On the Local Restaurant front, we have lost our Fearless Leader, the Harried Manager's boss, he of the giant head and no apparent brains. This is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I no longer have to endure his terrible fake niceties (and worse spelling), and a curse because I fear who will take his place. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime, Manager In Name Only is a couple months pregnant and even crazier than she was before. She told me she was pregnant exactly two days after she told me how her eight-year-old son was ruining her life. She said it in a breathless, excited way. This was just before she told me she was marrying the guy that had just broken up with her because of her son. The guy who was the father of the impending child. Okay, then. Good luck with that. I am thrilled to be working there just two nights a week. My barback is a student named Taylor, whom I recommended for the job because I knew how much he enjoyed bartending and that even at age 22 he was more of an adult than the other two people I worked with behind that bar. He is currently in Boston doing a tryout ("stage") with the bar that he hopes to intern in when his time at Culinary School is over. That will be in march, and I wish him the best of luck while also lamenting his departure.

Other than that, it has been colder than I care to talk about. Lots and lots of snow (for me, but not for Vermont), shoveling like a champ, working my butt off, and trying to find time to read and keep up on some television. I have recently found myself addicted to Lie to Me. Tim Roth is a weakness for which I will not apologize. He's short, his eyes are crooked, and he walks funny. And yet I find him wildly compelling.
I just finished reading Au Revoir to All That; Food, Wine, and the End of France. A great read. Really interesting bits about the history, politics, attitudes, and personalities that have affected French food culture. I just started Jonathan Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet. Haven't formed an opinion about it yet. I ripped right through Jay McInerney's Model Behavior last month. He's just hilarious. I have a feeling he would make a great drinking buddy.
Speaking of which, I did manage to get to the cask of Life and Limb, a collaboration between Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada, which happen to be two of my favorite breweries. This was last night at the Three Penny Tavern. I was joined by the b.h., so it was an even bigger treat than usual. We are just not socializing much these days, and it was a welcome change. The beer was fantastic, and bought for me by a couple reps from Sierra that I had met earlier in the day at the Local Grocery. One of them gave me his card, and we talked about potential future employment. Not entirely likely, but a nice thought.
Right then. I'm off to do as little as possible Talk to you soon.

Just reading Vonnegut's Man Without a Country. In it he quotes Karl Marx: "Religion is the opium of the people", and points out that at the time (1844), opium and opium derivatives were the only available painkillers. Therefore, he argues, this is "a casual truism, not a dictum."
Fascinating. We've been ever-so-slightly misquoting Marx forever, the result being that we have completely missed the point.
I have been known to say that television is the opiate of the masses. The problem is that religion isn't an opiate anymore- it's more like meth.

Vonnegut's birthaversary (can you call it a birthday after somebody has died?) is Wednesday. I think we need him now more than ever.

I was reading one of my favorite political blogs (the snarky one I read to make me laugh after I read all the real and depressing shit) yesterday, and they provided me with a link to this. I am very happy about this, because I have tried on multiple occasions to slog through Infinite Jest. I really enjoy the book, but I usually read in bed, and since that thing is the size of a New York City phone book, I always ultimately put it aside and never get back to it. (One of the many reasons why I am impressed by Jamie is that she has read this book twice.) As it happens, I have more time on my hands these days, and what with this whole thing being organized by somebody else, I think I might just give it another stab. If anyone else would care to join me, I am certain that having a person I know to talk ("talk")to about it would help. It's just a thought.
Anyway, I'm off to print out the schedule, and dust off that copy...
Wish me luck.
Incidentally, I got a call back from the New Mobile Phone Shop. I didn't get the job.
P.S. The new Dogfish Head limited release beer is currently rocking my world.

