Category: Daily Life

VOTE VOTE VOTE Like A Baby Stoat!

I spent Sunday afternoon and evening hanging out with my three-year-old nephew while my sister and brother-in-law went to a social event. My eight-year-old niece was around for a while, but once I helped her put on her witch makeup, she was off to a Halloween event with a friend.

My band played last night to a good-sized crowd in a smoky bar in Lake Lotawana, Missouri. I thought I had a couple of groups of friends coming out to hear us, but nobody showed up. I don't really blame them because it's quite a drive from Kansas City proper.

This morning I woke up at 8 (after going to bed at 3) because AT&T was scheduled to install internet, cable and phone service. Unfortunately, it turned out that they couldn't switch the phone over on a Saturday, so I basically interrupted my sleep for nothing. Their tech was very nice, though, and enamored of our cats. She said she'd been a vet tech before she became a cable installer.

So now I'm awake and very tired but not really sleepy. My ears are still ringing from last night, albeit not as much as they would be if I hadn't worn earplugs through most of the sets. At some point I need to go to the grocery store to get ingredients for a chili cook-off I'm attending later today. Then I need to go to a different grocery store because my main store doesn't carry the milk I like.

My tentative plan is to get my shopping out of the way, start the chili cooking, and take a nap while it simmers. Oh, and watch last night's "Ghost Whisperer," even though I'm hating the substitution of Jamie Kennedy for Jay Mohr. Somebody get that man some acting lessons!

Okay, I just read over everything I've written so far and it's obvious that I'm not operating at full capacity. I think that's a sign I should try to go back to bed and save everything else for later. Goodnight again!

Ever since fall began to set in, I've had a hell of a time getting out of bed in the morning. My usual wakeup times of 5:30, 6:00, 6:30, come and go as I remain burrito'ed in my covers.

When I sleep in, I end up having vivid, complicated dreams all morning long. This morning my dream was a variation on a recurring dream that I've discovered new rooms in my house that I never knew existed. In this case, I was staying at a house with a bunch of relatives, bunked uncomfortably with someone else. I started walking down the hallway and found two more bedrooms that we weren't using. One was rather plain, but comfortable. The other was in a beautiful room with lots of windows and had an ornately carved wooden bed. Unfortunately, the room was so cold that nobody would want to sleep there.

It's not surprising that I would dream about relatives this month. My late mother and grandmother both had October birthdays. My cousin and his dad also have birthdays in October, so we always used to have annual get-togethers to celebrate them all at once.  Another uncle – my mother's brother – passed away just last week, which will be another touchpoint of October sadness for the family.

I always forget how much the gloom affects me as the days get shorter and colder. I need to kick up the multi-vitamins, keep the exercise going and make sure to spend time outside whenever the sun is shining. As tempting as it is to stay in bed all day, I have stuff to do!

ByJane has a post up about one of my pet peeves: the idea that you can't wear whatever you want once you get past a certain age. I'm not talking about retaining the right to display my cellulite-pocked thighs in a mini-skirt from the juniors' department. That's a fashion don't for anyone (with cellulite-pocked thighs). However, I do take exception to the idea that my fortieth birthday marked the day that society expected me to turn in all my Threadless t-shirts and start outfitting myself at Chico's.

Over the last four or five years, I've developed the perfect wardrobe for myself: jeans, quirky t-shirts, long-sleeved layering t-shirts for when it's chilly, a variety of pairs of Converse sneakers, and a few hoodies for when it's really chilly. I can mix and match those items like Garanimals for weeks on end, even when I'm lax about doing laundry.

One of the reasons this wardrobe concept works so well for me is that the jeans are the only part of it that must be shopped for in person and tried on. The t-shirts all come from various online sources. These days, the shoes come from Zappos.com. The hoodies and long-sleeved tees are mostly from Target, and they last forever.

You may have gathered by now that I hate shopping. That's why last weekend was the ultimate in clothing-acquisition events for me. My sister tipped me off that she was getting rid of a lot of her business casual clothes. Naturally, I made a bee-line to her house to claim what I could before the Goodwill run. The haul included a bunch of black jackets, a wool skirt I can wear the next time I'm obliged to dress up, and a couple of pairs of slacks that could also come in handy for dressier occasions.

The black jackets will be great in the fall and winter to dress up my t-shirt wardrobe. I can also pair them with tank tops to wear onstage when my band performs. There's nothing like a long jacket to hide a multitude of figure flaws.

You'll notice I didn't say anything about how I now have the wardrobe to dress like a real grown-up. That's the last thing I intend to do. Maybe if I ever feel like a real grown-up, I'll change my mind. Until then, what you see is what you get.

My 8-year-old niece and I went to the Weston, Missouri Applefest last Saturday. I picked her up from her soccer game (she's really good!) and we drove about an hour to get to Weston.

On the way, I thought she might enjoy hearing one of my cover band's demo songs. I happened to have a CD in the car with two of the songs on it. I could only play "Higher Ground" for her; the other song was "Lit Up" by Buckcherry [lyrics], which really isn't even appropriate for ME to listen to.

She liked the song so much that she had me play it three or four times. Then she had an interesting question: "Is your band famous enough to be on the radio?"

