calling a shovel a spade

X headed down to G’s elementary school last night to volunteer as a gardening troop. If there’s a way to entice her anywhere you’ll want to bring up some digging, some dirt, plants, and any available horde of weeds. After the kids were in bed last night she told me about another little boy who was gardening right near her; an H clone. As she was talking with him, and rending weeds, she learned that he was half-English on his mother’s side; which, of course, answered for her the nagging question about the spade he had brought from home. With his father nearby she idly commented that his being part-English explained why he had an English spade. I got the impression that the father was quite curious as to why this loon knew the dif between an English spade and a shovel…or vice versa. As she’s telling me this little yarn I cannot keep myself from laughing – another perfect story of her “phone a friend” knowledge. At that point she reached across the sofa and gave me the “shut up and quit making fun of me” whack. Chuckles all around. And then, she starts in on how English spades are flat and square while shovels, “which are different, you know,” are round with more depth. She can’t stop herself.

The cats have decided the place is all right now that they have the freedom to come and go as they wish. Maybe happy isn’t the right turn of phrase; they now look at us as if we were peasants merely here to support the crown. Cats can be cold.

I got a new iPod touch in the mail today. I’ll push my older Nano into my ever-growing iPod museum – someday I’ll charge admission for the public to paw all of my originals. The fact that I can now sit on the couch and check e-mail, sports, etc. with the WiFi-capable jewel simply amazes me. Of course, I’m dumbstruck by the whole photo negative thing.

Nevermind.

Hey to all.

t

detour. turn left.

I'm giving all of you some free advice. I'm also putting pressure on new blogger Bryce. You might remember my mumblings from months gone by about his adventures in life: cooking school in Ireland, wanderings about the isles, 'internship' in a lovely London restaurant. I still damn him but at least he's decided to blog about cooking now that he's back and settled in Omaha. He's very euro: beware. I've already gathered up my needs for the yoghurt recipe so there'll be a review in the near term. Here's his new blog. Bookmark it. Enjoy. I'm sure the three people that read my blog will kick up his visitor counter.

t

nothing but demanding

Does it mean you’re old if you zoom or enlarge a Word document as you’re typing? It sort of feels like putting on the big Coke-bottle glasses when the damn kids come to the door selling all their goddamn school stuff. Oops…that slipped out.

As mentioned at some point during the week, we have two cats who've become lodgers (or squatters) here on the Hilltop. X found them on craigslist after a failed attempt to get a kitten from some freak show out in West Virginia. Apparently, there’s a mystery man who gathers up kittens from this ‘person’ in WVa. and offers them to the families at H.’s new hippies-through-the-backdoor school. After that fell through we somehow ended up with these two chuckleheads – I think they’ve been officially named Pumpkin and Lemon but I refer to them simply as cat and cat. Cat the Younger (and smarter) is sitting on my desk as I type and checking out the happenings beyond our front porch. I finally got her to settle onto her little pillow after she harassed me for about thirty minutes of non-stop petting. Kids and pets; you’ll never be rid of them.

I got a call from my last military supervisor last night. She retired earlier in the year and was calling to touch base and offer me work. She calls it work, I call it a kick in my shins. It would work out to a huge chunk of money, thirty-sevens days off a year (I now get 14), and a small, hip company. Unfortunately, the work is in Austin, Texas and relocating isn’t in our plans. What’s good to know from someone who hires and manages contracts is just how much more money is floating around the government contracting business. I’ll keep that bit of fluff in my hip pocket.

This morning’s Farmers Market is leading me to some Spanish eggplant, heirloom tomato, and feta dish over couscous. We’ll manage.

Cubs v. Dodgers this week!

