Well, Ted, it looks like we may be alone, just as we've always known we would be, and the possibilities for EYIBA Week will thus be severely curtailed. On the up side, I think now they can make a Brat Pack movie about the friendship that'll spring up out of our being mutually misunderstood, and you'll be on a quest for women's underwear, and I'll wear gloves with the fingers cut off, and you'll buy a beautiful pair of diamond earrings, and I'll loathe the bus. It'll be a good time.

So, in other audience-participation news, Robbie and I are starting a betting pool for Heather and Matt's and Julie and Tobias' babies (really, it's going to be a lot more concise when these children actually have names). Who wants in on this action? I don't want to brag or anything, but our odds-making, which Robbie came up with, involves math and science and stuff, and I think it's going to be pretty good. Man, it seems like just yesterday Chris and Craig and Robbie and I were betting on when Heather and Matt would start dating, and now here we are and he's knocked her up. It's a fine world we live in, and one so prone to wagerable events.

And finally, our plans for summer vacation in Rhode Island, which were sort of unshaped before today, crystallized with the realization that on August 18, Snakes On A Plane is coming out. I believe there's never been a movie before this one that I felt more strongly I had to see with my brothers-in-law (well, except for Brett, who's still going to be off worrying the family), so, assuming it works for everyone else, that settles that. I'm also going to start referring to this summer vacation as Sedgewicks On An Island.

Let's see. Last night I went out with Megan and her sister Jenna. I had a whole lot of fun, which, to be honest, surprised me, since their father died on Saturday and they were just in town to get Megan's cat before they went back east for the memorial service, and I was anticipating being useful but not really enjoying myself per se (although when she invited me, she did say that when she thinks of mindless fun she thinks of me, which is the most flattering thing anyone's said about me in quite a while). It turns out, though, that Megan copes with grief a lot like I do, which is, obviously, to say, correctly, and although it was a sad occasion I had a great time and laughed a whole lot. I highly recommend one or both of us at any grief occasion you might be facing. Chet also stopped by and we got to hear about his fitness routine, which was enlightening, to say the least.

In other news, I think it might be time for another Embrace Your Inner Broody Adolescent Week. It's partially the heat, and partially the amount of time I've been spending buying music lately, which always makes me feel like a broody adolescent, but also, Embrace Your Inner Broody Adolescent Week is just good clean American fun. Who's in? Last year's Truth or Dare game was kind of a bust, I have to say, so we'll need better activities. We could have another deep-lyric contest, though--that one went all right.

And finally, mad props to AJ, who got his first paycheck today. I asked him if the ladies at New South were mean to him, like they always were to me, but he said his manager gave him his. I resisted the temptation to make fun of modern Princeton employees and their delivery conveniences and tell him all about walking over to New South in the heat and the humidity, my God the humidity, which is notable, as it marks the first time I've ever resisted telling any long stories about the good old days ever. Maybe because, if we're going to be totally honest, I only had to walk uphill one way.

I neglected to mention the very important twelfth item in my last entry, which was that Robbie finished his bike race in North Carolina. Actually, considering that he was worried about finishing it at all, he did really, really well--102 miles, a lot of them very hilly, in about seven and a half hours. You can see the results here, but there are a whole lot of names, so it might take a while to find him.

In other news (for which I apologize to AJ, who's already heard my delight at this), last night we watched the first-season episode of "Lost" where Sawyer makes Kate play "I Never," and this is my new favorite thing ever, to see this guy who may or may not be a hardened con man break out the little travel bottles of alcohol and insist that they play a drinking game that I associate only with freshman girls. I fully expect that in the next episode the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle will come to a head when Sawyer, drunk and possibly brandishing a gun, pulls out a stick of chalk and challenges Jack to a game of hopscotch. Not to mention that "I Never" is one of the cheapest expositional devices out there (and a couple of you know why that's funny--but hey, that just means I know how totally desperate, or lazy, you have to be to resort to it).

Well, I've spent some time trying to organize my thoughts on this weekend into some sort of narrative, but that requires more skill than I can muster at the moment. I suspect this was a problem also faced by whoever wrote the Book of Exodus, like, do you start with the locusts or the frogs? Or maybe with the unhealable boils? So, because I have to make some sort of post, here are ten semi-related things about this weekend.

