Razing the Roof

The last few days have resulted in lots of pounding from up above. When it was done, the roofers asked me if I wanted to climb up a long ladder to approve their work. It was the first time I'd been on the roof of our house! I acted like I was experienced in such matters and approved. It looked like a nice roof.

Happy Birthday Silly Sister

It was my older (ha!) sister's birthday yesterday. I'm wishing her a happy birthday via blog TODAY to see if she is still checking this thing. She's the only person in my family that knows about my secret blog. A blog that is so secret that it is published for all the world to see.
My sister and I shared a room growing up, and once we got past the kicking and biting and scratching part in our tweens, we became great friends. We were even college roommates for a while, which worked out nicely and involved no kicking and scratching at all. However, there may have been a little rebellious rum drinking and cigarette smoking.

My sister and I share the same family coping mechanism -- responding to most things with hysterical laughter -- which provided us with long jags of giggling until our stomachs hurt. My father started to call us the Silly Sisters (who are actually a real musical act that I now know and love -- but not as much as I love my sister.)

Happy Birthday Silly Sister -- and don't tell mom I have a blog!

Catch 22

The only thing worse than being asked to interview someone in front of the entire company (that's right, can you believe that?) is to have it go so well that they ask you to do it "on a regular basis."

Oh really? That sounds uh, fun. Just because I did it once and didn't keel over from extreme fear & anxiety doesn't guarantee that it won't happen the next time. Anyone interested in placing bets?

I believe now is the time to move out of the country..or perhaps just hiding in the garage would do. Would sobbing and begging to get out of this be unprofessional?

Best 3 O'Clock Ever

After 20+ years of living in sin (yay) PVC & Simon decided to tie the knot and signed all the official documents for the happily ever after. Huzzah!

We were thrilled to attend their lovely rose garden ceremony, complete with Ronettes soundtrack, deviled eggs, doggies galore, cupcakes, the whole 3 o'clock crew and the multiple unwrapping of toasters. May the future be full of happy record buying, Dee Dee Ramona tennis ball tossing (and lots of punk rock love).

I Blame the Roller Derby

After cutting my bangs with the kitchen scissors a few days ago, I realized I am in desperate need of a hair cut -- a real one, from someone who knows what they are doing. I called my one and only favorite hair clipper professional and (gasp) was told that she was "out of commission".

If you don't have curly hair, you do not realize how hard it is to find someone who knows how to cut it. After a lifetime of bad haircuts that left me with a stylish round old lady perm style bubble head, I got into the habit of bringing a hat that I could put on as I fled the salon to get back home and curse whatever DNA strain I could blame for giving me this stupid headful of fuzzy.

Finally (!) I found someone who, even if can't perform transforming MIRACLES (dammit) at least they can smooth out my frizz (somewhat) and not scold me or ask any questions when I come in with uneven areas because I got frustrated and went at it with the kitchen scissors. Added bonus -- she likes good movies and music and travel so we have something more to discuss than the usual whatsitwhat gossiping girl things (of which I hate and will not discuss.)

When I called for an appointment, I was told my favorite clipper was having knee surgery and was "out of commission." If only she wasn't also a Roller Derby Girl and putting her life into danger on a weekly basis, I could be getting my hair cut instead of worrying about whether she has complete medical insurance coverage.

Abalone Farm

Highlight of the week -- visiting an Abalone Farm in Cayucos, CA.

MusicfestNorthWest

Back from Portland, Oregon -- and still groggy from four days of music, drink, food, music, coffee, music, drink and music at MusicfestNW. Highlights: sober Catpower, Viva Voce, Spoon, a live radio set from The Brunettes, Deerhunter (but Grizzly Bear scared the Chef -- how appropriate!), Damien Jurado, Jason Lytle, Okkervil River (despite the crowd frenzy), Holy Fuck!, Wolf Parade and a few other unintentional prog rock parodies. Here are some pictures before I fall asleep.

My new favorite indie pop band from New Zealand -- The Brunettes.

What more could you ask for...?

That's right, I take pictures of double shot espressos...

and Artificial Limb Companies.

Damien Jurado and xylophone playing friend Jenna Conrad - best set of the night.


Portland makes good use of all the trees.

and instead of tennis shoes, they toss up duck decoys to dangle.

Billy Was A No Show

When a gallery hosts an artist reception, wouldn't you assume that the "artist" would be there, sipping wine out of plastic glasses and schmoozing with future art buyers?

That lady with a big black marker (full of courage to ask for an autograph) clutching her "Heavens to Murgatroid, It's Thee Headcoats (Already)" lp with no Billy Childish in the place is a sad sight indeed. Not that this was me or anything.

