Hey, DCistas! I'm posting in Beep Me, because the DCistas list is frelled. I've posted to our old DCLocalistas list in Yahoo, but I know that a lot of folks aren't subscribed there, so I wanted to make sure that everyone knew. Anyhoo, Suzi is going to be in town! Well, Centerville, but close enough!

Suzi will be in town this/next week and is looking to do our classic Buffista dinner. After the debacle at Zaytinya, I'd suggest we find another dinner locale. Right now, Suzi is booked Monday with work, I'm booked Wednesday and Thursday. So, thus far, we're looking at Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.

I was thinking somewhere fun like Bistrot du Coin (http://www.bistrotducoin.com/)

Also, Suzi would love to do some small group/one on one stuff too, so email her if you're interested.

If you're interested in dinner, e me at my profile addy with which days are good for you.

If folks have any spare health~ma laying around, I'd like to request good thoughts beamed my mom's way. She's been feeling vaguely under the weather for some weeks now, and it's intensified to full-on exhaustion and a variety of other now-you-see-them-now-you-don't symptoms in the last week. Mom's doctors have ruled out most of the big scary stuff of a common nature, but we're still waiting on more tests to find out what's actually going on and hopefully suggest an avenue of treatment. Any wishes of good health would be greatly appreciated.

Mattias James was born at 2:16am this morning after his mother made it through almost 35 hours of labor. (Needless to say, neither the GF nor I got much sleep the last few days) He weighs 7 pounds, 2.2 ounces and is 21 inches long. His names of Mattias and James are after my grandfather and the GF's grandfather, respectively. Both the baby and his exhausted mother are doing well, though little Mattias had a fever and some breathing trouble when he was born, and will have to remain in the hospital's Special Care Nursery for a week while the doctors give him a run of antibiotics for the fever and ween him off of extra oxygen so he can start breathing normal air. The GF and I have paid him several visits in the SCN and he seems healthy and happy for a baby who has his head in a bubble.

He's also got big hands and a good grip. With any luck he'll have not inherited my lack of coordination and has a future as a basketball star ahead of him.

I'll upload pictures in the near future, but for now I'm going to bed.

Mattias is off of oxygen now and his mother and I were actually able to hold him today. Unfortunately, he's not able to keep breastmilk or formula down at the moment, so they're feeding him via IV for the time being but are hopeful he'll take to real "food" soon.

Otherwise he's doing really well and we're looking forward to bringing him home on Friday.

In the meantime, I've uploaded all the pictures (and a video. I decided to give my camera's video feature a try) to here:

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We didn't want to get him hooked on a pacifier, but with him away from his mother for the early hours and him not able to feed normally, the nurses didn't have much of a choice. Unfortunate, but not the end of the world and it does make for a cute video.

If any Buffistas have a IMDB pro membership could you ping me?

(My step-mother needs to reach her cousin for a family matter. She is away from home and does not have her address book. Said cousin is an actor. I'm trying to find who his Agent is so we can leave a ms. with the agent)

Thanks!

E and I are on our way to the hospital now, and will be mostly offline until the Littlest Alter makes his appearance into the world.

But because I am just that kind of giant nerd, I will probably be posting (or making E post for me) updates on Twitter anyway:

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The first blurry cameraphone baby pics will be posted to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/alterjess/) as soon as we take some.

And if you have my cell #, you can call and talk to either me or E or my sister, or my voicemail, depending on how in labor I am and who happens to be holding my phone at the time.

Long story short - every single pregnant woman in Brooklyn today went into labor, and there were no beds available for induction patients. We waited 8 hours at the hospital for a room to open up, and eventually came home. Will be going back to try again tomorrow.

We're at the hospital and Jess has been admitted to a room this time. Contractions have begun on their own. More info to come!

Travel-ma for an old kitty, please? Legion is wheels-up from Athens. It will be a long flight for him, with a couple transfers, so please think good thoughts about him making his connections and doing well on the flight.

I think he's achieved true diplocat status - the Ambassador mentioned Legion's departure at the embassy senior staff meeting.