Happy Birthday, GrandMama!

The eighth is very special in Lisa’s House; all 3 of the members of it that I’ve met were born on the 8th of something; today, February 8th, marks the birthday of one of the finest examples of Mother-In-Law in the land, GrandMama Jean.   She doesn’t always agree when we tell her how nice she looks, and to my knowledge she’s not yet seen a picture of herself she much likes, but I’m posting this one anyway, from her glamour days:   

Happy Birthday, GrandMaMa!

 Yep, she’s a Georgia Native, and an Atlanta lady – that’s a genuine glass Coke bottle in her hands there.  We had a great time seeing her over the couple of weeks we were in Atlanta last month, and she took time out of a whirlwind schedule of church events and Garden Club to spend lots of quality time with her Newest GrandDaughter, the Fabulous Ginny Beene.   Those photographs she doesn’t mind at all, so here are a couple of the best shots of GrandMamaJean’s new favorite pastime.

Sleepy in Decatur

 

Birthday Smiles!

Jiggety Jig

Well, we’re home again, and Ginny survived her first trip to the US – we spent 3 weeks in Atlanta, Jackson MS, and Severna Park, MD, sandwiched between two big snowstorms to hit the southeast. Atlanta got clobbered the day before we arrived, and Charlotte thru MD got whacked right after we left.

Ginny had to get a whole new wardrobe pretty much upon arrival; she’s nearly 6 months old now and outgrowing a lot of stuff, all of which is tropical weight for the Manila climate, anyway. GrandMama Mooty got her this beautiful fleecy warm bodysuit, which she’s

Ginny and new friend Alyssa, possibly misspelled.

showing off with her new friend, Alyssa, who’s name I’m probably misspelling. GrandMama Jean threw a little reception for Ginny on the Tuesday after we arrived, so she could show off her beautiful new granddaughter to some of her friends. We had a nice turnout of 15 folks or so spread out over the afternoon, though some of them had to sneak a peek at a sleeping Ginny, since she bailed on her own party to take a nap. Just like her mother, that girl!

We had a nice 5 days in Atlanta before packing up Ginny and all the stuff in the world – who knew how much additional crapola you need to have with you when traveling with a kid!!! – into GrandDaddy’s Mitsubishi Outlander for a six-hour drive to Jackson, MS to visit with one of Lisa’s dearest friends, and her family. The drive started about like I feared it would – Ginny was awake and alert, and got a little anxious and touchy as the ride went on, and got full-on fussy by Birmingham, AL; she went nuclear a little outside of Birmingham on the far side, and her parents nearly lost it at that point. But a diaper change at a ridiculously-remote gas station and a bottle of milk calmed her down, and in fact she slept nearly the whole of the remaining 4 + hours of driving. It appears, however, that we were having so much fun with Mac and Shane that I never took the dang camera out of my pocket; so have no documentation of what a big boy Mac has become, and how beautiful their family and home are. But we had a great time, and they made us feel as welcome as Family – Shane even gave up her bedroom, for Ginny to sleep in!!

The girls have a tendency to stay up all night when we visit Jackson, alternating between solving the world’s problems and playing rousing games of “Do you remember the ** time….?” ; one such all-nighter was the night before we left to head back to ATL, so I predicted trouble on the ride back, but my concern was groundless; we had a smooth, fast, and uneventful return trip, thru which Ginny slept nearly the whole way.

Ginny and her GrandMama got in lots of bonding time after our return, and GrandMama was reluctant to let us go off to Maryland, to spend a week with various Hineses. We stayed with my BigBroJoe and his wife Deb, and my goddaughter Molly; Molly gave up her room so we and Ginny would have a comfortable place to stay – Thanks Molly!!!

