I am really slow

I finally uploaded most of my Tartu pictures today, only four months after the fact. I'm not lazy, just very very extremely absentminded. Unless you're sitting in front of me screaming "HEY! DO THIS NOW!," I guarantee I won't get it done. At least not for four months. It's a lifelong problem. Pretty much the only way  to get me to remember anything is to take a picture of it or write it down. I would say that absentmindedness and saying embarrassing things are the two things I most need to work on in the future. Any idea how to fix these? I could probably sit down and think about a solution, but after five minutes I would forget what I was thinking about...

Sleds and Monkeys

So I had this dream last night:

I was hanging out with the Huss family. At some point, Mrs. Huss asked us to go out to the old abandoned shed in their backyard, where we found a large pile of old sleds. Each sled was different in shape and size, and attached to each was a gun. She requested that we separate the sleds from the guns. We proceeded to do so, putting the sleds and guns into two different stacks. As the pile got smaller, Jonathan (the younger Huss brother) uncovered a monkey. Apparently, the monkey had once been a pet to the Huss family but had since been abandoned along with the sleds and guns. He was about three feet tall, covered in short tan colored hair except around his face, which had skin the same color as his hair and massive, bright blue eyes. He immediately took to the Huss family, but didn't trust me. The feeling was mutual. Eventually, our work was finished and we sat down on some old sofas around the two piles. Mr. Huss came into the shed and began to take pictures with a blocky old white camera. After he took a picture of me, the monkey ran up to him and stole the camera. "Monkey, no!" I shouted. "You can't steal cameras from people." The monkey did not like being scolded. He turned to me we stared at each other for several seconds, at which point he lunged at me. I kicked him away the first time, but the monkey was too powerful and eventually got on top of me and began to choke me.

Then I woke up. It was snowing outside. I still don't trust monkeys.

Romania!

Look's like I'm coming back to Europe! Albeit for a much shorter trip than last time (ten days compared to nearly a year). Still though, it's exciting. The story behind the trip is that my friend and professor is leading a trip to Transylvania focusing on vampire folklore in the region, as well as the historical Vlad Dracula. She needed a second chaperone, and since I'm a grad student and her TA for another class, she asked if I wanted to go. Obviously I wanted to go, but since I have zero money I needed the school to pay. It seems that she'll be able to get the school to pay for me, in which case I'll get to go. I would really love to take some extra time and visit some familiar places and faces, but it all depends on how the expenses work out. Anyway, I'll be there in late May, so if anyone happens to be in Romania in May, look me up.

Back East

Denver was weird. I have a massive lists of things I would have liked to do while here, but obviously I didn't get to do any of them. Sadly, I only saw the Rocky Mountains from afar, but my brother promises that next time I'm here we'll get drunk and go to some of the taller peaks. Speaking of getting drunk, I did succeed in doing that. In fact, I did that really well. It started with lucking into a free ticket to a hockey game, really got going with a rickshaw ride through downtown Denver, and ended with me spilling way too many embarrassing details about myself to complete strangers. It was fun at the time, and honestly it's not like I haven't done that before. Well, I haven't been in a rickshaw or gone to a free hockey game, but the other stuff I've done plenty of. It's just what happens when I start to drink. The day after that wasn't so fun, as I spent most of it hung-over in the hospital with DebraLee and the baby, but that's fine. In all, the trip was a success. I got to help out my brother, arrived to town on the day his first child was born, and spent a lot of time with some cool people while showing off my expert skills as an uncle. I look forward to visiting Denver again in the future.

Waylon

Remember how last night I said that this week was going to be weird? Excuse me for saying so, but....HOLY SHIT. I woke up at 4:30 Eastern time to shower and drive to the airport. At 5:40,  just as Dad and I were driving down the pre-dawn Downtown Expressway, I got a surprise phone call from Mom, who had been sleeping when I left the house just a few minutes before. As it turned out, Jonathan (my brother) had just called and told Mom that DebraLee was in labor, and was being admitted to the hospital at that moment. They had been planning on using a midwife for a natural birth, but it's a scientific fact that reality always trumps well-laid plans. The baby was in danger of being a breech baby, which was something that the midwifery wasn't prepared for. Hence, the hospital.