I finally finished The Poe Shadow. Another one from Matthew Pearlman, who wrote The Dante Club, which I absolutely loved. So this one was also good. Not as good, mind you, but it wasn't horrifying and didn't give me nightmares, either. I have always loved Poe and it was interesting to actually read some of the details of his life and death. I had been left with the impression, as most people are, that he dies face down in a gutter and that he was a drunk. Not so. A pretty good read, which is prompting me to drag out my big leatherbound Poe collection. But not before I finish Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer. I am enjoying that one, but as I feared it shines some light in corners I may not have wanted to look in.
Also re-reading Confederacy of Dunces. i got it back from my friend Jason just after I returned from New Orleans and just before I moved. Now my good friend MT is reading it, and since we've both just been to New Orleans I thought I'd catch up so we can chat about it. It really is amazing how different it is reading a book when you know the area where it is set. I'm digging it.
The new job is still boring as all getout, but having received my first paycheck in the mail today, I feel slightly more motivated. I have also finally gotten several calls back about other jobs, which is great. I have an interview on Tuesday for a full time thing that's only a few blocks from the house. Hoping for that one. Otherwise it's back to waiting tables. I got a call last night at 9:45 from a catering company whose ad i had answered a full nine days prior, wondering if I was available for a bartending gig this Saturday. They couldn't tell me where, because they had two events, and they were not offering me anything permanent- "the response to our ad on cr@iglist has been so huge that we're not even doing interviews"- but they really really needed me. WTF? How could they be serious? And when I looked back at the website, I realized that the guy I was talking to was THE OWNER. Ridiculous. Unorganized. Stupid. I figure they either suck so much that they can't keep employees, or they are such control freaks that they won't hire somebody to help them schedule staff. Either way, I am not near desperate enough to work for them. Although it is tempting just to see what kind of trainwreck it is. Who the hell do they think they're kidding? The response was so huge that they don't have enough people three days before a wedding? Seriously?!
I went on two walks with Kilgore today. One was early in the day, way back in the woods behind our house. He was exhausted and couldn't wait to get back, which is how I know I went a long way. Wyatt hasn't been feeling well this week and declined to join us. We went again later, this time down the hill of death and into town to walk along a path by the river.
I have finally gotten almost completely organized. this has never happened so quickly after a move, so I guess unemployment has its perks.
We got our first bag from the CSA yesterday. Lots of greens. some fresh dill, radishes and a couple tomatoes. Oh, and garlic scapes, which I had never heard of before, but which I enjoyed thoroughly. This is going to be a great learning experience.
In other news, some of the bulbs I planted are finally sprouting. If they come all the way up there will be photos. Also, there are a ton of these berry bushes (I can't remember what they're called, but I will ask the landlord again) sprouting all over the yard. The flowers are hot pink and just beautiful. I hope the berries make good pie. if not, I will settle for the black and blue berries. But there aren't nearly as many.
Tomorrow I am mostly free to do whatever. There is a festival (food and music) in Burlington that we may decide to go to, but since dogs are not welcome we will likely skip it in favor of something water related. Unless it rains.
And speaking of rain, it has rained a ton since we got here, but never when the weather service says it will. I have never lived in a place where the weather forecast has been so consistently wrong. Bizarre.

Long Weekend.

I had every intention of going to the Beef Silence show last night at the Caledonia. Not that I have any idea what Beef Silence sounds like, but anything Nick Bielli is involved in is generally entertaining, so I was all about it. Even the b.h. seemed inclined to socialize. Things were looking up as we drove home from work. I was famished when I got home, so I re-heated a bowl of veggie chili, poured on a generous helping of this sour cream jalapeno sauce that the b.h. had made for our dinner the previous night, and shoveled it all into my gullet as quickly as possible. After the initial stabbiness had subsided, I was sitting on the couch reading when the b.h. asked me if I wanted a black-eyed pea cake. That was what he had made the night before, along with the aforementioned cream sauce, caramelized onions, corn bread, green beans with orange rind and candies pecans, and greens with kalamata olives and garlic. I said yes to all of the above, and was soon finished with dinner, part two. At that point I decided to go upstairs and lie down a bit, and at that point, my night was pretty well over.
I napped for two hours, and when came downstairs again I crawled onto the couch under a blanket. Still convinced that I would make it to the rock show, I turned on the coffee maker to re-heat the morning's leftovers. After I drank it, I opened the front door and realized that the fog was so thick i could barely make out the car in the driveway. Oh well, so much for that. I had a few minutes hemming and hawing after, but it was only halfhearted. We watched an episode of Torchwood (thanks for that recommendation, Jamie, I believe I'm hooked) and went to bed. I of course couldn't sleep due to the nap and coffee, but I did have a Josephine Tey book to keep me distracted. When I was finally drifting off, I heard a crash downstairs. Fucking rodents again. Dammit.
Today I finished reading Julie and Julia, about which I am still unsure how I feel. But at least it's not lying on the coffee table anymore, half finished, staring me in the face and quietly mocking me.
Now I'm on to The Cheese Lover's Companion(because why not really?), and I will likely crack open my new copy of Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer very soon.
My work schedule is going to be a bit different this week, so I'm hoping to utilize my new found free time reading and writing. No New Year's Resolution or anything, just a vague hope that I will get back to some sense of normalcy. We'll see how that goes. My life has a tendency to throw curves, and I have a tendency to swing wildly at them.
I just finished some wheat pasta with sundried tomato, bread crumbs, and green olives. I am waiting patiently for five o'clock so I can break out a beer. Or a glass of wine. Not much longer now, so I'd best go decide.