1. Adam and I may or may not have given trichinosis to 100 barbecue judges on Saturday, due to Rob leaving us in charge of submitting the barbecue sauce and our subsequent submission, instead, of a basting liquid made out of red cider vinegar and spices that, as a result of having already been used for basting several times, also had little bits of raw pork in it.
2. I met some Mennonites, a really, really scary barbecue volunteer, and a guy named Fish.
3. When you've been sitting out in 90-degree sun for three hours waiting for the barbecue volunteers to bring you the cases of beer you already paid for, and you'd have to pay more money to drink anything else, when the beer does show up you will drink way too much of it.
4. Euchre is kind of like doppelkopf, but not as fun.
5. I got seven hours of sleep in two nights.
6. This time yesterday morning I was standing in a foot of rainwater on 13th Street, having recently eaten a Sausage McMuffin that fell on the sidewalk.
7. I left a day early.
8. Heather and Matt came in from Alexandria and picked me up at the barbecue yesterday morning, took me to Adam's to pick up my stuff, and then took me back to their place, where they set up their bed for me to nap before the drive home and dried my clothes while I was sleeping. They are the nicest people I have ever met.
9. There was a tree down in the middle of I-70 when I was driving back yesterday afternoon. That was pretty scary.
10. Check this out. (I mean the photo, although the article is also interesting.)

OK, because I like you, I'm throwing in a bonus item:

11. I suspect this is a passing whim, but since about 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon my favorite song has been "Angel" by Jane Jensen. I recommend it to any girl (or Ted) having a suboptimal day. Try it.

Has anyone else ever read this article on Wikipedia? It's totally fascinating and I highly recommend it. I was especially intrigued by the following two parts:

"The merger of [ɒ] and [ɔ]. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward."

I realize that I did grow up in Pittsburgh, but I think I'm pretty good at recognizing, say, that "dahntahn" is not a universal pronunciation and that in some benighted parts of the country "the lawn needs mowed" is not acceptable construction. This one has me stumped, though. How else would you say it? If anyone pronounces these words differently, feel free to call my cell phone, say both words, laugh maniacally, and then hang up.

"The shift of intervocalic [t] to glottal stop [ʔ], as in /bɒʔəl/ for bottle. This change is not universal for British English (and in fact is not considered to be part of Received Pronunciation), but it does not occur in most North American dialects. Newfoundland English and the dialect of New Britain, Connecticut are notable exceptions."

So how come Heather does this, then? Because, I'll tell you, she does this up one side and down the other. I knew she grew up in the frozen northland of New York, but I didn't realize it was so far north as to pick up Newfoundland regionalisms. That would explain why she's so friendly, though.

So, tomorrow I leave for the barbecue extravaganza, and I'm pretty excited. So far my preparations have consisted of changing around my iPod for the drive and finding red clothing to wear, since our team color is red. I was sorely tempted to wear the red maternity t-shirt I'd bought that says "Eating For Two," since I'm certainly planning on eating a lot--probably twice the amount a sensible person would eat--and it would be roomy and comfortable, and I would also be interested to see all the dirty looks I'd get while drinking, but in the end I decided, full of gumption as I may be, I couldn't quite pull that off. I did eventually find two non-maternity red shirts to wear, though, so I'm all set.

I also tried to work today, but the server was down. I did have some work from my mother to do, so the day wasn't a total loss, but it was pretty unproductive. I watched some World Cup, and all the teams I'd wanted to win lost, so that was also regrettable. I've been biased towards watching the games in Dortmund, probably because for no good reason I keep confusing it with Osnabrueck and its late-night shopping, so I saw Brazil beat Japan, but I was also sorry to see that Italy beat the Czech Republic, because, you know, I like to represent and all (well, I'd be more excited if Slovakia were in it and all, but generally I like to be pro-Slav), and I'd decided for the same reason to root for Croatia against Australia, and then we lost to Ghana, so it was a bad day all around.