I give you this in parting:

"And today President Bush met with John McCain and Barack Obama. He did take a moment to show them the best place in the Oval Office to hide porn. But McCain showed up without his running mate, Sarah Palin, which is a shame because she has a lot of experience with banking and financial matters. You know, she lives right next to a bank." --Jimmy Kimmel

Love to all.

t

'conductor'

There are two new CDs coming out shortly and I’m in the mood to push both for similar reasons: girls gone rock. Based on what I’ve heard from both the new Lucinda Williams and Jolie Holland CDs they’re both shaking off some doom-and-gloom, at least musically, and turning up the tempo and volume. Lucinda, who’s suddenly blasting through releases, sounds much happier in the rock n’ roll place than the grinding corner she’s stood on for any number of years. It sounds like the CD might actually fly by while I’m cooking instead of requiring a deeper and darker venue to listen. Jolie Holland must have been hanging around Lu when she worked on her new song – off the noir and up on the volume. Holland, who we saw a few years ago, was one of the original Be Good Tanyas but moved onto a solo career after at least a portion of the first Tanyas album was complete. I think it’s her voice on the CD versions of “Littlest Birds” and "Lakes of Ponchatrain”. She also gets due reward for being a part of my collection of redheaded singing angels which includes Patty Griffin and Neko Case. That’s the music for you. Leave me be.

The Eleven hit the Kennedy Center for the opera last night. The Pearl Fishers by Bizet was on the agenda and our reviews married up well with something like a B or B+ as the final result. Of course, I’ve got such a limited range of opera viewing and technical understanding that I might as well be trying to identify whether a fossil came from the late Triassic, late Cretaceous, or late Maastrichtian period. “Oh, right. I think that B flat sung by the tenor in the fifth stanza was a bit off. It also seemed like the harpist was a bit too adagietto in support.” That’s the kind of like the junk I say when I’m trying to impress people with my knowledge of engines or other machinery. Here, you can read the WaPo review. I just like to watch any performance as long as it doesn’t put me to sleep.

I’ll be watching the debate online tonight with a generally hopeful demeanor and a bottle of Maker’s Mark.

It’s Friday.

t

matt

I thought that in the interest of some light-hearted hopes I'd simply post this little video created by Matt. I don't think anything, outside of my family and chick, has made me smile so much in a very, very long time.


t

spare change?

I remember taking both macro and micro economics during my foray at the University of Iowa: I hated them both, but for different reasons. All you need to know about my micro economics class was that it was in the basement of a very old university building at 7:30am two days a week.

"When we add an additional trillion dollars to the debt, the burden of the taxpayer, sooner or later there's got to be a reckoning," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee.

I’m onboard with Sen. Selby – and I think I’ve seen him during various hearings and no doubt laughed at his generally horrible behavior. I’m only letting him participate in this entry because he has said it best. Not only that, remember last month when Freddie and Fannie were in “trouble” and the government passed a bill that only authorized a government takeover “if” it was needed for the two mortgage giants? Everyone pretended that authorizing the use of force was not the same as actually saying you could use force. Wait, wrong fuck up. What they said was it was only an authorization to move further into Freddie and Fannie if needed. No worries they said, it won’t be needed. I could be forgiven for thinking that we were reckoning this out six weeks ago but there’s no way that authorization wasn’t going to be used. Shoot, if they send me a credit card with a $20,000 limit there’s no way I’d actually use it, right?

