2007--a look back

January and February we were living in Hoboken. Nikki accepted a job at Travelocity near Dallas so we moved back in the middle of February. Skip kept his job in NYC and now telecommutes, which he loves. We moved to a town called Grapevine, it's in the subuntry (suburban-country). We had lots of fun with scorpions in the apartment. Skip turned out to be great at catching them and releasing them far, far away our place. It was really cool seeing coyotes and bobcats out the window at night. I don't think the cats slept at all, they were always looking out the window. We had to get a car. We hadn't owned a car in the past 4 years in Hoboken and NY because of the subways, so it was interesting getting behind the wheel again. During the spring Zoe started crawling and said her first word, duck.

In April we took at trip to Sedona, Arizona and the Grand Canyon. This was Zoe's first vacation. We had fun taking hikes through the mountains and woods. Skip had a piece of art in a show in Deep Ellum. It was fun but Skip is taking a break this year from art and didn't want to put a lot of time into a new piece so he made a really small one made out of computer parts.

In May Skip's parents got their dog Angel, which they love very much. We met some friends from Hoboken down in Austin in June. Zoe got to hang out with her buddy Emma again, and we got to see Kara and Elliot. We went to the mothership of all Whole Food stores while we were there, it is the Mecca store if you will, that all Whole Foods shoppers must go to at least once and throw tofu pieces at the preservative devil statue located on isle 12.

In July we had our anniversary on the 2nd (7 years) and Zoe's first birthday party! Zoe's Grandpa and Bibi, Bubbie, Mammaw, Pappaw, Uncle Donovan, Sheedeh, Angie, Jeff all showed up to celebrate the big 1. Zoe had chocolate cake for the first time and opened lots of presents. Aunt Laura, Uncle Bob, Jenny and Shawn celebrated a bit later, they where out of town.

In August we visited Skip's grandparents in West Virginia. Nikki and Zoe met Skip's cousins and family for the first time. Skip hadn't seen his cousins in over 15 years. It's always nice to get up to West Virginia for a bit, though Skip was a little disappointed he didn't hear any bears in the woods this time.

Throughout the summer we visited some art museums also, though we really miss the Met in NYC. The heat during the summer was ridiculous, the highest we saw in the car thermometer was 109 degrees.

In September Nikki quit her job at Travelocity because of her boss harassing her and his amazing talent of micro-micro managing, but due to the fact he is an amazing ass french-kisser of upper management there was nothing to be done about it. But it was a blessing in disguise because now Nikki had the chance to be home with Zoe full time. We moved to Plano at the end of September. For those of you not in Dallas, Plano is the archetype of a suburb. One cool thing about our apartments is that most of the people who live here are business professionals from India, and they cook a lot, so we have the constant aroma of curry wafting through the air, which is great since we love curry!

Angie had baby James in September! Jeff and Angie are very proud (and should be). Also we found out our friends Catherine and Eugene (aka CatUge) are pregnant with a little CatUge nugget. Our friend Sheedeh is going to start her own business, so if anyone needs to hire employees for any professional jobs, Sheedeh is the person to contact to find you those employees. Lorna beat her cancer, saying bye to Buffy and Hildegarde and welcoming Vodka and Tonic.

In October Zoe started walking! She dressed up as the strawberry sorceress for Halloween. In December we went on a southern Caribbean cruise, and we all had a great time. Zoe saw the beach for the first time. We snorkeled in a cave and an earthquake woke us up from a nap. For the holidays we had Hanukkah latkes at Bubbie's and Christmas at Mammaws and Pappaws. We found out this year that Zoe loves Christmas lights! Nikki colored her hair all punk rock, which she has been wanting to do for a while. Its partly red now but who know what it will be next?

