Baby's First Lunch

Tessa, 

A picture is worth a thousand words.  In high school I always dreamed of turning in a paper with two pictures printed on it.  "David, what am I looking at?"

"You wanted 1,500 words on the Spanish-American War.  You're looking at a photo of the Battleship Maine, and another of William McKinley.  May they both rest in peace.  That's 2,000 words, granted, but I can crop one of those down if you think my paper's too long.

I got off topic.  Pictures is why we're all here.  Behold, the embodiment of adorable:

One for the books: sun, food, family, baby.  Like a Rockwell painting, or a Gwen Steffani album.  Magnus doesn't seem to fit in, but he was there, quietly awaiting scraps underneath the table.  Good dog.  Someday we'll look back in amazement that she was ever so small, so dependent.  She will walk up and ask for the car keys and Tom will fish them out of his pocket and say "Seat belts; I mean it." as he hands them to her.  She will walk away, and we'll bring up that time we sat outside and passed her around, taking pictures.  Seems impossible, but nothing, I suppose, stops the onward march of time.

.tumblr

Tessa, 

You are gone.  You went to Chicago to see the baby, and left me and Magnus with a freezer full of microwaveable casseroles.  I thought I'd write to you, since I can't talk to you (and because the next thing on my To Do list is boring).

Started typing in "heytessa" and google is frantically trying to guess what I'm looking for.  H gets you hulu.com.  He gets you Hertze Rent-A-Car.  Hey gets you the lyrics to "Hey Soul Sister".  You get the idea.  Googling Heytessa brought up a blog titled HeyTessa.  But not this blog!  That's right, there's another heytessa blog!  I know, right?!

And she is the Anti-Tess.  It's like when Spider-Man meets himself from other dimensions, and they're all these alternate versions of himself.  Him, but not.  The other Tessa has pink hearts on everything, and inspirational quotes ripped from the inside of a middle-schooler's Trapper Keeper.  And background music from taken from a Mandy Moore movie.  It looks like all the Disney princesses got together to blog.

Moving on.  Ain't no sunshine when she gone.  Seriously.  There's clouds when she gone.  And severe weather warnings.  But no sunshine.  Four straight days of rain, but no sunshine.  I've been pretty productive in the garage, but the kitchen is suffering.  And to do more in the garage, I think I need to buy a belt sander.  Trying to use a palm sander in a huge, two-piece hutch is extra stupid.

LATER THAT DAY.

Okay, went to Home Depot and bought a belt sander (Now with a MicroFilter!  Cleaning the air for fewer inhaled carcinogens!).  I was right, the belt sander is the tool I needed.  I've also been looking into what I need to put together a kitchen table our of that wood from the farm up north.  (Incidently, I realized the table will be way cooler if we call it Reclaimed Native Black Ash instead of Wood From the Farm.)  I had figured on a longer table, something simple but stretching like 6 or 7 feet.  However, ain't no 7-foot table fitting in our current dinning room.  There are some nice ideas here, but the one I really dig is this one.  Yeah, I know, it's a chick blog by some silk-curtain debutante who wants tons of stuff and has her husband make it for her.  But the table is great.   I just need a pro to tell me how to do it.  All the stuff I've read so far has everyone assembling a simple table, and then freaking out over exactly how to treat the barnwood.  Oil stain or water based?  Poly?  Lacquer?   Tung oil?  SHOULD I USE TUNG OIL, AHHH!  Funny imagining carpenters, in plaid shirts, on the internet, freaking out about tung oil.  But there's pages of it, though I can't prove they're wearing plain.

Okay, off to the dog washing party.  He's been chewing a bone.  Outside. In the rain. For two hours.  The beast is disgusting, and if he ever wants to come inside again he must first agree to a bath.  Also, here's two sentences from an email I sent to John and Jon earlier today.  Its not important, but I liked it once I was done.

Coming down Friday, leaving Monday.  (Run-on Sentence Alert) That leaves us 3 nights and 2 days to find a time when we can all get together and party in such a way as to cause onlookers to turn deeply introspective, asking themselves just how well they are really using their time on this planet, and why, why is their own life a flickering candle at the foot of the Shrine to Boredom, whilst yonder revelers (us) drink deeply from the streams of epicurean blitheness (beer), shaking the tree of life and eating whatever falls from its heavy branches with the kind of hearty unrestraint usually reserved for children and looters.  

Hope to see you soon.  All my best to the Chicago contingency.  

Auntie Tessa, Unkie Dave

Tessa, 

It seemed worth noting that, on the morning of June 2nd, 2011, Evelyn April Nelson graced the world with her presence.  Behold:

Adorable.  She's got her mother's something and her father's other thing.  It's hard to tell from this angle which traits came from where, but she's definitely an Evelyn.  First female President of the United Sates, probably.  First human to walk on Mars.  Discoverer of a cure for cancer.  Inventor of a machine that shortens lines at the DMV.  Only good can come from this.