What we’ve got now is another reckoning. In the most basic economic terms I can sort out, it comes down to a proposed ~$700 billion Treasury buyout of mortgage and mortgage-related failing investments. The breadth of the buyout is limited to Wall St. banks and corporations and not specifically to individual buyers and mortgage holders – call them ‘the people’. Sec. of the Treasury Paulson wants a quick and clean move to get this rolling line of credit up and running. Some in the Congress, on both sides of the aisle, appear to be pushing back against a straight, uninhibited, no oversight, limited control, three-quarter of a trillion dollar check. For differing reasons (the fighting Republicans dismiss it as a bailout; the fighting Democrats want more oversight and more help for ‘the people’) I think it’s probably a solid idea to hold off and take the time to bang more heads together until there’s a much more solid piece of work. I see how desperate everyone on the Hill seems to be but why is it that suddenly, beginning on a Friday afternoon and carrying through Sunday meetings, did everyone decide that we were in a 60-hour time warp where we’d just discovered the problem? Wasn’t it clear over two years ago that the housing and mortgage sector was collapsing? Haven’t I listened to endless talking heads discussing whether or not we were in a recession yet because the official term ‘recession’ can’t be used until two consecutive quarters of a crappy economy have happened? What worries me most about Paulson in particular is what the hell has he been doing since he was appointed? It looks like he’s been sitting in his office playing minesweeper and watering the plants. Imagine someone who actually was taking steps as the problems arose and attempting to sort out solutions in a serial manner. Instead we get everyone running around over a weekend with their hair on fire as if this was all a surprise.

You know what? I don’t have the solution. I know that’s pretty obvious. But…I’m not paid to have the solution. If you want me to kick some ass on PowerPoint, I’m your man. I’m all for the reckoning that’s coming and I know it’s going to hurt…a lot. This is an opportunity while we’re standing in dire straits for someone to come out and say the words I long to hear, “This son of a bitch is going to hurt for a good long time. You might need to lock down that seatbelt and get ready for a rough, rough ride.” And I want them to mean it. I want them to quite blowing smoke up my skirt. We aren’t children.

And the next time a pile of politicians come out for a press junket and stand line abreast like they’re a stern and supportive looking YMCA basketball team, I’m going to kick them all in their shins. Nothing says “we’re so confused and useless” then a flight of unblinking, alleged leaders.

Ah. Monday.

t

humdinger

Regardless of your political leanings, I think everyone should go out and canvass for a political campaign. The Eleven spend a beautiful Saturday heading into D.C. to pick up some G’town law students and then driving down to South Fairfax county to canvass for Obama. What the process gives you, and what you’ll realize if you take up the challenge, is a chance to interact and be a part of a process that’s horribly broken and left on the side of the road. We were together for our walk sheet, knocked on doors, and had some great conversations with undecided voters, Obama supporters, and homes with a bit of both McCain and Obama present. We were nervous at the outset as we sorted our goods and got parked to begin: how would we present ourselves? What stories did we have that might convince people to just talk? What would they think of a couple of newly-minted political campaigners? You know what? For the most part, whether they agree or not with your candidate, most are perfectly happy to stand on the porch and talk about what’s important to them – and just as often, what’s important to us. It’s a wholly different view of the process than the yelling and screaming you hear across the rest of the landscape. You know what? There are a lot of people out there that are struggling to decide who they’ll vote for in November. There’re a ton of issues pulling everyone this way and that. There are, hopefully, a few dozen that are happy that someone who cared came knocking on their door on a September Saturday to talk honestly about where we are and where we’re headed. I found that much like every other volunteer activity I’ve added to my life over the last two years, people care that you’re there. Obama has registered over 250,000 new voters in Virginia in 2008. If nothing else, getting everyone to the polls is something no one can argue against.

I headed to the 9:30 Club last night to catch another Old Crow Medicine Show concert. I happened to be first in line and meandered to the best seat in American music: upper level, dead center, with my can on one of the club’s eight or so barstools. I love the Crows but their 2006 show at the 9:30 was very disappointing; both for the sound of the performance and the shitty crowd. Last night was a whole new ballgame – they were on fire and the crowd was so much stronger. They ran about two hours with a 15-minute break and screamed through most of the new CD (out next week, but in my hot, little hands) and a good bit of the back catalog. What they’ve become is a band with enough material to not have to rely on playing everything from every album – they can pick-and-choose what’s to come. In fact, they didn’t play at least six songs that I was expecting to hear yet I didn’t miss any of them. With the exception of a few slow moments, the show was stunning. As I was standing outside before the show, Ketch (singer, writer, harmonica, fiddle player, banjo player, guitar player) was walking to the tour bus with his mother, who was visiting D.C. to see her son and last night’s show. I don’t know if his performance was that much more inspired but he was fantastic. If only I could do any of that stuff. Considering the dip that’d taken after the last outing, last night’s gig put them right back up at the peak of live bands.

