Week-End, and Origins of the name Seva

Another Memorial Day weekend in the books.  Jeannie, Seva, and I just got back from visiting Mita and Eric.  We had dinner together there: hot dogs, baked beans, and corn on the cob.  Our dessert was muffins topped with ice cream (my combo being double chocolate chip muffin topped with vanilla ice cream).

While there, my friend Shay called me back.  Jeannie, Seva, and I took a drive to New Jersey on Saturday afternoon and I stopped by a house in Cherry Hill, where the online white pages indicated Shay may live.  Luckily I was right.  His wife answered the door and chatted with Jeannie and me for a few minutes, catching me up on a few details of Shay's life.  Unlucky for me, though, Shay himself wasn't there, so I left my personal business card with his wife and she gave his cell phone number to me.  The connection was completed when he called me tonight.  And I hope to complete the circle when we, hopefully, get together some time soon.  During our short conversation tonight, he said that I was "like a brother" to him, which made me very happy.  I was very happy to hear his voice, for the first time in many years.  And I hope to see him within the next month, so we can finally catch up and renew our friendship.

Now, since it's still early in Seva's life, I want to tell the story of how we chose her name.  Jeannie had shared with me early in the pregnancy that, at some point when she was younger, in college if I recall correctly, she had a dream in which her daughter's name was revealed to her.  The name revealed was Evelyn.  So, Jeannie carried that name with her as she got older and kept it in mind as a name for her daughter.  I listened to Jeannie's story with an open mind.  I wasn't sold on the name Evelyn, but it was early in the pregnancy, so I didn't judge or decide, I just let it be.  At some time later, perhaps about halfway through the pregnancy, after Jeannie had told me that she was open to considering other names, I thought to myself about our daughter's mixture, namely racially and culturally in heritage and ancestry and I wanted to identify a name that somehow captured that worldliness.  I also thought about my own name, which is short and simple, but also unique, that is, not common in American culture.  I wanted to identify a name that also captured that simplicity, but otherness that I was looking for.  So one night, while here at home (in the same spot where I'm typing this now), I went on to Google maps to look at a map of France to look at names of towns and villages, hoping that one might grab my attention.  I started around Paris, zoomed in pretty far so I could catch names of many of the smaller villages too.  Nothing grabbed my eye, so I slowly scrolled south, south, south, until I got to the Mediterranean Sea, where I slowly panned down the coast, until I crossed the border into Spain, right around Barcelona, when I noticed the village name "Seva."  I liked it immediately.  I opened another tab to Google the name Seva and it came up with a disambiguation page on Wikipedia (here), which showed that the name also refers to selfless service, volunteer work, and work offered to God. That sealed the deal.  I loved the name from that moment.  So I called Jeannie, without telling her the name, and asked her to look on the map to see if she would identify the same name as I had.  She couldn't find it or she completely overlooked it, I'm not sure which one.  After several minutes, and feeling disappointed, I showed the name to her.  I told her not to make a decision, but just to let the name sink in and add it into consideration.  I'm pretty sure I explained the other meanings of the word and my logic leading up to it (in line with what I just wrote above).  Months went by, the pregnancy went on until the end.  I never brought it up again, although internally I was definitely pulling hard for the name Seva.  Jeannie brought it up a handful of times, showing that she was certainly considering it and I think testing it out as your name, but I never responded one way or the other.  I wanted to make sure that she wasn't led to the decision, but instead reached it on her own.  As I recall, it wasn't until the moment you were born, when the midwife or nurse asked for your name, I looked at Jeannie and she said "Seva," and I wholeheartedly agreed.  I love the name.  And in the 6 weeks since you've been born, we've gotten a lot of positive reaction to the name, making me love it even more.

Weekend Update

Friday, March 14, 2014
I left work early to come home, get changed, get the car, pick-up Jeannie from work, and drive north on I-95 to get to Philly's northern suburbs to Cozy Tots, a semi-annual consignment sale for baby stuff.  My friend Tobin, who recommended the baby flea market to me, said that he and his wife Sharlenn had gotten stuff worth nearly $1k for only $300.  Since the event was cash-only, Jeannie and I each hit the ATM hard in anticipation for the event.  You can imagine our disappointment at only getting $26 worth of goods.  Part of it was that traffic on I-95 was so bad that we arrived at Cozy Tots about 30 minutes after the doors opened, just long enough to possibly miss out on the best stuff.  The other part of it, though, is that Jeannie's dad has done an amazing job at already getting so much of the big stuff that we need, and additionally people like Johnny (the door guy at 42 South 15th Street) and Mary (our building's cleaning lady) gave gifts that were totally unexpected.  So, even before going to the baby sale, we were already stocked up on a lot of important gear.

I was feeling pretty frustrated at the heavy traffic and my inability to get us to the event on time, as well as our lack of success.  So, I decided (unilaterally and in my own head) to take us to Manayunk for dinner.  I mentioned it to Jeannie shortly after we pulled out of the parking lot and she was on-board.  So I drove south on Route 611 to Route 1, which I took south to Ridge Avenue, which took me to Main Street Manayunk.  We found a parking spot on the Philly end of Main Street, then walked most of the length of Main Street to the suburban-facing end, where we arrived at Taqueria Feliz.  I had been jonesing for some Mexican food for a while, at least a couple months, and this place really hit the spot.  Feeling up for a hit of alcohol, I ordered a Margarita Feliz with salt on the rim of the glass.  We also got an order of guacamole and chips before we left the bar for our table.  I ordered enchiladas de pollo with a really delicious mole sauce.  To end the meal, we also ordered churro-flavored ice cream.  All in all, it was a great meal.  I would totally go back.