Lucky thing that DJ Big Cookie saved the day by riding her bike over to the rescue to join us for drinks that led to singing songs about cats. Thank you DJ BC!

Whinging

Over the weekend I accused the Chef of mispelling "whining" as "whinging".

Of course he said, "No, I meant whinging, not whining."

When I gave him a funny look, he proved it to me:

FYI:"whinging" from general English dictionary and thesaurus provided bythefreedictionary.comwhinge (hwnj, wnj)intr.v. whinged, whing·ing, whing·es

Chiefly BritishTo complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.[Dialectal alteration of Middle English whinsen, from Old English hwinsian.]

URL: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whinging
whingeverb {I} whingeing or whinging
UK INFORMAL DISAPPROVINGto complain, especially about something which does not seem important:- Oh stop whinging, for heaven's sake!- She's always whingeing (on) about something.whingenoun {C usually singular}
UK INFORMAL DISAPPROVING- We were just having a whinge about our boss - nothing new.whingernoun {C}
UK INFORMAL DISAPPROVINGa person who complains continually

I think perhaps the Chef grew up in a small town in England or that he's a secret Harry Potter fan. Muggle alert!

Rock Mama Wedding Celebration

...but the real reason we headed back to Wisconsin last weekend was to celebrate the happy union of the glorious Rock Mama and Papa M (and the miraculous Miss Ruby Rose.)

Despite the unexpected delays, we grabbed our luggage (which arrived on Saturday morning) and headed down to Madison for the big party. It was the perfect excuse to hang out with dear friends, wear fancy duds and jump up and down in support of all the happiness bursting forth in Madison, WI. There was not a better reason to celebrate -- made even better with cake, Sprecher Amber, savory pie, vacumn tube magnets (!), Gomer-aoke (and more stuff, it's still a blur.)

Their cake gave birth to tiny cakes -- all aglow.

It was sure fun to watch the beaming Rock Mama. She jumped up and down A LOT with a big smile on her face. A LOT. Happy? YES!

If you think I'm exaggerating about her happy state, her wedding gomer-aoke selection was "WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS." Does it get any more victorious? I think not!

We had a great weekend -- sneaking in a visit with family, catching up with those we hold dear -- Kim Bitter & the future principal, the librarian and her sweetheart, and other pals we hadn't seen FOR YEARS. It's when you get old and creaky and live far away that you treasure these bursts of familiarity and friendship and have to shout "woo hoo" about it.

Thanks Rock Mama for inviting us to your big party of happiness.

Woo hoo!

Fish Fry & Football

More vacation non-fun -- once we finally made it to a bed, we had to get up at 5:30am to take a shuttle back to O'Hare to catch our rescheduled flight. Bleary-eyed we stumble through security, only to discover, the flight is delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. When the plane finally shows up at our gate, all the CWA-bound travelers break out into cheers.

We FINALLY get to the Central Wisconsin Airport and celebrate with my parents by drinking bloody marys with Fat Squirrel chasers (served at the airport cafe). No luggage yet. The word is that three canceled flights worth of luggage is arriving via a big truck. It's in Appleton!

We hang out with the rest of the sad delayed travelers waiting for our stuff. (note: there are two students from Tunis also eating lunch in the cafe with their hosts -- one of whom is an elderly women who pulls out a harmonica and starts playing it AFTER my dad has drawn a cartoon portrait of her on his place mat. Later, I tell her that we are quite impressed with her harmonica playing == it's good!== and she says "How else am I going to entertain those boys?") It's then we hear over the loudspeaker "The truck carrying the luggage has just been in AN ACCIDENT ON THE HIGHWAY." My mother and I break into hysterical laughter -- which is the kind of coping mechanism that has gotten me this far through life. (thanks Mom!) We fill out forms and head to a Fish Fry @ the Hiawatha --- it's no Norwood Pines, but it'll do.

Later, we show up at Thom Field (football field of my youth) to watch a high school football game and hang out with my sister and her husband in the bleachers. It's great fun to cheer for my nephew every time his name is said over the loudspeaker. I would insert a picture of the new Lumberjack mascot here -- but dammit, I forgot my camera. However, thanks to the series of tubes called the internet -- I found him (or rumored LumberJILL) online:

Go Lumberjacks!

Summertime Fun (with delays)

The Chef & I are back from our whirlwind trip to the Midwest -- where we had healthy chunks of time spent with friends and family -- and (in between the celebrating) lots of waiting around at airports.

On arrival we had our usual high drama travel luck. We were nearly halfway there until this announcement. "We are now in a holding pattern over Sioux Falls. The control tower at O'Hare has just been evacuated due to chance of tornadoes and the threat of high winds blowing out the glass windows. If we are not able to continue to Chicago we will land in Rockford, IL to refuel."

