theparkerfamily.org

Tag: Mount Pleasant

  • photos: snowfall in mount pleasant, dc

    [Snow, Mount Pleasant, Washington, DC.]
    IMG_3102, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    holy moses, it’s actually snowing?!?

    it seems like every other year, the D.C. weathermen predict at least one “major” storm that will paralyze the city … although, seeing that three inches of snow is more than enough to bring D.C. to its knees, i guess “major” is a relative term.

    we’re supposedly at 10 inches, which would already puts us in the top five storms of the last twenty years. we got 24 inches of snow my junior year of college, a much smaller storm (maybe a foot?) in high school, and i remember using a yardstick to measure a 20+ incher back when i was seven or eight.

    outside of those, we’ve had way more false alarms than anything of interest … which is a good thing, because in the end D.C. is a southern town, and southerners (a) refuse to walk or use public transit, and (b) only think they know how to drive on snow.

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    snowfall in mount pleasant, dc

  • first pub

    Sparklet’s First Pub: Holiday Party w/ Ashley, Sarah, Jennifer and Ryan @ Tonic, Mount Pleasant, Washington, DC.

  • first halloween

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    photo of the week // week three
    well, a month ago, we certainly had a different image of halloween.

    we obviously didn’t think that we’d have a sparklet to costume … and we really thought that the lady sparkler could go dressed up as Juno, or maybe a pregnant Mary Magdalene to my Jesus.

    our beloved m.o.h. (maid of honor) actually went out and bought sparklet a pumpkin costume, but it unfortunately didn’t live up to its advertised sizing (it was “one size fits none” not “all”).

    so, yesterday when we were in dupont circle, we ran to the local children’s boutique, and bought the last decent costume off their shelves (giraffe) at 40% discount.

    if anybody from work asks, we picked out the costume as an ideological statement … and she’s dressed up as either (a) the Conservancy’s adopt an acre in africa project, or (b) the number one teething toy in Paris.

    halloween is quite a big deal in mount pleasant, and our neighborhood shuts down streets to make room for all the trick-or-treaters who come in from around the city.

    we wandered around a bit with the baby giraffe-let in her stroller, but it was way too early (5:00pm) and it was raining to boot. even so, we saw tons o’ princesses and vampires, and more than a few ninja outfits from a children’s television show that i couldn’t figure out.

    no candy was purloined (she’s too young for us to keep a straight face) or purchased (our building requires card key access, and has no other kids) but it was a lovely afternoon none-the less.

    oh, and a nice warm up for next year …

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    photos: first halloween, washington, dc

  • first: dupont circle

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    ECPA20091030_0539, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    i had an inadvertent day off today.

    i’ve been stockpiling vacation days in expectation of sparklet, but apparently did too good of a job. now i’m maxed out on how many vacation days i can save up and HR won’t let me accrue anymore unless i use a vacation day every two weeks.

    don’t get me wrong, it’s a good problem to have … i just wish i figured out I had to take today off before i spent two hours sitting at my desk.

    anyway, the lady sparkler and i are still negotiating with our work to nail down the details of how our maternity / paternity leave is going to look.

    for now, it looks like mommy is going to be off from now through Martin Luther King Day (that mid-january, for anyone in arizona) and i’ll be off the four weeks following (through President’s Day).

    once we figured that out (and shipped the notion off to our respective office places) we took a quick trip down to dupont circle to get some fresh air, and show sparklet her first neighborhood outside mount pleasant.

    and, needless-to-say, mommy was tickled to have an extra set of hands for the day.

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    flexday: dupont circle, washington, dc

  • milestone: baby’s first target run

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    ECPA20091024_0369, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    few things are as important in one’s life than your first target run. come to think of it, if you are the first born daughter of the lady sparklet, i can’t think of *anything* more important than your first target run.as the texas grandparents stay has progressed, they’ve started getting out of the house more and more. they headed down around the White House today, so the lady spakler and I took the chance to pack up stroller and run a few errands.

    it’s fun walking around Mount Pleasant with a new baby. we saw some friends we hadn’t seen since the birth, a family walked by and pointed from a far (“wow, a newborn!”) … obviously, with said newborn we kept our distance (and kept sparklet out of any flu-laden enclosed spaces) but it was good to get mommy and baby a little fresh aire.

    the good news is that sparklet has been packing away the liquids. at our pediatrician appointment on Friday, she had tacked on a quarter of a pound in just three days … and the early-birth jaundice is completely gone, too.

    mommy and doctor were both elated.

    and while the picture taking has slowed down a bit (which is a good thing, so sparklet won’t go blind from all the flash bulbs) we are still capturing a few here and there as she finds a new way to look so ridiculously cute.

