Saturday morning, I just dropped Lydia off with mom. Anytime I get near the computer with Lydia, even if she's sleeping, she'll start to kick and complain. I don't know if it's the sound it makes or what, but I haven't been able to do anything for the website as I planned. I just spent my first week home with the baby and it was tougher than I thought it would be. The first couple of days were fine, but by Friday, yesterday, I was starting to go a little stir crazy. I've just never had to focus on anything for that long of a time. I can see why daycare is so expensive because, if you do it right, it takes a lot of energy. The 15 minute or so break I get while she watches her mobile in the crib is usually spent either eating or cleaning. She's still getting breast fed every morning, lunch, and nighttime with Keri, and then about twice a day I give her breast milk from a bottle which is actually really easy to do. Changing diapers is no problem at all. It's just the constant attention that wiped me out. However, she has an incredible smile. She wakes up in the morning very happy and alert, just glad to be here. She's very comunicative and already a person and not an "it" as I referred to her when she was born. I used to make snide comments all the time about cute babies, "Of course she's cute, she's a baby, that's her job", but Lydia is pretty damn cute..

Of course, Keri never once had to go to work on a Saterday until now. Aparently they have to prepare a 5 million dollar deal by this weekend and they need Keri to get it done on time. That's why I was able to drop her off at her work this morning, because she's doing them a favor by coming in. Luckily, she only has to commute half a mile. They treat her well at work. She'll probably get another bonus out of this or something. They keep giving her raises too. They would like to promoter her, but she's afraid she'd have to do things like work weekends or stay late during the week. Having to work Saturday is exactly the kind of thing she hates having to do.

Lydia went to her first punk show last weekend. It was at Joe Nothing's house so she was able to sit under the willow tree and listen from outside. The first live band she ever heard were Midnightmare which was basically a lot of flailing around and screaming. Keri said she had no reaction to the drums and guitar, but started looking around when the vocals started. After that Rob Farmhouse and his brother have a new band called Angry For Life which includes Julie who used to play bass for Red #9 way back in the days when KPF was a band. The new face is this young buck drummer who may actually be the most talented musician in the band. I kept asking Keri if she wanted me to hold the baby so she could go in to check things out, but she said she could hear fine outside. So I continued my drinking. I packed ten micro brews into my little yellow cooler, but really didn't expect to drink that much. (Timeout here for drinking tip: I often hear people complain that certain micro brews don't taste as good from a bottle as they do from the tap. I think the rememdy for this problem is to always bring a beer glass with you when you go drinking. 80% of taste is smell and when your brew is exposed to the open air you're able to get your nose right next to it as you take a drink. This is especially true for pale ales, my favorite food. Don't drink those out of the bottle.) Kung Fu USA was the next band and I don't know if I was drunk or what, but they sounded five times better than their CD. It was much closer to the good rock n' pop I would expect to hear from ex-50 Million. Shellhead mentioned that Kung Fu USA was initially a side project of 50 Million which helps explain why the CD had such a clean cut sound. Next up were LOPEZ from Oregon, who are the only band that compete with the Fleshies as today's hardest rocking punk band. Anyone who listens to Zeke or Limecell should get to know LOPEZ because the best discription I can give is that they are a cross of those two bands but BETTER. Like Zeke and Limecell, Lopez is a band designed for those of us who enjoy drinking heavily. Still, I was pretty surprized when I noticed that I drank everything in my cooler. Maybe that was the reason I qualified as worthy to buy a special metal Lopez bottle opener.

Murray Bowles took photos of that day, including a few photos of Lydia. You can see them at his photo site:

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/murraybowles/lst?&.dir=/shows/5+5+02+Joe%27s&.src=ph&.view=t

The last book I read when I was still able to sit around and read all day at work (sub teaching) was HOW TO DRINK AS MUCH AS YOU WANT AND LIVE LONGER by a nutritionist, Frederick M. Beyerlein, at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento. The day I finished reading it I went out and bought $70 worth of herbs and vitamin supplements the book recommended to avoid hangovers. (My friend Ernie just got this book after I told him about it and he said he paid $120 for the recommended supplements. He already claims it works..) I was looking forward to testing the method put forth in the book. The only problem is that on this day I didn't meet the water drinking requirement. I brought a large bottle of water, but the next day I realized I had only managed to drink about a third of the bottle. So I guess that's why I had a hangover. Plus, it recommended eggs and salsa or warm cerial for breakfast the morning after drinking, but I woke up hungary and ate an entire frozen lasagna (feeds two to three) for breakfast. So I was little tired, but actually didn't feel too bad once my coffee kicked in.