Last Night We Partied Like It Was 1992.

A newly elected Democratic President and Matthew Sweet. What more could a girl ask for? Well okay then, how about two consecutive days off?
It was frustrating that every person that came up to me at the show started off with a remark about how fat Matthew Sweet has gotten. Masters of the obvious, they were. I mean, yeah, he's chunked out a bit, but so what? He sounds great, and all of us old folks (the b.h. and I both remarked that this was the first show this year where we remember feeling young in comparison to the rest of the crowd) finally had an excuse to get out, so everybody wins, right? The band that opened was called The Bridges. I had seen them before at Tasty World. Young and beautiful and very talented. We didn't see them play this time, but I remember their music being accessible enough and thinking that they were probably going to be huge. They have done several shows on this tour with Matthew Sweet, and he produced their record, so he called them up on stage to join him for a couple songs. Four young ladies (and one guy, but he was mostly in the background), all beautiful, as I said, and all wearing tight clothes and bouncing around happily. I have never seen a drummer so happy in my life. (The drummer, incidentally, resembled Floyd from The Muppets.)
We went out late and came home as soon as the show was over, and lit the fire and started to watch Kung Fu Panda. We both fell asleep before it was over, not because the movie wasn't great (it was hilarious- I can't recommend it enough), but because we are considerably older than we were in 1992, and because our couch seems to have some sort of sleep-inducing drug leaking from the cushions (further evidence of this phenomenon is the fact that I am currently flanked by two snoozing dogs).
Tonight the b.h. is going over to a friends house to participate in a manly night of playing poker and eating lots of meat. I am going to Earthf@re to buy some toothpaste and conditioner, and then to watch Matt's band play at Kingpins.
Tomorrow it's back to the grind, but for now I will get another cup of coffee and dig into my next book. Just finished Elmore Leonard's Killshot, which was okay, but not anything near Get Shorty. Still plowing through David Foster Wallace's Oblivion, but I can only handle that in small bites due to it's linguistic depth and generally bleak feel (at least so far). It's another book that makes me feel, at times, like I am reading the inside of my own head spilled on the page. So yeah- baby steps. Now I've just picked up Dishwasher, a book by a guy named Pete Jordan, purchased for the b.h. by a friend (and fellow former dishwasher). He rarely reads fiction, so I feel okay jumping ahead of him in line.
The best thing about choosing laundry as a chore is that there's all kinds of down time, but you still wind up with a sense of accomplishment (and a pile of clean clothes) at the end of the day.

Cool.

This is really interesting. (Hat tip, Andrew Sullivan).

I woke this morning to a thud, and when I sat up I found Wyatt, dazed and I daresay a little embarrassed, shaking out the cobwebs on the floor next to the bed. It was early, and though I had sworn to sleep until at least eleven, I was already wide awake, so I stumbled downstairs for some coffee.