Oh, and when I was watching one of the games lately (I think it was Serbia-Montenegro/Cote d'Ivoire yesterday) the Irish commentator said at one point "He just gave 'em a lash!" I was so excited I could barely contain myself, and I know it isn't funny to anyone other than the four of us who went to Ireland for Julie's birthday last year, but it would be so funny to all of us that I had to bring it up here. It reminded me of when Julie told the bartender at the bar in Bunratty to take me outside and lash me, which I'd found totally delightful (a sentiment I'm fairly sure I shared with the bartender), and then it reminded me of the Footie bars, and then I had to turn off the TV, I was getting so overexcited.

Well, the sushi buffet was interesting. Actually, I liked it a lot, but there wasn't really sushi per se, which was a more watered-down sushi buffet than I'd expected even for Cranberry. It was sort of a dim sum/Mongolian grill/miscellaneous Chinese and American food buffet, and it was sort of awesome, but there was only one small tray of sushi and sushi accoutrements off to one side, and it was under plastic wrap, so even though I helped myself I felt somewhat illicit in doing so. Still though, it undeniably had promise, and I think if we go back on a weekend night or something there might be sushi galore.

Then today the Mormon missionaries came to my house, which was obviously really exciting, even though I did the polite thing and sent them away, rather than pinning them to the ground and asking them whether they came from Utah and if they went to BYU and what they thought of "Singles Ward." I mean, they were working, and it didn't really seem fair of me to exert my sociological curiosity on them, however friendly it would have been, if they weren't ever going to convert me. I did contemplate telling them how much I like Mormons (except for Courtney's mom's best friend, who just sort of scared me, a sentiment I understand I share with Matt's sister), but I really didn't see that going anywhere productive. I suspect I was the nicest person who sent them away all day, though, given our neighborhood.

Oooh, and there's been a change of plans for this weekend. Rather than going to North Carolina to cheer on Robbie in his bike ride, I'm going to DC to join Adam in his 48-hour barbecue extravaganza. I'm signing up too late to get a t-shirt, which is regrettable, but I still get to hang out and drink beer and eat barbecue all weekend, which sounds just about perfect to me.

We've had a lovely celebrational weekend around here. Saturday we went to Kennywood, which was totally awesome and an excellent metaphor for marriage. I neglected to buy the photo of us riding the Log Jammer to put on here, though, which is too bad, because we looked extremely festive. Nothing says "happy anniversary" like a log flume, after all. We also rode my two favorite childhood rides, the Kangaroo and the Bavarian Wave Swinger (and here I should point out to my German readers that I have absolutely no idea what makes this ride Bavarian, but if Bavaria is actually filled with rides of this sort I think Tobias is making a huge mistake by not liking it there). I was pleased to discover that the Wave Swinger is still pretty fun, although the Kangaroo lacks a certain something. Drama, maybe. Then we went out for a fancy dinner, which was extremely good, and they put a candle in our cake, which made the other tables around us jealous.

Yesterday I celebrated the lack of active celebration in our house by lying on the sofa watching World Cup and working on a rag rug, and Robbie went on a bike ride. There was something else, too--oh, we mowed the lawn. Nothing too exciting there. It's good to have a break day in there, though, or it would become too much to take. Oh, I also discovered, as I was about to wrap my father's Father's Day present, that what was in the unopened Amazon box that came on Thursday was in fact not my Father's Day present to him but Adam's birthday present to me. I felt sort of lame, especially because I'd made fun of Adam for probably not having bought me a gift on Friday morning when the gift was in the same room as I was, but it was an excellent present (a CD I'd never heard of, by someone who goes by the name of Cat Power, and I really recommend it) so I got over that.

And today I've worked, and I sort of had a headache, so it's been a pretty tame birthday so far. Not bad, though, and I finished my rag rug and ate some cookies, so it wasn't without its highlights. Tonight we're going out to dinner and then meeting Megan for drinks, so it should get more rocking pretty soon. Ooooh, and tomorrow I'm having sushi buffet with my mom for a late birthday lunch. Well, I'm having sushi. My mother got food poisoning once in 1997 (not from sushi, just from regular food) and thus, she prefers her fish to be cooked, which is fine because, hey, more raw fish for me. It's in Cranberry, though, so I'm sure that a sushi buffet will incorporate, at the very least, tempura and chicken teriyaki, and probably buffalo wings, so there will be something to please every taste.

I'm taking a break from what was admittedly a fairly lackluster week of anniversary blogging to post a link to this, which is the most awesome thing I've ever seen ever.

