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Jason Crane Posts

Still no baby

Published 5 March 2006 by Jason Crane

It was back on February 10 that I wrote a post titled “We almost had a baby tonight.” Here it is, the 5th of March, and we still haven’t had the baby!

As happened with Bernie, Jen’s health has been an issue this time around. Her blood pressure has been quite high, which can be a sign of preeclampsia. So she’s been on bed rest for the last three weeks, which is annoying on its own. Why? Well, no two doctors have the same definition of “bed rest.” Doctor #1 said it meant lying in bed and getting up only to go to the bathroom. Doctor #2 said, “Most of my colleagues would prescribe bed rest, but there’s no evidence that it has any effect, so just take it easy.” And Doctor #3? “Bed rest means bed rest, but you shouldn’t just stay in bed. You can move around.” Got it?

Doctor #3 also made a 9-months-pregnant woman on bed rest wait for 45 minutes in his office until he showed up for our appointment on Friday. We’d already been at the hospital for 90 minutes before that for our weekly tests, too. Good stuff all around.

Not to mention that we picked this doctor (after our midwife plan was nixed) because he’s a family practitioner with an OB specialty. That means that he’ll be the guy who actually delivers the baby, rather than just getting whoever is on call. Except that he’s going on vacation on Friday, so he probably won’t be around when the baby’s delivered after all. If we’d had this doctor for the whole pregnancy, that might just be the luck of the draw. But we didn’t even get this guy until two weeks ago, and he knew he’d be on vacation.

This whole thing just needs to end. A nice, healthy baby. A happy, healthy mommy. And a less stressed me.

All that said, it’s still fantastic that the baby has had three more weeks in the womb than we expected. It’s over 7 pounds now, which is also really great. Bernie was 5 lbs 15 oz, and he was three weeks early. At this point, Baby #2 isn’t technically premature (just two weeks early), and the baby’s weight is fine.

Who knew having a baby could be so challenging? What’s that? You say everyone knew? Oh.

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Cuong Vu

Published 27 February 2006 by Jason Crane

Trumpeter Cuong Vu is playing at the Bop Shop tonight (27 Feb 06) at 8 p.m. Joining him will be bassist Stomu Takeshi and drummer (and Rochester native) Ted Poor. If you caught the trio at last year’s Rochester International Jazz Festival, you saw something really special. If you missed them in ’05, make sure you see them tonight!

Cuong Vu

I just downloaded the trio’s new record, It’s Mostly Residual, from cuongvu.com. This is Cuong’s Artist Share site, which is a cool new way of going behind the scenes with your favorite musicians. You can download a copy of the record, complete with cover art, charts, journal entries on the “making of,” and a whole lot more, for $9.95. For higher memebership levels, you get even more behind-the-scenes info. In any case, head over to the site and support this music by buying the record. And I’ll see you tonight at the Bop Shop, 174 N. Goodman St. in Village Gate.

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Sedition, Secession & Civil War — It’s Issue #7 of Flanders Family News!

Published 27 February 2006 by Jason Crane

As I’ve mentioned before, I publish the newsletter for the Flanders branch of my family. The newest issue is available now at flandersfamily.org, and you may find it interesting even if you and I aren’t related.

In this issue, we delve into the story of Francis D. Flanders and his brother Joseph R. Flanders. They published a newspaper in Franklin County, New York. They ran for and won elective offices.

And they were jailed by Abraham Lincoln.

That fascinating story, plus:

  • Bunny McLeod Graduates From College … at 65!
  • Flanders: The Ontario County Connection
  • The Mystery In Mt. Hope Cemetery
  • Flanders In Politics
  • Flanders In The News
  • …and more!

Please visit flandersfamily.org to download the newsletter.

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Cavett and the comedians

Published 26 February 2006 by Jason Crane

My good friend Otto Bruno has a review of the new DVD set The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends over at his site, ottobruno.com.

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King George’s flying circus

Published 24 February 2006 by Jason Crane

Here’s a nice video that combines a Monty Python tribute with a protest against the new budget proposed by G.W. Bush.

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Respect the review!

Published 24 February 2006 by Jason Crane

My good friends in the Respect Sextet have had their CD reviewed on popmatters.com. Coincidentally, the reviewer is also a good friend of mine, Jeff Vrabel. You can read more by Jeff at his Web site, and you can learn more about the Respect Sextet by visiting respectsextet.com.

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Sushi with a 3-year-old boy

Published 20 February 2006 by Jason Crane

Shiki

Bernie and I went out for sushi tonight at Shiki on Clinton Avenue in Rochester, and we had a wonderful time. He was in a great mood, and we really enjoyed every minute of the evening. To see him eat, you’d think he hadn’t been fed in about a week. He had four pieces of tamago sushi (egg sushi), four pieces of tatsuta age (a sort of Japanese fried chicken dish), two pieces of tekka maki (tuna sushi roll), and some miso shiru (miso soup.) Here are a few shots of the boy in action:

Bernie sushi 1

Bernie sushi 1

Shiki is Rochester’s best Japanese restaurant. There is no competition. Seriously. There are other Japanese restaurants, but none of them can hold even a tiny candle to Tanaka-san’s little masterpiece of an eatery. It’s probably the best Japanese food I’ve had outside of Japan, and believe me when I tell you that I’ve eaten sushi in big cities and small from coast to coast. Yesterday was Shiki’s second anniversary, so go over there and stuff yourself with some of the best food around.

