Catching up

There were lots of fun things that happened in April, it wasn't all strife. And the good news is, when I look back on this month, I won't have any photos of the bad parts! Only the good parts.

Like the First Annual Kramer Men Field Trip:



Bill stayed in town a few days after my baptism, which coincided nicely with Danny's few days of "vacation" between switching jobs (from Frog Hollow [fruit] to Marin Sun Farms [MEAT!]). So they took Jack out and about while I stayed in and got work done. I tried to get Danny to post about this, because it sounded like a special day, but the best I got was for him to send me the photos he took on his iphone. So, from what I can gather, there was some frolicking around Chrissy Field, some ogling of the Golden Gate Bridge, and some charming of the clientele at our favorite Sausalito restaurant FISH, all on a stunningly beautiful California-blue-sky day.

And then there was the Eighth Day of Easter:



Jack never got the Easter egg hunt that should have been coming to him, since his mommy was hogging all the attention that weekend, so my uncle Paul kindly invited us over for a belated Easter the following week. Jack got his first Easter basket, with lots of candy that mommy ate for him and some very fun books that the luster has still not worn off of, apparently, since he continues to bring over to me to read to him about Biscuit and the Easter eggs. Perhaps even better than the Easter basket was the small dog that Paul and Liz own, the first dog that was just the right size for Jack (i.e., did not knock him down upon jumping up) and sent Jack into giggling fits. This is a happy, generally pretty excitable boy we're talking about, and yet I have never seen him laugh so hysterically.

There was a trip up to Tahoe in there, too, but I can't find my photos of that. Or maybe I didn't take any. We did decide on that trip that you should really buy a house up there, mom and dad. And we (with friends) would rent it from you in the winter, to pay the mortgage. Doesn't that sound like a fine plan? We thought so.

Finally, I had a very pleasant birthday, a spa day at the Claremont.



In five years of living here, I had never had the gumption to try out that big beautiful white building in the hills above me, I always thought it was too decadent; hence, too expensive. It turns out, if you know how to game the system, you can get quite a lot for your money. Midweek, my friends, a reasonably-priced haircut gets you two hours of free spa access and three hours of free childcare! I think this may be my new hair salon. The massages are more expensive, of course, but worth it. I sat up from that table feeling completely disoriented, not knowing where those cricks in my neck and knots in my shoulders had gone. How would I find my way without them? Very comfortably, I discovered.  That evening our friend EJ came over to stay with Jack while he was asleep so we could saunter down the street to our closest and very expensive restaurant Oliveto (which after five years, we had also never experienced on account of thinking it was too expensive, only to be pleasantly surprised once again... does this mean we are perennially misinformed or that our idea of what we can afford has changed over five years and a mortgage and a baby?). It was a lovely day, a very peaceful way to enter my 30s. I had been worried that I had been so busy with finishing the dissertation that I wouldn't have time to plan anything to make my 30th birthday memorable. But I had neglected to recognize that finishing the dissertation is exactly what would make this birthday so memorable. The birthday itself just needed to be a recovery.