Last night I bartended a wedding for some douchey former frat kid types. It's funny how they can get older (and look even older than they are, thanks to the fake tanning and whatnot) and never change. By "funny", I of course mean pathetic and gross. There were two girls there who were so plastic and terrifying that I couldn't stop staring at them. The Blonde One was bitchy and never made eye contact with me no matter what. The other two bartenders were guys, you see, so she had no use for me. She and her Hooker-like Friend both bought a round of shots from FB, and they bought one for him and "the other guy bartender" as well. But not for me. Not that I wanted one, mind you, but that is a really shitty thing to do. I think she was pissed off because my tits were nicer than hers and I didn't have to buy them. Her Hooker-like Friend was brunette, scarily tan, and wearing a skimpy white top with no bra (to a wedding- very classy) and short shorts. She kept standing with her chest puffed out like a rooster - also very classy - and one hand on her hip. They were loud in an attention-seeking way, and nobody at the wedding liked them except the two guys they were with. I think it is possible that they were both hookers. If so, I hope they weren't expensive.
There was another chick who was also incredibly bitchy to me. She was actually attractive, dark-haired and with a sense of style that wasn't as cookie cutter as everyone else in the room, but her attitude pretty much ruined it. After the second time she barked an order at me I stopped asking what she wanted and started opening her shitty domestic beer and shoving it at her when I saw her coming.
I swear to the gods, despite the snarky nature of these missives, I am actually a very nice person behind the bar. After all, it doesn't behoove me to start off an evening acting put out that people expect me to wait on them. I actually enjoy my job quite a bit, and my philosophy as a bartender has always been to treat people like they are my guests. The problem comes when your party gets crashed by assholes. When that happens, I can't help but respond. Luckily my boss had warned me in advance that these were "Horrible people," so I was ready. My expectations were low and my tolerance was high.
There was a couple there with two children. The woman was pretty in a soccer mom way, blonde and yuppie, with a balding blonde husband and two Hitler Youth kids that kept being fed soda after sugary caffeinated soda. They got more hyper and more annoying, and their parents got madder and more reactionary. Made me want to kill them all. The guy had a one word vocabulary: "Guinness." This was grunted at each of us bartenders in turn, without a please, a thank you, or an acknowledgment that we were, in fact, people. I started saying "You're welcome very loudly each time I set a drink in front of him. It didn't have any effect. To those people we aren't people, after all, we're The Help. Well, The Help was getting paid by the Father Of The Bride, one of maybe two nice people in the whole room, and The Help had a guarantee, so The Help kept their heads down, smiled and laughed and joked with TFOTB, and put as many drinks as possible across the bar. I poured the well drinks STOUT, dreaming of the wretched morning that would follow for those people and their toilets.
The band was horrible, too. They played some old Motown songs and what would have been cool soul numbers, but they were so white that everything sounded like J1mmy Fucking Buffett. It was horrible. At least they were nice, though. At one point I served one of them a beer, and I said

"You must be in the band."

"Because of my shirt?"

"No. Because you actually said 'please'."

He looked horrified, then pulled out his wallet and stuffed a few dollars in the empty tip jar.

When all was said and done I made an assload of money for not very much work. And, unlike those people, I didn't have to wake up and be-well, one of them.


Finally finished Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. Fucking brilliant. Have started The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon. I'm also due to pick up a book from the b.h.'s mom tomorrow. I started reading it when we bought it for her, then gave it to her, and now I need to borrow it back and finish it before his sister leaves town on the 12th, so she can read it on the plane going home. So I haven't been very good at reading this month, but I'm starting to get better. My hours at the BS2 are about to get cut for the season, so I suspect that I'll start tearing through books again.

Work, Rock, Read.

Thursday night I took the b.h. to work and then saw Brass Bed and The Wydelles at Tasty World. I was exhausted, having been up since the crack of dawn and worked in the heat (which is starting to get to me now) all day at the B.S. Squared, but once the band started I knew I'd be okay. The last time I saw Brass Bed, a friend of mine remarked that he felt like he was watching Centro-matic's* first show, and I agreed.

These guys are young, but they obviously have more going on than the typical three or four piece rock thing. So I didn't get to bed until about four-thirty, then I got up at nine-thirty for work. Barb remarked that I looked like I wasn't quite up to speed on Friday, which was true. Fortunately I didn't have a lot of heavy lifting to do, so I pulled through.

Heard a new Southernism for the first time in awhile. A guy at the BS2 was asking if I had seen John around.
"Hundred pounds soaking wet John?" I replied. John is a rather common name amongst BS3 employees.
"Jeans and boots" he said affirmatively, meaning that the John weighs a hundred pounds, soaking wet, even wearing jeans and boots. I found that hilarious.