"Wow!" I said to the chef "That's a lot of drama in one announcement. tornadoes! exploding glass! control tower evacuation! running out of gas! Rockford!"

Luckily, we were finally able to land in Chicago (whew) only to sit around for our flight to CWA to be cancelled. No one was going anywhere that night. All the hotels were booked up around the airport and they set up cots next to the baggage claim. Outside of the security area!

I took this picture (below) from the sidewalk while we were waiting (for another hour) for a cab ride to take us to an overpriced hotel downtown with our new desperate fare splitting traveler friend from Bimidge, MN. The Chef & I were happy to sleep in a real bed with four walls and a shower that night (minus the streetside view).

Mothers are always right.

I am resisting sending my mother the e-mail that proves that something she KNOWS she "e-mailed me about" was NOT in the e-mail that she actually sent me. She is unaware that one of the purposes of e-mail is to verify these sorts of claims.

Why? Because mothers are always right. I'll just nod and agree, "mmhmmm" and say that I must have forgotten all about it.

Max Roach

Thanks to Lutinna Iam, I once shook the hand of a legend. His name was Max Roach. I could feel the magic gravity of history in his handshake. Then I watched while Max Roach smiled and patiently autographed a giant stack of his vinyl recordings, at the fanboy request of Lutinna Iam (who was more nervous and starstruck than I had ever seen him!). In those brief moments, Max Roach was gracious and kind -- a real "cool cat".

When people ask me if I have ever met anyone famous -- I say, well, once I shook the hand of Max Roach (and another time I gave Michael Gerald from Killdozer a ride home in my Chevy station wagon - the brown one with the fake wood paneling).

A salute to a musical legend who shook things up and made it sound good.

Chicken John for Mayor

Chicken John is running for Mayor of San Francisco. Pirate Cat Radio (specifically Pixie) threw a fundraising dinner for him on Thursday night. We were invited by Dr. & Mrs. Virus and decided to attend (despite our reservations about PCR djs cooking). I'm now on the books as a San Franciscan who donated money to the Vote for Chicken campaign.

The dinner party was at his house -- aka Chez Poulet. That alone, totally worth the price of admission. Chicken John lives in a cool loft, and he has an old dog who came out to join the festivities. Plus, pie! I like pie.

I'm happy to support Chicken John for Mayor -- nice guy, good food and maybe the most important reason, he's covered every inch of his bathroom with vinyl lps. Even the ceiling.

Initially I thought I would support Chicken John and vote for Gavin, but now I believe that I will use my vote to help Chicken John slide into second place on the art & innovation platform. Chicken John for Mayor!!

Musical Saw Sunday

Who can resist the allure of a musical saw? We drove down to Felton (in the Santa Cruz Mountains) today to witness a whole mess of 'em at the Saw Players Music Festival.


It was quite amazing -- musical saw players of all ages and hipster levels - including the mighty saws below played by fellows who used mallets to bonk out the melody.

At the end of the afternoon, all of the saw players (who were left) sat in a circle and played "Auld Lang Syne" in unison.

Rock Mama -- we needed you here to represent some Mae Rae saw playing magic. Maybe next year when you are not busy planning your big party. We can't wait!

Breakfast View

This is Sweetpea's favorite place to sit. All curled up while the Chef eats his porridge.

Heroes

Another update on a past event. Back on a Saturday afternoon when the Chef & I were grocery shopping and someone ran into the store and shouted "Call 911!" Soon our panic shopping ice cream was melting in the car while we waited for the crime scene tape to be removed from the parking lot. Can you believe what whiners we are? Because while we thought it was bad timing to be grocery shopping -- there was lots of good timing going down that day. There were three people who were in the right place at the right time (one an emergency medical doctor who I'm guessing was checking out with his groceries as we entered the store.) If not for them, that girl probably would have died.

I didn't think of it at the time that the ambulances rolled in, but it's now I'm thinking of you paramedic e11a and knowing that you would have and could have done the exact same thing.

All hail the real-life heroes!

Missing Fionn

Remember my story of how the Chef & I (drinking pints with M&N) heard Fionn Regan being played in a bar in Galway? It put me on a quest to track down "The End of History" CD in London only to rave about it to everyone (and their aunt) on our return.

Well, it turns out (duh) that I'm not his only fan -- Fionn Regan was recently nominated for a Mercury Prize award in the UK and his CD was finally released in the U.S. to great acclaim. When the Chef & I went to see him on Saturday night we were kind of hoping we would be the only ones there because he was the opening act for two bands we had never heard of. However, we were informed by the beefy bouncers that the show was SOLD OUT and we had to go home with big frowns on our faces.

If Fionn Regan comes to your town -- buy tickets in advance.

Best Stencil Sign Ever