Happy wedding anniversary to Joannie and Mike! And happy birthday to Sharon! Memorial Day will always be a big weekend for our family. As I get older, I find that proximity to family is becoming more and more important, especially now that I'm an uncle. Since I'm the only one in the family west of Chicago, this feeling registers as guilt and a nagging itch. It's a strike against Seattle, through no fault of its own.
Perhaps if I had my own wife and kid(s), it would be less of an issue. I pushed Sadie around in her newfangled stroller (they make them so the baby can face the driver now) around Queen Anne this weekend, and she stared at me the whole time with her big blue eyes (which are perhaps turning brown), sucking on her pacifier quietly like Maggie Simpson. She has doubled in weight since last I saw her, before South America, and now has a double chin, a feature only adorable in infants. I'm still not ready for parenthood, but partaking of it vicariously from time to time has helped the whole idea to grow on me.