Apparently there’s a cat coming to live with us tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I can get to the farmers’ market on a pass before the feline invades my life.



t

calling all cars

The D.C. Examiner is one of the two free morning papers handed out at Metro stops all about the D.C. area. It’s the more conservative of the two (the Express being the liberal, WaPo-published rage) and it has some columnists I enjoy reading so I pick it up along with the Express and work through them on the to-and-fro bus rides. One of the indicative traits of any Metro commuter (bus or train) is arriving at work with a copy of either or both papers – it’s some kind of species identification technique. Anyway, I was reading in yesterday’s Examiner about an “incident” at the Columbia Heights Metro station. This link is to a follow-up story at the dcist.com Web site that further explains some details and has a picture. But, here’s the text of the Examiner story that also included a picture of the stunt:

“The Columbia Heights Metro station was closed for nearly two hours Tuesday morning for the D.C. bomb squad to investigate a weird sight: A stuffed polar bear costume leaned up against a garbage can. The arctic reproduction, clothed in worn pants and a threadbare jacket, was posed to appear as if it were digging through the trash, leading to speculation that the display was street art to protest global warming’s destruction of the polar bear’s habitat. Not everybody got the point, and police were alerted around 10 a.m. The Metro station remained closed and trains were not allowed to stop there while authorities cordoned off the area and sent in the bomb squad. Investigators cut open the bear but found nothing dangerous.” (my italics)

Let me tell you a little something: If I’m in need of hiding something suspicious I’m not hiding it in a life-sized polar bear. I can’t even imagine the discussion that took place between the police while they took two hours to sort out what to do. I understand the police have a tough job and I think Greenpeace more often than not goes overboard when demonstrating, but cutting open the suspicious bear to make sure there was nothing dangerous? Brilliant.

hey

t

obama

married white couple

It’s my duty to report on X and her genus. The most recent sighting of her type occured in a mysterious parking lot down Springfield way: an exchange of Chinese-based, yet Delft-like pottery. She was looking for something to sit in our entry way on the Hilltop and hold the myriad umbrellas that seem to wander to and fro. It was another Craigslist hook-up that involved the exchange of laundered money and blue/white goods that ended with this riposte while X attempted to load the first item (a vase) onto the backseat of Galactica, “On the floor…the floor! Vases and cakes on the floor!” she declared to X. Right. Cakes.

We have another lamp that sits on an end table and was procured via the List. For this exchange the two met in the Whole Foods parking lot in Falls Church – the deepest, dankest, darkest corner of the drug trade. Based on what was occurring with the planning of the above transaction – a thought of exchanging in the same parking lot if able – I figured she’d be busted for some type of illicit Delft activity in the suburbs: piles of high-end fancy cars and various bits of ceramic. In the end, she made it home safely from the Whole Foods (last time) lot without a felony on her record.

The last incident, though it fell between the other two, was the purchase of something I’ll call the porn chair. Her father purchased something referred to as “the ultimate chair” – something that requires a second mortgage to acquire. Anyhow, X found a twenty year-old version of the same chair on the List. For cheap. I hadn’t seen “the chair” prior to its arrival in our living room: if I could make the sound of the Shaft theme song via typing, I would. The rest of our living room is purely Victorian and it looks at the new starlet with some serious disgust…as if. We’re looking around for some swingers.

The humidity is too much. The temperature is fine.

Ah.

t

sporty and spice

Congratulations are in order for Sebastian Vettel of Toro Rosso who became the youngest winner of a Formula 1 race. Not only the youngest, but he’s driving for a lower-tier team that’s supported by the Red Bull Team and Ferrari. He qualified on pole in the rain at Monza and then lead the race to the end; he also allowed the championship to tighten up to one point with four races to left; go Ferrari. Well done.

