Homeward Bound

We're back home now. The jet lag, they say, is a lot easier coming West, but the winds aren't. What took us 14 hours on the way out was closer to 17 on the way back, about 7 of which The Dragon Boss spent on my chest, mostly sleeping, but also burrowing his face into my buttons and swinging it back and forth every ten or so minutes, or every time I moved the slightest bit, which couldn't have been all that restful.

Baleen slept most of the flight, thankfully, as our teamwork meant I got the plane, she got the first day back, as it's been about 36 hours since I last slept. I watched a little of the movie on the plane as that's all the space would allow.

It's going to be a quiet New Year's Eve here in the Mission suburbs. We're trying as hard as we can to stay up past 7pm and Baleen's found just the cure, Lena Dunham's Girls. Season 1 is on iTunes and rather than reflect about all the great events in 2012, recent and over 9 months old now, we're just going to watch a few 20-somethings struggling to grow up in Brooklyn.

The Alps

The Dragon Boss took his first trip to Neuschwanstein yesterday as all 9 month old children should, skipping in and out of Austria along the way to make it three countries he's visited though, thanks to Jean Monnet, his passport only shows two.

He saw Pumpkin arrive, as welcome is too strong a word, because though he came bearing gifts of pecans, chocolate and an English duck, TDB still hasn't smiled at the dark-haired man.

Papa, Uncle Margarine and I treated him a little better, though, as we got what will most likely be our final day of skiing in today, at Garmisch-Classic. We spent most of the day on the famous Kandahar run that goes from near the top of the mountain all the way into town. The 770 meter elevation drop, spread over 3km of trail, took us from heavy snow on top to rain at the very bottom, which made for some very tired legs, forcing first Papa, despite his lunch of animal lard on schwarzbrot and then the 3 of us to call it a day just before the last lift closed.

Christmas

We set up Secret Santas for Christmas, ensuring that the gifts under the tree didn't bankrupt us from their undiscounted price and for the fees we'd have to pay United to cart it all back home, but those rules didn't apply to The Dragon Boss. Everybody was to give him a gift with instructions not to scrimp on the wrapping paper, according to Marmee. Oh, the joys of the inverted pyramid, where two generations are all focused on one little offspring.

Breakfast and presents took us to just about noon - TDB doesn't yet display the urgency or ability in unwrapping Christmas presents that he'll soon develop - and we headed out to the Ski Jump for an Uncle Margarine led walk up to the Partenkirchen Gorge, rebranded as the Ski Stadion excursion when we learned the Gorge was closed due to ice.

The real gift came at dinner, deep into downtown Parternkirchen, the town where Uncle Margarine isn't welcome, he says. There was tradtional Bavarian dancing, Bavarian music, and, even more traditional, big Bavarian beers, pear schnapps, and copious amounts of pork and potatoes. Styles change slightly over time, too, with dirndl hemlines rising and falling an inch here or there, or lederhosen reaching below the knee, but what nobody was prepared for, and everybody loved, was the 6 foot, big bosomed transvestive brought in to play the Christmas bells.

Papa's Birthday

The mountains are for alpine activity. Even if you don't have own a bobsled or have access to the ski jump, there's downhill and cross-country. With the snow level rising all the way to 2,000 meters in the warm weather, that just left the Zugspitz, with its 40cm of new snow and one way up the mountain, the Zugspitzbahn, once an hour with stops at Garmisch, Kreuzeck, a few other places, and, lastly, Grainau.

For Papa's birthday, one of the last notable ones where you and I now bear the cost of his medical care, there was the annual cross-country race, but in less competitive circumstances. Papa was a little sick, Uncle Margarire was in lawyer shape, Baleen told us she'd take care of the Dragon Boss and meet us along the course, and Aunt Wizzie and Marmee weren't in danger of winning. So Shrimp Jr and I decided to be social, skiing with the group and then away from them, but finishing next to each other after doing an additional loop to Untergrainau.

Tomorrow's Christmas. Hopefully we've got another few years of TDB sleeping through the night before he's banging on our doors at 5am telling us not to shower and to, Get out here, NOW.

Munich, x2

It's been a house of 6 for the first 4 nights, just Papa and Marmee down in the dungeon, The Dragon Boss, Aunt Shrimp Jr, and Baleen and me on the second floor, but we all piled back in the Ford for the trip to Munich to pick up Uncle Margarine and Aunt Wizzie.

The weather's warmed due to some massive cold front over Russia, keeping the warm air over us, which means we'll have to travel higher for snow, maybe above 2,000 meters, eliminating Lermoos. It also means that the famous Munich Chriskindlmarkt is soggy.

It also means that Baleen, TDB and I will be taking the train home, leaving our spots for aunts, uncles and their luggage, and that we'll get to see if TBD loves the train as much as his dad does.

Nights, Interrupted

Let's not talk about the nights, they've been active for all 3 of us, and anybody else who wakes up at the sound of The Dragon Boss' cries, the attending footsteps, or the clatter in the kitchen as we preapre a bottle, except to say they've been manageable and within expectations, especially considering TBD's parents have had extreme jet lag, too, waking up at 2am on our own each morning, the difference being we can recognize what's happening and why it is we're in an unfamiliar room.

