May 2022

Our weekday routine continues as usual: We get up around 7 am and get Becky and Alex out the door by 8 or so -- Becky takes Alex to school, then usually sees one or two of her clients. Then I minimally groom myself and start working from the comfort of my home office on editing projects. Becky picks Alex up for school around 1:30 or 2 pm, and two days a week she takes him to do physical therapy afterwards. After school, Alex gets some playtime at home and Becky is either playing with him, doing some additional therapy routines, or working on ridiculous amounts of paperwork. I finish work around 5:30 pm and we make dinner. We'll often go to a park or out somewhere after to let Alex play a bit, before we veg out and get ready for bed. Alex tends to stay up until around 10 pm, but has been a really good sleeper lately. Apart from that, here is what else we have been up to this month, and here are the rest of the photos and videos:

Warm and Green

May started out brown but quickly blossomed and turned green with some warmer weather and rain.  It's a very pleasant time of year around here, many days start out slightly cool and humid, although we did have a heat wave one weekend that sent the temperatures up to 90. Our place doesn't have central air conditioning, so I worked on putting a small window A/C unit that we had in the bedroom. And I ordered a larger (18,000 BTUs!) unit for the main area of our place and eventually got that one put it in with some help, so we are all set for summer.

Getting COVID

This month, Becky had a mild bug, but tested negative for COVID. Then a couple days later, I had something mild too. It seemed to hit me with unusual aches and fatigue, so I tested myself out of curiosity and it was very much positive for COVID. Becky tested herself again, and still negative. So I'm not exactly sure who I got it from, since I don't interact with that many people. If Alex had it, we didn't notice -- but we never tested him although he is usually patient zero when we get sick. Anyway, thankfully it wasn't too severe. I think this current wave of the Omicron BA.2.12.1 subvariant is the wave of the vaccinated, as it seems everyone who has avoided it so far is getting it now. COVID hit me when we had planned to take a weekend trip to NYC, so we postponed for another weekend. That was also the weekend of the heat wave, so that was another reason to postpone.

Mass Shooting Hitting Close to Home

The U.S. has been terrorized recently by a wave of mass shootings. A shooting that killed 10 in Buffalo hit close to home for us, because the shooter was from a small town just outside of Binghamton where we used to live and  where we still have a house. He purchased his AR-15-type gun at a shop just 4 miles from our house. He considered targeting several locations in New York, including the Oakdale mall by our house. We have spent a lot of time at that mall, and we've posted several videos of Alex sitting in the Cobra race car video game thing they have there that he loves so much. A terrible reminder that as more high-powered weapons flood our society and get into the wrong hands, these shootings will continue to happen in the U.S., and they eventually will hit close to home for too many of us. 

Memorial Day Weekend/Birthday

We had no major plans for the 3-day weekend, just the usual outings, including a nice walk on the Denning's Point trail. On Memorial Day (my birthday) we visited a farm/park with a nature trail and then got fancy burritos at a place in Poughkeepsie. They were ok for New York. The heat, humidity, and allergies wiped us out, so we spent a lot of the day inside just watching Stranger Things, and enjoying a cheesecake that Becky made. Regarding Stranger Things Season 4, I have to say they produced probably the most accurate portrayal of a large Utah Mormon family I have ever seen on TV (except for the kids saying "Father" and "Mother" - kids would get made fun of for doing that where I'm from). Anyway, Becky gave me a nice back massager (for long days in the office chair) and a funny Eddie Vedder mug. My birthday will also be an excuse to go visit NYC as a family for the first time in June (our postponed plans). I enjoyed chatting with family via phone or zoom, and all the nice birthday wishes and cards!