So I worked for a couple hours on Friday night as well, but since we weren't busy I got to go home at twelve-thirty. Got up early on Saturday, dropped the b.h. at work, and went to meet my friend A for breakfast. We stopped over at the new Athens Farmer's Market, which was packed, but I wasn't really shopping as much as seeing how it was going. I hadn't brought a cooler and I knew any seasonal greens i might buy would wilt in my car before I got home. It was awfully warm. After that we headed over to Big City Bread, where we got coffee and I got an egg and cheese biscuit that was half as big as my face. How the hell that was one egg is beyond me, but it was very tasty. I followed it with a lemon tart because I was feeling particularly decadent on my rare Saturday off. We talked for a bit and then A went home and I ran a few errands.

When I got home I fired up our fantastically awesome new lawnmower and worked in the yard a bit. Mercifully, it started to rain and I had to stop mowing after about thirty minutes, so I came inside and relaxed a bit.
Went to pick up the b.h. around five, stopped and got some orchid bark, and came home and re-potted the six orchids I rescued from an imminent dumpster death at work. Today they look quite happy. I think they may all live.

Last night we went to an all-star townie hootnanny at Tasty World. Dave Marr had set it up as a benefit for another old guy townie who is recovering from cancer. The show was unbelievable. The Star Room Boys played, as well as Clay Leverett, Don Chambers, and a lineup that was half SRB with Nick Bielli and Dave Gerow that I can't remember the name of. I often forget how fucking talented a lot of these guys are, since they're just regular folks with jobs and kids and stuff. Dave Gerow is a badass.

It struck me that the only health insurance we all have in this place is each other. I have been to a lot of these shows in the past few years, for everything from broken legs to multiple surgeries. Obviously it isn't an ideal situation, but it is something, and it reminds me that we live in a very special place.
I cannot express how good the show was, or how entertaining it was once everybody got good and drunk and it started to go off the rails.

I got a copy of that Wydelles show from Thursday night on CD from CP. I am about to turn it on and go dig in the yard again.

So you know, I have not forgotten my reading commitments. I am very close to finishing Carl Wilson's 33 1/3 book about Celine Dion. It is embarrassing that it has taken me this long to read, and it is in no way a reflection of the quality of the book. In fact, I recommend it to everyone, especially those of you who are (ahem) a bit snobby about music. This is a serious critical and analytical approach to a subject that I would not have thought deserving of it, and it has made me examine my own opinions and thoughts about art. I still find Celine Dion utterly nauseating, but I'm glad I have gone to the trouble of figuring out why.

Money quote:
"What self-conscious aesthetes (...) might be guilty of sentimentalizing is ambiguity, that shibboleth of our postidealistic age. Which can make us dupes of another kind, prone to taking surface complication and opacity for depth, and apt to overlook the complexity that may lie even within the sentimental on more patient, curious inspection. It's a fault endemic, I think, to us as antireligionists who have turned for transcendent experience to art, and so react to what our reflexes tell us is bad art as if it were a kind of blasphemy."

Guilty. As charged.
I have even used the word blasphemy to describe a shitty cover of The Clash or some other band that I hold in extremely high regard. Because apparently owning a Duran Duran record (or two) doesn't necessarily preclude one from having too much regard for one's own musical taste.

Today we're off to the b.h.'s folks house, and if we have enough left after that we're going to Jenn's for a cookout.

TTFN, y'all.




*I know that's a very linky sentence, but they are all worth it. Pay special attention to the song Alone from The Wydellles. "I'm aching for you like I need cigarettes." Brilliant.

First it Poured; Then It Rained.