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    photos: week two, washington, dc

  • first walk

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    ECPA20091021_0322, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    we took our first walk around mount pleasant tonight … well, our first walk that didn’t involve coming back from the hospital or going to the pediatrician’s office.

    fwiw, the lady sparkler is laughing in the picture because she couldn’t figure out why i was (temporarily) refusing to take the picture … until she saw a nubile young twenty-something with a ridiculously obvious thong-line walk out of frame.

    you can’t say i’m not well trained.

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    photos: first walk, mount pleasant, washington, dc

  • photos: national zoo

    [National Zoo, Washington, DC]
    ECPA20090919_0087, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    quick trip through the zoo. the last time we went, i got *really* great pictures, and then proceeded to have my camera stolen at the bar afterwards. no where near as good pictures this time, but at least we all came home in one piece.
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    photos: national zoo, washington, dc

  • crown molding

    ECPA20090826_0041
    when we moved into mount pleasant, the lady sparkler and I quickly noticed that there was one room in the house that didn’t have crown molding.

    we didn’t really care (because we were planning to redo the room anyway, once we got pregnant) and just chalked it up to the previous owner having a short attention span. 

    but, I’ve recently discovered that none of our walls are flat.  and our ceilings sag.  and the corners of our walls aren’t actually square.

    and now I’m starting to think the previous owners might have known what they were doing (er, not doing) by loosing inerest in molding before all the rooms were done.

    I’m not exactly a slouch with wood-working, from a father who raised me with power tools in the garage, to 15 years of theatrical design, and a groomsman generously let me borrow a power mitre saw to do the heavy lifting…

    but nothing really prepared me for putting up straight boards around a room with nary a straight line in sight.

    it took two weeks to put up forty feet of molding. it took two and a half tubs of wood putty to fill in the gaps between the molding and the ceiling.  it took four sanding blocks to get the joints in the molding to look like someone this side of a three year-old did the carpentry.

    in the end, it looks pretty okay … and thank the good sweet lord that I decided against covering the bottom half of the room in wainscotting.  

    (I would have been %#$&ing about how hard that was until baby sparklet turned at LEAST 16.)

    everything is finally starting to come together.

  • i do elevators, too

    ECPA20090820_0036
    I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks on crown molding in thhe nursery, and just as it’s winding down … I find out have to recarpet the elevator.

    yes, the elevator.  

    shortly after we moved into our building in mount pleasant, I was elected to our unit-owner association’s board.  i wish it had been some Capra-esque moment, but I was the only one at the annual meeting who wasn’t already a board member.

    long story short, our management company misplaced $30,000 in funds … money which we had already spent to replace our 30-year old elevator.  now we are short on funds, don’t have a functioning elevator, and even the hippies in the building are starting to riot.

    last night I discovered that the only thing separating me from a functioning (though still not entirely paid for) elevator was a 55 by 80 inch fire-resistant carpet, required in order for us to pass inspection.  

    not sure why it fell to me (the rest of the board lives two flights of stairs farther up than I) but I decided I couldn’t risk going into november without a functioning elevator.

    the lady sparkler pitched in and called five different carpet vendors, one of which had something suitable that fell off the back of his truck, and would be waiting for me after hours at their family’s Afghan-Pakistani restaraunt in northern Virginia.

    I picked up the rug and a pound of baklava (the lady sparkler dropped ~27 hints about how good the desserts’ reviews were) and settled in for a long evening of carpet installation.

    turns out my carpeting skills gives my talent for breakdancing a real run for their money, but it went down with two tubes of construction adhesive (replaced duct tape as my universal repair tool of choice) which got our elevator inspected, and back in service.

    in the meantime, i’m glad that my life is going to settle down this winter, and become moderately less bizarre.

  • found photo: mount pleasant, dc

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    ECPA20090613_0631, originally uploaded by [ecpark].