We had a ball staying with Deb and Joe,

Ginny and her Auntie Deb

and Deb threw a reception/party for us on Saturday; all of my local family, and quite a few distant stragglers came in to meet Ginny and see Lisa and me for the first time in over a year; the eldest Hines kid, my brother Ted, came up from Hampton, VA, and niece Katie came up from Charlotte, NC – Thanks Ted and Katie!!! We loved seeing you! My brother Jimmy and his wife came off the farm for a visit to the big city (snickersnicker) and it was great seeing everybody who made the trip. My nephew David came from Philiadelphia with his gorgeous fiance Stephanie, who claims not to be photogenic, but I’m going to prove her wrong with a photo later in this post; our friend Joe Haney extended his Walkabout Tour to include us for most of a week, as well. And surprise of surprises, my very good friend Paul made special arrangements to shorten a trip to California, to sneak in on the party too! Thanks to EVERYBODY who showed up; Lisa and I were glowing for days about what great family and friends we have.Virginia Rose got to meet both her Granddaddies on this trip; my Dad held her on his lap for a bit at the party and commented on her being worthy of the name; Ginny’s namesake was married to Dad for 45 years. I’m not sure how many photos one post will hold, but I’ll close out with two of the best; with David’s fiancee Stephanie,

Ginny with cousin-elect Stephanie

and demurely showing off her pretty fishermans-knit sweater on a crisp Atlanta day.

Cute as a button!!

Thanks to everyone who came to see us, and a thousand apologies and well-wishes to everybody we didn’t get to this time around – we’ll be back in September, for an extended stay while we get ready to be re-posted to Mexico City in May of 2011.
We look forward to hearing from all of you, and we’ll get more updates on the blog soon. If you’re facebook friends with me or Lisa, there are two new albums of fotos up under our profiles.

ColdColdColdColdCold!!!!!

No pictures today; sorry about that, but I try to make the pictures very topical, and y’all probably don’t want to hear yet another Georgian complaining about the snow.  But our newly-expanded familyarrived in Atlanta Saturday afternoon, to find snow on the ground and temperatures below freezing, and I don’t think they’ve crawled above it yet.  18 months in Manila has turned me soft – the coldest I’ve been since 2008 was about 69 degrees, cuz one of our neighbors keeps their air conditioning down really low. 

Ginny is here starting her Grand Tour to meet her families; we arrived Saturday afternoon Atlanta time, having left Manila Saturday morning Manila time, which amounted to about a 23 hour trip, during which Ginny was able to find maybe 2 hours worth of sleep, and not all at once.  Needless to say, she was a wreck when we arrived.  She slept probably close to 32 of the next 36 hours, finally waking up at 3:30 this morning with her patented 500-watt Mind Control Smile.  We’re spending this frist week with Lisa’s folks in Decatur, and today they’ll get to meet the real Ginny Rose – yesterday she was kind of a zombie.

We’re looking forward to our trip, even though it’s alarmingly cold; if  anyone sees Al Gore, ask him if this is the exception that proves the rule. 

We’re here in ATL for a few days, then next weekend we’ll be visiting four of the coolest people in the world, in Jackson, Mississippi.  Back here for a little more ATL time, then on to Maryland, so my Dad can meet the new Virginia Rose.  He was married to the original for 45 years, and I expect he’ll be pleased to see the name attached to such a sweet person – again.

Noche Buena

Tropical Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Manila is empty,
They’re all in the provinces, visiting family.
I in my sandals, and Lisa is dressed
for the warmth of the tropics, this weather’s the best!
Outside the gates there arose such a clatter,
We dashed to the guard hut to see what was the matter -
There was Donder and Blitzen, but no reindeer,
they celebrate Christmas with fireworks here!

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night!!!!!!  We Love you! (well, most of you; this is the internets, so some of you we probably don’t even know.  But Merry Christmas to you, too!).

 

Ask not for whom the duty phone rings…

This week I’m duty officer; I was supposed to take my turn over Labor Day weekend, but had to switch because Ginny was only a month old then and I was still on sick leave. Basically, if you’ve been assigned the duty phone over a holiday, the only people that are going to switch with you are the ones with a bigger holiday. Not only was this week Thanksgiving, but Monday is Bonifacio Day, so the Embassy doesn’t reopen till Tuesday. The duty officer is the person the embassy operator rings if an American citizen calls with an emergency after hours. Under most circumstances, it’s an exercise in saying “no” to people nicely. Can I get a passport tonight so I don’t miss my flight tomorrow morning? No, there aren’t any after hours passport services here. Can the embassy represent me legally? No, sorry, but I have a list of lawyers I can send you. If someone gets arrested locally, I’ll need to go visit them and there are a few other kinds of cases that would require action, but hopefully none of those will happen (knock wood, etc.)