Got up earlier than I thought I might today. I was very tired yesterday, and I got a free adjustment at the chiropractor (I re-potted all the plants in his office and gifted him a few of my own) which left me a bit sore. Got going to the B.S. Squared earlier than usual, but about halfway to work we had to stop because the car was shuddering rather violently. We stopped at a gas station, saw that we had a flat(ish) tire, and filled it with air, at which point it exploded right in my face. Loud, it was, but I was unharmed.
Called triple A, got the tire changed, drove by our mechanic to order another, and set off to work riding on three regular tires and one donut, now an hour late rather than half an hour early. When I arrived, I was pleased to find that Grandma was absent. Barb was in a bit of a tizzy due to the impending arrival of some B.S. Corporate Cheeses, so I set to work as quickly as possible putting out the racks of plants. I was there for just a few minutes when out of nowhere came Scooter. Apparently he had been sent to help me because Grandma "hurt her back." I believe this is shorthand for "Grandma's panties are in a wad because L asked her to do something that she didn't feel like doing on Tuesday, and Grandma will not be told what to do." Crunt.
So Scooter ran willy-nilly, which kept Barb happy because as long as somebody is doing something, preferably very quickly, it doesn't matter if what they are doing is correct or not. He drove us all insane for a couple of hours and then headed out. It rained for more than half of my shift today, and since it was too warm to wear my rain jacket, I was pretty much soaked through the whole time.
The Big Corporate Cheeses made a very brief appearance, but I have no idea what their impressions were, and I doubt I ever will. Seems like if they have a complaint they'll let you know, but otherwise they just scare the hell out of everybody once a month. Whatever. I'm just glad I don't work for them.
Home now, obviously. Just finished reading Andrew Sullivan and Z, and I aim to get my head in a book as soon as I finish this Facon sandwich. No, i haven't forgotten. I've just been knackered.

Mayday.

Thanks to Z, I am now given a chance to redeem myself after a lousy performance at my first Script Frenzy. I won't even tell you how many pages I managed, because it brings me such shame, but here's the project for May:








Thanks for the idea, Z! I absolutely adore Nick Hornby's books column in The Believer, and I have actually attempted to make similar lists for myself in the past, but it got rather embarrassing when the Books I've Bought (or at least Heard of and am interested in) This Month list continued and the Books I've Read This Month came to a near-screeching halt. I have a small pile of things I have started, and since the books count as long as you read them between May 5th and May 31st, these will go in that pile (though I have started all of them, I will be reading the bulk of each one in this time frame, due to previously mentioned slackery). So for starters, here's a partial list:

Let's Talk About Love; a Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson. I've been pecking away at this since February. Seriously.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. I borrowed this from S way back when he was still in jail. That's how long it's been.

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. This is a re-read, but I love it.

The Colour of Magic, also by Pratchett. I had already started Soul Music again when I found out that the movie version of this one would soon be available in the states, so now I'm ankle deep in both. Because I am not right in the head. Another list will follow, once I've made a game plan.

Wow.

This is amazing. I know I have just outed myself (again) as a total geek, but there is just something about a library. I can almost smell the rooms in these photos. This is my version of internet porn.

I remember as a kid going to the library with my older sisters. I am forever in their (and my mother's) debt for giving me such a love for reading. Of course, The 0ak L@wn Public Library doesn't quite measure up to the architectural marvel of these buildings, but it does have it's own brand of Mike Brady School Of Architecture charm. Books have gotten me through some of the worst things I have ever faced. If I could give anything as a gift to the general public it would be my love of books. (Of course, I would have plenty left over for myself, because my love knows no bounds...)

I have a really, really fantastic bookshelf in my house. It is actually meant to hold dishes, I believe, and it came out of an old building in Evanston, Illinois. I bought it in 1999 at a salvage company on South Halsted Street in Chicago for next to nothing, delivery included. It is solid oak, walnut stained, and by far the coolest purchase I have made as an adult. It is, as they say here in the American South, "slap full" of books (and dishes, for that matter. And rock show posters, and photographs...) and it reminds me of the massive, solid-looking wooden shelves in these pictures. Perhaps this is why I am so attached to it. It is difficult to move (though sa bum nim had much less trouble than anyone else who ever tried - kam sa ham ni da, sir), impractical for a person who has moved as often as I have in the past ten years, and certainly not "worth" the trouble, but just thinking about it makes me want to go get the furniture polish. I think I want to be buried in it. Have you ever owned a piece of furniture that made you feel like this? Or am I insane? Are those two things mutually exclusive?