Valentino Rossi won his fourth straight race in MotoGP at Indianapolis today…in the rain! Shoot, NASCAR can’t run in the rain but the cyclists simply change tyres and go and go until there’re but a few left on wheels. Rossi is the greatest rider of our lifetimes and will wrap up his sixth 500cc title, and 8th overall, next week.

The Brewers have decided, in the absence of Cubs games, to simply lose. I think we’re eight up in the loss column with sixteen to go…and leading tonight.

The Eleven hit the D.C. Jewish Community Center Theatre (DCJCC) to see Sandra Bernhard last night (WaPo review here). She’s doing fifteenish shows over three weeks and even though I was never a Bernhard guy, I thought it’d be something different than me dragging X along to see all my twang shows. Sandra does a singing, commentary, comedic turn that’s very enjoyable for a couple of reasons. First, it’s over-the-top to sit in the JCC with the older Jewish community while laughing at barbs ending in fu*&er, motherfu&#er, and I’ll kick her ass. Second, it was cathartic to hear her absolutely rant at the state of political affairs – the state of affairs as of that morning. It certainly made me feel better by the end of the night. As she pointed out, maybe Obama can’t say it out loud but she certainly can. She also has a band up on stage that rolls through a half-dozen great songs, harkening to the ‘80s, with Sandra belting out lyrics that become comical when she delivers them with a dose of sanity and distance. In the end, she ripped passed two hours with not a slow moment on display. I’d imagined her as a tireless entertainer and she definitely hammered home that ideal.

The final issue of the entry; when someone does some Little Red Corvette, as Bernhard did last night, you’ll be singing it for weeks…weeks. Think about it, “pocket full of Trojans, some of them used…’’

(clap clap)

t

dead and buried

I’ve tried, truly, I’ve tried but I have to put at least one match to the tinder. The McCain campaign has become a debacle. I support Obama because I believe far more in the Democratic platform than the Republican. I also believe that he is a once-in-a-generation leader that will serve us all. In the last few weeks I’ve become even more impressed by his ability to hold his steel and not devolve into the swill that is prevalent in the McCain campaign. McCain, who eight years ago seemed a reasonable politician, has pissed away whatever good will and hope that any centrist or independent person might have for a long-serving Republican. If you support McCain, I wish you luck with the blinders you’re wearing. There isn’t one iota of substance that his campaign is offering, not one bit of integrity, nor any chance that he and his administration could lead our country. Even if you dislike Obama there’s no way you can possibly not see how amateurish the McCain campaign has become and wonder just what it might be like to have another single term of blind, dangerous, and sophomoric leadership. I understand that it's the way of the political world to disagree on the issues but it is never acceptable – success or not – to blatantly lie about your opponent and yourself. If you buy into the elitist tag that’s been tattooed to Obama, feel free to use that to support mindless verbiage with absolutely no basis to support all the junk you read and hear. Take a serious look at what has swayed you toward the McCain campaign and decide if what’s taken you down that dank path is not only true, but whether it’s worth high-jacking the country with deceit that McCain sits upon. If you’re happy with how McCain has decided to run his race, well done – you and he have absolutely no political integrity left on your plate. I wish you well.

T

my heart will go on

(photos: Washington Post)