Sometimes American Citizen Services work reminds me of doing tech support for my old employer; most customers understood that we were really trying to fix their problems as best as we could, but others seemed to think there was a switch somewhere that was labeled “Static on John Smith’s Phone Lines” and it was malice or incompetence that was keeping me from turning it off. There isn’t really a cavalry of humanitarian miracle workers behind the embassy gates ready to swoop down and solve problems overseas, and I’m not withholding their services from you just to be contrary. Really, I promise! Yes, the U.S. military can have an injured soldier airlifted from Baghdad to Germany in 8 hours and perform miraculous lifesaving surgery when the soldier arrives, but if a tourist gets sick or injured while overseas, he has to pay his own doctor bills and medevac charges. And unless you are well enough to sit up in an economy class seat on a regular flight, that medevac is going to be EXPENSIVE. Like, at least new car expensive, nice new car expensive, maybe even house expensive depending on where you are and what services you need in flight. And if you are in a foreign country and think if things get really bad, you can always call the embassy and a team of well-trained professionals will come to your location in an air-conditioned helicopter to bring a layer of American-style justice complete with the Bill of Rights, or maybe airlift you out? No, sorry, you’ll just get me on the phone telling you I have a list of lawyers I can fax you.

Ixnay on Angkokbay

Well, we had big plans to go to Bangkok at the end of December, but as the cutoff date to purchase the tickets got closer, Steve and I admitted to each other we were dreading the trip. Ginny still doesn’t stay awake more than two hours at a stretch, and even that is pushing it sometimes, especially in the late afternoon. I started imagining what exactly that would translate to in Bangkok, and it started looking like we’d probably be taking six quick sorties from our hotel a day; Ginny hasn’t had to learn to nap anywhere but in her crib (or her swing if she’s feeling particularly fractious) so making plans assuming she’d nod off in the stroller during a tour of Wat Pho seemed like a bad idea.

Friday evening was the kicker when we walked over and tried to drop in on a happy hour at the recreation club. Ginny was in the place less than 2 minutes before she had a total meltdown. Was it the smell of the chips and salsa? The several new people that came to say hello to her? The music playing? Who knows, but she stayed pretty much a mess the rest of the evening. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around paying $1000 for airfare so she could do the same thing in another city while we ordered room service and wished we had her swing or her bouncy chair or whatever. So her first trip out of a 5 mile radius of where she was born is probably going to be the Mother of All Trips, 24 hours back to the U.S.! Pity our planemates!

Aunt Mary

My aunt Mary passed away on November 8th after suffering a stroke in early October. She was 96 years old, so I guess she was nearly retirement age the first time I met her, but she always seemed to have such a youthful outlook. She loved to travel and had wonderful souvenirs from all over the world; saris from Varanasi, weird little cookies from Japan that seemed to never get stale, lace from Belgium, things like that. As a former art professor with a special interest in textiles, she kept a house full of things that fascinated my little girl self. Spinning wheels, drop spindles, and looms, and she taught me how to use them all. I remember one visit when we dyed wool using natural dyes; onion skins heated in water made the wool turn various shades of yellow depending on which kind of metallic salt the wool had been treated with. A particular species of lichen made it a brown color. Tiny Mexican cochineal bugs turned it red. At the end of every visit I would always cry when it was time to leave; we had never stayed long enough, and there were never plans to return any time soon.

When I was older, she wanted to share her love of travel with me and two of my cousins and invited us on a trip to Europe. If she hadn’t done that, I don’t think I’d be in the Foreign Service today. She was fiercely independent and accomplished so much that it’s easy for me to forget that her scholarly and professional achievement happened before the women’s movement ever came along. I’m not doing her justice in this post, but she was a wonderful aunt and role model for me and I loved her very much; I’ll really miss her.

Happy Birthday, GrandDaddy!

Today is the 88th anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite people.  For the last 6 years now I’ve been thinking how lucky I was to discover so much later than most people, that there really was that one person out there made just for me, and I finally found her.  And shortly after doing so, I met the people responsible for making her.  I’m speaking of course of my Lisa, and her Mama, and her Daddy, Tom .  And today is Tom’s birthday, and Lisa and Ginny and I want to send all our love in his and MamaJean’s direction today.