Yesterday we rented a brush mower, which we carried to the house with the help of our friend Adam (thanks Adam!). Always have at least one friend with a truck, people. It's key. (Since I have been the friend with the truck I feel like I have built up a bit of truck karma at this point, but I am always grateful and surprised by the generosity of the truck people.) Jared and D-Mac came to help us bring it back this morning. It was earlier than I had ever seen either of them- after actually going to sleep, anyway. In any case, for the first time in about four years the bulk of our acreage is visible. Kilgore is pissed because he likes to poop in private and we cut down his blackberry hedge. The yard looks huge. The possibilities are endless, and I work with plants almost every day. Shit. Oh yeah, and then there's the weather...

Business As Usual.

Thursday night I saw the Truckers at the 40 Watt. I was worried that it would be packed and my claustrophobia would kill me, but I managed okay. I got there later than I meant to, so I missed Bo Bedingfield. Got there about three songs into Don Chambers and Goat's set. They were fantastic as usual. The Truckers were great, too. It wasn't sold out, to my knowledge, but it was packed and I'm sure they raised a lot of money for Nuci's Space. I did spend a lot of time chatting with folks I never see anymore, but I caught more than half of the set.
Afterward I stopped down at Trapeeze, which is a lovely new bar that has something like two hundred different beers. A friend of mine works there, so I just popped my head in to say hi and get a look at the place. I didn't drink any at the time, since it was late and I was about to have to drive home, but I am certainly planning on stopping in there again soon. I love discovering new beer.
Friday was a bit chaotic. I slept late and we ran a bunch of errands, stopped to eat at Speakeasy and rushed home to watch the last two episodes of The Wire (season four) on DVD before I had to rush off to work again. Now my language has gone to shit (it didn't have that far to go, quite frankly) and we'll have to wait another year for the final season to come out. I think the second episode is airing tomorrow night. Luckily we have another disc of Benson on deck. I need some lighthearted comedy after all that.
Still plodding through Thunderstruck. Finished Bill Bryson's Shakespeare and am very close to the end of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, if only I could stay awake long enough.
Tonight we're going to see Music Hates you at Tasty World. I look forward to seeing Noah Ray as both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In food news, two things: Discovered that if you put a MOrningst@r Farms spicy black bean burger on top of a bowl of Annie's N@tural mac and cheese, it tastes pretty effing good.
Also, tomorrow the b.h. and I are going to make pies. I'm really looking forward to it.

Dare I?

I mean really, dare I have just a little hope?
Yeah, I do. I know it's probably naive.

In other news, Shayne's Blog is pretty fucking funny. Check it out. I don't know how I kept missing it. (Was I just looking at your profile by accident? I dunno.) Anyway, good stuff. I can't wait to hear the rest of the Santa story.

In still other news, I am almost finished watching season one of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, which I purchased for the b.h. for Xmas. And the new season of The Wire (the last season) starts next Sunday. And we still haven't gotten through the one that just came out on DVD. Man that is good shit.
Right now I am watching Season Six of The West Wing, which one of us got from one of our sisters. It's like porn in our house. If you haven't seen it or you lean right politically, you wouldn't understand. It's okay. I know we're not normal.
The dogs are both passed out on either end of the couch. I am having a South American I.P.A. that I got from Trader Joe's in Chicago. It isn't that great. As soon as I am able to get off my ass, I am going to the kitchen to dump it and get something else. I got one of those mixed six packs so I could try some beer that I can't get down here.
Still reading Thunderstruck, which I got from K. I like it a lot, but I find myself constantly thinking about the comment that PMcB made a few weeks ago about it being an "NPR novel." He's right, and it's a little distracting. We got the new Shakespeare biography by Bill Bryson on audio book, and are most of the way through it. Same with Terry Pratchett's Going Postal.
More on our trip home in a bit.

Business.

As in J. Roddy Walston and the. They fucking rocked again. I only wish they had more CDs for us to buy. Everything was running late that night, so they didn't play as long as we would have liked, but they tore through most of the songs I know and were completely pro and cool about the scheduling fuckups. They also crashed with the b.h. and me that night. It was great to be able to talk a little in a non-show setting. All of the guys are funny and smart and generally seem like folks we would hang out with if we lived in the same place.

