Recent News and Developments

Well, there aren't any, really. So I'll go ahead and waste precious minutes of your life by boring you with mundane details of our uneventful daily existence.

Michael took off for Washington DC last week, for a Usability Conference courtesy of Vectren. He attended two back to back sessions, which puts him halfway to his certification. He obviously had a terrible time, meeting smart and interesting people from around the world, bumming around the city taking photos, visiting the major sites, eating disgustingly gourmet food with his favorite cousin Amanda, hanging out at the Air and Space Museum... yeah, it was rough. Poor guy. He was happy to be home.

Meanwhile, Jeddy and I had a quiet week here at home. Turns out it isn't much fun to cook without anyone to cook for, so the two of us survived primarily on applesauce and muffins. Jed didn't mind that at all. That boy devours applesauce like nobody's business. I always try to feed him other food first, which he obligingly eats. But as soon as the applesauce comes out he's grunting with pleasure, smearing it all over his body with joyful abandon, using every possible utensil and body part to shove it in his mouth as quickly as possible. And when the bowl is empty, shouts and moans and gesticulating hands more moRE MORE MORE!!! I do use the unsweetened kind so I figure, hey, it's fruit, right? And I put kale in ou ten pound muffins so that counted as vegetables. No wonder I was so skinny in college, I thought applesauce and a muffin was a meal back then, too. Times have changed and so have I, at least in girth.

Meanwhile, I was bumming around the house painting Michael's chest of drawers blue (Funky. Love it.), attempting to wrest my garden back from the grass invasion (a losing battle but I've made some headway,) experimenting with green tomato pie (delicious!), practicing the piano for the first time in seven years , and working on an article for a BYU magazine (Such fun! I forget how much I miss writing.)

Speaking of which, I don't think I have mentioned that my darling wonderful fantastic adorable husband got me A PIANO for our third anniversary next week!!!! Wahoo!!! It's quite old, and in need of tuning, but makes a lovely addition to our living room. Most of you know I used to be quite the little ivory tickler but ever since my mission that talent has been sadly neglected. Now I'm resurrecting the scales and arpeggios (I still remember the circle of fifth scales, go me) and dusting off my old books. I've practiced every day and I am exceedingly proud of myself. I'm working on a couple of Chopin waltzes and a Bach Toccata. Sure, they sound clumsy and awful, particularly since the piano still hasn't been tuned and you can't even tell what note you're playing half the time, but I still find great pleasure in just feeling the music beneath my hands. I'll have to post a photo for you all sometime soon.

Yesterday, my crowing achievement was 7 quarts of crushed tomatoes canned from my very own garden! I've canned tomatoes before, and I've grown tomatoes before, but I've never actually canned my own. I pranced around the house with a smug-happy expression on my face all afternoon and Michael kindly fed my ego with exclamations of manly appreciation. What a guy. Love that man.

While I canned, Jed ran around the house gathering random objects, as he is wont to do. He likes to run with something clutched in each hand. I feel that my house is fairly well baby proofed, but he never ceases to amaze me with his finds. This time he appeared with:
1) a pocketknife
2) a pair of toenail clippers, opened, with which he banged my toes
3) a button pin with a nice sharp pokey part with which to impale himself
He ran by, waving his finds in the air, and then scampered off, shrieking wildly as I chased him down and traded him acceptable alternate objects (trucks, cars, trucks, etc.). I figured out later that he'd been raiding his dad's half-unpacked luggage. Sheesh. That kid. What talent. I should rent him out as a bomb sniffer for the airport.

So, there you have a really really really unnecessarily long recap of really nothing much at all. Talk about talent. Rambling is my gift!

Bye bye Daddy!

A few weeks ago, after Michael left for work, Jed played for an hour or so while I did my morning chores. He kept making the same sounds over and over, and I didn't pay much attention. But then I stopped to listen, and I realized he was saying, "Bye-bye, daddy!" over and over in a high little falsetto voice. Here is the closest I could get to a sample (no video, just audio):

The best part is that every time he hears this played, even right now from across the kitchen in his high chair, he starts giggling and chuckling until his belly shakes. He thinks that his own voice sounds hilarious.