New Shoes

Alex got really sensitive about his shoes a year or so ago, and stopped letting us put on any new shoes except for the ones he was wearing at the time: these blue Target shoes and these old second-hand Nikes he outgrew. We tried several different pairs of second-hand shoes with no success. I even bought Nikes on Zappos that kind of looked like his old ones with no luck. So we gave up for a while, and he just wore his blue Target shoes until they got too small, and then we got him a bigger pair of the same Target shoes. We gave it another shot and ordered new shoes on Zappos that kind of looked like his Target shoes, and those happened to be nice Asics running shoes. I was thrilled that he let me put them on for whatever reason. Now he likes them better than his Target shoes, which is great because they are much better for running and playing outside.

Water, Almond Milk, and Cups

Another challenge we have with Alex is his aversion to drinking anything but milk. If it's not white, he won't try it. So he mostly gets watered down almond or soy milk (because it is mostly vitamin fortified water). He also only drinks out of one particular kind of sippy cup, but at school they have been working on getting him to drink from a cup with some success now. A while ago, we got him some new sippy cups that were the same as his old ones, just not clear, and he is willing to drink out of those. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to get him to get used to drinking water. So I've been putting Fiji water (because it is the best tasting water I've been told) in his non-clear sippy cup and giving it to him. Now he likes to have his almond milk sippy cup and his water sippy cup at the same time, and drink from them alternately. He thinks that's pretty funny, but still mostly drinks the almond milk. Hopefully, he'll get more used to the taste of water eventually. I don't know how he's not tired of almond milk by now.

Miscellaneous Updates

The Orange County Arboretum is amazing this time of year, and I couldn't help take lots of photos of our visit there. Alex loves the fountains there and was happy to see them, as you'll note in the videos. Similarly, the older couple we rent from are always hard at work on their yard landscaping, which looks almost as nice as the arboretum. There are photos of that too -- it makes living here very nice. They will often bring us over clippings of some flowers that were blooming somewhere on their property.

This month we saved two turtles from roadside peril. There is a photo of a larger snapping turtle that was right in the middle of a busy road. They seem to be active this time of the year, probably migrating to lay eggs.

Favorite Things: May

Rob: I listen to a lot of music while working at home (or otherwise). The pandemic stopped bands from touring, and I think that gave a lot of them time to record new albums because there are several new albums by bands I like that have come out so far this year. That includes well-known bands like Arcade Fire and Red Hot Chili Peppers (with John Frusciante back!), and lesser known bands like Warpaint, Sea Power, Beach House, Royksopp, The Smile (part of Radiohead), and Will Butler (from Arcade Fire). Probably my favorite new album of 2022 so far though is from a band I haven't listened to before: Fontaines D.C. from Ireland. I'm also very excited about Will Butler's new album from the first tracks recently released. I think it will be better than the Arcade Fire album that just came out. The Chili Peppers album was a bit of a letdown for me though.

Alex: The movie of choice for Alex lately has been Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which he loves to watch on his iPad. Not a bad choice, as we find it pretty entertaining as well. Alex's favorite phrase lately is "go-Go-GO-GO-BEEP!-Da-da-da-da-da." He says it dozens of times a day, particularly when he is happy. We have no idea where it is from (Peppa Pig theme song maybe?). Sometimes in a similar way, he'll frequently repeat something from one of his movies that we recognize.

Becky:  I have a hard time recalling anything past a couple of days ago, but I will try.  I have to say, "Stranger Things" has yet to disappoint.  Also, my favorite website for getting recipes is feastingathome.com.  I've made several dishes from their "50 Best Vegetarian Dishes" and none of them have disappointed.  I can't recall all of them, but they've included Miso Sweet Potatoes, Shakshuka, this Mexican rice dish that included maple roasted sweet potatoes, chilies, peanuts and a boatload of other flavors. Also, a super flavorful mushroom pasta dish and Mole enchilada sweet potatoes.  Yeah, we like sweet potatoes.  A big reason the recipes are so good is that they include a wide variety of ingredients (though not too exotic) and flavors in each dish- which is why I only make them on Sunday when I have time.  So worth the effort, though. One more thing I've loved this month- wrestling with and singing to Alex.  He basically loves being mangled and tickled and has the biggest smile when you sing to him.  He really is the cutest fellow on the planet.