On Monday evening we met some of my old work mates for dinner at a very nice Greek/Turkish/Lebanese place in D.C., Zaytinya. Actually, there were supposed to be eight of us but only four showed up – we had a huge eight-person round top in an alcove that would have been perfect if the rest of the inconsiderate hacks had shown up. It ended up being Sue, Johnny B. (of upper NY and guest of honor), and the Eleven; a grand time all around the piles of mezze, wine, and pricey martinis. This is all merely a short back story and this isn’t meant as a “quick as a bunny” tale. I thought we should spend some time together at the blog and let the people know that we do in fact go out to dinner on occasion. As I was doing some research on the restaurant and parking, we’d decided to drive into the city (yes, we got a ticket…go figure), I realized that the one and only Celine Dion was playing at the Verizon Center a mere two blocks from our soiree. If you do the math on our 6pm reservation and the 8pm show time we were worried about two things: one, was the area going to be mobbed? Two, what if people thought we were going to the Celine Dion show? You can deal with the mobbed parking situation and streets easily enough, but the idea that some unknown person hanging around the city thinks you’re a Celine Dion fan is simply too much to bear. I think I may have tipped my hand, and rightly so, in order to continue the story.

I dug up the concert review at the WaPo online and gave it once over yesterday afternoon (you may not be able to read it unless you sign up for the “free” membership). The reviewer, who is the main WaPo concert and music critic, didn’t take much effort to hide his near hatred of Dion. I found the review fit my overall opinion of her and I think his description of her histrionics was dead accurate. This review led to a discussion at home last night about the responsibility of critics. Is there any point in sending a critic to a show if that person is wholly predisposed to not enjoying the show or being unable to put themselves in the shoes of the fans? I almost think that swinging either way – too great a fan or too much a hater – would then become an issue with just about every review. Do reviews fall under news or op-ed? I think that some of the best reviews I’ve read or heard were prefaced with the “I don’t much like this type of music (or this band), but this was a really good show (or record)…” Obviously, the counterbalance to that would be someone slagging off an artist they care deeply about – I know, I’ve done both when talking to people about shows and CDs. It seems that if you believe there shouldn’t be predisposition in a review then you’d have to find either a completely middle-of-the-road music fan/critic or you’d have to have every review open with a declaration of position. Or, I guess you could have a pure, idealistic person who can sit through the schmaltz of Celine Dion and keep that infection from the review. I’m not clear on which I’d vote for but after we debated it last night I realized that this review, though hilarious to me, was probably a little over the line when taking into account the whole of her career and not focusing on this particular show. Maybe a little insight into how the crowd reacted both during and the after the show would have given some depth to the review.

Vocal flyover…what a great line.

t

roses are red

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

This is how another little interaction with X jumped to the fore on Saturday afternoon. As we were standing on our front porch and thinking about making a dash through the torrential downpour from the remnants of Hanna, X recites this motto perfectly as she curses our yet-to-arrive postman. The reason I call it a curse is because she was waiting – on day three of the wait – for a check to arrive in the post. The lack of a postman provided the opportunity and Hanna provided for use of the motto. What I found so, dare I say comical, about her recitation was that it took me a few minutes to realize that she’d actually delivered the entire thing verbatim. If I’d tried to make my distaste for rain and mail known I would have said something like “You know, rain, sleet…all that stuff. Where’s my mail?” because I don’t actually know the entire song. To get an idea of why something like this is so strange yet so familiar, you need to know that there’ve been hundreds of times she’s turned to me and said things like…

“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.”

“Oh…who said that? It’s a rondeau, you know….a rondeau….who was it?”

To which I always reply, “What’s a rondeau?”

She has a mind that’s latched onto just about every bit of poetry-like text she’s ever read and it often bubbles to the surface when she’s doing something like…curling her hair. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no poetry knowledge; I’ve tried because it seems something I should know but it never sticks. In fact, I don’t think I could recite even one poem if you offered me $100.

Of course, when we were at the Post Office about thirty minutes later she was suddenly looking about claiming “it should be posted somewhere in here….” I’d completely forgotten the postal creed by then so I wasn’t too sure what she was on about: posted? what? where? As she dodged between rows of postal boxes, looking along the walls and columns, I thought she’d gone mad. In truth, I thought she was looking for something posted about umbrella rules since I was, at that very moment, gathering up my umbrella and readying for our exodus into the swale. Umbrella rules? Right.

what's that buzzing?

