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Naebody in Particular podcast cover: a collage of old family photographs, handwritten letters, a magnifying glass and a fountain pen

Naebody in Particular

You won't find them on a shortbread tin, but our ancestors live on so long as we keep telling their stories. Scots, Yanks, Canucks and the Auld Enemy. Newest posts are the ancestors, but scroll for the living.

  • tradition

    we don’t have a lot that passes as family traditions — my father cooking great breakfasts, his menu for thanksgiving/christmas dinner.

    somehow a small wooden rocking chair has lasted through the decades of our tushies to be featured in three generations worth of 18 month birthday photos.

    that’s gramma on the top right, and it’s been 65 years (almost to the day) between her picture and the one we took today with sparklet.

    amazing.

    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    photos: sparklet’s rocking chair portraits

  • “daddy, i can do it”

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    just because she isn’t talking, doesn’t mean she isn’t communicating.even though her only legitimate word remains “up” she can somehow very clearly communicate that she’s not a little girl anymore and should be allowed to push her own stroller (up hill, for three to four blocks), push her own tricycle, and now carry her own groceries.

    oh, and work the remote. and the computer. and get in and out of desk chairs, pushing them back when they’re done. and she’s even starting to try and wipe her own bottom.

    and while all of this is great — really, i swear — next week is sparklet’s 18 month checkup, and friends tipped us off that the doctor would be looking for evidence of a 5 to 22 word vocabulary.

    here’s what sparklet’s mommy has been rehearsing:

    • sparklet’s got baby sign language down for “more”, “all done”, and “juice”.
    • she’ll randomly pick up one of our phones and bark like a seal into it — something approximaiting “ai!”
    • she’s seriously comprehending in two languages. we can say “give that to me,” “put this in the trash” and “where’s your shoes/ball/socks” in both English and Spanish, and sparklet knows/acts on exactly what we’re saying.
    • her first word (“up”) isn’t an object, but a concept — and she knows the different usages between “pick me up and carry me”, “you get up off the couch”, and “put me onto the bed” or “i want into the crib.”

    so, while all that’s keeping me from committing “i’m an aweful parent” hari kari, i’ve conveniently double-booked myself during her appointment and won’t be able to join the family for that particular festivity.

    UPDATE: sparklet had her 18 month appt. and is still as impressive as ever — he’s 30 lbs. and 34 inches, both puts her above the 97% threshold.

    the pediatrician did NOT yell at us about her vocabulary (for all the reason’s above), but said if sparklet doesn’t have 10 words by 21 months, we should probably think about getting a professional to help her jump start the language process.

  • out: williamsburg

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    short trip to williamsburg

  • artwork: happy birthday!

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  • inspection for monroe

    despite being 97 years young, our home-elect is in pretty outstanding shape.

    we spent three hours pouring over the place on Saturday, and really didn’t come up with nearly as much as we would have thought.

    there was a loose toilet on the first floor which we didn’t want to start leaking, a couple small electrical issues and a joist which showed some possible termite damage — all of which the sellers agreed to fix.

    there are some other issues which we’ll want to fix ourselves in the months after we move in: the boiler was installed in 1982, and probably is a little behind as far as fuel efficiency goes; the attic could use a little more insulation; and there are two code issues with railings on the porch and on the steps to the basement.

    the first two will take some planning (and some $$$$) but the latter i can fix myself on pretty much any random Saturday afternoon.

    oh, and even our termite fears turned out to be over blown. the porch next door does have a small termite issue, but “our” porch has been treated and got a clean bill of health — and they were actually replacing the offending porch during our inspection.

    i think we’ve got one contingency left (our appraisal) but the last week of May seems a lot closer than it did even a couple of days ago.

    MAP: From Baist’s Real Estate Atlas of Surveys of Washington, District of Columbia, circa 1919. “Our” place is #79, located just above the “M” in Monroe Street.

  • missed the cherry blossoms

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    not sure what the heck we were doing, but we completely flaked on the cherry blossoms this year.

    mount pleasant is a lot of things, but “hot bed of Yoshino cherry trees” is sadly not one of them — though i guess that means it’s also not a “hot bed of tourists in ugly shorts jacked up to their necks.”

    you win some, you lose some.

  • birds

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    sparklet has developed a love of birds. she can follow them in the sky, in the trees and on the ground — and does the baby sign-language for “more” when they fly away. cute.

  • found: soccer

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  • found: march

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    camera dump: march

  • inspection for park

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    first time home buyers are so cute.

    the inspection for our sale of park was tuesday, and by the end of the day some of the sparkle had started coming off of the prospective buyers for our place on park road.

    i should start by saying that we we’re a little cranky to start.

    part of their original offer to buy our place was “complete flexibility” for our settlement and move out — they were living somewhere month to month, and just needed to give 30 days notice. however, by the time the contract came, that had been revised down to “no flexibility what-so-ever” and we had to move out the same day as we settled on Monroe, which is a logistical nightmare.

    (in the end, we negotiated a scant 7 day rent back, but thankfully it’s all we needed.)

    as a result, we decided to be a little more proactive with their inspection of our place — we tried to gave them a bunch of information on our place up front, in an effort to make sure they got everything they needed out of their morning kicking our tires.

    unfortunately, they still couldn’t find our water heater — even though we had done everything short of drawing them a map based on our own journey of water heater discovery.

    they gave us a provisional list of issues they wanted addressed — including two that to this day i have no clue what is broken (and neither of those are the one where they want something “adjustmented”):

    • tiles near the base of the washer dryer to be regrouted.
    • gaps in the floor of the utility clause to be closed.
    • closet doors in both bedrooms to be adjustmented to close fully.
    • bathroom light to be replaced with wet area rated fixture.
    • high loop for dishwasher to be adjusted.

    (we opted to give them $500 to fix the stuff themselves.)

    as for the “missing” water heater, they asked to extend the inspection another five days — just long enough to put our purchase of Monroe in jeopardy. instead, we gave them a day extension, and Brandon suggested that I be there the next morning to talk them the place everything myself.

    what followed was a lesson in the power of eye contact — as it turned out that they were legitimately nice people, doing exactly the same sort of thing the lady sparkler and i would have done.

    mr. firsttimehomebuyer was detail oriented and focused on making a great investment decision (not unlike my own beloved). mrs. firsttimehomebuyer was a neo-hippie (much like myself) who was excited primarily about the community and the neighborhood.

    we talked about our place, the building and the neighborhood — and in the course of 20 minutes they went from inexperienced ogres who we’re screwing up the purchase of our dream home to people we’d totally have over for dinner.

    if the lesson of the last two weeks to our real estate agent is to take all his places off the market to make them sell quicker, the lesson for us is to meet any prospective buyers ourselves and take them out for drinks.