The beagles have escaped several times. The first time I hadn't shut the door all the way when I came back in from walking them, and Wyatt charged through it while I was in another room, so by the time I even realized the door was open the girls were long gone. Hope (who we have re-named Hamhock, because it amuses us) was only several yards from the door, snuffling through the tall grass next to the house. Ella (Sniglet) on the other hand, was already too far into the thicket on the other side of the driveway for us to even see her. I might add that it was the middle of the night and both the b.h. and I had already showered and were ready for bed. We wound up spending about fifteen minutes locating her and trying to coax her out, and eventually I tackled her when she got out into the parking lot in the office complex out back.
The next time they escaped was the night the band was here. This time I was actually in the shower. I stepped out and heard a loud baying coming from out in the yard. The next thing I heard was the b.h.'s voice through the bathroom window- "Honey, I need your help. The beagles got out." His voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of the dogs in the distance. It was about four a.m., and one of the band guys had gone out for a cigarette, and the girls slipped through the door and took off. I immediately threw on a t-shirt, jeans, and shoes, and ran out into the dark yard, figuring that the b.h. would have the flashlight on him. I was blindly making my way back toward the woods, and I could hear the b.h. cursing loudly above the sound of the dogs and a lot of crunching. It seems that the woods are now overgrown with briars - big, nasty, sharp ones - and although this posed no problem for the dogs the b.h. was getting torn to bits. He also didn't have the flashlight, but was using our cell phone to light his way. I was plodding along behind him, simulating a blind and drunk game of Marco, Polo. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't funny at the time, either, though now I'm cracking up at the thought.
Hamhock got out again the day before yesterday. I was out running errands and the b.h. had the girls ties up outside. He was in the kitchen with the door open so he could keep an eye on them. We still don't know how she did it, because when he found her wading in the shallow end of the pond, her collar was completely intact, as was the leash she had magically left tied to the garden post. It was a panicky half hour, but everybody came out okay.
Our friend has been moved to a jail downstate, so we haven't been able to see him. Our local county jail has become over crowded after three consecutive home football games, so they had to move some people off, and since he isn't getting out for another couple of weeks, they chose him. This is all very inconvenient, because we have no way of contacting him, and he can't call us collect unless we start ANOTHER account with this other jail. We already have money in an account with the local jail, and it doesn't transfer, so we have to go through the process again, and we have no idea when they will send him back, so it may be completely pointless. They won't tell him when he's moving, and they didn't give him any warning before he left, so he couldn't call and let us know. I do hope he's doing okay. The worst part of this is imagining what it must be like for people who don't have any money or any transportation. What does a poor mother do when they transfer her son to another county three hundred miles away? This is a big enough obstacle for people like us, and we can afford it. I realize that most people are in jail because they have done something wrong, but I don't see why inmates' families and friends get treated like criminals themselves (guilt by association anyone?) and inconvenienced to this degree. Ah well, I guess I'll just try to stay out of jail so I don't have to worry about it.
The iPod is a Godsend. We have almost five thousand songs loaded up already. So many things I haven't heard in ages, now brought back to life in a convenient new package. This will also help us get rid of about ten boxes of CDs that we no longer have any use for. Yay! One step closer to organization.
I discovered a podcast called Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips. I adore it, though it regularly reminds me that I know almost nothing about the rules of grammar. (Not really, but it does make me feel a bit ignorant).
This week was musically fabulous. Got to see The Dumps and Baroness upstairs at Tasty World on Thursday, as well as Peelander Z and two other Japanese bands on Friday night. What fun. Still can't wait for Okkervil River at the 40 Watt on October 3rd, and The Hold Steady on the 25th. Yes, Rocktober is going to live up to its name this year, I believe. It's a beautiful thing.
On the reading front, I finished the J.D. Salinger biography, which made me go back and re-visit Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. He really is a weird guy. But I dig his stories. I have just started The Idiot's Guide to the Middle East conflict. I bought it a couple years ago and haven't gotten around to it. It was written before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but what I really want to understand is the history of why everything is so screwed up over there, so I don't mind. I have also torn through about fifteen back issues of The New Yorker that my boss passed on to me, as well as a few copies of The Believer, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. Not a whole lot of book reading, though. Too busy. I did see a new Terry Pratchett on my way through the book store the other day. Guess I'd better go put that on my wish list before I forget.
Man, this is a long post. I'm going to read somebody else's blog and quit blathering now.