2015
at the end of 2014 there was one little thing I left off the list, of course. I neglected to mention that KD was 7 weeks pregnant. Should something go wrong we figured it would be better just to let it go unknown. That was not, thankfully, how it went.
And so most of 2015 was prepping and executing the whole process of pregnancy, delivery, and all the rest. Plans had been made as early as May 2014 or thereabouts for me to begin a musical hiatus for my tenth anniversary planning after May 2015, which was to occur in September. While still true, we already planned out what we wanted to get each other, which arrived 6 weeks prior. The initial public announcement was in February along with the second ultrasound pictures. There were baby showers in June. KD quit work officially in July.
Knowing this, we had also planned early on to make the most of our remaining time-as-duo. We went to many shows--Hal Holbrook playing Mark Twain for his 60th year was the first, in late January, which was excellent. We saw a very good Vancouver, BC-based Heart tribute and Ramble On at the Aladdin for Valentine's Day, and John Mullaney at the Aladdin in February as well. We saw Faith No More in April, and Eddie Izzard in June. And then, because of chance, we had not one, but two can't-miss shows three weeks before expected delivery date--Rush's 40th anniversary tour, and Jim Gaffigan a few days before that. I was very glad I decided to spring for Silver VIP tickets for Rush at Moda Center, because by then we really needed that kind of luxury! My wife got wheeled in and couldn't stand up much, but were so close that she didn't have to! Fond memories.
The wagons were also circling musically for me for a while, with my hiatus to last until at least January 2016. In August 2014 Ashkelon left theXplodingboys to focus on Trance to the Sun and free us up to play more often than once a year. We had already scheduled a January show at Hive, and we did manage to find a capable replacement in Tony Kalhagen. As soon as the early December 2014 Sumerland shows concluded, tXb set about learning a fresh set including several songs that took us in a bit of a different direction, and performed in mid-January for the first time in six months.
After the January tXb show my practices once again shifted, back to Trance to the Sun. At the end of February, Trance to the Sun completed an Oregon tour of Eugene and Portland. Ingrid flew up from Santa Barbara alone, and Enrique Ugalde filled in on bass. It was our first attempt at Blue Obscurities material, and I was excited that Black Sea, Black Fish from Urchin Tear Soda and Terrible Parties from Atrocious Virgin were added to the set. Then I did some mastering of live audio at home when I could until April, when a spring California Trance tour occurred with Terry back on bass. Notably, Erick Scheid from Mercury's Antennae also joined us on the tour, and performed on five songs with us. It was splendid. The set largely reverted back to selections from the 2014 tour, but Homewrecker was notably brought into the mix, along with Secret Police from the Blue Obscurities.
After considering trying to tour with Trance to the Sun in April, and then to attempt a show in May that turned out impossible to schedule for everyone, theXplodingboys scheduled a second Hive show for late June that was subsequently pushed back to July 5th--the beginning of the early-labor warning zone, but our son was very punctual... and after that, I was off to extremely-nervous daddy time while hoping we'd make our planned July activities! And we did.
I also mastered the Mercury's Antennae Killing Time EP in June. I had about 4 hours and took about 3. Given that, I think it came out pretty damn well!
Then, the basement flooded. Our water heater broke. We discovered this 5 days before my wife was scheduled for inducement, on a Friday where I absolutely had to work. Instead of prepping for the hospital, that whole weekend was spent clearing out the basement, drying off what I could outside in the summer heat. I was so stressed already, and so mentally and physically exhausted, that it wasn't until Sunday afternoon when KD suggested it that we called our insurance company for help. A company came in that day with their big fans and dehumidifier to do what I had only begun to do with a box fan and a bunch of towels. They were still at it the day we went into the hospital, leaving us notes on the counter that they knew we wouldn't read until we arrived home tired out of our minds. Because writing emails is hard.
