Sheep Guarding Llama

Dominica, Liesl and I really slept in this morning.  It was nine thirty or possibly later when I finally went downstairs to see how everyone was doing and Dominica didn’t come down until at least ten thirty.

The title of the latest James Bond film is Quantum of Solace. Solace, of course, means to comfort in sorry or consolation.  Quantum, people often assume, means something small but actually it means something is measurable.  So a quantum of something means that it is a measurable amount of something.  A gallon of milk is a quantum of milk.  A foot of string is a quantum of string.  So is a thousand miles of string.  So literally the movie title means “A measureable amount of consolation.”  The worst part of the title is the fact that consolation is inherently non-measurable.  Not only is the title silly and pathetic but it is completely oxymoronic!

Most people dismiss the title as being silly thinking that it means “a small amount of rest” but this isn’t the case.  Nothing about the term quantum infers that the consolation (which is not the same as rest) is small.  It could mean that there is a massive amount of consolation or comfort.  Using the word quantum is making a case that what is unique and special about this movie is that they will be demonstrating some sort of consolation which can be measured in some way.  What a bizarre and impossible though.  Hollywood really needs to start highering high school graduates to double check things before they spend big money making them into movies.  The inability for the entire movie industry to fail to display the education of a third grader continues to amaze me.

Overall it was a pretty quiet day here in Peekskill.  It is Sunday and we are all resting quite a bit.

Dominica and I spent some time just relaxing in the living room with Liesl while everyone else went out shopping for a while this afternoon.  I got a chance to really play some Fable 2 again.  Dominica is really enjoying just watching me play the game.  There is so much storyline and important events happening that it is a lot like watching a movie (much like Dragon Quest VIII.)  For those wondering how far through the game I am, I am just completed “The Crucible” but have been spending a lot of time on side quests, jobs (like Bounty Hunter) and on achievements.

After shopping everyone returned but not long after they went back out to New City Diner for dinner while Dominica and I stayed at home.  Then they brought dinner home for us.

This evening everyone watched a 1970s Sean Connery, Don Sutherland film about a Victorian era British train robbery.  Nothing gripping but it was cute and entertaining.

I got paged out at eleven this evening and worked for an hour before the overnight shift came on and took over from me.

Dominica and I stayed up rather late tonight watching Kate and Alley on Netflix because we were waiting for Liesl to wake up to take her bottle (she gets a bottle now at night so that she will sleep for a little while.)  That ended up keeping us up until after one in the morning.  I am back to work as usual tomorrow so I do need some sleep.

I was very tired when the alarm went off at a quarter till eight this morning.  I dragged myself up, got dressed and headed down to the basement to get to work.  Everyone but Dominica and Liesl were already up.  Dad and aunt Sharon were already in the living room hanging out even.

Liesl did pretty well last night.  We are starting to learn her rhythm and are mostly getting her to sleep longer and longer through the night.  It isn’t nearly as bad as everyone has prepped us for it to be.  We are definitely struggling to get sleep but, for the most part, Liesl sleeps during the night.

I ended up having quite a lot of work that needed my attention this morning.  I had been hoping that it would be a quick and light day but that was not the case.  I ended up working into the afternoon!

We all skipped breakfast this morning and then, by lunch time, realized that there was no food in the house and that we were in dire need of food supplies.  So, after an hour of planning, we finally got a grocery list together and sent some brave souls out to the Stop and Shop to pick up supplies for lunch.  The plan for dinner is to send me to Villarina to get amazing pasta – perhaps lobster ravioli.

We had a late lunch.  Then everyone went shopping at Villarina and Dunkin Donuts in Mohegan Lake while Dominica and Liesl stayed at home.  It was a relatively quick trip.

This evening we all watched Transformers on BluRay again.  Apparently we really need to get things set up around here so that there is more to watch.  It is sad that we own so many shows (around a thousand movies plus scores of television shows on DVD) plus have access to Hulu, Netflix and CBS and still there is nothing to be found to watch – mostly because nothing is hooked up currently.  We also desperately need to get the new, larger LCD for the living room because no one can see this screen at all.

Tonight was an early night for everyone.  We all need extra sleep.

As everyone can see, my SGL updates are getting shorter and less detailed.  There is little that I can do about that right now.  Between spending time with family away from the computer, losing sleep from Liesl at night and all of the business going on I just am not getting time to sit down and write.  I am trying hard just to get what I am up and posted every day.

I hate that I am falling behind now with Liesl having just arrived both because this is the section that she will be looking back on fondly someday as well as because so many of you have just started reading recently and are looking for Liesl updates.  The reality is, however, that she is sleeping pretty well and not yet at all active during the day.  So other than reporting that she is healthy and doing well there is only so much to say.  I am trying hard to get more pictures now and to keep posting them every few days.  Changes happen quickly at this age so lots of pictures are important.

I decided today that we are having problems taking pictures of Liesl in the new house because it is always so dark in here.  My good camera, my Nikon D50, only has the cheaper zoom lenses right now with the fastest aperture setting being an F4 ad F5.6 at some normal settings and that just doesn’t work for anything indoors.  So I bit the bullet and bought the amazing Nikkor 50mm fixed length F1.4 lens off of Amazon.  That should provide a lot more natural light opportunities.

