Workaholic Dad

The Mrs. loves Ebay and bargain hunting. I am a big friend of Ebay as well and so it is now wonder that we search our way through millions of baby related offerings during the course of stocking Mack’s room. Two auctions in particular had us a bit confused. We had ordered a Philips Avent 520 Baby Intercom used from some dude in Munich and a Medela Harmony Breast Pump from a seller in Austria.

A few days later we received a package - mailed from Austria. We expected it to be the breast pump (the package coming from Austria and all) and where surprised when the package contained the Philips Avent 530 Baby Intercom. A little bit of head scratching ensued wondering if it was the guy who sold us the Avent 520 from Munich who sent it from Austria for some reason, or if the breast pump people had also sold a Avent 530 and mixed up packages.

Today we received another package in the mail. Also from Austria. The Medela Harmony Breast Pump perfectly wrapped up inside. I guess now I know who to contact about the Baby Intercom and why it is the Avent 530 instead of the 520 - which we are not complaining about since it’s the better model - and why the damn thing doesn’t work right.

Here is a little something for all you Ebay fans:

While the Mrs. was in the hospital I had some guys come over to look at the heaters in the house. The central system circulates hot water to radiators around the house and let’s just say they never worked quite right. When the guys showed up the first time they replaced some valves and things with the new heaters we had put into the kitchen. Then they realized that the guy who put in the heater in our guest bathroom must have been smoking crack in his Marlboro Lights since he simply hooked it up…in a short way… using a method that could have never worked.

Flash back about 18 months ago to our original guest bathroom renovation.In one particularly amusing episode a soaking wet Maczinkovic (our former contractor) emerged from the guest bathroom muttering to himself. It was soon discovered that the radiator he just attempted to connect had exploded rusty, grimy water all over the freshly painted bathroom wall. Yummy. I stopped laughing when I repainted the wall in there myself because the guy flaked out. He did hook it up in a way that left a tin cup underneath the outflow valve to catch drippings and a heater that didn’t get hot. Not so much of a problem since all the heating pipes run through the bathroom wall making it almoast toasty even without a working radiator. So with all the other projects needing completion the radiator never received attention ever again.

Fast forward to today. In their quest to make this farm warm enough in every room for a baby the very efficient workers discovered Maczinkovic was indeed smoking crack because he used an inflow valve for an outflow valve. To make it look right he just too off the temperature gauge. To stop the pesky dripping the inflow valve was closed off. Stellar solution dude. So a quick fix later that heater works. Sure helps to use the right kind of valve.

I had asked them to put in a new radiator in the living room. The old one was awesome. Big, cast iron, and massive. However, it unfortunately was just not very fuel efficient and not quite enough to heat the room on really cold nights.

Today, surprisingly two guys had showed up with it. No warning, no appointment, no anything. Also it was 2 guys instead of one. Originally I had agreed with the guy that only one person should come since the 2nd guy was only there to help the first guy carry out the old heater. For the rest of the time he would have been standing around drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and petting my dog - all at the bargain rate of 80EUR an hour. Normally I wouldn’t care about the money but 160EUR saved for 5 minutes of heavy lifting that’s a bargain.

I called their boss to figure out what part of “only send one dude, I have lifted out two of these radiators with my wife before, I am sure that one guy and I can lift it no problem” he didn’t understand and to act a bit pissed because they had just showed up unannounced. Turns out the other dude was there for whatever other reason too but he wouldn’t charge me for him. Rock on… so 160EUR saved and no heavy lifting. The two of them where quite a sight though… Tiffany thinks one of them was 70, but I think they where more in the 60ish region. They huffed and puffed like two little girls carrying out the old radiator. The Mrs. even though not completely healed in the nether regions wanted to rush to their side to help them.

But…. more importantly the new heater is in and working wonderfully!

As I have written about a few months ago, the German pencil pushers had some objections with our choice of name for the little one. Apparently the names we had picked out where to unisex for them and we either had to change it or pick a third first name that was clearly male or female. Forget about using Maria over here, it’s also both male and female. Very confusing.

Anyways, we initially intended to take up the Standesamt’s suggestion to “go ahead and sue us” but not only did it turn out be a real bitch to find a good lawyer that wasn’t a media whore but also there would be a government imposed name until the trial ended. That government imposed name would have been “Unamed Child”, most certainly not an option. We then settled with the folks at the registrars office in leaving the first two names, Mackenzie Skye, alone and tacking on Anne. The Mrs’ middle name.

This morning I called my friend at the Standesamt in Hanau to ask if mom and baby would have to come along  She recognized me immediately, much to my surprise, and told me to show up without the family, papers in hand and she would have me on my way in 5 minutes.

I got to city hall and was amazed at the size of the place. I have never been there before since most government business that has to be completed is done in the city hall of our little village. I made my way to room 213 and was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to wait. The Mrs. and I had already filled out all the paperwork at the hospital and now it was only a matter of a few photocopies. As promised the process of making Mackenzie Skye Anne took less than 5 minutes. Once we receive all the paperwork in the mail we can make an appointment with the US Embassy to make our little mudblood a US Citizen too. Before you send me hatemail, I don’t mean mudblood derogatory just a nod to the fact that she is of mixed heritage.

I have never been a fan of the bathrobe. For years people have given them to me for christmas and I must have more than my share of them hanging in my closet. I used to be the kind of guy who was happy walking around in boxers and t-shirt in the morning while checking my emails and get ready for the day. While I am sure the Mrs. didn’t like the occasional “package slip” there was no one else here to be bothered by it.

Now that the baby is here my cigarette smoking has been banned to the outside and I have to tell you - standing outside in the morning watching the neighbors scratch ice from their windshield in a t-shirt and boxers is no walk in the park. I tried it for the past couple of days but it just ain’t right. Mostly most of the smoke is lost because I shiver too much. Also, getting up late at night with the baby tends to be a frigid as well.

I had to break down and opt for the bathrobe. Last night during one of Mackenzie’s many crying fits I needed a break from the screaming. I grabbed the bathrobe my parents bought me for Christmas last year and headed outside for a smoke. Better, but still cold. This morning I went the real cozy route - flannel pajama pants and the bathrobe - that’s right I moved straight from new daddy to grandpa. But you know what, it’s warm and cozy and so be it. Definitely won’t be winning any fashion awards this way - but oh well.

On the other hand Mackenzie stopped her crying fits - definitely separation anxiety about sleeping in her own bed. Maybe we get the happy baby back today that we started out with yesterday morning.

I just realized, with the excitement of getting ready for Mackenzie’s arrival I forgot about writing about the progress of the wine. As I wrote briefly here, we are making our first two real batches of wine this year. The first is a classic apple wine. A local favorite. The other will hopefully turn out to be a gooseberry desert wine.

Last weekend the wine has rested on the dead yeast cells long enough - fermentation has been over for roughly a week prior. We filled the young wine  into secondary vessels where the rest of the yeast and other particles can settle on the bottom. The wine will remain like this until about Christmas, when we will repeat the whole process. That time around we get to see if the gooseberry wine needs a treatment with Agar-Agar to take additional impurities out.

Professional winemakers might be using filtration at this stage to make the wine ready for bottling quicker - but that’s not the way we do things around here.