Erik's Blog

To take a break from the 517th Annual Arrival Festival, we walked up to the Monte Real Castle that looks out over the Baiona harbor and also towards the Atlantic Ocean. It houses the Parador de Baiona, which is a ritzy four-star hotel and restaurant. A double room with a view is only 266€ per night! Their marketing video is very well done. What had been an overcast day opened up and shed sunlight on most of our visit to the little peninsula fortress. Once we got up to admire the view, we found a stone bench to sit, and then lie, down on for a short siesta in the sunshine. All that walking, wine and octopus really knocked me out. So I can honestly say that I slept at the Parador de Baiona. Cat nap over, we continued all along the castle walls. Medieval castles are a lot of fun.
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On Saturday, March 6, 2010, I attended the 517th annual Fest da Arribada (“Arrival Festival” in the Galician language) in Baiona, Galicia. In the port of that small town, 517 years ago, on March 1, 1493, a boat called La Pinta returned to Spain bringing news of a New World to the west, filled with bizarre mostly naked humans, corn, potatoes, peppers, tobacco, tequila and cowboys. It was the first of Christopher Columbus’ ships to return, and, should your childhood textbooks be believed (they absolutely should not!), the first proof that the Earth was not round. Normally Spaniards need little to no provocation to have a celebration, so there’s been no stopping this party for half a millennium!
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Well, Nora, yesterday was your last cumplemes that we’re going to celebrate. From now on, it’s just once a year. We weren’t going to do much of a party this time, but in the morning your Aunt Belén called and informed me that she was bringing your grandmother and great-grandfather to see you for your 11 month birthday…and that they expected there to be hamburgers!
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This morning Nora was looking particularly cute, and I was itching to put the flash back on my camera and take some photos. The result was a little impromptu portraiture session starring a little blond-haired blue-eyed lass sitting lazily on the sofa.
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Now more interactive than ever, Nora is about at the stage of awareness of a pet dog…who can be taught to do tricks. Her current tricks include clapping and spitting. Also demonstrated in the video is her current fascination with zippers. Zippers are fun because they have the little handle that jingles a bit, and they vibrate a little in your hand when you move them up and down the track. I have a hard time keeping her attention on my face when I wear a jacket with a zipper down the front.

I love the sun, but there’s nothing like a sunbeam coming through the window to make you feel like you live in a big dust cloud. At first I didn’t like the fact that I shot the video through a sun beam, but it does help demonstrate that she’s actually spitting (for extra spittle, try viewing in HD!).
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Yesterday morning, Nora was exceptionally well behaved. After breakfast (she’s most docile after a meal) I set her on the floor in the living room and did my “toss a toy to the other side of her and leave the room before she notices” Batman exit. She remained there playing alone without complaint for 45 minutes (and she’s doing it again today as I type) while I trimmed my RSS feed and got some stuff done around the house. When she couldn’t take it anymore, I put her in the walker and wheeled her into the kitchen so she could watch me do the dishes. As I was scrubbing dishes, I was thinking about how wonderful her behavior was that morning, and how she wasn’t even complaining that I was ignoring her with the dishes. About that time my “maybe it’s too quiet” mammalian neurons fired and I spun around to see what she was up to. She had vanished!!
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Yesterday, I was informed that Nora was expected to be at daycare at 9:00 this morning, dressed all in white, and with moisturizing cream applied to her face so that her face could be painted and she could be dressed as a snowball and paraded around the streets of town. It’s the annual Carnival parade, the time of year when Spanish kids, who have never had the Halloween costume tradition that American kids enjoy, get to dress up as various adorable things and parade around looking cute. Since I’m always a good sport about trying out traditions of my adopted country, I was there at 9:05 sharp with Nora dressed all in white, and my camera and video camera with empty memory cards and full batteries.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about a recent golfing excursion to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA.

On Monday Erik decided to fly to the States and join the fun known as the Myrtle Beach Classic. Betsy picked him up at the Charlotte airport Tuesday afternoon, and I fed them both tacos and Rioja when they arrived in Morganton. On Wednesday morning, Erik and Betsy went to Grace Ridge so Erik could visit with his Grandfather, and a little before noon on Wednesday, Erik and I climbed into the well-loaded van and headed for Myrtle Beach. On the way, we picked up Jeff in Hickory, along with his clubs, his suitcase, his guitar, his sleep machine, a case of beer, and his bongo drums. Jeff took his normal position in the van’s driver’s seat, I moved over to shotgun position, and with Erik in the back, we had a pleasant and uneventful trip to the ocean.
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Last Saturday night, two participants in the Myrtle Beach Classic 2010 went out on the town for a crazy night out. Have you ever woken up after a night of drinking and discovered photos on your camera that you didn’t remember taking? Or how about having a friend steal your camera from you and try to take the weirdest photos he can? Well, that’s what happened last Saturday. Ryan took Jacob’s camera and went a little crazy. I wasn’t present, but it’s fun to follow their evening from bar to bar through the photographs. Surprisingly, some of them are quite good photography, creative subjects and skilled framing.
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I wasn’t going to go on my annual golf outing this year for parenting reasons, mainly because I couldn’t leave Marga alone with the little primate beast for a full week. But then, at the last minute, my mother-in-law got sick; just the right amount of sick that she got time off work and was able to care for Nora. After double checking with my work and The Committee that hosts the event, I decided at the very last minute (16 hours before the flight) to go. Let me just say that it’s true what the psychologists say: Decision is the secret to unhappiness. There’s nothing like making a major decision (and this was only a week’s vacation, not moving to another country or anything) to make one miserable. However, once the decision was made, I immediately began to enjoy the trip. I was naively surprised to discover that me dumping Nora off on my in-laws was more of a favor than a burden. They were elated!
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