Congratulations!

Last week the anti-Owen was born to our friends Tracey and Nathan. Satya Effie Cook was born several days early in the Southern hemisphere after a two-hour labor involving no drugs. The only commonality between the two births is that neither Tracey nor I got dessert the night labor began (though Tracey at least got dinner).

For those of you that don’t know the Cooks, Tracey is one of my college roommates. After college graduation she went to teach English in Japan for a year where she fell in love first with Asia and then with an Australian adventurer named Nathan. Together they organized the trip to Bali where Allen and I got engaged. They had their son Kailash in India, got married in Thailand and had Satya in Australia.

Satya’s arrival is a bit of a relief for us as so far, all of our friends that have had kids in the past year have had boys (Kelly & Channing, Bill & Katherine, Teresa & Mike, my cousin Joyce & Brian, my cousin Katie & Dennis all recently had sons, and our friends Eric & Kathryn and Allen’s cousin Thomas & Jen are all expecting sons in December) making the perpetuation of the species, let alone Owen’s dating prospects, worrisome (not that we would advocate Owen dating any of his second cousins). Satya’s appearance suggests that maybe the winds are shifting and gender equanimity will return, though it would be convenient if they shifted stateside.

Oh well, there’s always Suri Cruise…