Logistical issues

My blogging muse has deserted me, as indicated by the lack of recent posts. I've been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson lately, which has made me reconsider my general writing style. A need to inject a certain level of agitation into the posts. Excitement. Odd and bizarre insights. Random tangential connections between our day-to-day life and the terrible and foul society in which we live. Indeed. (That's all a joke for those of you who haven't read HST.)

But basically, there hasn't been much to write about. A Washington Post writer has been loitering around the dog park with the intent of writing an article about the contrast between NoVa (northern VA) and DC in terms of official dog parks. Ours is a very unofficial one that involves a core group of about 20 or so dogs (and 15 or so dog owners), so the writer has been heavily lobbied not to identify our location by name since we don't want to draw attention from the Park Service Police and don't want lots of interlopers trying to "join" our park group (this is Georgetown, after all, so we're pretty exclusive.) The writer basically understood, but today a Post photographer showed up to take some shots of the park denizens and dogs, ostensibly because our group is the "best looking" that the writer had encountered in her visits to DC dog parks. But of course - this is Georgetown, after all, where everyone, including the dogs, is beautiful. In any event, the photographer took some pics of Maggie with the dogs, so if they show up in the Post, I'll be sure to pass along a link.

But some other more or less important details:

(1) Kid no. 2 is officially scheduled to arrive on 10/8. That is THE date, since this one will be coming out the side exit as Margaret did. No name yet, although we plan to sort that out during our 7 hour drive to Connecticut this weekend for Grandma Nancy's retirement party. But we have spent the last week or so getting ready for the arrival in other ways. Getting another crib from the relatives in Philly, sorting the infant clothes (by size and gender), buying stroller attachments to handle a second kid, etc. Grandma Mary from IL will be coming for the first week (which basically means that she'll get to spend lots of time with kid no. 1 and the dog) after which she'll tag out with the CT grandparents until Abby gets back on her feet. (For those guys, we've rearranged the room in the basement to make it more inhabitable.)

(2) I have no idea why the Flickr slideshows sometimes work, but sometimes don't. It's quite random and is perhaps related to issues on their servers. If you're determined to view the slideshows, my suggestion would be to hit "reload" a few times in whatever browser you're using. Eventually, that appears to get the slideshows up.

(3) Our old Sunrocket phone number should now be back in action. As a glutton for punishment, I've signed up for another Voip startup, in this case VoipYourLife, and had our old Sunrocket number ported over. After some hiccups with the quality of the service and some time to get the porting done, we're all set. For now. Indeed.

Do we have a baby photo for you baby photo junkies? Here's one of Maggie and her cousin Lizzie....