i met my nephew

before leaving for austin on saturday, i stopped by the briar shoppe in rice village. i figured my brother had been pretty occupied with the early arrival of his child, so he wouldn’t have had a chance to buy some cigars. i bought him a box of “it’s a boy!” cigars. while there, i also decided to buy him and my dad some pipe tobacco. then i decided to buy my dad a new pipe, pipe tool, and cheap lighter. my dad has some pipes, but all of them are pretty old and used, and i think only one of them was actually his. i didn’t get an expensive pipe, but i figured he might enjoy having a newer one to use.
i drove the bel air to austin. the trip went pretty well. once there i met my mom and dad at my brother’s place, then we went together over to the hospital. it was kind of unreal seeing my brother and his wife with a baby, and realizing he is my nephew. i gave my brother the box of cigars. (he hadn’t bought any yet.) i held miles for awhile. he was pretty much sleeping most of the time. heather seemed to be doing well. she hadn’t slept in i’m not sure how many hours, and my brother hadn’t slept much either. it was cool to see miles and hold him, but as i said in my previous entry it’s kind of sad personally because it just sort of reminds me of possible opportunities and experiences that i lost because of what happened with my marriage. my mom and dad and i left and ate supper. from there we dropped by half price books, where i bought some cds. (i’ll have to detail them, along with my xmas and other stuff, in another post.) when we got back to the house, i gave my dad the pipe stuff. not surprisingly, he said i didn’t have to buy a pipe for him.
saturday night my brother came back to the house and i helped him put together a stroller they’d bought. i also helped him get the carrier base put into their tracker correctly, and showed him how the belt and clasps worked to hold a child. it’s kind of funny, considering i don’t have any kids of my own and am single. but i’ve spent a lot of time around the potts kids, so i’m pretty well versed in such things.
sunday morning we got up and at ate kerbey lane. we went back to my brother’s place since they were supposed to be coming home from the hospital. i had planned on going by ikea to get them a gift certificate, but i wasn’t sure i was going to have time. i was thinking we should have made a banner and gotten some balloons or something for when they got home, then about that time my mom said the same thing. i said “let’s do it.” but she didn’t know where to go, and wasn’t sure anything would be open on sunday. i told her to get on google and search for party city in austin. we found one nearby and it was open on sunday, so we went. although when we got there it was called “party pig” and not “party city”. odd. but we bought stuff to make a banner and bought some ballons and a yard sign. i was putting the banner together on the way back, then i finished it at the house. i was trying to figure out where to hang it when my mom suddenly said “they’re here!”. i opted to just lay it on the ground in front of the door.
after they’d gotten situated, my brother and dad and i went out on the porch and smoked cigars. it was a nice slice of time for us three just to sit out on the porch and smoke cigars and talk. i’d done that with my dad one afternoon while i was visiting over xmas. he was outside smoking some of the sausage they’d made, and i brought a couple of cigars out and we sat and smoked and talked. sitting, smoking cigars or pipes, and talking is one of those things that i tend to identify in my mind as some kind of special moment or something. i’m not sure why.
sunday afternoon i left and headed back to houston. during the trip i continued to notice that my car gets way more looks and reactions than my pickup. (although a guy did give me a thumbs up in my pickup a few days ago in houston.)
i’ve got a few pictures i was going to put with this post, but when i upgraded to leopard the transfer evidently didn’t copy over my keys for some of my software. so when i started it up for the first time on leopard, it wanted me to enter the keys. which i have somewhere, but i don’t know where. so i wasn’t able to edit them. but hopefully soon.
last night i watched the diving bell and the butterfly. i was really impressed with it. it was really a unique, inventive, and beautiful way of telling the story. touching and sad, yet with hope and happiness running through it. plus it had a really good soundtrack.