So this is the last day of the year, tonight we're going to eat spinach quiche and watch Britcoms. Maybe watch all the people in Times Square. You know why all those people in Times Square are so excited when its midnight, acting crazy and screaming? Its because they have been standing in one spot since the early morning, in the cold, not being able to go to the bathroom, and they are delirious and can leave their spot on the street once the ball drops. In 2003 I talked Nikki into doing this, she was a real trooper and stood there with me, from about 10am until midnight, in one spot. And I thank her for that. I don't think Id ever want to do it again though, unless Zoe wants to when she gets older and ask us to go with her.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Her are Zoes top 5 favorite things of 2007
• Christmas Lights
• Strawberries
• Birds
• Dogs
• "the mah" moon

Storytime

Tatiana the Tiger

You may have heard the story about how a Siberian tiger named Tatiana "jumped" out of its enclosure at the San Fransisco zoo and killed a teenager and injured 2 others before being shot by police. All the stories on the news focus on the teenage victims and make it seem as if they were just minding their own business when the tiger jumped out and got them. Only one story reports that these teenagers waited until closing time, then two of them dangled their legs over the railing where the tigers were and proceeded to taunt, yell at and tease the tigers by throwing objects at them. Only then did the tiger attack them (inside the tiger enclosure). She escaped by latching onto their legs and ran after the other teenager who was outside. She caught him and thats when the police shot her. I feel sorry for the parents of the teenager who was killed and for the tiger named Tatiana who was shot because of it.
I don't blame Tatiana the tiger, if I was in a cage my whole life and 3 teenage boys were teasing, taunting and yelling at me, giving me the chance to get them, I would go for it. And I don't blame the teenagers either, teenagers (especially boys) can do incredibly stupid things.

Ear Infection

Zoe woke up Friday morning not feeling well. She threw up and had diarrhea. By the afternoon she really seemed out of it, and she had a temperature of 101. That night she was crying and had a temperature of 103.8. We rushed her to a free standing emergency room here in Plano, they took a look at her and it turns out she has an ear infection. They gave her a shot of an antibiotic just in case it was a bacterial infection.
She is feeling much better today, getting back to her energetic, beautiful self.

political stuff

Everyone who knows us knows that we are what you might call tree-hugging, crunchy, granola eating, progressive, open minded types. You may have heard Skip rant about the current US administration and their foreign policy. We have voted for the green party, independents and Democrats in the past, we bring our own bags to Whole Foods, read Chomsky, we marched with the protest against the Republican Convention in New York City in 2004 (some photos Skip took)...you get the point. So the last thing you would ever dream of seeing on our blog is a video for a republican candidate, right? We like to call things like we see them, regardless of political affiliation, praising views we agree with over simplistic party "loyalty". This guy is definitely worth checking out, he is a...(gasp) republican from...(double gasp and fall over with legs in the air)...Texas. You have to pause the video sometimes to read the text (or at least I did, but it is almost 1AM and I'm tired, so maybe you don't have to), and the music has a cheese factor of 8.2, but if your into politics and current world events, you should definitely check out what Ron Paul has to say on this video.

Merry Christmas

Decorations at Skip's parents house and Zoe checking out Skip's new antlers

Punk Rock Mamma

Nikki's new hairdo!!

Weekend Roundup

Friday night we went over to Angie, James and Jeff's place for pizza. It was good to see them. Saturday we went to the mall and Zoe played on the plastic food playground. After playing for about 30 minutes she walked out of the playground area, so we followed her into a baby clothes store that was near. She walked inside and started looking around at clothes (she was shopping!). We picked out her first pair of big girl shoes, some converse style pink high tops. She is already getting used to walking around in them after only one day (and she looks really cute in them too).
Zoe went the whole day without a nap, we tried a couple of times then finally gave up. Saturday evening we went over to Skip's parents and they watched Zoe so we could go out to dinner, that was really nice. We went to India Palace in North Dallas and both had some good saag paneer.
Sunday morning was a Target run. Then Grandpa, Bibi and Bubbie came over for a visit and we exchanged Hanukkah and Christmas gifts. Zoe went another day today with no nap.
This weekend has been in the 30s and 40s, with Sunday afternoon getting just above 50. A bit brisk.
A great drink we like to have when its cold like this is to warm up some Silk brand soy chai tea, yummy stuff to drink while sitting on the couch and watching some britcoms on a cold night.

