Isabel, We Hardly Knew Thee

Unlike many people, we managed to not only stay dry and avoid falling trees, but we even kept our power. I am convinced that it was my two hour search for D batteries that served as my karma umbrella. Had I not found the last 8 D batteries in the DC area, I'm sure we would have been without power for a month. Or even a year. Amazing, the value of 8 D batteries, in the long run.

Which means that I got a lot of work done, right? Two days off, plus the weekend?

Well, no. Not really. We did get to spend some good time with family and friends, who brought us enough (quickly defrosting) food to last us well into January. Rhubarb pie. Truffles (an odd contribution, since truffles require no refrigeration, but I'm certainly not complaining). And lots of seafood. Our home was part fridge, part media fix. Finally got a chance to watch Punch Drunk Love (which I thought was wonderful), as well as episodes of Iron Chef and Monster House (disco theme, this week). I set up a powerstrip so that visiting, power-less people could plug in their mobile phones.

Lisa made a wicked-good butternut squash risotto Saturday night, after we spent about 5 hours wandering the (thankfully, powered) aisles of the Babies 'R Us, registering for fun things like strollers (a surprisingly difficult choice), bibs, bottles, and baby socks with the caterpillar from Hungry Caterpillar on them. We hit the 21st week this week, which means we are half-way there (although, as the non-carrying member of this troupe, all due credit of course goes to my wife, who is not only a champ, but also gracefully lets me say things like "we," when she is in fact the one doing the work).

The ultrasound pictures, which were taken last Monday, are looking fine - everything is in working order, although we declined to be notified whether or not we should be using "he" or "she" at this moment. So we just go back and forth between the two. S/he is already a pound, which means s/he's growing very fast for her age group (proud papa already). I'll try to scan in the ultrasound sometime in the near future, if only to show off our baby's fabulous "thumbs up" picture, where s/he lets us know s/he's a-ok.

Judging by the size of his/her feet, we might have a soccer player on our hands. Which is good, because her/his mother played varsity soccer through college (I, um, played intramural). In any case, to celebrate, Lisa and I went to watch the US Women's Team totally beat Sweden yesterday at RFK stadium in the first round of the Women's World Cup. We watched many members of the same team four years ago, so it was a lot of fun to return, despite the fact that the US Women's Soccer league was just disbanded - a real shame. Another real shame was the amount that RFK charged for the game - the lowest range was $35, but the highest was $175! Now, not that I don't think it's worth it, but between the cost (in tough economic times) and the hurricane, there were a LOT of empty seats. Really too bad.

The game itself was great to watch. Sweden's team is ranked 5th internationally, so the match was strong. Mia Hamm set up all three US goals, leading to a 3-1 victory. Chastain broke her foot in the first half, unfortunately, but will hopefully be back for the second round of the tourney. The second game we watched was South Korea v. Brazil. Brazil clearly controlled the game; S. Korea showed signs of being a younger, less experienced team. But in the end, I cheered for S. Korea, who showed some true grit and determination. Brazil, on the other hand, disappointed me - the scorer of one goal in their 3-0 win was clearly off-sides (this same player cherry-picked the entire second half), while another goal occurred after the referee seemingly called a penalty (Lisa and I later thought that maybe the whistle came from the crowd, but it was confused by the fact that the ref stopped and attended to an injured player right after seemingly blowing the whistle). The first goal (and only "fair" one, in my mind) was scored by a Brazil penalty kick within the first few minutes of the game.

That's about it. We dodged the hurricane for the most part and even managed to clean the house in the process. Lots of good "home" work done, which paves the way for more dissertating and conference paper-writing in the coming weeks. And to inspire our word-weaving, we have a huge spider-in-residence on our sliding glass door. She is about the size of a quarter and puts up these beautifully spun webs. I googled the description and think she is a Garden Orb Weaving Spider. As long as she stays outside, I'm happy to have her eat our bugs.