Monday, September 27, 2010

keaton andre'

Keaton Andre' Anderson
was born September 21, 2010 at 5:12 a.m.

I know everyone says this, but I really do have the most darling nephews in the world. And he is just barely 24 hours old here, and he doesn't even look like an alien.
THAT is good baby-making.


I wasn't able to go to bed until 2:00a.m. Monday night
(thanks for nothing Professor Barron, your class is really terrible.)
and then woke up to Holly banging on my bedroom window thirty minutes after I'd gone to bed. We picked up Andre', picked up Wendy's, and headed over to the hospital. After a series of VERY fortunate events (I will spare you the details which my sister did not do here) bebis Keaton arrived safe and sound, breathing on his own, at 5:30.


Later that day, I played single mom to two munchkins, had a sleepover, watched Wall-E, made breakfast, and drove a minivan. and I would do it all over again. maybe.

P.S. I named him. After my high school crush/boyfriend Keeton Little, while we were having lunch at Carl's Jr.
Oh, memories.
(I can't remember if we actually "dated", which is probably not a good sign. but we did kiss. that is all that matters.)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

you learn a lot about yourself from roadkill

I'm serious. I think it says a lot about a person when it comes to animals and death.
Recently, my friend ran over a squirrel on the freeway. It wasn't his fault- but he apologized to the little squirrel whose resting place is now the I-80.


When I was 15, my friend Elizabeth and I were at Bucks Lake, CA for girls camp. Girls camp...is a different experience. It probably even deserves a post all by itself. I even had a bear encounter once. But that year was different. We were infested with squirrels. They were everywhere. They were eating our trail mix, nibbling our toes, causing havoc in the camps. You get the idea. These things are nothing short of really obnoxious.

Elizabeth and I woke up one day, and we decided we had had enough. While laying on our bags for sleeping one morning and listening to N'Sync, a little dusty grey squirrel perched himself up on a tree stump, eating some kind of stolen goodness and stared at us. I was protecting my candy bars with my life, and Elizabeth decided to take a different approach. She grabbed a handful of small-to-medium sized rocks, and started chucking them at the squirrel. With her very first rock, she hit the little sucker square in the temple, knocking him to the ground. He never got up.

Now what I mean in learning a lot about yourself is this: we both laughed. Hysterically. The poor little squirrel never even saw it coming, and we took some sort of sick pleasure in ridding ourselves of one squirrel- even though there were thousands of the things left.

But this summer was different. While I was living in San Diego, I lived at my friend Brittany's house, which is across from a park. Every morning on my way to work, I saw bunnies. Not the ugly jack rabbit kind- but the cute little Peter cottontail bunnies with white fluffy tails. One morning, I didn't see the bunny in time. I killed him. Flat on the road.



"NOOOOOOO! What are you doing little bunny? Why? Why did you throw yourself in front of my car?"

But the bunny didn't answer. I felt so bad I had to tell someone, so I called my friend Nick, looking for some sort of comfort. He just told me it was probably somebody's pet. Clearly, these types of incidents cannot be avoided. But why me? Why my tires? All that was left of the little guy was a tuft of fur on Auburn Ridge Way. The only thing I learned from this experience is that at least I know that I'm a better person than I was at 15. I wonder if Elizabeth is too.

Sorry everyone, Easter is cancelled.