Note: Apparently the audio on this video is not working. I'm not sure why. We'll try again tomorrow. V

Breakfast with Jed

This morning I made myself a banana orange green smoothie. I offered some to Jed in his little suction cup bowl. Usually smoothie+suctioncupbowl+spoon=babyjoy but today he screwed up his little face in an expression that said, "Yuck, Mom I do NOT want to eat that for breakfast!" He tried to shove it away. I grabbed it before I broke the suction loose.

I grabbed a piece of bread I had out and put some peanut butter on it and slapped it in front of him. More screwing up of lips and waving of hands. So I took off the tray.

Finally, being the generous soul I am, I grabbed a bowl of applesauce left over from a late morning snack yesterday and stuck it in front of him. Ew! Yuck! Get it away!

Annoyed, I took all three and shoved them on the tray with the friendly but firm order "Eat, child!" He pointed forlornly at the ground. OHhhhhh, his truck, of course, we can't eat without the truck. So at last, with a breakfast buffet to choose from and a trusty truck in one hand and a baby spoon in the other, he let out a happy sigh of baby joy and dug in. Within moments, peanut butter, smoothie, and applesauce caked every square centimeter of exposed skin, and all was well with the world.

Becoming Famous

While riding on my wave of excitement at being quoted at blogher yesterday, I thought I'd share a few thoughts on becoming famous. As I see it, there are several ways of becoming famous on the internet.

1) Jumping on a bandwagon. Or a soapbox. Find some topic and just go nuts over it and everyday put all sorts of crazy stuff about that topic and start posting on other people's blogs about that topic and soon you're all interlinked and wah lah you are famous.

2) Be a Mormon related to half the state of Utah. Too bad this doesn't work in our case. We need more relatives.

3) Porn. We have learned this through an amusing recent experience. Usually we can check our feedjit and see that we get probably, oh, three hits an hour. Or less. But the other day, right after Michael put up the hog wrestling photos, we noticed that our stats were going NUTS! I mean, we were having some random person from Slovenia or Peru hitting here every TEN SECONDS! What the heck! Michael commented on this and then I noticed the title of his most recent post: "Find the Third Girl." Well, my darling darling clean minded spouse, that answers the question of why we are getting so many hits. So we renamed it something else entirely avoiding any references to multiple females annd.... nobody hit on us for an hour. Oh well. Our brief brush with fame turned to dust. All I can say is there were some pretty horribly disappointed dirty old Eastern European men that afternoon. hahahahahahahahahaha!


PS - Hey, look, I used the p*** word above. Wonder how many hits we'll get on THIS ONE? You sickos!

The Car Seat Ordeal

I saw that my recent post on the very good very bad day, and the car seat loss, was picked up by Mir Kamin over at blogher.com. So I figured I might as well fill you all in on the REST OF THE STORY.

So, it's 1 AM, we put the nasty awful disgusting rental seat in our nice clean car and head off for our hotel. Michael gave them all the next day to find our seat and call us, but no call. So the next morning we called them up and gave them our info. Nobody knew where the seat was, and they said that it hadn't been tagged properly so it was just floating around airport-world without any easy way to find it.

Later that day, we got a call. They'd found it. It was in Missoula and they would send it up to Kalispell that night and deliver it the next morning. We could trade it out for our rental and be done with it.

The next morning, still no car seat. Several dozen phone calls, and several days later, nobody has the faintest idea where it might be, but maybe it was rerouted to Salt Lake City (?!) from Missoula en route to Kalispell. They will keep looking.

Finally, on Thursday, the seat has been lost for almost a week. After a long line of useless employees, Michael found one that seemed to have a brain and kept her phone number. Amanda, the intelligent employee (and perhaps the ONLY one in existence), called us up and said that they didn't know where the seat was and it would take a while to find it. We had two options. 1) Go buy a new one. Gee, that's easy in Stevensville, MT. At the gas station? or 2) Keep theirs. When they found ours they would send it to us. So Michael asked the obvious question: So what if you never find ours? She said we could keep their dirt-cheap hair-covered piece of junk. Or work it through corporate and try to get our money back later.

We said thanks but no thanks. Michael took a whole morning of our vacation to make the hour drive to Missoula, drive around and try four different stores until he found the one acceptable car seat in the city, purchase it, and drive home.

When we checked in the next day, Amanda was extremely apologetic and put special priority tags on all our luggage. She was great and we were grateful for her help and we generally liked the new seat, even though the colors were reminiscent of, well, unsavory bodily fluids. We checked everything with a sigh of relief and went on our way.