Plastic Food Playground

Here is a video of Zoe playing on a plastic food playground at Willow Bend Mall in Plano this afternoon.

smiling tea leaves

On Saturday night we went to Veggie Garden for dinner, I looked in my cup of tea and a smile made of tea leaves was looking back!
This weekend we met Skip's parents and brother at the Raddison in Richardson for a benefit lunch for an organization Skip's parents are involved in. Santa was there (it may have been a fake Santa though, it looked like he was a member of the beard club for men). We also had latkes at Nikki's bubbie's house. Zoe had 4 of them and wanted more. Tonight we are going to wish Skips brother Donovan happy birthday.
We both had a bit of a cold this weekend, not very much of one though. It probably had something to do with the temperature plummeting to the upper 30s, lower 40s these past couple of days.

Book stuff

Just finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It was good, not in my top ten but I'm glad I read it and would recommend it. The last chapter was my favorite, he talks about animals regarding philosophy and society. He states how animals were viewed as having souls just like people up until the 1600's when Descartes (the "I think therefore I am" guy) described them as soul-less machines. The idea took hold and western society still believes Descartes theory today.
The next book on my list is Symposium by Plato. I actually got the idea of reading Symposium from the book I just finished. Kundera talks about a story from Symposium in which humans once had four legs, four arms, two heads, and so on. Some were male, with two sets of male sexual organs; some were females; and some were hermaphrodites, with one set each of male and female sexual organs. We were twice the people we are now, and the gods were jealous, afraid we would overthrow them. Zeus decided to cut us in half to reduce our power, and ever since we have been running all over the earth trying to rejoin with our other half. When we do, we cling to that other half with all our might, and we call this Love. I think that is a cool story!
After Symposium I'm going to check out a book recommended by my friend (thanks Sheedeh!) called , Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. Nikki and I read one of his books a couple of years ago and loved it, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hopefully this book will have that same sense of surreal/magical realism.
Nikki is currently reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (and probably will be for a while, its a long book but well worth the read!).

Caribbean Cruise

We just got back from a 10 day cruise in the Southern Caribbean. It was Zoe's first big trip out of the country, and she had a great time. The cruise left Miami and visited 5 islands; Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, Antigua, Barbados and St Lucia.
Here are some photos, we will post more details about the trip later.


click on the photo thumbnails to see larger view & read captions

chimp beats college kids in computer game

Here is a great story on how researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won!

Zoë giving kisses

Video of Zoë drinking some Jamba Juice, saying "ew-woe" and giving lots of kisses.

Pre-Thanksgiving

I (Skip) just got over a bit of food poisoning. I think it was a certain curry dish I had Saturday at lunch. But I'm feeling much better now.
For thanksgiving we are going to my parents for lunch, they are making a special vegetarian thanksgiving for us, which is extremely considerate of them to do. My mom said she didn't want Zoë to have to see a dead turkey and ask what it was. Then we are going over to Nikki's dad's house at dinner time. The photo is of Zoë at grandpa's.

The day after Thanksgiving will mark 8 years of myself and Nikki being vegetarians! My last bite of meat was Thanksgiving lunch at my mom's house in 1999.

Hello Moon

We were driving to the store tonight to get something to make for dinner and we heard Zoe in the back seat saying "Hello"(more like "eww-woe") over and over again. We turned around and saw that she was waving, looking out the window up at the sky. She was looking right at the moon, saying hello.

Graphic Design

This is Skip. I work 5 days a week creating graphic design, and it just dawned on me that most people I know don't really know or see examples of what I do, they just hear about my job in a short sentence. So I thought I'd take a blog opportunity to show some of what I do ever week. The company I contract for full time creates a lot of money lending sites. They send me the text (I just paste the text they send me into the web design, some of it can be a bit cheesy) and a general idea of what they want. I create the web page design and send it to the art director and marketing director for approval. I will also do some graphic and HTML advertisements/emails. Ive put a couple of web pages I've recently completed below, you can click the thumbnails to see a larger screen shot of them. I will typically do about 2 or 3 of these a week.
In addition to that company I freelance with an international conference company creating mostly banners and most recently HTML emails. I put a banner example below also. This is the same company Nikki worked for in New York about 2-3 years ago. Between them, and various other jobs Ive had (like WebMD) I have hundreds of banner examples, so I will spare everyone and show just a single banner (the banner Im showing is going up on Bloomberg.com later this week).
Plus I work other freelance jobs, including helping out with my friend Eugene's company's website Post Logic Studios. Another site example is Pure Pools. There are many other design examples I could show. Its hard to narrow down years of working to a few examples.
The best part of my job is being able to work at home and be with my family.