I talked to dad over IM this morning.  He was leaving his house around nine thirty to head down to Leicester to meet up with aunt Sharon and uncle Leo and then to leave from their house to head on down to Peekskill.  They are hoping to do all of their driving during the middle of the day.

Dominica’s parents left Peekskill at ten this morning to head back to Frankfort.  This is our first time being alone with Liesl without anyone to help out.  It’s a little scary.  It is only for several hours until my family arrives but still.

I had a pretty busy morning “at the office”.  I was really surprised when dad and the Richardsons arrived at the house between two thirty and three in the afternoon!  We were figuring that they would arrive closer to four or five or possibly later.  I was expecting that they would be making a long lunch stop and making the drive rather relaxing.

Everyone was very excited to see baby Liesl.  Unlike Dominica’s family, for whom Liesl is the fourth grandchild (and the second this year), this is the first child of this generation for my family.  So my father is a grandfather for the first time and aunt Sharon is now a great-aunt.

The afternoon was spent with everyone in the living room just passing Liesl around.  I had to go back down and work for the rest of the evening.  I came up from time to time to see everyone but it is an extremely busy Friday night so I was stuck in the basement for most of the evening until quite late.  I have to work again tomorrow as well.  Tomorrow is going to be a long morning of work.  I start at eight as usual but have quite a bit of stuff to do.  It is impossible to really get to visit with anyone these days because I am always working.  I am so thankful that I had vacation most of this week.

For dinner no one wanted to drive anywhere and I couldn’t because of work so we decided to order in.  The Chinese restaurant in the Beach Shopping Center (Emperor’s Choice, maybe?) left a menu on our door earlier today so we decided to give them a try as that was rather fortuitous.  They have a very large Chinese and Japanese menu with a lot of good vegetarian options including udon noodles which are hard to find in delivery places I have found.

Everyone really enjoyed dinner from the Chinese delivery place. It was very fast (although not as fast as in Newark where they would deliver via bicycle.)  All of the food was really good.

After dinner Dominica pretty much went straight to bed.  That was at eight.  The rest of us stayed up with Liesl until nine when it was clear that she was hungry and looking for food.  So Liesl went upstairs with Dominica and I played Fable 2 for a little while while dad relaxed and watched the game, Leo napped and aunt Sharon worked on Christmas cards in the dining room.  Everyone went to bed around ten and I played Fable for another hour and a half or so with Oreo snuggled on our snuggly recliner.

Hard to believe that Liesl is now one week old.  Time is flying already.

I slept in a little this morning then got up, showered and headed down to the basement to start work around eleven.  I was officially on vacation until after lunch, which would normally be more like two in the afternoon, but there were thousands of emails waiting for me and it took more than an hour just to clean out enough emails so that I was able to send and receive them again.

Work ended up being less busy today than I had assumed that it would be.  There was plenty to do regardless and it kept me busy all afternoon.  Maybe tomorrow won’t be so busy either.  I was figuring that there would be a ton of work this week and next because of the industry freeze that comes in mid-December.  Normally that is the case but market volatility might be affecting things.

We spent the afternoon and evening just hanging out in the living room.  I worked until six thirty so my evening was fairly short.  We watched some Mary Tyler Moore and then everyone went to bed around nine thirty leaving Liesl in the living room with me while I played Fable 2 until around one in the morning when she decided to get up and look for some food.  Then it was off to bed.

Dominica is feeling much better today after getting a lot of rest last night.  I slept in until around eleven being quite exhausted having stayed up very late with Liesl to allow Dominica to sleep.

I am really thankful for my time “away from the office” this week.  I am out of work until midday tomorrow.  This is practically my biggest break from the office in three years if you don’t consider me working this weekend or Monday morning.  So I guess it isn’t that big of a break but it feels pretty significant with all of the upheaval going on.

Liesl is very calm today.  Probably in part because she got such a great night’s sleep last night.  She has her first doctor’s appointment today with her pediatrician at two thirty.  So I pretty much just got up and got ready to take her to the doctor’s today.

The appointment went really well.  Her doctor is right around the corner from us so that was really easy.  This is both Dominica and Liesl’s first trip out of the house since coming home from the hospital.  Liesl’s weight is just a tad low but nothing to be concerned about.  This is common and they will be checking her weight again in a week.  Her current weight is 7lb 5ozs which is the same as her discharge weight on Sunday afternoon.  Everything else looks good.  The doctor thinks that she is very healthy.

We have the “family schedule” now for the weekend.  The Toccos are leaving Peekskill on Friday morning because they have some things that they have to do in Frankfort and they have to be back by Friday afternoon.  My family was originally going to come up on Sunday but is moving their schedule up to Friday so that we will always have someone here helping out.  So they will leave Friday morning and will arrive in Peekskill late on Friday afternoon.  I am working on Friday as it is going to be exceptionally busy and two people from my team are out on vacation so there is no spare capacity at all.

The afternoon and evening were mostly relaxing.  We all hung out in the living room with Dominica reading, her mom knitting, her dad listening to a book on his digital audio player and me playing Fable 2 on the XBOX 360.  Oreo was very happy to have everyone hanging out in one place.  Liesl went between being held and just hanging out in her swing which she loves.

Dominica went up to bed to relax for a few hours and then came down to read while I played Fable 2 for a while after her parents went to bed.  It was around two when she, Liesl, Oreo and I went to bed.