We arrived in Louisville several hours later and waited at the luggage pickup. We found our bags. And waited. And waited.

You guessed it, they lost it AGAIN! Michael just about blew a sprocket.

Fortunately, this time they found it (in Chicago) and the seat was delivered the next day at 1 AM by an unfortunate employee who had to drive three hours just to get to our home. Sheesh, what an ordeal!

We have had a major piece of baby equipment lost or damaged every single flight this year. We've already gotten a brand new stroller (thank you Delta) and now a brand new car seat (thank you United!) And the airline companies wonder why they are always in the red?!!!

Marshmallow Warrior

Ever since the infamous and bloody Tarpit Massacre many years ago, The Marshmallow Shooter War has become a firmly established Camp Ground-doggie tradition. This year a whole bucket of pvc shooters awaited the hordes and all participated with much gusto (get it? Gust?!) Even Paloma terrorized with her dreaded Spit Missiles. We were all amazed, though, when the little ground-doggie yanked his mother's shooter from her hand, carefully placed a nasty spittle-and-dirt-enhanced marshmallow down the barrel, and put it up to his mouth for a well-placed shot. I guess the violent marshmallow murderous tendencies are deeply instinctive to the Dowdle Clan and Jed is no exception.

Toddler Jed at Camp G-dog

The Grandpa's welcome to Camp Ground-doggie

Cousins

Grandpa Gary and Grandson



Punkin, our kitten from many years ago, still prowls around to visit Camp G-Dog every year. Cute as ever. Drooly, too.

Preparing for the yearly puppet show

Hike up St. Mary's

Yes, an office worker and a toddler chaser, both out of shape and 9,000 feet above their home altitude, CAN MAKE IT TO THE TOP! 9 miles there and back!

Here is our hiking group. Behind us you can see hundreds of miles of mountain range. Beautiful!


The forest fire lookout is still in use. We heard him playing the banjo, an eerie sound at 9,400 feet.
The summit marker.

Here I am walking along the final ridge below the summit.
In the twisted tree forest.
Old Man of the Mountain, Montana.

A Very Good Very Bad Day

The day started off well. We knew that we needed to leave by 8:30 AM to catch our flight in Louisville, so we got up early and puttered around the house, remembering forgotten items and tying up loose ends before we fled the state. As expected, we got out of the house at 9 AM, but no big deal. We had plenty of time to spare. La dee da we headed down the freeway, deliciously happy to be free of work and responsibility, excited for our Montana vacation ahead. And then, about half way there, Michael realized that we had forgotten one very small but very important detail.

Louisville is in a different time zone.

We were late.

So it was pedal to the metal except that there were cops EVERYWHERE. Seriously, I have never seen so many cops in the middle of blasted nowhere. And then, twenty two miles of highway construction behind a truck that never went over 45 MPH.

By now we were hyperventilating. We blasted into Louisville, drove frantically around the airport parking lot until we found the ONLY available spot. As I started wildly throwing carseat, luggage, and baby paraphernalia out onto the parking lot, up drove a vision of salvation: a parking lot shuttle that was empty and perfectly happy to wait for us. With joyful relief we threw our goods onto the bus and politely requested she drive as fast as legally possible. We arrived at the gate, ran like mad people for the line, begged some very nice eastern european people to let us go ahead of them, and finally made it to the front. We were two minutes late but figured it would work out. The lady took our number, then smiled and laughed. "Oh, sorry, this is a United flight but actually the first leg of your journey is on U.S. Airways so you will have to go down to their check-in line." AUUUUGH! We ran, we flew, we found an incredibly nice man named Phil who did everything in his power to get us on... but to no avail.

We missed our flight.

Well, we didn't really miss it. The flight was there, there were 15 seats available, and our luggage could make it on, but since the COMPUTER locks you out at 30 minutes til, they told us and the several other groups who were similarly 2 minutes late that we were out of luck. So they had to bump us all to a later flight. Which was then overfull. So they had to give away four extra tickets for free. Now, I am fully aware that it is our fault that we were late, but it seems to me that if you have the choice of letting people who are TWO MINUTES late at a tiny airport get onto a plane, or having to lose thousands of dollars shoving all those people onto a later flight, the choice seems obvious. For crying out loud, who cares what the computer says, just put us on the bleepity flight! Phil agreed, but unfortunately even he couldn't argue with the computer. We love Phil.

OK, so that's the end of my rant. For now.