And now, it's time for another installment of What We Did To Amuse Ourselves These Last 1,826 Days.

Today's WWDTAOTL1D, brought up just this morning, is the constant bickering over clothing. I know I've said before in this blog that I have fewer clothing storage needs than Robbie does, but it bears repeating: I need a drawer, a sweater drawer, and about four feet of closet rod, and I'm happy as a clam. Robbie, however, has a full laundry-to-laundry supply of three different types of underwear. He has five dresser drawers' worth of t-shirts (a problem I admittedly escalated by bringing him home a t-shirt from Germany, but it said "Ocean Steate Reservation" on it and that was too good to pass up). He has, as many of you who know him have probably suspected, about a dozen pairs of khaki pants. I noticed this morning that my dresser, which I had cleaned out in preparation for giving it to our baby (after consolidating all of my folded clothes into the aforementioned one drawer and one sweater drawer) but, after events, remained in our bedroom, has now mysteriously been filled with Robbie's clothes.

Because this is the week before our anniversary, though, I'm obligated to give Robbie's side of this, which is that I've taken an accusatory attitude towards every article of clothing he owns (other than the "Ocean Steate Reservation" shirt, obviously). This morning he pointed out, quite correctly, that after I noticed the dresser thing, I handed him his folded socks to put away and said "Here are your socks," in a tone as if to say "What do you need socks for, pretty boy?" But really, there are so many socks. A girl gets tired.

And now, to celebrate the week before our five-year anniversary, I'm unveiling a weeklong special blog feature called What We Did To Amuse Ourselves These Last 1,826 Days.

Today's WWDTAOTL1D is a little game we like to call "I'd Like To Place A Three-Way Call." To my knowledge, we invented this game, and you can while away hours on long car trips playing it. To play "I'd Like To Place A Three-Way Call," you think of two people it would be amusing to listen to speaking to each other, and then say, for example, "I'd like to place a three-way call with Courtney Love and televangelist Robert Schuller." Back when my great-aunt Dottie was still alive, she was a go-to candidate for "I'd Like To Place A Three-Way Call," because she was mostly deaf and completely nutty and it was amusing to listen to her speak to pretty much anyone, let alone, say, Al Sharpton. A few months ago, I had a dream that we'd invented an alternative to "I'd Like To Place A Three-Way Call" called "I'd Like To Assign A Four-Man Freshman Suite," but the only inhabitant I could come up with was Anthony Bourdain. And on our car trip back from Princeton two weeks ago, Robbie started another variant called "Is There A Visine For That?", and that one has some real potential, but we'll see if it has the same staying power.

Stay tuned all this week for more glimpses into our home life. We mostly just make fun of the cat and discuss the minutiae of bodily functions in great detail, so I'm not sure what I'm going to come up with, but I'm sure it'll be good.

I'm back! New York was a rip-roaring fun time. The last time I went up there was in early April, and it was snowing and I had morning sickness and my bedroom's sole source of heat was a fireplace two rooms away, so that was pretty miserable, but this was vastly better. It was sunny and more or less warm, and I was able to enjoy the local cuisine (although we did not take advantage of the wine refrigerator and just left it in its box). Of our two dining-out experiences, I'm not sure if I preferred the one that ended with seeing a guy sitting on the corner of the local main street drinking malt liquor out of a mason jar or the one where my barbecue pork sandwich consisted solely of a slice of ham and some barbecue sauce (well, and a bun), but they were both superlative.

Then yesterday I had my hair cut. The last time I went there (and here I have to apologize to Julie, who's already heard this story) was right after I found out about my miscarriage, and there was a very pregnant woman having her nails done while I was waiting for my appointment who was talking about how great being pregnant was and I sort of wanted to shoot up the entire salon, so I was heartened to discover this time that due to my tremendous emotional progress, the different very pregnant woman having her nails done while I was waiting for my appointment who was talking about how great being pregnant was didn't faze me in the slightest. However, while my stylist's assistant was blow-drying my hair, another client came in with her very cute six-month-old and my stylist and his assistant, who both have kids (yes, in Pittsburgh even the male hairstylists are heterosexual), had what I would estimate was a ten-hour discussion of pregnancy, labor, baby supplies, and infant behavior and adorability, and my stylist's assistant became so animated that she kept smacking me in the head with the hair dryer, and that was admittedly dispiriting. I expect that the next time I go in a woman will give birth on the floor, and perhaps I ought to refuse to have my hair cut until that woman is me.

