we have a phone!

What's it been--like almost 2 months! You wouldn't believe what it took to get a land-line here. I won't bore you with details--I'll just say it was quite elaborate. This could be an example of the 'Northern Charm with Southern Efficiency' thing I heard about with D.C. Other than our phone, my experience has been Northern Efficiency with Southern Charm. So--we'll see! We also just got new cell numbers with a local area code. So--we're becoming more acclimated and feeling more like residents every day.

My mom loves it here. She loves the feeling of history. She thinks it's cool that people like Marcia--my mom's friend with Lupus, have come here to testify to Congress about the issues surrounding their lives. She's impressed with the kinds of opportunities people have to make a difference, and this is a major place where that happens. Did you know they have a homeless soccer league here?

I have to agree with her about the weather. It's been a pleasant surprise. Sunny 95% of the time. When it rains, it's very dramatic, and only for like 10 minutes. And it hasn't really been as hot as I expected.

It does feel a lot more like PITTSBURGH to me than a Southern city like Raleigh. I know intellectually that it's totally different than any other city. It just has some enthusiastic Steeler fans, and it's evident what years the city had economic booms based on the architecture and development.

It definitely has the feeling of just having evolved randomly, rather than being intentionally planned. I had been sort of sad, feeling like we moved to an icky neighborhood--for our temporary house--but after seeing the rest of the city, our area is actually quite nice for DC.

Some stuff feels way more advanced technologically and sociologically--and other things feel like surprisingly primitive for a world-class city of such importance. I've already mentioned they actually have rolled out internet grocery purchases, and Dave's work access to the computing system at Thomson is super sophisticated--compared to Microsoft! Crazy. On the other hand, the radio station--the main NPR one here is run so haphazardly that you'd think high-school students were managing the segments.

I feel about 8,000,000 times better about the idea of giving birth because of the Hypnobirthing classes I've been taking to prepare for natural childbirth. It will be a real accomplishment if I can actually do it without pain medication. We shall see!

I also decided to have the baby at a local hospital--because their birthing center is so awesome. Dave can room in with me--and stay for as long as he likes--3 days even. It has real furniture, a real extra bed for Dave, and the baby gets to room-in with us too.

It could happen any day now! I guess I should pack our bags for the hospital!

We miss you! Email us at schleiferkin@gmail.com.