We open the post with a picture of  GrandDaddy a few years ago…. OK, QUITE a few years ago…  on his commission as a Navy officer and aviator.  Since this pic was taken, he fought a world war, opened and operated his own business for a while, married a true Southern Belle, and sired my favorite person in the whole world, my wife Lisa.   There are no pictures of Tom and Ginny together yet, but we’ll correct that in January; for now, they’ll have to be happy with being together in the same blogpost.   Here’s Ginny with a big smile for GrandDaddy on his birthday!

A Smile for GrandDaddy

Happy Birthday, Tom, and I hope you have many many more!
We’re looking forward to seeing everybody in January; we’ve finally got approval at work for Lisa’s leave, and we’re working out details now to see everybody we can; we’ll be in touch to let you know where we’ll be and when.
We had a pretty big weekend here; one of the highlights of the year on US Embassies around the world is the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball, held as close to November 10th as possible.  This year’s was Friday the 6th, at the fancy Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City here in the Manila Metro area.  I told a little about the ceremony last year, with the cake, and the youngest Marine in the Philippines, and the oldest… well, I guess last year’s oldest shipped back out, cuz this year’s oldest was a relatively young 60 year old, and the youngest was one of our Guard Detachment Marines again.  We stuck around long enough to taste the cake this year; it wasn’t quite as pretty as last year’s, but the party was a Hoot! (Shout out to all my Wisconsin friends, for the word Hoot as something other than the noise an owl makes).  I’ve mentioned time and again what a treat it is to get Lisa on the dance floor on those rare occaisions she’s willing to humor me; this year it was her idea at least half of the time, and we had a blast!!
I have pictures of the Marine Ball, of course, but a weird thing happened, and I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera after uploading some more pictures of Ginny.  Well, no problem, the camera has a little bit of on-board memory for just such emergencies… but since I always use the card, and I snatch the pictures off by removing the card from the camera and reading it in a reader on the PC (faster that way), I can’t figure out where I’ve hidden the proprietary cord that connects the camera to the PC.   So when I find it, I’ll post some pictures of happy people in party clothes!
In the meantime, Peace, Love, and Happiness to all y’all, and one more Big Happy Birthday to GrandDaddy Tom!

Three Months Old

Little Ginny Bean turned 3 months old today, and to celebrate we went into Rockwell (an area of Makati, which is itself a subset of Metropolitan Manila) to visit Dra. Pia Lorenzo, her paediatrician.  Final verdict is Ginny is very healthy and happy, and nearly on the money development-wise; we got her weight immediately up to the 50th percentile after the admonition of “too skinny” way back in September, and she’s hewing right to the 50th P line ever since.  She’s a little taller than average, at 25 inches today, and she’s got a big ol’ head, like her Daddy.  Hopefully, she’ll grow in to it.  It’s a beautiful head though, as evidenced here:

BigHead Ginny

We got some homework from the doctor; developmentally, she’s doing well, but she doesn’t get enough head, neck, and back exercise – “Tummy Time” is the key to that development, so she’s gotta have more tummy time, which she and most babies appear to like almost as much as I like liver and onions.  Which isn’t much.  But she and Daddy are now on a workout program, ten minutes at least 4 times a day.  There is some screaming involved, but she’ll get used to it, and soon she’ll be sitting up!!

We FINALLY got our leave dates approved from Lisa’s work, so we’re cementing details on a trip home to the US roughly Jan 9 to 29.   We’ll be barnstorming a bit, having to hit Atlanta, Jackson MS, and the DC-MD area, but we’ll get an itinerary to those who care, maybe you can come find us in one of those places.   David and Katie, this means you two, specifically   You’re not morally obligated to visit your uncle Steve, but you are obligated to visit your mothers… I just think you should do it when your Uncle Steve happens to be in town…

On an interesting but unrelated note, I’ve got some additional news… I told some of y’all when I was home in June that I had been scheduled to take the Foreign Service Officer Test that week; well, I missed it of course, but they re-tested in Manila in October, and I’ve passed!   That’s only step 1, of course; I now have to write a series of essays to indicate that my resume isn’t a pack of lies, then if that goes OK I’ll be invited to attend an Oral Assessment and Review.  That happens in the US, so I’ll get to make one more trip home before next September!! Exciting!

