occasion like this one. So there I was, nursing Iris by flashlight at midnight.

Here's the story of what caused the blackout:

Raccoon causes power outage in Ballard
By Seattle Times staff

A raccoon wandering through a power substation in Ballard around midnight today caused an electrical short that left 11,000 customers without lights for nearly an hour — and spelled the end to the critter.

When Seattle City Light workers arrived at the Canal Substation at 614 NW 45th St., "they could tell by the smell that an animal was involved," said Mike Eagan, spokesman. Apparently the raccoon "bridged the wrong gap" on the transmission lines, he said.

Crews got the power back on by 12:45 a.m.

Mothers Day Gift Ideas

Just like last year, the Red Sox and Major League Baseball have teamed up to provided some wonderful, thoughtful Mothers Day gift ideas

What mom wouldn't want a full size pink bat?
(Nobody tell Irene that's what she's getting, OK?)

To be young again

As an early Mother's Day present, Jim bought me tickets to see Duran Duran. It was a thoughtful gift since I didn't even know they were touring. He also bought me their new album off my wish list on Amazon. Finally the day arrived and I got to see the boys along with our friend Erica. We're both moms who left the kids (she has 2 kids, one is only 3 weeks older than Iris) with the dads for the night.

I was excited to see them since it had been years when I last saw them. I was a huge Duran Duran fan in high school. I've been known to skip school to stalk them whenever they were in town. I saw them last (with all the original members) back in the early 1980s when they were touring to support Seven and the Ragged Tiger. The band broke up shortly afterward. They reunited in 2004 to release Astronaut. I missed seeing them on that tour because it was on the night of the last class of Mandarin Chinese for travelers. (Jim and I ended up not going to China with our friends, Pat and Robin, so it was a shame I blew off the show). Since then, Andy Taylor left the band (again!).

They put on a great show. They played alot of their hits (Save A Prayer, The Reflex, A View To A Kill, Girls On Film...) and songs off the new album. They also did a cover of "Warm Leatherette" which I enjoyed. I tried singing it for Jim but he doesn't know the song. Guess it's a test if you were really into New Wave in the 80s.

I'm still on a high from seeing them. I've been subjecting Iris and Jim to their albums. Iris seems to like it when I sing along to the songs. I'll always have a soft spot for these guys because it'll always remind me of my youth. BTW, Simon still can't dance. Nick is looking alittle like Andy Warhol. Roger should have used more sunscreen in his youth. John has aged well, giving up the blonde hair and fedora.

Iris Win Streak Over, Freddy has bum knee, new Weezer!

Iris' win streak is over at 5 games, as the Mariners blew a 2-0 8th inning lead and lost to the A's 4-2 on Sunday. We think the good luck string was broken when we decided to leave just before the A's 4-run rally started. It was raining pretty good & the roof wasn't closed so we decided to head out early, since the Ms were up 2-0 in the 8th. By the time we got down to the lower level, the A's had loaded em up with no outs and then took the lead. Kris texted me that we better get Iris back up to the seats, but by the time we got back to the upper deck the A's had scored 4 times, and it was pretty much over. The Ms went down meekly in the 8th & 9th and Iris' unbeaten lifetime record was history.

Here's the Martel family at the gameLook - I found my thumb!

We had more bad news on Sunday as Fred the cat woke us up with a very bad limp - he could barely move & wasn't putting any weight on his right rear leg. I feared the worst, since we already know that he has arthritis in his lower spine, just above his hip. I gave him a good brushing Sunday night & noticed he didn't flinch too badly when I was near his hip, though his foot seemed very sensitive. Since our vet is only open Tuesday-Saturday, I thought that we'd take a wait and see approach and see how he was on Monday, since he seemed a little better Sunday night than he had been that morning.

We got home from work last night & he was still limping pretty badly so I decided to bring him to the emergency vet, which is open overnight when all the other vets are closed. I hate going to that place - seems like a lot of the animals that get brought in there have taken their last ride. But it went OK for Freddy--after a couple xrays and an exam, his diagnosis is just a $350 sore knee. They gave him some narcotics to help with the pain and prescribed lots of rest, which Freddy is only too happy to comply with. We still don't know what happened or how he hurt himself but the extra lbs he carries around most likely had a lot to do with it.