I’m going to work backwards through the musical portion of the weekend. The Eleven was at the Birchmere last night to see Steve Earle and Allison Moorer. I’ve seen him through most of his musical forays over the last decade and enjoyed them all. This was X’s first Earle show and she seemed impressed enough with his musical prophet songwriting and performance. I’ve read quite a few reviews of this tour and there are some unimpressed with his use of a DJ during the latter part of the show as he plays guitar and rolls through songs from his newest album; people want to hear the hard-rocking, loud Steve Earle and the Dukes…all the time. I’d disagree with some of the unfavorable reviews and put forth that his ability to shift between the pure acoustic presentation of his older stuff, some of which I’d never heard him perform live (Devil’s Right Hand and Ellis Unit One), and more modern sounds shows an amazing amount of flexibility and musical intuition. The show represented exactly what I expect of a Steve Earle show – professional, great songs, powerful storytelling, and political commentary. And now, my forward pitch into the abyss. Allison Moorer opened the evening with about eight songs primarily from her latest album, Mockingbird. At the risk of irritating Moorer, and possibly Earle fans (they are married…Earle and Moorer, not the fans), she is a wholly uninteresting solo acoustic performer. I could have heard that type of performance by any busker hanging around the World’s subways. Don’t get too wound up – there are some great buskers all across this great World. I just found her guitar playing, voice, delivery, and overall presence to be a complete blank slate – muzak to get me to the main event; picture an elevator where you’re staring at the numbers and counting floors until you can get off – I was counting songs. Since my primary exposure to her has been via video and live late-night performances with Steve, I had an inkling that she’d be much better as part of the later show when she joined him on stage for songs from Washington Square Serenade. That portion of the show, when she danced a bit and harmonized, were a much better representation of where I think her talent lies. Am I condoning here to life as a background singer? Maybe. Even though I love someone like Neko Case, who has a stunning voice, I’ve always been more impressed with her when she’s performing as part of the New Pornographers than when she’s done solo work. Sometimes voices and performers are like that and I’d put Moorer in the supporting role.

On Friday night my friend Sue and I hit the State Theatre to see The Gourds. This show was aces all around. Eight or so albums into their career and they just keep getting stronger. I’ve long posited that there’s nothing better than a live band that really knows its craft; the solo acoustic performer has a very tough row to hoe with any crowd. The Gourds are a five-piece, multi-vocalist contraption that runs you down the road of a crazy folk, bluegrass, country, rock n’ roll, and twang atlas. The sound they create is perfect salve for a long, hard week and they’ve mastered the live show – it’s not merely a CD recreation but an actual performance. They don’t wander down rabbit holes, they don’t make you wonder just how long you’ll be there, they don’t have poorly mixed sound, and they don’t make you think they’re just going through the motions. The State was perfectly suited to their show and the crowd was excellent. In addition to the Todd Snider show last year (a solo acoustic dealio, go figure) it was the best show I’ve seen since moving to the D.C. area in 2006.

I’ll give you a quick update on the doings at the farmers market and the U.S. Postal Service motto when we next meet.

t

three alarm fire

The small place across the street from us is going to be torn down tomorrow and the owners have been working for a few months to pull out whatever is salvageable before the claw attacks. They're planning on building a story-and-a-half house that will fit into the neighborhood much better than the horrid ego mansions that seem to pop up every other lot. Being as the final destruction is tomorrow, the owners coordinated with the fire department to come over today and play fire fire fire: busting in the door repeatedly, breaking all the windows, setting part of attic ablaze, breaking through the roof...all the stuff you see on Rescue Me. I honestly didn't know people did this house volunteer work with the fire department until X was giving me the rundown this evening. She was outside working on gardening and weeding (are those the same thing?) while the fire boys were playing their game of destruction. She was working specifically on two large pots of lavender that had turned south over the Summer. Apparently, based on her testimony, the firefighters showed quite an interest in her lavender. 

Ah, my child. Firefighters loooooovvvvveeeee lavender.