Let's talk about the days, like cross-country skiing from Garmisch to Grainau to Obergrainau, all the while the Zugspitz appearing larger and larger, until we turned around and it got smaller and smaller.

Or the drive into Austria to ski Lermoos, still within sight of the Zugspitz, where Baleen kept up her consecutive streak of goulash lunches, two, going on three, in 20 cm of new snow.

Or the kilograms of pork and knudlen we've consumed on our first three nights, all of which TDB has shared with us from a high chair at the table, a new and welcome experience for the parents of a child with a 9:30pm bedtime. 9:30 to about 2:30am, that is.

Deutschland

We're here. Deutschland, that is, after 14 hours on 2 planes, the second of which was Lufthansa with meals that one likes to eat, and the bulkhead middle row of 4 adults, 3 babies and 7 pacifiers.

The contained space was tough for The Dragon Boss and his parents, not in the predictable way, that he was one of those babies who wouldn't stop crying from wheels up to wheels down, but like you've just pulled an all nighter preparing for a midterm, then slipped on the ice on the way out of the auditorium and been told by the doctor that you have to stay awake for the next 12 hours. TDB just didn't stop moving.

But we're here, TDB has his first stamp, we've gone straight from Munich to the mountains, and we're ready for the first night's challenge: baby jet lag.

Gute Fahrt

It sounds better when the French say it, Bon Voyage, but we're not going to Chamonix. It's Garmisch, or if you're from Germany, Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Try and spell that without looking.

It's held the Winter Olympics, back in 1936, and almost in 1940 before the IOC wisened up, and we intend to do some skiing there. A lot of it, in fact, as long as Marmee and Papa, already there and telling us how cold it is, don't mind babysitting while the sun's still up (and just before it rises if it's looking like a powder day).

But with the weather as cold as it is - and we can translate Celsuis to Fahrenheit, it's still cold - The Dragon Boss needed a little more protection. So we went back to Patagonia and 600 count goose down for the little guy. We promise not to make him wear it on the plane on Sunday, just almost every day thereafter.

The Bay

There's a lot of evenings at home now with The Dragon Boss, but if you want to meet for an early breakfast, say around 7am, we'll be there. Our Saturday social schedule has moved up about 5 hours. No more brunches at noon.

And when the weather's nice, especially when it isn't supposed to be, like in mid-December, and just after it's been bad, we'll be out. It's for Baleen and me, really, as TDB might just like to stay home and crawl on anything in sight, but we need a little sunshine and something more to do than see what's on Hulu.

Plus, Cooper said he wanted to see TDB and we hadn't been to the Marina in ages and when we were last there, we certainly hadn't gotten a picture on a day like this.

Commuter's Choice

There's a new twist to my evening commute home. Where I used to turn off Market onto Valencia from the left of the three lanes, jumping across two lanes of traffic with all the other bikers, the city has put in a turn lane and a light just for bikers.

There's a catch though. To make a left you've got to make a right as it's a jug-handle turn, as Dario's dad and anybody esle from New Jersey who's driven down Route 1 trying to make a left hand turn will know.

The other catch is that it takes longer, first by waiting out the light at Valencia in the bike lane and then becuase by waiting all but a juiced Lance are forced to miss the timed light at Duboce. But to get home to TBD and Baleen, I'll trade safety over 60 more seconds any day.

Rain

It's raining in the city, bringing with it all that that means, like snow in Tahoe, caution before surfing or swimming in the Bay with all the run-off - not that I've been in a few months - and the detritus that washes down city streets.

Up in the Haight it's probably needles and Ben and Jerry napkins, down in the Marina it's Starbucks cups and Clif Bar wrappers, in the Mission it's cigarettes and iPod shuffles, but in the Mission suburbs, in the southeast shadow of Sutro Tower, it's what children leave behind.

Patagonia

It took me 32 years to get my third piece of Patagonia clothing, including that above the ankle pair of wool hiking socks; it's taken The Dragon Boss 9 months.

After all, we do live in the Mission suburbs where it's almost a uniform for the neighborhood tots. Plus, Baleen does most of the procuring, with plenty of help from grandparents and other relatives so his early start is no surprise.

It's irrational, I know, especially as the longevity argument doesn't work. TDB will never, ever, ever wear it out, thus allowing us to send it down to Ventura for a free replacement before he grows out of it, but he does look darn good in it so I'm sure the fourth isn't too far away.

1st Holiday Party

The abundance of firsts are coming to an end as The Dragon Boss comes within sight of a year. This weekend's first was his first holiday party at the home of the Kiwi and the local, our Mission suburb neighbors.

TDB got all dressed up in his holiday gear, which is the first fancy dress (as in attire, not dress like a girl or that thing he wore at Easter) that I like. You'll see it again, or at least some San Franciscans will because in our holiday circuit, we'll be seeing some of you again (and again). This isn't jury duty or the DMV.

While it would have been nice to stay out a bit later, have a few more drinks and walk home in a roundabout way, having TDB with us, I think, introduced us to more people than we might otherwise have met as everybody likes talking to a baby, especially when he's so well behaved and the only one there.