That's enough bad news. here's some good - Weezer has a new album coming out in June - you can stream their new single Pork & Beans on weezer.com - I like it!

Iris: 5 months old, April visitors, hospital visit

1. Iris turned 5 months old on Monday 4/21. Happy 5 months, baby!

2. We've had a couple rounds of visitors this month. Jim's brother ML (AKA Jack, John) and his youngest son Reed were up here from the SF bay area the weekend of April 5-6 , and our friends Lorraine and Rob from Ireland were here from Saturday evening until this morning. We had a great time with both sets of visitors. I'll post pics as soon as I can.

Here's one of Iris at last night's Mariners 4-2 win over Baltimore. Iris' career record at Seattle games remains perfect.
She's 3-0 at Mariners games and 2-0 at Sonics.

3. Iris has been eating more as she's grown, and Irene's been struggling to keep up with her, so we accepted the inevitable and I tried giving her some formula yesterday when I was home with Lorraine & Rob. Only I didn't give her a small amount to start--I gave her a full bottle of the same Similac (blue label) formula that she had a few bottles of in the hospital her first week.

It was a bad idea starting her off with so much formula when she hadn't had it in months--she vomited it all up & then it seemed that she had an allergic reaction to the cow's milk protein in it, according to her doctor's best guess. After vomiting her lips turned bluish-purple and the area around her mouth was kind of white and felt cool to the touch, so we took her to the hospital to be sure she was OK.

They tested her oxygen saturation level as soon as we got there and it looked fine, so even though it was pretty scary it turned out to be nothing serious. She also saw her regular doctor after the hospital & seemed back to her usual self after a nice long nap--see the photo above from last night's game for proof.

She's now going to try a hypo-allergenic version of the formula, which has much less cows milk proteins in that so we're hoping that'll do the trick. We'll start her off with just 1 ounce and see how that goes--more news later & more photos soon I promise.

"Thank you, your Holiness, awesome speech."

Bush said that to the Pope today. I just felt a quote that good deserved a blog posting.

here's proof that he really said it:

Newest Iris Photos

Here a bunch of photos of Iris that we took recently & have been lax about posting

Here's one of her wearing a hat that our friend Jana made for her

Here she is in the same hat ready to go for a walk with dadHere are a few more from her first baseball game on Monday.
This first one is from one of her few fussy moments
but she was really good & she spent most of the game like this
and this
and it snowed!
and here's Iris' impression of Cyndi Lou Who from the Grinch

Rookie Iris is 1-0

The Mariners won their opening day game yesterday, 5-2 over Texas. It was pretty cold (high 40s) but Iris was a good girl, not fussing much & sleeping plenty, so we were able to stay for the whole game. Lucky for us we were far enough under cover that we weren't snowed on. I'm not even joking - it snowed for 20-30 minutes during the game. Good thing we have a roof over the field here.

Here's a pic of the rookie with mom & dad after the game

Iris' First Baseball Game Today

We'll be taking Iris to the Mariners' opening day game this afternoon, against the Texas Rangers. This will be the first of many baseball games for Iris this season.

It's in the mid-40s right now & is supposed to be around 48 by game time. We'll keep her bundled up nice & warm during the game & post some pics as soon as we can.

Wassup my peeps

Iris has been battling ezcema for weeks now, and it's not a pretty sight. She scratches her face, her head, and her legs whenever she gets a chance. We've taken to putting mittens on her during the day and swaddling her at night. She has already figured out how to scratch her itch without her hands. She'll rub her face and/or back of her head on your shoulder and arms when you're holding her. She has a bald patch on the back of her head from rubbing it vigorously whenever she's in her bed and carseat.

