Trippin in St Pete

[2tallbill]

Robert Heinlein, in his classic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress wrote about a beautiful woman by the name of Wyoming Knott.  They called her Why Nott for short.

Book 3: TANSTAAFL!
(The title is an acronym for There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!)

[2tallbill]

Angel Eyes has been knitting up a storm and made some kind of baby
outfit kind of like footie pajama's and she knitted a little hat for his head
with ears at the top like he's a cat or bear or something. When I touched
it was super soft, and I said "I want one!!" but I was shut down 

She made him several sets of babies booties as well.

[2tallbill]

According to the sonogram and the doctor we will have a boy. However,
if you ask Angel Eyes, Smiley girl and my cousin (also a girl) they will tell
you they think it's a girl for reasons only they know. My theory is that I
don't see any profit in arguing with them. Girls can wear blue too.

[2tallbill]

Reminds me of an old story .........................

When I was in the 5th grade there was the cutest girl (also in the 5th grade)
Who I was kind of sweet on. She seemed to like me too. She sat behind me
on the school bus and would say things pretending that her barbie doll was
whispering in my ear.

I don't know about when the rest of you were in the 5th grade, but 5th grade boys
in Blythe California could not be seen sharing whispers with barbie dolls or you would
be considered the opposite of cool for the rest of your life. I had let her do the dolly
whisper thing several times but my future reputation was in deep peril. So eventually,
I grabbed the barbie and tossed it back to her over my shoulder.

The bus window was open maybe 2 inches (5 cm) and somehow the barbie
went out the window. If I had intentionally tossed the doll out of the window
I would have failed on 97 of 100 tries, yet somehow I managed to do this
accidentally, as the shrieking behind me soon announced to everyone including
the bus driver what happened.

I was sent out of the bus to search for the doll, but couldn't find it. The bus driver 
was sure that I had done this on purpose. She even pointed at the window and
said "how could you accidentally make a barbie doll go out this window!? It's only
open 2 inches!"

I was kicked off the bus for a week. I bought the girl a new barbie doll later that
evening but the damage was done and the cute little girl hated me for all time.
and we never flirted again.

I lived only 7 miles from the school so I had to walk that distance to and from school
each day for a week. I had to get up early and make my own breakfast and take off
for school when my brothers and sisters were just waking up. My parents did believe
me that it was an accident, so I didn't get into any additional trouble on top of walk to
and fro each day plus the price of a Barbie.

Udachi!

Bill

[2tallbill]

Angel Eyes was absolutely sure she would be having the baby today and
told me and Smiley Girl about it. Telling Smiley Girl was a tactical mistake.
You must understand that Smiley Girl is at an age where her emotions
bounce around like electrons in a nuclear accelerator. She gets far too
excited, can't concentrate and assumes that there is no chance that the
baby won't be coming along any minute.

Smiley Girl gets a ride home with me on 4 out of 5 days each week. SG
asked if she would need to walk home or the hospital after school. She
was too excited to eat breakfast when I told her that there is a good
chance that the baby wouldn't arrive today Smiley girl didn't believe me.

We were low on food, so I ran to the store to stock up on some basic
provisions and then picked up Angel eyes for the appointment with the
doctor at 8:45 am. They do several different things including a baby heart
stress test to make sure everything is ok.

However, when they did the pelvic exam AE measured only 4 cm
which was the same as the previous appointment last week.

AE was crestfallen and we got some tears on the way home. AE has
pregnant woman hormones running around in her veins and it was too
much for her so the water works began, but I was able to cheer her
up in fairly short order.

I had put together the crib and various baby furniture last night and we
have a bag packed for a trip to the hospital. I've even made a dry run with
Smiley girl in case I was away for some reason. We have to go to the front
of the hospital and take a left if the baby starts arriving before 9:00 pm and
we go to the back of the hospital and go down a long hallway to the right if
the baby comes after 9:00pm.

We have a special number to call which I tried calling and of course nobody
answered and it went directly to voice mail. This is the Bakken Oil boom-fields
of North Dakota and we are very used to the idea that nobody will answer a
phone, even an emergency line.

[msmobyone]

Ah.. nothing like a woman awaiting an imminent birth ... 