So no big deal, we just had to hang around the airport for three hours and wait for our flight to Pennsylvania, then to Denver, then to Missoula. (See above rant about idiotic airline procedures. Wrong way, folks!) Phil, bless his soul, had still managed to connect us to the essential Denver flight. So we goofed off for hours and hours and hours... Ate sandwiches and smoothies. And of course my traditional 10 Pound Traveling Muffins that can sustain life for literally weeks. Michael watched movies on his ipod while I chased Jeddy around. The best part about our layovers was the discover of the miraculous Toddler Treadmill.




Usually, I spend all my time at the airport walking up and down and up and down and up and down the moving sidewalks ten thousand times until I'm ready to vomit. But Jed taps into some eternal source of airplane travel energy and will literally NEVER TIRE of this activity until you drag him away from it kicking and screaming. But this is the perfect solution. All you have to do is get on a walking sidewalk, go half way down, then turn around and set down the toddler. His fat legs start going at it, but since you are facing backwards... he never actually moves! So you can sit in one place for hours while he just keeps on running. I really need to get one of these at home. Notice in the background the people walking the other direction. hahaha. They all complimented me on my brilliance.

Also, as a side note, while there we saw the weather and sent up a brief prayer of gratitude, as our original layover was in Raleigh, North Carolina, a city currently being beseiged by a tropical storm. Who knows what would have happened with that.

Once on our flight to Denver, then came the challenge of finagling our way into seats next to each other. Thanks to two very nice men, one from eastern Europe (we had a string of lovely and thoughtful eastern European tourists on this trip) and one from Africa, did some fancy trading so we could all end up next to our spouses. It helps that nobody ever wants to sit next to Jed. :c) So we settled into our new seats.

The third seatmate came and sat down beside us. We had a few friendly hellos and exchanged pleasantries. He'd come from Brussels. We asked what he was doing there. He played in a band. We asked what type. He said it defied genre. We asked the name.

PINBACK

Michael and I both dropped our jaws and the glow of fantacism spread across our faces. To explain, this is like our FAVORITEST BAND EVER!!! Aaaaaaaaaa! He is Zach, AKA Armistead Burwell Smith IV, a leading and founding member of the band.

We were in awe. We were the quintessential star-struck fans. Most of the rest of the flight I spent reminding myself over and over and over "Be Cool!" "Be Cool!" Ask cool questions! Drop cool band references! Act like you do something besides clean diapers every day! Be cool! Don't drool with excitement! Don't hyperventilate! And resist the urge to beg for photos and gush over your favorite songs! I tried to let the poor man sleep but it was rough. Gee, how can anyone resist the urge to slide a glance over at the ipod of one of your musical heroes and find out just what it is he listens to? (Michael, apparently, since he elbowed me in the ribs and whispered violently "DON'T STARE!" Sheesh.) When we stumbled off the plane we were giggling like two humiliatingly twitterpated schoolgirls. Exciting stuff.

So then the last leg of the journey. It was late. Jed FINALLY went to sleep. We were exhausted after more than 15 hours of traveling. We dragged ourselves off of the plane and over to the luggage pickup. We got our two bags. And waited. And waited. And waited... but no car seat. Turns out they lost it. Lovely. Stranded a million miles from home at 1 AM with no car seat. Fortunately, they loaned us a really nasty pet-hair covered seat until they could find ours. They reassured us we would have it by the next day.

It took us an hour or so to get all that sorted out. Meanwhile, Michael went to get our rental car. We'd reserved a mid-level econo car for like 35 bucks a day, fairly reasonable we thought. But then when Michael started drooling over some of the photos of their other cars, the fatigue-frazzled blonde at the desk told him he could just take the one he had his eye on for the same price we'd been quoted. So THIS is what we ended up driving for the weekend:

An Infinity M35 with a 300 hp V6.

Yee hah! Michael hooted and giggled and made all sorts of manly revving sounds. The next few days he was as happy as I've ever seen him. He behaved himself at first but by the day we had to return it he was extremely naughty and gave his wife many a thrill as we passed 7 cars at a time going over 100 mph etc. etc. And to make it all worse (better?) every time he'd accelerate hard, Jed in the back seat would go "OOooooooooo!" and start chuckling too. Geeze, two petrol-heads in the household, I am TERRIFIED for the next 16 years! No, actually, the WORST part was that Michael "FORGOT" to put my name on the driver's list so I didn't get to drive it AT ALL. He is in so much trouble.