Today I did some painting in the bedroom of my great-aunts' house, which is sort of turning into a nightmare. It's a pretty room, but it's 150 years old, and it starts to show when you strip it down and, for example, brown powdery plaster starts pouring out of the walls. (I was going to say here that they really ought to make a horror film about this sort of home improvement, but then I remembered that for three years or so when I was growing up, for no good reason, my best friend Nina and I watched The Money Pit at every sleepover we had, and so I know it's already been done.) Today when I was painting the ceiling the surface started flaking off as I went, and I can't imagine that's a good sign. Fortunately, I think the project only needs about another two days of work, although I've thought that for the last three days I went there.

Guess who's turning one tomorrow?



1) That's right, it's our cat.
2) Think about it real hard before you make fun of us for being excited.

You'll notice that in the eight months we've had him we've taught him to sit like a little gentleman. You'll also notice that he was born on D-Day, as befits a commodore. I've told him he's allowed to get another year older and then he has to stop and stay the same age, so we'll see how that works out.

Unfortunately, I'm missing out on his birthday celebration because tomorrow morning I'm going to New York for three days with my mother. On the docket in New York are a visit from the rental agent to make sure the house is up to snuff; a visit from the repairman, who apparently believes I have children, which sounds really super psychologically healthy to me; and, blessedly, the delivery of the wine refrigerator. I've never actually seen a wine refrigerator before, but I'm looking forward to it.

In other news, our roof is leaking. The roof guy came today and said it was an obvious problem with a simple repair, and that it wouldn't cost very much to fix. It turns out that he and I have radically different ideas of what "wouldn't cost very much to fix" might mean, but it'll be all right, and our home warranty should cover at least part of it.

Well, Tizzed gets mad props for trying, but unfortunately, it seems that plumbing the depths of my sixteen-year-old musical taste was too much for you all. Therefore, I'm going to post the answers. I want you all to notice how totally awesome this tape is, and feel very bad that you aren't going to ever get to own it, or probably ever listen to it or touch it. (Well, I might let Tizzed touch it, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.) Here you go:

Side 1:
10,000 Maniacs, "Wildwood Flower"
Spin Doctors, "Two Princes"
Blues Traveler, "But Anyway"
Big Country, "In A Big Country"
Connells, "Motel"
Clarks, "Train of Love"
R.E.M., "Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite"
Brady Bunch, "It's a Sunshine Day"
Violent Femmes, "American Music"
R.E.M., "Exhuming McCarthy"
Proclaimers, "500 Miles"
Prince, "Let's Go Crazy"
Culture Club, "Karma Chameleon"
Too Much Joy, "King of Beers"

Side 2:
Pixies, "Here Comes Your Man"
Elvis Costello, "Other Side of Summer"
Talking Heads, "Lifetime Piling Up"
OMD, "If You Leave"
10,000 Maniacs, "Don't Go Back to Rockville"
Flesh for Lulu, "I Go Crazy"
Clarks, "Penny on the Floor"
Tom Robinson Band, "2-4-6-8 Motorway"
Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
They Might Be Giants, "Birdhouse in Your Soul"
Depeche Mode, "Personal Jesus"
James, "Sit Down"
Edie Brickell, "Love Like We Do"
R.E.M., "Gardening at Night"

I meant to say, also, that after I listened to this and the Humanity!/Ant Farm Mix, I listened to this other tape that I copied off Staci after her first semester of college. A guy in her dorm had made it for her and I never thought this before, but I'm pretty sure from his song choices that he was all in a therm over her. (I think it was "You Are the Everything" that really gave me absolute certainty.) Anyhow, this got me to thinking, and I don't know that it's possible to make a mix tape, or mix CD like the kids are doing these days, for someone of your gender of choice if you aren't a little sweet on them. You might copy a CD you already have, but make a new one? I just don't think it happens (with the obvious exception of the time I stood behind Adam repeating "How come you only make CDs for AJ?" every twenty seconds for three days until he finally acquiesced, but that was a special case). Thoughts?