Always enjoy reading your updates, beel

[2tallbill]

Angel Eyes has been a trooper with her pregnancy so far and still keeps the
house spotless, the clothes washed and everyone well fed. She only has a few
pregnant food fetishes one of them is that she can't stand peanut butter and of
course I love peanut butter cookies and Reeses Peanut butter cups but I have
mostly stopped eating them, because she can smell them a mile away.

I will eat anything and Angel Eyes is a good cook but she will put together a
combination of things for breakfast that aren't usual by American standards.
I've lost a little over 20 pounds since AE arrived from the better diet and I
have to wear a belt or most of my pants will slide down.

We have a doctor appointment on Friday and if the baby doesn't arrive earlier we
have induction on Monday morning (when I say we what I meant was to say she
has it and I will be on hand). 

Also she is a knitting machine, and all kinds of baby clothes and accessories
have popped up out of nothing but yarn. Our new boy won't have to go naked
after all. 

She has been searching for some kind of baby detergent. Apparently a babies
skin is too delicate for the regular stuff. I tried to tell her that regular detergent
is just fine but she's not buying that story, so if anyone knows of something super
mild let me know or maybe I will buy some Woolite or something.

Yesterday I went to Smiley Girls parent teacher conference and her teachers
all raved about what a good student and how well liked she was. Smiley girl
is still pretty shy and conscientious of her accent. She can actually speak and
understand English well (in my opinion) but they can't understand her accent
like I can.

When the girls arrived I didn't have a room for Smiley girl, but I had a large
open area in the basement. So I built a room for her with a closet and niche
and insulated everything so now Smiley girl now has the nicest and warmest 
room in the house.

Smiley girl loves to sing and sings various songs for at least an hour each evening
we hear a variety of songs in both English and Russian rising up from down the
stairs.

Everybody cross their fingers for Angel Eyes and 2Smallbill (I will come up with
a better nickname)

More to follow 

Bill

[2tallbill]

AE  was absolutely certain that she was going to have the baby a week ago,
which is similar to her feminine intuition that they baby will be a girl when the
sonogram says it's going to be a boy. She is with baby and has hormones
circulating inside her and has been incredibly reasonable and easy to deal with
so when she makes a proclamation, I see no reason to argue about it. 

Likewise when she says she desperately craving apples that you can be sure
that I run out of the house and forage for apples day or night.

She has been having Braxton Hicks (false labor) for months now. On Monday
morning she will be induced if she hasn't had the baby before then.



Udachi!

Bill

[2tallbill]

Angel Eyes water broke so no need to wait till Monday

Two hours after the water broke Alexander was born
7lbs 9 oz 3.43 kg hasn't been measured for length yet

Angel Eyes raved about how cool the hospital was (it's brand new and still being
finished) and took photos to make her girlfriends jealous. Of the two hours since
her water broke she spend an hour and a half in a giant tub of water, then she
spent less than 30 minutes delivering the baby.

During the two hours none of my jokes were considered very funny. I thought
a brilliant joke came into my head. Angel Eyes was having labor pains while
dilating, I was supposed to press my hand against her back and she would
go through the contraction. This had been going on for about 45 minutes when
I said "boy oh boy, is my hand getting tired!" The doctor (a woman) looked at me
as if she wanted to kill me. AE knew I was joking but was busy enough huffing
and puffing etc to react at my attempts at humor. I was really surprised how
fast the baby was born.   

Here is a photo (that I only recently have been told that I can share) taken many
days later of the boy and I trying to catch a few zzzz's  but the paparazzi never
rest! they snapped this photo catching us unaware.



Here is a photo of the boy Alexander aka Sasha with the very cool getup that Angel Eyes
knitted for him. (I still want one) This is in his car seat with all kinds of stupid warning labels
on it. I didn't find a warning label telling me not to leave the baby and the car seat on the
roof and to drive off, so it must be just fine to do so, otherwise surely they would warn me
not to do it.

[2tallbill]

Smiley girl is very very excitable which was one reason (among many)
that despite her protestations wasn't allowed to come. After a phone call
I told her under no circumstances was she to call me again, that I would
call her back shortly and especially not to call or send an sms to Angle Eyes.

So within 5 minutes she called me at least 8 times and sent me countless sms
and when she realized I wasn't going to answer she went on to start pestering
AE.

