national aquarium, baltimore, maryland
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travel: baltimore, maryland
i’m in baltimore for a vendor conference and i think i’m annoyed. baltimore is far enough away that we had to get hotel rooms — and to strip out just about every ounce of excitement about spending time in city other than our own.i will say that, living in DC, i don’t “get” to wander around the streets of baltimore at night often, but that sounds an awful lot like something to be avoided — especially considering the only reason i was out was because i had forgotten contact solution and was desperately searching for a 24-hour pharmacy.
See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
travel: baltimore, maryland -
detante
it appears that sparklet and emily the cat have reached some kind of detante — or maybe the cat is just so desperate for attention that her standards are dropping.emily has started (a) not running away the moment that sparklet makes eye contact with her, and (b) occasionally putting herself down in front of sparklet in such a way as to imply that she might actually not mind being pet.
sparklet, for her part, has learned how to run her hand through emily’s hair without ripping any out. hard to call that petting, but it’s a start.
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who’s feeding whom?
at the beginning of sparklet’s eating career, she was a bit of a streaky eater. first she would only squash, then she would only eat sweet potatoes, and then she’d only eat pureed garden vegetables.once she got onto solids, it was the same thing — first she would only eat sliced avacodos, and then she would only eat bonbel cheese wheels, and then she would only eat black beans (keeping Pollo Sobroso, our local Peruvian chicken place, open).
fortunately, she’s started mellowing out a bit.
we’ve working in eggs, apples (more about chewing then actually swallowing), bananas, yogurt, some little spinach things and lately sliced mushrooms sauteed in a little olive oil — all while keeping the previous staples in the mix, too.
and, just when a (relative) decline in black bean consumption started looking bleak for Pollo Sabroso’s bottom line, sparklet has started consuming large quantities of Peruvian chicken and rice.
so, it looks like we’ve got a lead on figuring out the whole eating thing — which is exactly what the doctor said would happen fully swapped over to milk. (she’s only gets formula right before bed now, and even that’ll be gone in a month).
now if we can just get that whole sleep thing straightened out, we’ll be home free.
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one year checkup
sparklet went in for a checkup this morning, and she’s still ginormous — weighing in at 25.4 lbs (94th percentile) and standing almost 32 inches tall (off the charts at 97th+ percentile).two notable developments.
first, we got an official diagnose from the doctor on sparklet’s mental state, when she was careening around like a lunatic, trying not to get measured:
wow, she really hates not being in control — doesn’t she?
(yup, thanks for the newsflash.)
second, sparklet got four vaccinations — bringing her total lifetime count of shots up to thirteen — and had two vials of blood pulled by D.C. to test for lead and tuberculosis.
there was a lot of screaming and yelling, but it quickly subsided once the needles went away — enough that she was clapping along to the music in the car ride home.
no harm, no foul.
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aquariums, by and large, are nasty/brutish places, over-stuffed with parents desparately trying to ignore their shrieking kids — a chaos that is the exact antithesis of the peace you see underwater.
so, while i love beautiful collections of fish in large tanks and could sit in front of just one exhibit for hours on end, at an aquarium if you stand in one place too long you are invariably jacked up against a wall by marauding tourists.
tonight, however, the conference i’m attending rented out the national aquarium in baltimore after hours for all it’s attendees. so, instead of the building being overstuffed with nasty-brutish families … it was overstuffed with nasty-brutish drunk marketers.
oy.
deflated, i trudged my way through the aquarium with some friends at a brisk page — looking at the fish here and there, but moving pretty quickly to avoid the drunken pre-hookup marketer rituals.
i fell behind my friends at one of the last exhibits and, as i finally made my way by the front entrance on my way out of the aquarium, an official looking woman with a yellow coat hurriedly waved me over.
“um, no … i just got here.”
i skittered on past, she pulled the rope across behind me, and for the next forty-five minutes i basically had the entire national aquarium to myself.
joyous.