The pediatrician mentioned that there's a handful of foods that I can try to avoid to see what is causing the allergic reactions in Iris. So today marks my first day of not eating dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, and seafood. I have to reintroduce each food one at a time to see if Iris develops any allergic reactions. This process will take few weeks. Now I have to figure out what to eat for breakfast that doesn't include dairy, eggs or nuts (any suggestions? Jim has suggested oatmeal. I'm not looking forward to eating just oatmeal for the next few weeks). I had a banana for breakfast this morning, and I was picking over my granola mix to avoid nuts. Of course, I could continue to eat everything and anything if Iris was on strictly formula, but I'm committed to breastfeeding until she can eat solid foods which is about 2 months away.

I saw this picture and it made me smile and laugh at the same time. I had stopped eating sushi while pregnant, and had looked forward to eating it again once Iris was born. But now I'm off it again.

ncaa hoops: from bad to worse

I thought yesterday might have been my worst day ever at picking the ncaa tournament (I got only 2 of 8 games correct) but then today was so much worse, as my Georgetown Hoyas (#2 seed in the Midwest Region of the tournament) were upset by #10 seed Davidson, despite having a 17 point lead (!) in the second half. Total bummer for all of us hoyas.

my thoughts (non Hoyas probably will want to skip the rest of this post):

Big man Roy Hibbert's disappearing act finally killed us. We survived his goose egg in the Big East vs. Villanova but his 6 point performance today just did not get it done for us, and that was the end of that for us.

How do the refs call every touch foul all day long (47 fouls in the game) & then make no-call on the drive by Chris Wright with 20 seconds left? WTF? What's up with calling 47 fouls in a game anyway? Is that why we're watching? to see the refs blow their whistles? Ask Joe Kresse what he thought about the refs in last years final 4 - today was similar

I would have guessed about a zero chance of the Hoyas not playing next weekend in the sweet 16. Usually when the hoyas lose in the ncaas I at least have an idea that it's coming but I certainly did not ever expect us to lose to Davidson. I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised, since historically we do poorly in the ncaas when we don't win the big east tourney, like this year.

One of my GU friends emailed this:

"I only saw the last two minutes -- can someone tell me how we could shoot 63%, 55% for 3pters, out rebound them and still lose?? I know 47% from the foul line did not help -- what happened?"

That sure sounds like a recipe for a win to me. The main reason we lost was the free throw situation - they scored 24 on 30 attempts, and we only scored 8 on 17 tries. Almost half of the misses were by Vernon Macklin, who went 4 for 8, but he was only in the game because of Hibbert's constant foul trouble. So if you say the Hoyas lost because Macklin couldn't hit his free throws, did we really deserve to win today?

Lucky for me I got to see lots of the Tennessee-Butler game & still have no idea how Davidson caught up from that 17 point deficit. I guess I'll have to plunk down the 70 bucks next year for the "every game in the first 2 rounds" package - you win direcTV, NCAA & CBS. Your seeming cluelessness in determining what game to show has finally broken my spirit and you can have some more of my money.

Lastly, and this was the only hoops related thing that cheered me up all weekend, our friend Phil was visiting his folks in Omaha this week & lucky for him his alma mater UNLV was seeded to play there so he got to see them play (and win) in his home town. And even luckier for him, he got his pic taken with Grand-MaMa LJ himself, Larry Johnson. (Phil is the one on the right):
Added to post on Monday 3/24:
2 other things I noticed on the box score:
1) Georgetown had 20 turnovers to Davidson's 4. I doubt a team has ever won a game where they turned the ball over 16 times more than their opponent did.
2) Because of all the turnovers, we took 41 shots from the floor to their 57. I doubt a team has ever won a game where they took 16 fewer shots than their opponent did.

Iris' 4 Month Stats

Iris sure was brave when she got her 4 shots at her 4 month check up yesterday. Does that mean she'll have to get 6 shots at her 6month check up? I hope not.

Here are her stats from birth, 2 months & yesterday's 4 month measurements.

Birth
Length 19.5"
Weight 6 lbs, 15.4 ozs.

2 months
Length 22.25"
Weight 10 lbs, 8 ozs.

4 months
Length 23.75" (between 25th-50th percentile)
Weight 12 lbs, 5.5 ozs. (25th percentile)
Cranium 42.75cm (between 90-95th percentile)

So she's still on the smaller side except for her head size, which needs to be large to hold her big brain, right?

