Busy Weekend

Eric and Jill asked us to go to the Kelso Highland Games Festival with them last weekend, so on Saturday we got in the car and drove North. We had gotten a phone call from David on Friday telling us that Oskar was born, so the plan was to spend Saturday at the games with Eric and Jill, and then drive up to Tacoma to see Oskar (and Dave and Rose). I guess we were more scatter-brained than usual, however. In our haste to go see our nephew, we left the house without my toothbrush, Annie’s neck pillow, and our camera.

The festival was a lot of fun. Gavin wasn’t super interested, so Eric was off with him for most of the day, so we ate bangers and mash with Jill, and watched the burly Scots compete in the greatest sports ever - The Weight Toss and the Caber Toss.

The Weight Toss is kind of like pole-vaulting, except instead of hurling yourself over a bar using a pole, you stand under the bar and grab a 57 pound weight with a big steel ring, swing it between your legs, and heave it over your head, and over the bar. Qualifying opened at 9 feet, and the final three got all the way to 14 feet before they started faltering.

The Caber Toss is even cooler. Basically, you grab a phone pole (roughtly 100 pounds and 17 feet long), lean it against your shoulder, run forward and throw it up in the air. Ideally, it flips all the way over, the top of the caber hits the ground, and the bottom flips around and lands facing straight away from you. You are judged on accuracy, not distance or height.

Athletes in the highland games tend to be heavyset guys with a bit of a gut, but there were a few muscle-bound guys from the gym. The worst part was the announcer, who bellowed into the mic every time someone dropped a caber “OH IT LOOKS LIKE GRAVITY GOT THAT ONE.” As if gravity somehow didn’t grab the others. After the 20th time he told us that Gravity had grabbed another one, we were ready to choke him on his own microphone.

After the games, we got to see Darby O’Gill play, which was great. I’ve had a CD of theirs since an old employer of mine introduced me to them. They’re a local Irish band, who play upbeat drinking songs in pubs all over town. We saw them once a couple of years ago, but it was pretty disappointing. There weren’t many people there, and the set was pretty subdued. At the festival, they were more in their element, and had more fun. They’re playing at the Dublin Pub on Friday, and I’m going to try to talk some people into going with me to see them again.

On the way out, Jill bought their new album, and I bought their live CD, which matched up nicely with the new Flogging Molly album that Annie and I bought to listen to on our way to the Highland Games.

After the show, Annie and I were debating whether it was worth going home to get the camera, but we were saved by Mrs. Stockman, who called and asked me to help her buy a new digital camera before we went to the hospital to see Oskar. So, no longer needing to return to Portland, we proceeded on to Tacoma, and were pleasantly suprised to find Dave and Rose at the Stockfolks home. We talked to them for a couple hours, and then hit the sack.

The next day I went camera shopping with Mrs. Stockman (got her a Kodak 6.1 Megapixel camera, and a JVC MiniDV Camcorder for Dave), had lunch at Subway, and then dropped Annie off at Rose’s baby shower while Dave and Mr. Stockman and I went to the hospital to see Oskar.

The poor guy was five weeks early, so his lungs are a little under-developed, and you can see that he’s just working really hard to breathe. They’ve got him in the glass box, with an IV in his head for food, though they were feeding him through a different tube when I was there, and an oxygen tube in his nose. He’s really big for a premie (nearly 7 pounds), but he still looks tiny and discolored. He looks like he’s got bruises all over, but Dave said that’s just normal. He’s a little jaundiced, so they’re probably gonna stick him under the grow lights for a couple days.

Still, even confined to the box, it was awesome to see him, and see Dave interact with him (Oskar definitely knows his parents - he quit fussing the instant Dave touched him and started talking). I can’t wait to get to see more of him.