So then we drove around for 45 minutes and finally got a hotel and then when we got a room and got the baby settled, the toilet overflowed (without us ever having used it) and flooded the room and then we had to move to another room and then FINALLY AT LAST we all fell into comas and slept like the dead. What a very good, very bad day.

Buried Under a Pig!

Find the hidden hog wrastler!

Hog Wrastlin Pictures!

This is a follow-up to the story that Vanessa posted last week about the Hog Wrestling. In every wrestling match there is a team of 4, but in some of these pictures, you'll have to look close to spot the 4th.

Hog Wild

Tuesday we finally attended an event that I have literally been anticipating for years:

HOG MUD WRESTLING

Yes, here in Warrick County, hog wrestling (along with the tractor pull, which we will unfortunately have to let wait until next year) is a major highlight of the annual 4-H county fair. As we drove up, I could see a literal sea of pick up trucks and American cars surrounding the completely packed stadium, with even the standing room crammed full of exuberant Hoosiers ready for the spectacle. My mind briefly flickered back to ancient Rome. The applause thundered.

Perhaps at this point you are a sensitive soul, concerned about the welfare of the poor piglets involved. If so, I console you with the observation that as often as not it was the kids being run down under the mud with the pig on top. There is a reason it takes four people go wrestle one pig up onto a barrel.

Before the stands are two fenced in pits, each with a muddy water hole and a tire-topped barrel in the middle. The right is for the girls, gathered in teams of four. There must be forty teams, each with matching t-shirts and thick thighs encased, sausage-like, in impossibly tight short shorts. A personal favorite were the pink "Piglet Princesses" who did their mud-wrestling festooned with tiaras and duct-tape sashes. To the left were the boys, where Michael's team of choice was the 12 year old, fluorescent yellow "Bacon Basherz."

On each side, a team came up to the gate. The boys are poised, leaning forward, muscles taut, ready for the signal to enter. The girls meander to the gate, tentative, maintaining a flattering pose for the crowd. The shot rings out! The boys plunge one over the other in a mad rush toward the squealing object of their pursuit. The girls work as a team, hemming in their pig while lurching about in a blur of puff paint, sequins, and flowing mud. Arms and legs flail. The boys grunt, holler; the girls screech orders to one another. In moments the pig is caught, escapes, disappears beneath the bodies. Soon with a heave, a scream, it's hefted onto the tire and rolled over. TIME!

Interestingly, despite their distinct size disadvantage, the girls who worked as a team whomped upon the boys almost every single time. The boys seemed to enjoy trampling one another under the mud as much as they enjoyed getting the hog, the girls were focused on one thing only: GET. THE. PIG.

Once the pig's been on the barrel, with at some split-second moment its entire body in the air, the team is excused. A broad, ham-faced teen with shoulders as wide as a 1970s pickup lumbers into the pen. Immediately, the previously running and squealing hog is quiet. The boy picks the hog up like it's a small cat, rather than a huge, mud slippery beast, and tosses him back into the pig pen. Another pig is herded into the pen and it all begins again.

In retrospect, few favorite moments:

When a 16 year old beauty queen with fake blonde hair stacked on her head entered the ring, she put on quite the show for the menfolk. Within seconds, the pig ran her down completely under the mud, she started shrieking hysterically, and the fat girl on the team had to heave the pig up all on her own. What a moment to be burned into my memory forever.

Behind me, a neighbor and a preacher rated the hogs. "Well, that ain't much of a pig, but he shore is a fiery little sucker."

Never before have I seen a place where 10 year olds have facial hair. And I'm talking full beard here.

Also behind me, a father watching his boy's team yelled in a moment of excitement, "If them boys don't get it in time, I'm gonna call them sissies for a year!"

A shockingly large preteen girl encased in a tank top and hot pants found success rolling herself onto the barrel with the writhing, screaming hog on top. I couldn't help myself when the thought drifted across my mind.... "They got the wrong pig!"

I really wanted to stay for the adults but this event was unbelievably popular. Even at 25 bucks a team just to get into the competition, there were literally hundreds of teams in line to try their hand at it. We stayed for several hours but eventually had to head home before we got to the 18 and up division. Don't you worry, though. Next year, we are SO THERE and you will see Vanessa throwing them hogs around like they ain't never been thrown before! YeeeeHAH!