Happy 4 Months Old Iris!

She celebrated by discovering the spinning mobile on her swing last night


She also celebrated by taking her last dose of her antibiotics for her ear infection this morning & will be seeing her doctor this afternoon for her 4 month check up.

Go Hoyas!

More Stuff White People Like

I saw both of these in person this morning:

• A guy doing Tai Chi in front of Benaroya Hall on Second Ave in Seattle, right across from where I work. I was pretty surprised that "Doing Tai Chi in Public" wasn't on the SWPL site yet, but it will be soon, I'm sure of it.
• 15 minutes later I was waiting for my coffee at sbux & heard this:

Barista placing drink on counter: "I have a grande steamed soy Earl Gray tea"
Customer: "Is that the London Fog?"
Barista (unenthusiastically): "yeah"

My eyes rolled so far up into the back of my head I think I could see my brain

Hoyas Lose Big East Finals

Roy had a big game last night in the semis against WVU, as I hoped (25 points & 13 rebounds), but the whole team was flat tonight & we lost to Pitt by 9 in the finals. It wasn't really that close of a game -- we would have gotten blown out if Pitt hadn't missed 22 free throws.

Oh well - we'll probably end up with a #3 seed in the NCAAs now, but that's OK. We weren't gonna get a #1 seed anyway so a 2 or a 3 is not much different.

Hoyas-WVU tonight

West Virginia upset UConn yesterday & that's who the Hoyas play tonight 7PM eastern. They have a guy named Joe Alexander who scored 34 vs. UConn. I like the Hoyas chances if they can hold him to low double digits.

My Hibbert fears were well founded yesterday - he fouled out in 14 minutes with zero points. He always has terrible games against Villanova, so I kind of expected him to struggle somewhat, but the zero points foul out was pretty shocking. Look for him to bounce back & have a big game tonight.

The game's at 4PM Pacific time so I'm instituting a news blackout until I can get home & watch it on tivo delay. No calls/text messages please.

GO HOYAS!

Hoya Update #2

Hoyas won by 19 but it was much closer than that for most of the game. Nova scored the first 11 of the 2nd half to tie it & had taken a 4 point lead when Hibbert got his 4th foul around the 15:00 mark.

Sheesh - only Nova can give us a nerve racking game in the shape of a 19 point win. I hate playing them, as I may have mentioned previously.

Next up: winner of UConn-West Virginia, tomorrow night 7PM Eastern. I'm thinking it will be UConn but we'll see.

Hoya Update

I hate playing villanova

Hoyas 9AM Start; New Five$

Georgetown's "reward" for finishing first in the Big East regular season is that we get to play in the first game today, starting at noon Eastern time, which is 9AM Jimmy time. I set the tivo but am closely following the game online. I debated trying a 'news blackout' and watching it when I got home w/o knowing what happened, but knew I had zero chance of going thru an entire work day without someone emailing/texting/calling or whatever.

My buddy Scooter sent me a text msg about the game right after tip off. I texted him right back & said "you can email me - I'm at my desk". His reply: "I'm at a bar so I have to text". Then I called him a name.

They're looking all right so far-- up 40-29 at halftime. We're hitting lots of 3s which doesn't usually last for the whole game but we'll see. More worrisome is that our big man Hibbert left early w/2fouls, zero shots, zero points.

On another note (get it - note? like Federal Reserve note?) - is everyone as excited as I am about the new 5-dollar bills that came out today? Last time a redesign of the 5 happened was right before Irene and I got married, in May 2000. I got my first new one the day of our wedding and decided it was good luck, so I kept it (which wasn't so easy, since we were in Vegas). I still have it in my wallet today.

Here's what the new one will look like:I have a spot in my wallet for the first one of these I see too

Iris Back at Day Care

Iris is feeling quite a bit better after getting her first dose of antibiotics last night and second one this AM. She slept pretty well thru the night (in her car seat again) and had no fever and a smile for daddy when she woke up - something we hadn't seen for close to a week.

She was pretty smily again when I dropped her off at day care, so we're hopeful that she's well on her way to recovery.