Since the labor went so fast I turned on the phone and called Smiley Girl who
was sure that she was in terrible trouble for ignoring my previous instructions.
When I told her to get ready that I was coming to pick her up so that she could
see the baby I heard squeals of happiness over the phone  :laugh:

The cell phone reception in the hospital was like 1/2 of a bar and getting the message
out was hampered by delays but I finally set up a family/group sms and sent out an update
wisely saying "and that's all I know" which might have cut down the inevitable questions
that I didn't know the answer to and wouldn't occur to me to ask. 

[2tallbill]

I've been assigned a number of honey do list things by Angel Eyes before she
gets out of the hospital in a few hours. I delegated some of this to my son and
Smiley Girl. My 24 year old son is a good enough kid but he goes to work at
4:30 am (I give him a ride) and by the time he gets home he is dead tired. So
the project I gave him to do was done about as half ass as it could have been
done while still appearing as if he did something.

I assigned Smiley Girl a task (she is usually very good at doing chores) and she
did only marginally better but the mess that she made in the kitchen, refrigerator
and stove far exceeded any benefit of handing the project to her. She did vacuum
the house but somewhere along the way the vacuum ate a belt which obviously
wasn't her fault.

I gave my son a ride to work this morning at 4:30 am and one of his jobs is to
start the car 20 minutes before so it gets warmed up and to shovel the walkway
which he didn't do . It's -5F (-21C) and we ride to work in the cold. I was told to 
to wash the car today, which my only option is to drive it through one of the machine
wash jobs they have around here. I put the hose away in late October and won't
bring it out again until June.

I tried to sleep when I got home but at 8:00 am gave it up.

The inside of the car is clean, the outside looks like I drove through a mud field for two
weeks. I've stripped the bed and threw the sheets and pillow cases into the washer and
made a serious dent in the disaster in the kitchen.

I still have some files/papers to organize in my office, then throw the sheets in the dryer
and finish the kitchen disaster. I still have two pieces of furniture to relocate based on
Angel Eyes current baby rearing/housewifing plan which is subject to change without
notice. It will disrupt traffic flow but that's part of her plan.

I need to get the car seat properly attached in the back seat facing the rear and then
go to collect Angel Eyes and the boy with moniker to be determined later. I've gotten
all the rest of the other stuff on the honey do list done last night. I need to fill up the
window washing fluid and add a quart of oil to the car. I need to shovel the sidewalk
and path around the house otherwise Angel Eyes will go out and do it in her slippers,
which I have forbidden her to do (as if that ever slowed her down)

[fathertime]

1st, congratulations on your newborn


2nd if that is a photo of you and the child, the boy looks so much like that an outsider might think it was 100% your DNA.


3rd...did I understand you right...it is -5 degrees out there this time of year? Arctic circle? 


4th...Perhaps you have good reason, but, why do you drive your 24 year old boy to work a 4:30AM?  I'm done driving my kids at 16, unless an emergency pops up.


Fathertime! 

[Anotherkiwi]

3rd...did I understand you right...it is -5 degrees out there this time of year? Arctic circle? 

This was in January!  I agree - it would be a big help, Bill, if you could put a timeline on these posts!

[Boethius]

I think Bill made it fairly clear he was documenting his entire journey, his failures and ultimate success in finding Angel Eyes.  Given he has a full time job, drives his son to work at 4:30 a.m., has a marriage of under a year, a teen aged stepdaughter, and a baby boy, we should be grateful he is willing to spend the time to document as much as he has. 


We are now in the winter of 2015.  Not too difficult to figure out.

[2tallbill]

1st, congratulations on your newborn

2nd if that is a photo of you and the child, the boy looks so much like that an outsider might think it was 100% your DNA.

3rd...did I understand you right...it is -5 degrees out there this time of year? Arctic circle? 

Fathertime!

This was in January!  I agree - it would be a big help, Bill, if you could put a timeline on these posts!

Thank you, my son Alexander aka Sasha was born at the end of January 2015,
Boethius has all the details correct. I've elected to forgo the DNA test to establish
paternity based on the opinion from everyone that the poor boy looks like me
(joking) Late January in North Dakota can get very cold but it's the wind that makes
it brutal.