The labor was 36 hours and ended in an unplanned C-section. She was extremely exhausted and in excruciating pain afterward, and I was very busy. Thankfully we had a couple of good friends in and out, helping us both through the whole process. A key nap that they had me take during the labor readied me for the last stretch and helped us both immensely. I wasn't so helpful the next night, when I collapsed from exhaustion. KD was so wrecked and immobile that I changed the first diapers, wrapped the first swaddles, and did some of the earliest regular feedings. It was tending to the baby, who was in our room with us at all times, from when he woke up until he went back to sleep for anywhere between 45 minutes to three hours. At the beginning it wasn't that bad for me because he didn't do much else. But after three days KD was desperate to get some sleep, since her drugs were causing her to sleep no more than three hours a day. After a med transition and a respite where the nurses took our son off our hands for the night, she was able to get mostly back on track.
We returned home with our new son on the eve of my birthday, with my musical and mastering solace destroyed, with much of our basement furniture outside or crowding up the dining room, and with my wife still in extreme pain from the C-section. The cats responded well, but the first night was hell due to our son not being at all confortable in his new surroundings. I also didn't know what I was doing--the stations KD had set up around the house went from reminders of what was to come to fully functional workstations in the dark. But we made it through, albeit in a few pieces.
For my birthday, I found some cards in the pile of papers on the kitchen island, our neighbor, pet-sitter and de facto local mom brought Leo back over, and the adjuster was coming by to inspect the basement cleanup. It was exactly then that the pipe under the kitchen sink rusted through... the sink we used to constantly wash and prep baby bottles, along with everything else.
Fortunately a neighborhood plumber, who we had tried to use twice before but missed, happened to be right around the corner after his last scheduled job. He came over, inspected, and miraculously acquired supplies and re-plumbed the whole shoddy works by dinnertime! That was one hell of a break. Well, a couple of them. But he had been through the new baby experience less than a year earlier, and he was totally feeling our situation!
Our local mom stayed over that night and helped us organize the house, and ourselves. We began to keep dim lights on everywhere so it was one less thing to think about while stumbling around. KD was in such horrible shape that I spent a lot of time tending to her, mainly moving her around and keeping her meds on schedule. We were both too sleep deprived to remember anything, so we kept meticulous notes on meds and baby feedings, changings, etc. on a notepad.
Neither of us were getting what you would call sleep. But we had lots of help. Friends graciously kept us in delicious microwaveable meals, making eating very easy. I had to adjust my leave paperwork to add additional time after the unplanned C-section, and I didn't even have the 15 minutes to do that until three days later... the day before I was originally to return to work. Then I exhaled, and collapsed. Nah, I probably fixed a bottle.
By a few weeks later, KD felt much better, though still not great. She could at least get herself around. So I went back to work. In order to get enough sleep to function, we both started sleeping dedicated hours in the upstairs bedroom while the other tended to the baby in the living room. I slept from 2-7am for two months. She slept from 9-2am, plus whatever naps she could sneak in. It wasn't enough, but it became enough. At work I was transitioning roles with a co-worker. There were no "normal work days" for me for months. I don't actually know how I managed to do that, but I did. Taking things one day at a time was vital. I remembered back when I was in MBA school, and I almost hyperventilated when I read the first term's integrated deliverable schedule all at once--3-5 items per week. I took that one day at a time and got through it, and I did the same to get through my sleep-deprived late summer and early fall.
Our first outing was one of our key support member's garden party-cum-surprise wedding reception, in late August. The first formal photos of the three of us were captured, and one was a Holiday gift from them to us. One month after his birth we attempted a successful day trip to Hood River. We strolled him up and down the hilly streets, successfully ate at a mostly empty sports bar, and got ice cream. Success!
Two weekends later another friend and support offered us their second home in Sisters for our tenth anniversary weekend. It was fantastic. We just moved baby operations out there, but the weather was great and we got out for some walks to downtown Sisters. Unfortunately by that time the weekends had become an absolute crucial part of our regular rest/recovery process, and we skipped out on it in favor of having more time for fun. I paid for that for the whole week afterward.