Saturday, March 15, 2014
I had a speaking engagement at the Community Hospital in Chester, PA on Saturday morning.  My friend Laura had invited me to come out to speak to a group of Spanish-speaking mothers who meet once per month to discuss all sorts of issues that effect them.  Jeannie was nice enough to join me, which really did make me happy.  Before leaving on our short car ride, this time heading south on I-95, I stopped at La Citadelle for a large cup of coffee for the road.  Once again we hit a little bit of traffic, totally unexpected at this time of day, and so a bit unnerving, but we got there only a minute or two past 10am.  Not wanting to be late, I was somewhat happy that none of the guests were there yet.  We didn't start until around 10:40am, after only three women showed up.  It was fine with me though.  I felt honored just to be there and get a chance to teach some custody law to some people that probably wouldn't normally have the opportunity to get that kind of information.

On the way back, I dropped off Jeannie at the DMV at 8th & Arch Streets to officially change her state-issued identification card to match my last name (and thus, prepare ourselves to all share our family name with the impending arrival of our daughter).  I drove home, where I met Jeannie's dad and he and I put together the crib.  Then, after I ate a quick lunch, we left to pick-up Jeannie outside of Reading Terminal Market and we went to Ikea to pick out (after a long walk through the store) a platform bed frame with storage for Jeannie's bed in the baby's room.  We had just enough time to drop it off at home before we left for dinner.

We had a birthday dinner for Jeannie at Marrakesh, just off of South Street.  Along with Jeannie and I, of course, were Jeannie's dad and his good friend, Carol, along with Jeannie's high school friend, Cathy and her husband Aiden.  We enjoyed the seven-course meal, although the music was definitely a bit too loud, especially since Jeannie's dad is hard of hearing.  And, speaking for myself at least, I enjoyed the belly dancer who came through to perform for our dining room.  All in all, it was a really nice experience.

Afterward, Cathy and Aiden came back with us to our place to check it out, look at some photos, and just hang out for a little while before they headed back to their hotel in Mount Laurel, NJ.

Sunday, March 16, 2014
Although Jeannie and I could have both used a day to sleep in, we couldn't do so because we had Sunday mass at St. Charles Borromeo at 9:30am.  Right when Jeannie and I stood up to walk up to the altar (for Jeannie to receive her blessing and for me to receive communion), I put the sealed envelope, with my birthday card to Jeannie inside, on Jeannie's spot on the pew.  When we returned, Jeannie noticed it and I encouraged her to open it and read it there, while I said my usual prayers and thanks to God.  I realized that Jeannie had started to cry from reading it; it made me happy, because what I wrote came directly from the heart.  I'm glad that she could feel in that moment how much I love her.

After mass, we walked north to Chestnut Street to catch a 42 bus heading east across town, to get us to my mom's house, where we met Mita, Eric, and Jessica for a brunch of blueberry French toast, sausage, and coffee.  We hung out for about an hour and a half, then came back home to begin the long process of errands and clean-up.  We all played different roles in assembling Jeannie's bed frame, watering the plants, sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, and running the vacuum.  At one point, I ran out by myself to do some food-shopping at Trader Joe's.  And towards the end, Jeannie helped Jess to edit her resume.  By the time Jess and Jeannie's dad left for their respective car rides northwards to their homes, Jeannie and I walked to visit our friends Corey and Laura for a birthday / St. Patrick's Day dinner there.

Corey and Laura had slow-cooked in a crock pot some meat, rutabaga, carrots, and cabbage.  Overall, it was a very tasty meal, especially the meat, which was very nicely seasoned with spices.  We watched the Selection Sunday show on television while we chatted.  After dinner, we each ate a mint chocolate cupcake that I had bought at Trader Joe's to have as a birthday dessert for Jeannie.  Luckily, Corey and Laura had birthday candles, so we were able to light them up and sing "happy birthday" to Jeannie.  Despite feeling pretty tired from the weekend as a whole, it was really great to see and spend time with our friends.

After getting home, I somehow mustered the energy to shave and give myself a haircut, then even do a little bit of reading before hitting the sack around 11:30pm.  It was a long and fruitful weekend.  And it was totally worth it.

Good day today

I'll keep this short, since it's getting late.  Highlights of the day:

1) Helping a humble man, client M.D., by going with him to personally file a motion for special relief at the clerk of family court this afternoon.  We had a nice conversation about God, church, and his relationship with his son, whose mother had denied him access for the past two weeks.  Mr. D. needed our help now, since the name on the caption was his Muslim name, while he now uses his birth name again.  Taking a nice, easy stroll on such a beautiful day, and for such a good cause for a good man, was a great feeling.

2) Having a good, long conversation just now with Mita.  We talked about my relationship with Jeannie and I also told her a lot about my conversation with Father Ed.  I don't often get to talk with Mita like that, but I'm very happy when I do.

3) Oh, and I had a pretty good work-out at the gym earlier this evening: dumbbell incline bench press; dumbbell triceps kick-backs; dumbbell bicep curl and press; and barbell bench press.  As you can see, it was very focused on chest, bi's, and tri's.  Good stuff.  When I got home, I even did a final set of push-ups.

Now, hopefully I'll get a good night's sleep tonight...