Eventually hopefully, I will get this T/R caught up and then when I make a post
it will be semi current. When I wrote the Trippin in St Pete T/R years ago, I had
already made a trip to Odessa, twice to Kiev to Lugansk then to St Petersburg,   
then to Dnepropetrovsk, then to Georgia then to Portland, then 4 times to
Voronezh to see Angel Eyes then she visits me twice and we get married.   

The usual method is to write them all as separate T/Rs and to let others try to find
them if they are interested.

I decided to try to put all of my reports here all in one place so that somebody could
get the whole story, but the timeline would be harder to follow since I wrote it out of
sequence.

Udachi!

Bill

[2tallbill]

I think Bill made it fairly clear he was documenting his entire journey, his failures and ultimate success in finding Angel Eyes.  Given he has a full time job, drives his son to work at 4:30 a.m., has a marriage of under a year, a teen aged stepdaughter, and a baby boy, we should be grateful he is willing to spend the time to document as much as he has. 

We are now in the winter of 2015.  Not too difficult to figure out.

Yes, you have the details figured out. The boy currently wakes up two to three times per
night convinced that he is starving and wasting away to nothing. (He is in the top 90% for
height at his age) While I do get woke up too, Angel Eyes does 99.99% of the late night
work and has the patience of Job.

Udachi!

Bill

[2tallbill]

I'm not getting much sleep, but I only sleep for 4-6 hours at most anyway.

Alexander keeps Angel Eyes up most of the nights. I take over for her at
6:00 am and he generally goes straight to sleep (lucky me) and AE sleeps
like she's dead. I shovel the snow, wake up Smiley girl and make breakfast
for everyone. I put AE's breakfast in the microwave for when she wakes up
and I make her tea, which is green tea with ginger and lemon and put it in
a stainless steel insulated cup with a lid.

I shovel more snow and take Smiley girl to school.

Alexander is doing ok, He had a small amount of jaundice when we left the
hospital. It's been sunny lately so AE holds him near the window so he can
get a little sun and his skin is looking much better. His sack was a little red
so AE let him go commando for a few hours and he is more pink and less
red now. 

We have an appointment with a pediatrician this afternoon for follow up etc

[2tallbill]

Alexander got two thumbs up from his baby doc yesterday

I went out to warm up the car and the hood of the car was slightly open.
I am not sure how that happened but it wouldn't close completely. I played
around with it and it wouldn't move so I stuck my head inside the car to look
at the outside temperature and saw that it was -11F (-23.9C) so it just got
frozen. I sprayed some WD40 on it and was able to wiggle it around and close
the hood.

When things get hot then cold here water melts then refreezes in the most
inconvenient places.

I made rolled oats for breakfast and filled the sink with hot soapy water. It has been
the rule since Angel Eyes came home from the hospital that everyone would wash their
own dishes and put them away. Smiley Girl who is usually pretty good at following the
rule decided that today she should just leave her dishes on the table instead. I pointed
them out to her and she said that she didn't have time to do them.

I explained that if I did them then I wouldn't have time to take her to school, but it's
only -11F outside so she should bundle up before walking. I got the silent treatment
but she did her dishes.

[2tallbill]

Currently we are at t + 1 hour 45 minutes to get loaded into the car.

I've already begun altering the time that I report that we are expected
to arrive for appointments. We've even missed some (by an hour and a
half) that had to be rescheduled.

I am not allowed to do anything that might help us take less time.
The fact that I was the oldest of 6 kids or that I've raised a number of
kids already are not credible references that I won't screw everything
up or forget something vitally important.

Apparently they won't give chloroform to new Dads. I've tried to explain
that if we have a fire everyone will burn alive, but the doctors don't seem
to understand the necessity. I guess I will have to resort to a bonk on the
head if we have a fire or other life threatening emergency. (Just kidding
for the perpetually offended)

[2tallbill]

Alexander goes through approximately 8 diapers per day and he's
15 days old which is 120 diapers if you want to do the math and
yet somehow I have managed to change zero of them.

Walmart is a nut house but I stopped in there yesterday to pick up
flowers and candy for both Angel Eyes and Smiley girl for Valentines
day.

Angel Eyes knows that in the USA you buy flowers by the dozen.
Once that she found out that I had been giving one flower to our
nonagenarian landlord Angel Eyes proclaimed that I should give the
whole dozen to her and that she would place 7 flowers in a vase in
the living room and 5 flowers in a vase in the kitchen thereby not
needing to give any of her flowers away.

