Dad, Mom, brother, and sister-in-law came to visit last weekend. We did a lot of shopping, ate a lot of food, showed off the townhouse to Dad and Mom. Uncle and Aunt who live in NoVA joined us.
Sister-in-law was nice enough to assemble the IKEA STUVA crib for us, so our child will sleep in a crib built by his aunt, a worthy legacy.
Meanwhile Amelia Cat really liked Mom’s shoes.
Fun visit, was glad to see them all again. And the next time they come over there’ll be an additional kid in these pictures! (I mean, he’s already there, just still inside Amy at the moment. Next time he’ll be visible.)
Been in a very “home repairs” kind of mode for the last couple of weeks: having the upstairs primed and repainted and recarpeted to get rid of a lingering cigarette smoke smell left by the townhouse’s previous tenants, brushing multiple layers of sealant into a stinky kitchen island cabinet that was previously used as a garbage receptacle, installing a standing bathroom cabinet for the half-bath (and sawing the corner trim cuts myself since very few of these cheaper bathroom space savers go flush against a wall with trim), installing and caulking bathtub splash guards, replacing an HVAC return vent grille, and getting nursery furniture for Project Wallaby, now due in just 7 weeks.
The third floor repainting was the most strenuous part, even though we hired painters to take care of it. Furniture had to be disassembled and moved into the future-nursery (already repainted back in December) and the cats were locked downstairs to keep out of the way. We lived out of the guest room (really still mostly a post-moving storage room with a bed) in the meantime. At the end of it the master bedroom looked great, with no more cigarette smell, a new light fixture replacing an old unused ceiling fan, and soft blue walls, definitely an improvement over the old default off-white.
In the process we had to clear the clothes out of our closets and dump a bunch of them on the couch, which of course became a new cat bed.
Most important is that the nursery is ready for its new resident, coming this summer.
After all this work on a relatively small 3BR/2.5BA townhouse, I don’t know how anyone handles having anything bigger.
DC cherry blossom peak bloom came on a perfect Saturday just before Easter — early in the season after a warmer-than-usual winter. Crowds of people as always, but beautiful views of DC and the blossoms under a clear blue sky.
Got some snow this morning, just a wet inch; enough to make the woods look picturesque but not enough to mess up the roads. By afternoon it had melted away, a far cry from the Jan 2016 blizzard. That’s probably the last snow we get for this winter.
It’s an impressive feat of logistics and choreography, with the song slowed down and split into zero-G-parabola-timed segments to be sped up, stitched, and synced in editing later; plus a grand finale of piñatas, paint balloons, and disco balls termed “Thunderdome.” The extensive Behind the Scenes documentation show just how much work went into this production.
(All this of course makes me want to try a zero G flight, though I doubt I’ll have the thousands of dollars necessary to spare for the experience any time soon.)
Some photos from the weekend when Jacquelyn came to visit:
It was a singular joy to be able to see the NGA’s Power and Pathos bronzes with her expert perspective as a professional archaeologist on the Getty team that organized the exhibit. We also saw the art deco Bolger Center, and had fish and chips at Eamonn’s where I finally got to try some Irn Bru.
At various times my job has involved editing motivational videos and interviews. To get a feel for the inspirational cadence of such videos my go-to reference is this satire of innovative cutting-edge gimmickry by Australian ad agency Creative Fuel in 2014:
Even two years later it hits all the right technological buzzword bullet points. Really a game-changer.
Update: On a related note, stock footage site Dissolve’s “Generic Brand Video” also works great:
The January 2016 blizzard dumped 2 feet of blowing snow on us over the weekend, blanketing our world in white, canceling classes and delaying work for days afterward.
Fortunately water, power, gas, internet, and TV all stayed on, and we had lots of food and time to cook, so we lacked for no creature comforts through the storm. With Amy working on Project Wallaby I was on sole shovel duty and got a good workout clearing the stairs, walkway, deck, and local hydrant.
The nearby marsh and forest turned picturesque.
Neighborhood snow banks piled up considerably with plowing and shoveling.
Snow-related road backups made Metro parking a nightmare, and my video of the line to exit a Metro parking garage made it to WTOP and Washington Post.
The weather’s a lot warmer a week later, so the giant snow banks are melting, and the sunsets have been spectacular. There’s still a lot of winter left, so this may not be the last snowstorm we see before spring, even as warm as it’s been.