We got to the airport as fast as we could, went through the check-in without hassle, and at 7:30 I boarded the plane to my layover in Newark, New Jersey. A little over an hour later, immediately after I landed in Newark, I called Dad to check the situation. While I had been in the air, DebraLee had undergone a successful C-section and gave birth to a healthy, red-headed, teeny tiny baby boy. His name is Waylon Cole Meadows, and he's the coolest baby I've ever seen. Of course, the problem was that the I still had a long flight before I could get out to see them; also, since Jonathan was at the hospital, I didn't have anyone to pick me up at the airport in Denver.

After a very long, very stressful flight west, I finally touched down in Denver at 13:00 Mountain time (which is 15:00 Eastern time). It had already been a long day, but now I had to find my way out of the airport (not easy since Denver's airport is the largest in the United States) and meet up with Scott and Natalie, two of Jonathan's friends who had been dispatched to pick me up. After running around the airport for twenty minutes, I met up with the two of them and together we hit the road to the hospital for our first look at Waylon. I should mention that Scott and Natalie live in Denver, just two blocks from Jonathan and DebraLee's house. I mention that because we unexpectedly got lost, meaning that in all the chaos it was over two hours from the time I touched down to the time I reached the hospital.

After spending most of the day traveling, I finally got in to see the baby. I was pretty travel weary, but immediately upon entering the room Jonathan thrust Waylon into my arms. I don't know how long I held him, but it was quite awhile. Not much needs to be said about the next few hours, which consisted mostly of sentimental family moments. It was nice.

Once DebraLee and the baby were ready to sleep, I finally got to go and relax. Jonathan gave me the keys to his Jeep, and I set off down the unfamiliar freeways of Denver to their house, where I'm currently hanging out with Dixie and Irie (their dogs). One last thing: tacos!!!! Before I left the hospital, I asked Jonathan where I could grab a bite to eat. He and DebraLee shouted in unison that I go to the Mexican place around the corner and get some tacos to go. They told me exactly which items and in what quantities to order. I took their advice and, wow, they were right. These were the best tacos I've ever eaten. I loooooooove Mexican food, and I've never had Mexican that good. It's not TexMex either, which is the most common brand of Mexican in the U.S., if not in much of the world. This was real Mexican, and was insanely delicious. Needless to say, I will be eating more tacos. Hopefully many more, if I'm being honest. And now I bid you goodnight. I've been up for most of the day, traveling and handling babies and tacos and whatnot, and now I just want to finish this beer (Denver is home to a huge amount of fantastic microbrews) and go to sleep.

Denver

I've only been on break for a couple of days, and it's already been crazier than I had expected. Two weeks ago, my plan for Spring Break was to sit at home, maybe get a case of beer, and curl up in front of the tv watching movies and writing my thesis. Instead, I've attended a goodbye barbeque for Alex and Athena, two old friends who are leaving on Friday for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. Destination: Kyrgyz Republic. That's one of the most intense and craziest commitments I've ever seen anyone take, but I have faith in their ability to roll with it. As weird as it sounds, if you had forced me to guess which two friends would be moving to the Kyrgyz Republic for two years, I would most definitely have picked them. So Godspeed, Alex and Athena! Keep updating your blog so I know what the hell is going on with you, and if I'm ever in Turkey I'll let you know.
Also weird: I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I'm traveling to Denver. I'm heading out there in just a few hours, and I found out just a little while ago that DebraLee, my brother's girlfriend, has been having more and more contractions lately, which means that it's possible that the baby will drop while I'm there. Weird shit tends to happen whenever I go somewhere new, so the fact that I might induce labor while in Denver would be pretty much par for the course. If the baby is born while I'm there, then great. I can't complain about that. But it will make the visit a whole lot more insane than I had expected.

I do plan on finishing my Oktoberfest story sometime soon, but I've been very busy the last few weeks and just haven't had the free time to sit down and give it the respect it deserves. And finally, I've noticed that a substantial portion of the traffic for this blog comes from Estonia, so I just wanted to say: Marili, if you're reading this, thanks for keeping my cold feet warm all winter. 

Not cool, Blogspot.

I just wrote up the entry for Oktoberfest Part 3, which blogger.com then failed to process. It did not save. It was a really good post, too. I worked hard on it. Anger.