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Supernatural Law

Published 19 February 2006 by Jason Crane

One of the sites I read every day is Mark Evanier’s News From Me, a blog about TV, movies, animation, comics and more. The other day, Mark linked to Supernatural Law, a comic strip about lawyers who represent the undead, monsters, and other unsavory characters. It’s hilarious, and it’s free, and you should be reading it right now!

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Hotel Workers Rising!

Published 18 February 2006 by Jason Crane

Hotel Workers Rising

Every day, in American and Canadian hotels, hundreds of thousands of men and women make the beds, cook the food, take out the trash, do the laundry, and clean the rooms. Most of these people make a non-living wage. Now, the union I work for, UNITE HERE, has launched Hotel Workers Rising, a campaign to raise the standard of living for all hotel workers, and to give more of those workers the benefits of a union. I urge you to visit the Web site and add your voice to those calling for fair treatment for hotel workers. Thanks.

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Bernie Crane, age 3

Published 15 February 2006 by Jason Crane

It’s been a while since I’ve put any pictures of my son Bernie up on the site. Here he is preparing to make a daring leap on the sofa:

Bernie jumpingAnd here he is playing his favorite drum:

Bernie drumming

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The Valentine’s Day scam

Published 15 February 2006 by Jason Crane

My son Bernie is 3 years old. Two days a week, he goes to a preschool class at the Monroe Avenue YMCA. Today, his class had a Valentine’s Day party, for which Bernie was required to bring in a Valentine card for every kid in the class. So last night, Dear Old Dad is out in the car after the proverbial hard day’s work, looking in vain for the last two packs of Valentine’s cards that aren’t shilling some brain-melting TV show or toy. I finally found just enough cards, although I had to trip an elderly woman to stop her from grabbing them first.

To add insult to injury, it was then up to Dear Old Dad to go home, get out the list of Bernie’s classmates, and sign all the cards and envelopes on his behalf. All while he’s sound asleep, I might add.

Can anyone explain to me what the point of that is?? We’ve already been scammed into a holiday created by the greeting card companies and probably subsidized by government largesse sucked from our pockets by the powerful Heart-Shaped-Box Lobby. Now I have to fill out greeting cards for kids who can’t read, so they can be the imaginary love interests of other kids who can’t read?

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More talent than I

Published 14 February 2006 by Jason Crane

Zuza 1

My friend Zuzanna Szewczyk gave her Master’s Degree recital today at the Eastman School of Music. She played Calendar Collections by Judith Lang Zaimont; Sonata In C Major, KV 330 by Mozart; Scherzo No.2 in B-flat Minor by Chopin; and nine of Chopin’s Etudes.

Zuza 2

This concert highlighted several important facts, including: (1) This music is hard to play; (2) Zuza has a lot more talent than I do; and (3) I would’ve lasted about 7.3 seconds at the Eastman School of Music.

She did a great job, and will soon be continuing on to get her doctoral degree. Huzzah!

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Norm!

Published 12 February 2006 by Jason Crane

The other day, a friend said this to me: “I’ve always run away from putting down roots, I think partly because I’m so desperate to have some.”

Exactly. I’ve moved more than 20 times so far, and I’ve always felt cut off from any particular “hometown,” except for Lenox, Massachusetts, where I lived until I was five. I still feel like I’m home whenever I’m there, even though most of my life has been lived elsewhere. The first person I dated had lived in the same house her entire life (about 15 years at that point). My sister lived in the same house from the age of 5 until she was 24. My parents have lived in the same house for the past 20 years.

All of that seems very odd to me. Or maybe it’s better to say that I can’t really relate to it. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to adapt to new surroundings. I find that I get the itch to move after I’ve lived somewhere for about a year.

I’ve now lived in Rochester for five and a half years. It’s almost impossible for me to leave the house without running into people I know. Every restaurant, every store, every concert, every bike ride. A few of those folks even like me, and more than 1,500 of them voted for me for city council. That’s just weird.

I started thinking of this today when I was at Palermo’s Meat & Food Market on Culver and Norton. Guy, the owner of the store, knows my family and me by name, as do several of the employees. While Bernie and I were in there today, we ran into my good friend Otto (don’t forget to check out his new site) and his son Frankie. A few minutes later, Otto’s brother came in. Everybody was chatting, laughing, telling jokes, ordering food from the deli counter, and just generally behaving in the way I always imagined adult life would be.

So what does that all mean? Does it need to mean anything? For one thing, it means that I have roots here in Rochester. I never expected that to happen. It also means that it’s still possible — if I make the effort — to live life meaningfully in a circle of people who care about me. That’s a great feeling. When we had our near-baby-event yesterday, we had friends and family close at hand who were willing to drop everything to help out.

I didn’t expect our life here to be like this, and I’m still trying to figure it all out. In the meantime, it’s cool to have friends.

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