Because we never knew when we'd have to be up, or stay up, to take care of the baby, I took to watching Youtube videos during my evening shifts because it just played another one in case I couldn't move for hours. My mind, perhaps to keep sharp in whatever way it could, got immersed into prog--Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and others from my youth at first, then heavy into King Crimson--which is really three different bands. I stuck with them for weeks. I would always see Genesis videos pop up on the side, which I wasn't that familiar with outside of four albums. One night I decided to check it out. I (still) didn't care for Peter Gabriel Genesis. But the Invisibile Touch Wembley concert brought back the great memories I had of that album while adding a new dimension to it. I started jumping around and grew fond of the 1976-1982 era. The sweet spot for me, the one concert I could be happy with for the long haul, was the 1980 Duke tour at the Lyceum in London. If you've got two hours, it is fantastic and captures them at what I believe is their best.
Sometime in early October, I was actually becoming rested enough to try my hand at something musical. The mastering station was still in pieces, as was the basement. But I had a lot of mastered audio and a pile of video, so I tried making a video on my personal laptop. The video was from my Zoom Q4, which I had purchased to record audio with in July 2014. Initially an audio recorder only, the Q4 also recorded video, so all I had to do was sync the mastered audio back to it to make one. My first attempt was theXplodingboys performing A Strange Day from the July 5th performance. It was the first I had worked on anything musical since making a rough master of that show, and it was a huge relief to be back to it. After that video was released I moved onto Black Sea, Black Fish, a Trance to the Sun full production video using the different views I had captured in the February shows, supplemented with closeup footage from the California 2015 tour. It turned out pretty well. So I learned a new trick.
Cleaning the basement carpet wasn't enough, but it was October before it became apparent. So we went back down the insurance wormhole to see about having new carpet put in. Finally, in mid-November, almost five months after our basement flooded, it was again ours to use. I set about moving everything back in and setting up. Before I accomplished this, the year ended with some holiday travel to show the kid around before he could crawl all over the airplane, and a pleasant New Year's Eve gathering at a friend's house around the corner. For the record, we were all awake at midnight.
And that was 2015.
the carpet crawlers heed their callers...
And so most of 2015 was prepping and executing the whole process of pregnancy, delivery, and all the rest. Plans had been made as early as May 2014 or thereabouts for me to begin a musical hiatus for my tenth anniversary planning after May 2015, which was to occur in September. While still true, we already planned out what we wanted to get each other, which arrived 6 weeks prior. The initial public announcement was in February along with the second ultrasound pictures. There were baby showers in June. KD quit work officially in July.
Knowing this, we had also planned early on to make the most of our remaining time-as-duo. We went to many shows--Hal Holbrook playing Mark Twain for his 60th year was the first, in late January, which was excellent. We saw a very good Vancouver, BC-based Heart tribute and Ramble On at the Aladdin for Valentine's Day, and John Mullaney at the Aladdin in February as well. We saw Faith No More in April, and Eddie Izzard in June. And then, because of chance, we had not one, but two can't-miss shows three weeks before expected delivery date--Rush's 40th anniversary tour, and Jim Gaffigan a few days before that. I was very glad I decided to spring for Silver VIP tickets for Rush at Moda Center, because by then we really needed that kind of luxury! My wife got wheeled in and couldn't stand up much, but were so close that she didn't have to! Fond memories.
The wagons were also circling musically for me for a while, with my hiatus to last until at least January 2016. In August 2014 Ashkelon left theXplodingboys to focus on Trance to the Sun and free us up to play more often than once a year. We had already scheduled a January show at Hive, and we did manage to find a capable replacement in Tony Kalhagen. As soon as the early December 2014 Sumerland shows concluded, tXb set about learning a fresh set including several songs that took us in a bit of a different direction, and performed in mid-January for the first time in six months.