My fav banana bread recipe

I love this recipe because it doesn't have many ingredients and it is oh, so yummy.

* 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
* 1/3 cup melted butter
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* Pinch of salt
* 1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

I got this from Simply Recipes.

weekend dishes

The recipe for Saturday was heaping helping of Whole Foods, walking in the pseudo woods with a hint of shopping at Ikea, finished off with a splash of dinner at Pei Wei.

Sundays dish started off with an appetizer of playground playing, followed by a nap. After the nap we have some jamba juice to drink, then a dash of visiting Dad's with a cup and a half of visiting Bubbie's, and a side of dinner at Cafe Brazil. We left room for dessert of course, eating some yummy soy pudding while watching British comedies after our little boogie Zoe went to bed.

Free Rice Game

freerice.com
Here is a great game Kara sent to Nikki, the sponsors donate money for the amount of rice you "earn" by getting the correct meaning of words.

Midweek Visits

It was in the 50s today, which is a nice temperature, but not when it dropped from the mid 80s a couple of days before. Angie and James came by for a visit. Zoe is very interested in the 2 month old James, she did the sign for baby when she saw him. Angie and Nikki made vegetarian Sheppard's Pie for lunch, very good. We also found out our friends Catherine and Eugene are expecting, congratulations to them.
Later that day Mammaw, Pappaw and Uncle Donovan stopped by for a visit. Zoe is always interested in Pappaw's mustache. After some yummy matzo ball soup Zoe went straight to bed.

Weekend Stuff

Saturday morning we made a trip to Whole Foods for coffee, ciabatta bread and a pumpkin muffin. From there we went to Arbor Hills Nature Preserve, walked in the pseudo woods then played on the playground. Zoe came back and took a good nap.
On Sunday our good friend Sheedeh came over for a visit. We went to Willow Bend Mall in West Plano where Zoe played on the plastic dinner table playground.


click on the photo thumbnails to see larger view & read captions

Our grandparents

Here are a couple of photos we have of our grandparents looking very hip and cool. The couple to the left leaning against the wall are Skip's grandparents on his mom's side. This was taken in West Virginia probably in the 1940s. The couple on the right walking in the street are Nikki's grandparents on her dad's side. This photo was taken in Poland after they got out of the concentration camps, also in the 1940s.

Halloween

Yesterday was Zoe's first Halloween that she could actively participate in. We went over to our good friends Angie and Jeff's house and their baby James (who is almost 2 months old) and Zoe went trick-or-treating together. Zoe was dressed up as "The Strawberry Sorceress". Nikki did a great job making Zoe's costume.
Earlier that afternoon Zoe had her first big fall. She was walking on the sidewalk outside our apartments when she tripped and fell, hitting her forehead on a handrail. A big goose egg appeared on her forehead and she cried for about 10 minutes. Then she stopped crying and started playing, everything was ok after that and now she just has a small purple bruise that will probably go away in the next day or so. Nikki and I were more upset than she was! Zoe is a very strong girl. Then later that night while trick-or-treating I jabbed my toe (wearing sandals) into someones pop-up water sprinkler while walking up the sidewalk. Not a good day as far as injuries go but overall a great Halloween.

interesting zen question (called a Kōan)

What did your face look like before your parents were born?

Books about Russians, Czechs and Elephants

Last night I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov. It was a great book and I'll probably read it again. I'm passing it on to Nikki to read next. Next on my list is The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Im looking forward to reading it and I really like the book cover of the version I have, its a derby floating in mid air over the Charles Bridge in Prague. Zoe just finished Elmer's Colors, for the 107th time.

Our other 2 babies

We haven't posted anything about our other 2 babies to this blog yet. They are doing great. I was taking a photo of Miro and she told me to talk to the paw.
Napoleon was very curious when I was taking her photo, she wanted to sniff the camera lens.

Zoe is walking!!

Zoe started walking today!! She has taken some steps here and there before, but today she just took off!! We are very proud of her.

Playground

Here is a video we took a couple of weeks ago on the playground at the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano.