Ah – further explanation, or lack thereof – neither Lisa nor I can remember exactly when or why we started calling Ginny “the bean” but we did, and it’s kinda stuck.  I also call her GinnyBinny on occaision, and her YaYa (nanny, in Tagalog) can’t seem to grasp the phonetic difference between Ginny and Jenny, so calls her the latter.  This same YaYa, Ednalyn, also meows and sings “here kittykittykitty” to calm “Jenny” down when she cries.  She’s a little strange, but she’s great with the Bean, and loves spending time with her, and dressing her up and showing her off to the other compound YaYas.  And for that reason, I got a little schoolin’ from Ednalyn this morning when it was time to take Ginny to see Dra. Pia.  I fed Ginny her 9 am bottle, shared an invigorating belching session with her, and changed her diaper, then picked out something for her to wear to the doctor, a pretty little pink onesie with the words “Little Girl” on the front.  I thought with the ongoing lack-of-hair situation, it was only fair to give people a little hint.   So I’ve got her all dressed, and up comes Ednalyn, to make sure I’ve not forgotten anything, or done anything stupid (she knows her job very well).  The scene played out like this:

EDNALYN (Sees Ginny, adopts a troubled expression): That what she going to wear, sir?

ME:   Yes, isn’t it nice?  (sees troubled expression) it’s clean!!   (expression persists) Is it OK?

EDNALYN (In a tone of voice one might use to address a retarded child):  No Sir.  Something Nice.  She going out.

At which point Ginny was whisked from my arms, and quickly redressed in a beautiful pink dress with flowery bloomers and a print of Pooh and Piglet on the front.  Of course, you know everybody who saw her at the doctor’s office commented on how beautiful she was, and what a nice outfit she had on.  That lady’s worth her weight in gold.

Well, I could write all night, but I’ll save some for later… we’ve topped the One Thousand mark on pictures of Ginny, and I’ve shared a hunk of  ‘em, but she changes nearly every day still, so I’m always taking more.  I send a packet of new ones to Pop every once in a while; if anyone’s jealous and wants prints, lemme know.

Peace!

BOO!

Ginny's First Halloween!

There’s Ginny in her first ever Halloween costume, sent by her grandmother! She celebrated by sleeping her longest sleep ever, 10 1/2 hours from 8:05 pm – 6:35 am!  Coincidentally (or not), another typhoon was passing through; she really seems to sleep well when these storms are happening.  Maybe the darkness helps, maybe the additional white noise helps, I don’t know.  The fact that the darn things always happen on the weekend doesn’t hurt, since I don’t have to wake her up to eat before I leave for work.

The eye of this typhoon (named Santi in the Philippines, international name Mirinae) passed just south of us, and was a category 2 when it made landfall but had weakened to a tropical storm by the time it reached the west side of Luzon where we are.  Manila was at Storm Signal #3, which means banana plants will probably be destroyed and coconut trees may be downed.  A tree fell across our neighbor’s front walk, the power went out last night about 3, and I think we are still on generator backup.   The wind and rain have stopped, though, and it’s getting brighter outside.

A weekend storm like this doesn’t change the routine much, since I usually spend all but a couple of hours in the house anyway.  My world has shrunk down considerably since Ginny’s arrival, and is mostly reduced during the week to wake up at 0530,  work, have three hours of baby time in the evening, then sleep, lather, rinse, repeat.  Last Friday Steve and I went with some co-workers to the Hobbit House for our first evening out since the baby arrived, and while it was fun, the two hours of sleep I lost have stalked me ever since.   I think I made up for it last night though, which is good because the Marine Ball is next weekend, and I can’t miss a once a year event like that just for being tired.  I couldn’t organize getting a new dress, so I’m wearing one I wore to another event last year even though it’s kind of ill-fitting right now like most of my other clothes.  Who wants to buy a fancy dress for a three month postpartum body, anyway?