After the January tXb show my practices once again shifted, back to Trance to the Sun. At the end of February, Trance to the Sun completed an Oregon tour of Eugene and Portland. Ingrid flew up from Santa Barbara alone, and Enrique Ugalde filled in on bass. It was our first attempt at Blue Obscurities material, and I was excited that Black Sea, Black Fish from Urchin Tear Soda and Terrible Parties from Atrocious Virgin were added to the set. Then I did some mastering of live audio at home when I could until April, when a spring California Trance tour occurred with Terry back on bass. Notably, Erick Scheid from Mercury's Antennae also joined us on the tour, and performed on five songs with us. It was splendid. The set largely reverted back to selections from the 2014 tour, but Homewrecker was notably brought into the mix, along with Secret Police from the Blue Obscurities.
After considering trying to tour with Trance to the Sun in April, and then to attempt a show in May that turned out impossible to schedule for everyone, theXplodingboys scheduled a second Hive show for late June that was subsequently pushed back to July 5th--the beginning of the early-labor warning zone, but our son was very punctual... and after that, I was off to extremely-nervous daddy time while hoping we'd make our planned July activities! And we did.
I also mastered the Mercury's Antennae Killing Time EP in June. I had about 4 hours and took about 3. Given that, I think it came out pretty damn well!
Then, the basement flooded. Our water heater broke. We discovered this 5 days before my wife was scheduled for inducement, on a Friday where I absolutely had to work. Instead of prepping for the hospital, that whole weekend was spent clearing out the basement, drying off what I could outside in the summer heat. I was so stressed already, and so mentally and physically exhausted, that it wasn't until Sunday afternoon when KD suggested it that we called our insurance company for help. A company came in that day with their big fans and dehumidifier to do what I had only begun to do with a box fan and a bunch of towels. They were still at it the day we went into the hospital, leaving us notes on the counter that they knew we wouldn't read until we arrived home tired out of our minds. Because writing emails is hard.
The labor was 36 hours and ended in an unplanned C-section. She was extremely exhausted and in excruciating pain afterward, and I was very busy. Thankfully we had a couple of good friends in and out, helping us both through the whole process. A key nap that they had me take during the labor readied me for the last stretch and helped us both immensely. I wasn't so helpful the next night, when I collapsed from exhaustion. KD was so wrecked and immobile that I changed the first diapers, wrapped the first swaddles, and did some of the earliest regular feedings. It was tending to the baby, who was in our room with us at all times, from when he woke up until he went back to sleep for anywhere between 45 minutes to three hours. At the beginning it wasn't that bad for me because he didn't do much else. But after three days KD was desperate to get some sleep, since her drugs were causing her to sleep no more than three hours a day. After a med transition and a respite where the nurses took our son off our hands for the night, she was able to get mostly back on track.
We returned home with our new son on the eve of my birthday, with my musical and mastering solace destroyed, with much of our basement furniture outside or crowding up the dining room, and with my wife still in extreme pain from the C-section. The cats responded well, but the first night was hell due to our son not being at all confortable in his new surroundings. I also didn't know what I was doing--the stations KD had set up around the house went from reminders of what was to come to fully functional workstations in the dark. But we made it through, albeit in a few pieces.
For my birthday, I found some cards in the pile of papers on the kitchen island, our neighbor, pet-sitter and de facto local mom brought Leo back over, and the adjuster was coming by to inspect the basement cleanup. It was exactly then that the pipe under the kitchen sink rusted through... the sink we used to constantly wash and prep baby bottles, along with everything else.
Fortunately a neighborhood plumber, who we had tried to use twice before but missed, happened to be right around the corner after his last scheduled job. He came over, inspected, and miraculously acquired supplies and re-plumbed the whole shoddy works by dinnertime! That was one hell of a break. Well, a couple of them. But he had been through the new baby experience less than a year earlier, and he was totally feeling our situation!
Our local mom stayed over that night and helped us organize the house, and ourselves. We began to keep dim lights on everywhere so it was one less thing to think about while stumbling around. KD was in such horrible shape that I spent a lot of time tending to her, mainly moving her around and keeping her meds on schedule. We were both too sleep deprived to remember anything, so we kept meticulous notes on meds and baby feedings, changings, etc. on a notepad.