She's still cute.

t

i knew that

The Eleven was driving to Trader Joe’s yesterday and having a discussion about H.’s new school when he pointed out that he had someone, a teacher maybe, with a last name he’d never heard of before. He thought it strange – new names and all – and pointed out that even a strange surname like Turvey had been represented by two people in his school back in England. X immediately pointed out that Turvey is a quite popular name in England because “those who used to cut peat in England were known as ‘turveys’”. What the heck? I looked at her as she was driving Galactica, as this little nugget of wisdom was hanging in the air, and murmured a bit too loudly “What the hell do you mean? How would you possibly know that?” But thankfully, just as my query was posed, yet before I could fully poke fun at this new bit of trivia, H. pipes up from the backseat with “What’s peat?” I now think the quiz show is diverted a bit while I continue to contemplate the Turveys of England because I know the peat definition will be more simplistic. But before I have a chance to recover from turvey I'm hit with “peat is like loam.” Ah, problem solved…loam! Peat is like loam, young man. I was now totally lost in a discussion about loam, a word or description of a thing ,of which I’ve never heard. It did however make me think of foreign language teachers who explain one foreign word with another foreign word; you don’t often get too far. In my love’s defense, she has a mind like a trap, especially when it comes to nuggets like turvey and loam and she was merely relating a story from an Englishmen name Turvey who’d explained where the name originated. I, of course, relayed my deep knowledge of names like Baker, Smith, and Shoemaker.

The second part of this enlightenment doubleheader took place as we were reading before bed (me: The Great Derangement / she: Forfeit) and I asked her about Dick Francis and his horse books: Were there chase scenes while riding horses? People running on track with the horses? Horses involved in the murders? Jockeys riding races with guns? You know…the basic stuff. I find out that racing, in general, is the backdrop but everything else is your stock mystery stuff. She tells me he was a jockey when younger. I reply with what seems a normal response, something like, “Oh, he was a jockey?” to which she says “Of course, he was Queen’s Champion!” As if one would know that Mr. Dick Francis (CBE) was a former Queen's Champion jockey and not a turvey in his previous life…

She’s lovely.

t

american evolution

In the great tradition of American Labor Day we headed out to buy school supplies and rat food. There you have it. I vaguely remember going out with my mother to purchase supplies but it seemed more a matter of some trapper keepers, one binder, and pens and pencils from the Rexall drug down in Rockbrook Village. Actually, as an elementary student I don’t ever remember getting anything – it wasn’t until junior high at Valley View that supplies became necessary. The schools across northern Virginia are hardcore when it comes to “The List”. The kids need very specific stuff like low odor dry erase markers, Kleenex, college-ruled paper, yellow highlighters (yellow!), four 1” white vinyl three-ring binders, two glue sticks, and erasable pens (I hate erasable pens). What I realized at the checkout is that every school is saving about $75 a kid. If nothing else, the college-ruled paper seems fishy; no one uses college-ruled paper until…college. Are they worried about kids writing too large and sneaking less than what they consider a full-page essay entitled "What I Did Over the Summer"  into the homework box? It wasn’t so long ago that I did some research on the whole college-ruled vs. wide-ruled paper. I was overly interested in the term and exactly what started the battle of the ‘ruled. (As an aside, I might also have been some research into pica vs. elite font from my junior high school typing class days.)

The rat food isn’t so interesting; the rat needed some food.

The boys and X have settled back into the house. That basically means the boys can run all about, enjoy their own rooms, and not worry about anything. For X it means I’ll cook her food and give her kisses – what’s a boy to do?

I’m adding an embed of Ricky Gervais doing a bit on evolution. If you don’t know, Gervais created and starred in The Office in England. He’s a consultant on the American version that came years later. I gave the American version a go when it first started but seemed to miss out on the funny. His original version is still, to me, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.



and this clip from the show about his office doing training...

"go get my guitar..."