theparkerfamily.org

  • The Tiffany Trophy Cup

    ecpa20090411_0559
    The potential for proper European football is still a couple of weeks away, so it was a little shocking when I heard that Spanish legends Real Madrid were taking on English stalwart Blackburn Rovers this weekend. In Arlinton, Virginia. On artificial turf, at a high school.

    Turns out it was their academy squads over for a tourney hosted in association with D.C. United, but that didn’t deter the lady sparkler and I (and at least 12 other curious bystanders) from looking on as the two squads threw themselves up and down the pitch.

    There wasn’t a scoreboard, but near as we can figure “Los Merengues” were up three at the break … and Blackburn would have been farther down the whole if it wasn’t for a dozen standout saves by the Rover’s keeper.

    Real won handily, but both sides showed real class. It was hard to believe they were all under the age of 17, and yet still had skills that could have embarrassed a lot of professional squads in the States.

  • Good Friday in Columbia Heights

    We were walking back from the Target tonight, when we got caught up in a Good Friday procession in front of the big Catholic Church on the corner of Park and 16th Streets NW. It was amazingly intricate, with floats on flat beds, a pick-up truck with a generator and loud speakers, and what must have been a couple of thousand people. Shut down the neighborhood for blocks in all directions.

  • pregnant passover

    ordernow_30mslgbookfunny story … the lady sparkler and I went to a Passover seder tonight thrown by Mighty Baby Boig, and sat at the foot of the table with three pregnant women and their husbands.

    best of all, no one there knew we were pregnant … we hadn’t been able to tell the hosts (and figured that major religious gatherings weren’t the best time to bring it up) but the lady sparkler’s avoidance of alcohol is probably giving her away to anyone silly enough to pay attention.

    if women are really serious about this not-blabbing-for-12-weeks thing, they need to sink some investment capital into a way to look like they are consuming alcohol without actually doing it.

    maybe a fake stomach with a second, external esophagus … or some kind of secret additive that turn alcohol into sugar, while still in the glass. where is a pregnant venture capitalist when you need one?

  • my.nature.org

    things are always a little nuts in march, but this we used earth day to launch a brand new engagement site.

    we are using my.nature.org to serves relevant, personalized content to the Conservancy’s online supporter communities, as well as to post a ton of user-generated content we collect from our flickr efforts, the message of hope campaign, and our everyday environmental tips.

    UPDATE: In the 18 months since the campaign’s launch, my.nature.org has garnered nearly 800,000 visits and 1.5 million page views. The site’s user generated content campaigns have become fixtures on the Conservancy’s social media presences, including Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. i’ll take it.

  • found photo: ballston common, arlington, va

    [Ballston Common, Arlington, Virginia.]
    IMG_0546, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • provisioning for two

    picture-1well, I’m sitting in a Rehobeth old navy, while the lady sparkler and a good friend (lightingchickknits) run around buying “loose-fitting” summer dresses.

    there was a sale, and size-too-large dresses from old navy are bound to me better than full price maternity-wear.

    I haven’t had much to do with the whole pregnancy thing. the vast majority of nesting is going to fall on my lap, but that’s okay because the absolute majority of incubation is no where near my lap.

    and, it seams like preganancy isn’t slowing baby-mama down. the other night, she was barefoot, in the kitchen, cooking dinner, and when she was done she sewed on two buttons on our coats … it was very nineteenth century of us.

    (I should have been slaving away in the fields, but sadly I was just working 11 hour days on a computer.)

    and I realized, life is pretty okay. sure, both of us are going to turn into stark-raving lunatics at somepoint in the next 229 days, but … it’ll be good.

    p.s. we got 6+ dresses, all of which have plenty of space in the middle area (a-line, princess, empire, etc).

    p.p.s. I got three pairs of boxers. I didn’t want to be left out.

  • The State of the Birds

    [Photo]Over the last two weeks, we’ve been going nuts at the office as we run up towards Earth Day 2009. However, in the process, we managed to launch a nifty little site talking about the importance of bird conservation.