I somehow found a bouquet of roses with 13 roses in it. I still gave
one rose to the landlord leaving an even amount of flowers so that
they could be split between rooms in various vases. Smiley girl got
a colorful arrangement (not roses)

Smiley Girl took at least a dozen selfies with all the flowers and all
the candy. I will cook dinner tonight some kind of surf and turf.

[2tallbill]

True story,

The day I first arrived in Norf Dekody, I met a man who must have
been 80 years old. He was probably 5' 4" (163cm) and 140 lbs (63 KG).
I was putting the connections for my trailer together and I asked if he
had a knife.

He said,

"Son, as soon as I got big enough to kill a man with my bare hands
I stopped carrying a knife."   

[2tallbill]

Some of my theories on life and happiness.


Note: I have a son named Tim. We have different theories on Cleaning
the kitchen.

Bill's theory on happiness, the world and life in general #271 A & B

Bills theory A: You wash every dish and then you clean the entire
kitchen. Man clean does not equal women clean. I don't have all
the scouring brushes, scrubbing powders, solvents, etc to make
something woman clean.

All counters are to be free of dirt or growth of any kind.
Then every time you cook or use a dish you clean it and
put it away and this way it's always clean.

Bills theory B as it relates to girls: Girls will generally think better
of a man who is capable of keeping the barnacle buildup under control
and counters free of dead cats than a man who doesn't. She will still see
him as hopelessly inept but all men who are non OCD men are inept at such
things.

Tims theory A: You dirty every dish, pan or surface in the house
including a gravy boat used twice a year or a soup ladle which he has
never used before for the purposes of ladling soup and make them all
dirty.

Then you only clean what is minimally required to make yourself something
to eat and then leave it this way permanently or wait for somebody else to
clean it up.

Tims theory B as it relates to girls:
1. The buildup of mold spores will improve his immune system and
make him more attractive to girls as all women naturally want to
procreate with a healthy and vigorous man.
2. Who cares

Analysis: Bill's theory and Tim's theory are incompatible and
mutually exclusive theories to be used in the same kitchen.
Using these theories in the same kitchen will most likely cause
conflict between the two theory holders.

Argumentum ad baculum: The meaner, tougher, and scarier theory holder
(in this case Bill) will prevail most often.

[2tallbill]

Bills theory about happiness, the world and, life in general # 17

I am a man. My default mode is happy. That means I am generally
happy most of the time. If I am not happy then 97.63% of the time
one of the following three H's is the cause. 2.37% of the time it's
something else and statistically unimportant as it will usually go
away on it's own or I will forget all about it or my team with win
the next week.

What are the three H's you ask?

Hurting, Hungry and Horny. If I seem in a bad mood then you might ask

Bill are you in pain? if no then you might ask
Bill when did you eat last? are you hungry? in not then you know


Bills theory on happiness, the world and life in general #4

Don't try to figure out women. For some reason they like us.
This doesn't make sense since we are bigger, hairier, not as soft
and don't smell as nice. Just work with what you have there is no
need to get all philosophical* about it.

*Freud should have listened to my advice

Bill theories about happiness, the world and, life in general #8

There are 117 generally accepted theories about women developed
by men over the last 150 years.

Unfortunately they are all wrong.

Go back to Bills theory #4 and read it again.

[2tallbill]

Bill's theories about happiness, women, the world and life #2

Find a clever girl with pretty eyes who likes to laugh
and in 30 years she will still be a clever girl with pretty
eyes who likes to laugh.

[2tallbill]

Bill's theory about happiness, the world and life in general # 111
As it relates to teenage boys.

Yes although I am in fact slightly older than mud
I was in fact at one time 18, 19 and, 20 years old
and I too thought my father was stupid and didn't
know anything. I was totally wrong and he was
mostly right


True story. I was looking for a parking place in a busy place where every
parking spot was taken. However one car had taken two spots.

I had a post it note in my car so I put a note on the drivers side window.

The note said

"I hope you don't f#ck like you park,
because you will never get it in!"

I eventually found another spot and was watching the reaction
of the young Asian girl who picked up the note as she was getting
into her car. She laughed all the way out of the parking lot.