Pronounced with the Ump-T

Now is about the midpoint of my spring adventure. I've been on trains, buses, planes, cars, and I walked over a bridge over the Burning River. Now, I'm waiting to access another public transit system and take another train from Cleveland to DC. While I write this, Carly is driving from Jersey to DC. This is by far the most complicated rendezvous I've had with anyone.

This week is the longest we've been apart from each-other since 2008, when I first moved to New Jersey and she stayed in Ohio for the better part of three months. So it's going to be a nice reunion.

And because of the distance and the craziness of the last week, I don't have much to post in regards to the procreation experiments. After all, there hasn't been any activity on that front in almost three weeks, so I'll give you this:

Part of the trip I got to spend observing Tony and Kendra around their daughter, Elise, in their natural environment. Usually, when I come into town, it's kind of a big deal and time is short. We only get to hang out for a night or so, and then off to the next family function. But this time, I had the better part of two days set aside to just hang around and soak up the normal life.

Of course, the main part of this was just to live and interact with these, my closest friends, and their little family, but a strong bit of it was to observe and take notes. As I've mentioned, I don't have a lot of experience with small children and babies, and I'm never quite sure of how the whole system works.

Elise's life is a little different from most kids, these days, or so I think. She's got a stay-at-home dad who actually chose to stay home and take care of the baby, and she is his full-time job. And Tony has gone native in a few funny ways. He and I always had a kind of self-sufficient streak in us, and we like to experiment, build and make things. We both got involved in making wine around the same time--I bought him his first wine barrel and I like to think that I introduced Kendra and him to the "It's Your Winery" place out on West Market (now defunct, due to some politics). He and I started baking homemade bread around the same time, we both have a proficiency with power tools that borders on the savant, and we are constantly striving to find new ways to make things better, simpler, or cheaper. Tony even makes his own laundry detergent now. I get the feeling that he hides a pile of Real Simple magazines in his closet, under the porn.

I can't say that I've made any judgments or had any insights about their lifestyle, as I'm still processing much of what I picked up, but I have to say, they're doing quite well and everyone seems very happy. And that's all that really matters.