Neither of us were getting what you would call sleep. But we had lots of help. Friends graciously kept us in delicious microwaveable meals, making eating very easy. I had to adjust my leave paperwork to add additional time after the unplanned C-section, and I didn't even have the 15 minutes to do that until three days later... the day before I was originally to return to work. Then I exhaled, and collapsed. Nah, I probably fixed a bottle.
By a few weeks later, KD felt much better, though still not great. She could at least get herself around. So I went back to work. In order to get enough sleep to function, we both started sleeping dedicated hours in the upstairs bedroom while the other tended to the baby in the living room. I slept from 2-7am for two months. She slept from 9-2am, plus whatever naps she could sneak in. It wasn't enough, but it became enough. At work I was transitioning roles with a co-worker. There were no "normal work days" for me for months. I don't actually know how I managed to do that, but I did. Taking things one day at a time was vital. I remembered back when I was in MBA school, and I almost hyperventilated when I read the first term's integrated deliverable schedule all at once--3-5 items per week. I took that one day at a time and got through it, and I did the same to get through my sleep-deprived late summer and early fall.
Our first outing was one of our key support member's garden party-cum-surprise wedding reception, in late August. The first formal photos of the three of us were captured, and one was a Holiday gift from them to us. One month after his birth we attempted a successful day trip to Hood River. We strolled him up and down the hilly streets, successfully ate at a mostly empty sports bar, and got ice cream. Success!
Two weekends later another friend and support offered us their second home in Sisters for our tenth anniversary weekend. It was fantastic. We just moved baby operations out there, but the weather was great and we got out for some walks to downtown Sisters. Unfortunately by that time the weekends had become an absolute crucial part of our regular rest/recovery process, and we skipped out on it in favor of having more time for fun. I paid for that for the whole week afterward.
Because we never knew when we'd have to be up, or stay up, to take care of the baby, I took to watching Youtube videos during my evening shifts because it just played another one in case I couldn't move for hours. My mind, perhaps to keep sharp in whatever way it could, got immersed into prog--Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and others from my youth at first, then heavy into King Crimson--which is really three different bands. I stuck with them for weeks. I would always see Genesis videos pop up on the side, which I wasn't that familiar with outside of four albums. One night I decided to check it out. I (still) didn't care for Peter Gabriel Genesis. But the Invisibile Touch Wembley concert brought back the great memories I had of that album while adding a new dimension to it. I started jumping around and grew fond of the 1976-1982 era. The sweet spot for me, the one concert I could be happy with for the long haul, was the 1980 Duke tour at the Lyceum in London. If you've got two hours, it is fantastic and captures them at what I believe is their best.
Sometime in early October, I was actually becoming rested enough to try my hand at something musical. The mastering station was still in pieces, as was the basement. But I had a lot of mastered audio and a pile of video, so I tried making a video on my personal laptop. The video was from my Zoom Q4, which I had purchased to record audio with in July 2014. Initially an audio recorder only, the Q4 also recorded video, so all I had to do was sync the mastered audio back to it to make one. My first attempt was theXplodingboys performing A Strange Day from the July 5th performance. It was the first I had worked on anything musical since making a rough master of that show, and it was a huge relief to be back to it. After that video was released I moved onto Black Sea, Black Fish, a Trance to the Sun full production video using the different views I had captured in the February shows, supplemented with closeup footage from the California 2015 tour. It turned out pretty well. So I learned a new trick.
Cleaning the basement carpet wasn't enough, but it was October before it became apparent. So we went back down the insurance wormhole to see about having new carpet put in. Finally, in mid-November, almost five months after our basement flooded, it was again ours to use. I set about moving everything back in and setting up. Before I accomplished this, the year ended with some holiday travel to show the kid around before he could crawl all over the airplane, and a pleasant New Year's Eve gathering at a friend's house around the corner. For the record, we were all awake at midnight.
And that was 2015.
the carpet crawlers heed their callers...