I thought it was a very astute and valid question for a pop culture-steeped kid to ask. It made me think of the interviews with celebrities where they're asked if their kids understand how famous they are and most of them say their kids don't seem to know or care.

I told her that the band was just a hobby and we concentrate on performing other people's songs live. I didn't muddy the waters with a discussion about my original band project, largely because the odds that it will ever be an exception to what I was saying are infinitesimal.

Then she gave me the best compliment I've ever gotten about my music, "Well, I think people would like to hear it."

I know there's nothing lamer than the "why I'm not blogging" blog post, but I've fallen so far off from my four years of daily posts that I figured it was time to try to explain.

The thing is, I don't know what the problem is. Or rather, it's no one thing, it's lots of things.

For starters, since I've been using Twitter regularly, it's absorbed a lot of the trivial observations that would once have been blown out into blog posts. I know I should take advantage of my Twitter stream and cherry-pick interesting tidbits to write about for my non-Twittering blog audience, but for some reason I don't feel inclined to do so. I'll work on it.

Then there's the upcoming election and the fact that the economy is in the crapper. Both of those things are absorbing a lot of my attention right now, but I've been hesitating to write about them in any detail lest I begin ranting.

However, now that I've gotten started, I'll at least sum up my feelings. In a nutshell, I firmly believe that this is the most important election in my lifetime. However, I have extremely grave doubts about the integrity of our electoral system and my biggest worry is that we'll never know the true outcome of a major election again. I'll keep annoying my local poll workers by requesting a paper ballot, but unless everyone else does the same, well, I don't know that we can truly believe that our votes are being accurately recorded and tallied anymore.

The economic problems are more abstract to me so far, but I've put off the remodeling work we were going to have done because I didn't want to spend the cash in case I end up needing it. I have a limited amount of money directly invested anywhere – other than my 401(k) – and I have no reason to think that the NCUA won't protect my credit union deposits. Still, it's an unsettling time.

Other than that, everything's fine. Work is great, the band is going
well, all of the people and cats in the household are relatively
healthy. I'm enjoying the fall weather and looking forward to being
outside a bit more.

I'm hoping that this post is the turning point where I pull out of my blogging funk and manage to get back to real writing again. If so, I guess I'll see you back here tomorrow.

With the impeccable timing I'm known for, I have returned from Las Vegas with a miserable illness. I'm not exactly sure what it is yet, but it appears to involve a sinus infection and tonsillitis.

Of course, this wouldn't be nearly such a big deal under ordinary circumstances, but this week is NOT the time for me to have a sore throat considering that I have band practice every single night and then, oh yeah, TWO gigs this weekend for which I am singing 38 songs per evening.

When I started feeling cold-y yesterday, I started with the Zicam swabs right away. I also added some multivitamin packs to my regimen and even drank some weird and slightly yucky "Throat Coat" tea.

Today I feel worse than ever and I'm dying to get a look at my tonsils but can't seem to find a flashlight anywhere.

Obviously I need to do whatever I can to fix this as quickly as possible. Looks like my lunch break is going to involve either a doctor visit or a trip to urgent care so I can get a strep test and procure whatever drugs are going to make this start getting better immediately.

I'll cut this short because my eyeballs hurt…oh, and I have to shower and get ready for work. Heavy sigh.

I didn't intend to take a blogging break, but I'm living through one of those times when every day is pretty much the same and not really worth talking about. On top of that, I haven't felt very well for the last couple of weeks, so it got easy to let the blog (and Twitter, for that matter), slide a bit.

So here's some miscellanea that covers the past several days.

My cover band's new bass player is working out well and making the band sound tighter than before, even though he's just starting to learn the songs. We took a stab at setting up the PA at last night's band practice. Um, yeah. I'm glad my husband has a friend who used to work as a professional sound man. We're going to need to consult with him on a few things.

I guess it's not too early to start promoting my band's gig on September 26th. You'll find a flier here. It's a small club, but we're hoping to pack it pretty full, particularly because we're already booked there again in October.

In household news, we got a bid from the contractor for the remodeling of our guest room, repair of our garage ceiling and removal of the ivy that's taking over our deck and garage. It sounds reasonable, so I think we're ready to accept it and get started whenever the crew is available. Now I just need to choose colors and materials and start thinking about furniture.

I'm really enjoying the fall weather – I think it may be my favorite season. My sister and I went shopping in Parkville last weekend and decided that we need to make a point of attending some Oktoberfests this year with my niece and nephew. The Applefest in Weston is always a good one. Mmm, apple turnovers with vanilla ice cream!

The autumn chill is also putting me in the mood to cook heartier food. It's about time for bierocks and I can sense a batch of minestrone in my near future as well.

In fact, I may make minestrone on Saturday evening for the attendees of a board game night I'm having. I tried to organize a spur-of-the-moment game night last Saturday, but didn't manage to round anyone up then. I'm hoping to have more luck this weekend.

Well, I think I've rambled enough. Have a great Wednesday and we'll assume this marks my return to a regular posting schedule.

As part of our creativity symposium at work today, Stanley Jordan performed and spoke about creativity in terms of music. I’ve been a fan of his since his first album came out in 1985, and watching him play live was nothing short of amazing.

Enjoy his jazz-flavored performance of Led Zeppelin’s "Stairway to Heaven:"