Yesterday, two days before my birthday, Patrick and I decided to go out for dinner at Farina, where they have pizza and pints for 10 dollars on Monday nights. I’m a little addicted to their pizza, and frankly, that’s crazy because I like the kind Patrick and I make at home more than almost anything. We don’t have an 800 degree oven though. Seamus, as per usual upon daycare pickup, fell asleep mightily in the car. He slept most of the way through dinner, only waking to check out the butterscotch budino (omg, this was to die for–thick butterscotch pudding, covered with caramel, sprinkled with sea salt, and topped with homemade whipped cream in a creme brulee ramekin). Delicious food, good company, and because we went super early, it was only us and four other families with little babies. Who needs to get out of the house? As we were leaving it was starting to fill up with couples–those who eat at normal times like we used to.
At home, Seamus took his bath, ate his dinner, and played for a while. He went right to bed. We visited with J, who was having a songwriting emergency we were unable to help with. Then, to avoid a repeat of the disastrous night before, we decided to forgo watching the Tudors and finding out what happened after Queen Jane died. Instead we went to bed. At 8:30. Hoping for a few hours of sleep before Seamus started his snuffly, teething every hour wake-ups around one. But in a spectacular baby-move of calculating how exasperated and tired his parents were and how close they were to giving him up, he slept until two. And then went right back to sleep until 6:30. Thank you for that nice birthday present Seamus!
I’m having trouble adjusting to my MWF class schedule. For one thing, it seems like I see them all the time! For another, I’m overplanning the 50 minutes. So yesterday, I taught Richard Rodriguez, who I am not an expert on. For filler I went to the library and checked out his interview with Bill Moyers, just in case I ran out of things to say about him. It ended up being perfect. We spent 45 minutes talking about the reading and then 3 minutes watching the start of the interview. Discussion goes a lot faster in 50 minutes.
And late birthday presents: we’re having cake, champagne, and wine for my birthday on Saturday from 2-5. That’s the time frame you go for when there are little babies involved.
Academic Leigh Speaking 