    We recently participated in a sweeping study that looks at the health of bird populations around the country and what this means for the future of our birds. With that in mind, and in full recognition of how incrediably strong our birding community is, we launched a mini-site where people can learn about the threats to birds in the U.S., share their best places to bird, and submit their favorite bird photos.

    We also threw in a sweet little desktop screensaver of bird images from our Flickr community.

  • the longest twelve weeks

    this is going to be the longest 12 weeks of my life. it’s barely been four weeks, and I have already screwed up the whole “keeping it underwraps” thing thrice.

    of course, it started with the inadvertant google reader posting…

    and last week I told you about the Obama boom, but what I left out was that I became so flustered during that conversation because I knew something I otherwise shouldn’t have known that I ended up outing us when challanged.

    (note: never point out to an expectant father that while often you can tell the sex by 16 weeks, it’s a little shakey until 20.)

    a common thread here is that i’ve been exhausted since February. i’ve been working crazy hours, but pregnancy has shrunk the size of a walnut … which means she is getting up every night at 11, 1, 3 and 5. interestingly enough, she goes right back to sleep … but i’m awake for half an hour, staring at the ceiling.

    so, disaster was in the cards yesterday at the chiropractor … I was exhausted, and the doctor asked if my back was keeping me up. I said no, my wife has been getting in and out of bed a lot … to which she replied “Congratulations! When are you due?!?”

    @#%*$!

    fifty-five days left until 12 weeks, and it can’t come soon enough.

    I’m sure I’ll be singing a different tune after 2 months of the exact same conversation — what’s the preggers equivalent of “so, how’s married life treating you?” — but right now the whole honesty thing is looking pretty good.

  • there and back again

    gi_overviewthe lady sparkler’s had a busy week of interviews. la madre de la sparklet has been shopping for a new baby doctor ever since he/she/it announced, “oh, by the way … I don’t deliver babies anymore.”

    mental note: add that to the list of things you could have mentioned three months ago …

    it’s a little early to be doing dry runs to the hospital, but all the practices that baby mama interviewed were out of sibley memorial hospital here in DC and we had only the faintest idea as to where that was.

    and, knowing that i was going to be the one driving her raging hormones around in case of emergency, i convinced her that we might want to discover whether we can actually get to this uncharted hospital in a hurry or not.

    what can I say … I’m a planner.

    it turns out that “we” have picked the farthest-away hospital in the District (at least that doesn’t involve crossing a river, thank god).

    to be more specific, there are six hospitals that are closer — though admittedly two of them you could go in pregnant and come out missing a kidney.

    I digress…

    so, we took a little drive to sibley. I offered to strap a watermellon to her waist and dump a gallon of water on her lap … you know, for authenticity.

    she declined — unless I let her wail hysterically, dig her fingernails into my arm while I drove, and leave at three in the morning … you know, for authenticity.

    I declined.

    so we hopped into our little jetta, and meandered our way west through the city: Cleveland park, van ness, tenleytown, American university, spring valley. (we passed like 200 churches, which I think is a good sign.)

    five miles, twelve stoplights, three stop signs and a traffic circle later, we arrived at sibley.

    the lady sparkler announced that the trip went “pretty good.” I announced that she better be planning to be induced at a time of our choosing.

    it only took 12 minutes, but it felt like thirty … and that was without sparklet trying to bring an abrupt end to his/her claustrophobia.

    oy.

  • obama boom

    obama_change_posterI’m hearing rumors of an Obama baby boom … at least anecdotally.

    I had lunch today with a friend who is expecting the first week of august (which minus 9 months = election day), and he rattled off three different friends (not including us) who were making babies between the election and the inauguration.

    imagine the ramifications … the senior class president for the class of 2028 will be decidedly liberal. they will have to put yet another trailer behind each of DC’s public high schools. it’s possible that in the 2032 presidential election, the District will pull 98% dem, instead of the usual 95%.

    “cats and dogs, living together … mass hysteria!”