Toast with purple dreadlocks and some ducks

We went to breakfast this morning at Cafe Brazil in Plano. For those of you not in Dallas, Cafe Brazil used to have a restaurant in a part of Dallas called Deep Ellum, which is where the alternative crowd hangs out. You would go there late at night to have some coffee and maybe dessert after going to listen to bands play or whatever you where doing that night. But now the restaurant has a small chain going. They have a cleaned up version in Plano, still with the artsy decor, still with the waitresses with purple dreadlocks and nose rings, and still with great desserts...but the clientele is what you would typically find in Plano, which is definitely not purple dreadlocks and nose rings, but more suburban church going types. So it was an interesting mix to see all together, definitely not the same place Nikki and I used to go to in Deep Ellum years back. But they do serve good breakfast. Zoe had 2 big pieces of toast, mmmm.

After breakfast we went to a nice park, with a pond/mini-lake and a side of ducks (Zoe loves ducks). We played on the playground, it was nice. There was a somewhat chilly wind blowing this morning, plus Zoe was ready for a nap so we called it a morning and headed back. Overall it was a great Sunday morning.

mmmmm, soy chocolate pudding!

nepotism?

VP Dick Cheney, and presidential hopeful Barack Obama are distant cousins. This isnt that suprising, really. Franklin D Roosevelt was related to over 10 other presidents. It seems a lot of presidents and other high ranking politicians, not all, but a lot, have a branch of the family tree that leads to another president, another senator, another whatever. Is there a hint of nepotism in national politics? Hillary Clinton with her husband, GW Bush with his dad and brother in Florida, Obama with his distant cousin VP Cheney? Look at this photo of the last presidential hopeful John Kerry and the guy on our $10 bill, Alexander Hamilton and tell me they aren't related!

With our two parties most likely to be nominated, republicans AND democrats, is our choice really that varied? Whats wrong with a 3rd or 4th choice? Why not un-simplify our Hobson's Choice a little and get some other parties in there, different voices? Maybe look outside the presidential gene pool a little? You know what happens when cousins marry, right? The children are a little on the dumb side. And it only gets worse as generations go by. Hmmm, look at our political leaders today.
Ok-Im done with my monthly political rant, sorry. I really should be at work right now.

3 ears are better than 2

Im really close to finishing The Brothers Karamazov, less than a hundred pages to go! Its a great Russian soap opera and I'll have to read it again some day.

I recently read a story about a guy in Australia that had an ear grafted onto his forearm in the name of art..this has nothing to do with art! He looks like the grandpa on Everybody Loves Raymond, only with an ear growing on his forearm.

Zoë says hi

Hi, this is Zoë. Im 15 months old. I was born on July 3rd, 2006 in New York City. I like elephants, moo-cows, dogs, and ducks. My favorite foods are hummus, mac & cheese, and strawberries. I like exploring, watching Teletubies and pulling kitty cat tails even though mommy and daddy tell me not to.
I lived in Hoboken, NJ my first 7 months. Then my parents moved to Texas, thats where I am right now. This week I said "mama" for the first time, and mommy was very happy about that.

If your looking for something interesting to listen to checkout radio lab

Taking our Wild Cous-Cous Eater to the Park

We took Zoe to the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve yesterday and today....maybe I should start this another way. We just moved from Grapevine to our new place in Plano. Nikki and I are both very tired. There are a lot of boxes sitting in the living room and we still have a lot of to-dos to do. Nikki and I thought, "Hey why dont we start a blog, that makes sense, we can unpack and sleep later". Zoe has been a little upset about the move, probably because of all the change. Right now we are trying to get into our new routine and get everything set up. After our 15 trips a day to Whole Foods across the street we thought it would be fun to get out and do something that didn't involving buying tofu, so we went to the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano. Its a park that has big playground, trails, very nice. Its about the only part of Plano that isn't a McMansion village or a SuperTarget/SuperWalmart/SuperWhatever. On Saturday we walked around for a while until Zoe decided it was time to go. She must have been tired because she is likes to be outside. Today we decide to go again, this time we spent all our time on the playground, Zoe climbed the jungle gym, swung on the swings, or swinged, swang, however you say it, and had a great time. After that we came back to our place and fixed some cous-cous, and Zoe had a grand time eating and decorating herself, mommy and daddy with it. All in all we are starting to get settled into the new place.

Video of Prego Nikki from June 2006

Playing in the Grass in Grapevine