AC Capehart capehart

A good friend of mine has (re-)entered the blog-o-sphere with a blog named beauframe. He starts with a subway story. I recommend you read it first. His telling of his experience reminded me to blog a somewhat related subway (BART) experience I had recently.

There was a time when it was perfectly normal to set an alarm to wake Sam up to feed between 2 and 3AM. At the time, those days seemed eternal, stretching out for miles. The notion of sleeping through the night too dim to even imagine in the distance. And then, of course, things changed. Now I am all too happy to forget that old routine. Here’s our current routine at Mom-mom and Granddaddy’s:

One of the things the I like about being back in a small technology company is the feeling of being more “in the loop” for various (memes?) (cultural references?). While I doubt either of these qualify as memes, they both pleased me enough in some way to want to share them with you: “Spock Casa” — An impressively animated feature of Spock showing off his crib. (1 min) Boten Anna — Basshunter’s song about a man who falls in love with an IRC bot.

This morning on the floor of the offices of Fay Real Estate, Sam executed her first forward crawl on hands and knees. She was going after one of Camus’s catnip toys. Camus and I are very afraid…

Dear Sam, I have big shoes to fill (you can take that figuratively or literally, as you like, because yes, your daddy has big feet). Since your daddy spent this past month in California, it is up to me to provide the chronicle of your ninth month. Nine months! Good lord, child, you’ve now been out for as long as you were in. How did that happen? When I look at your impish smile and the light tripping in your eyes I can barely recall the tiny, sleepy newborn Sam that used to fit along the length of my arm from elbow to palm.

Not that I needed another reminder about my “semester abroad” as Carolyn has referred to my extended absense from my family, but one struck home this morning. I dunno if you use Centrum as a multivitamin, but we do, and I’ve always wondered why often you buy a big pack, and it’s got this little travel-sized 30-vitamin container in the same package. Well, I did buy just such a package shortly after I arrived here, and this morning, I consumed the last vitamin from that 30-count container.

Phew. After almost an entire month of searching, I’ve finally signed a lease! Carolyn, Sam and I have a place to live in California. Even better, the IRS woes that I mentioned here appear to be resolved. Suddenly, a 4-day weekend yawns before me with no appointments, and no open houses. A weight has been lifted.

My dearest Samantha, As I start writing this, I’m on an airplane flying away from you. We’ll be separated for weeks. Alas, as I look this over for posting, it’s already almost three weeks later. The job, and the housing search have been consuming my time. I had heard reports from a couple of people who had been out of work for a while about how long the days seemed when they finally were back in the 9-5 workforce.

Time has been tight out here. This, compounded with a lack of Internet service in the apartment room I’m subletting has made for a distinct dearth of blog posts. This is unfortunate because there is much to say. Much newness to talk about that I’m afraid will get lost. House-hunting has been a miserable experience — made even harder by the aforementioned lack of connectivity at “home”. I’m currently having my second sub-par experience at an Internet cafe in north Berkley.

I cried tonight like I haven’t in years. I was in transition between one event and another, and Carolyn invited me out onto the screen porch to have a moment. It was dusk, and the thunderstorm was just starting up. It’s our last night like this in this phase of life. I sat on the porch and took in the enormity of what feels like should be a small change, a simple shift.