Golden Delicious

We actually went out, not to the movies for once, and saw Mike Doughty perform last night. He used to head up the band Soul Coughing (their big hit was "Circles"), and went out on his own after the band broke up. His first full-length album, Haughty Melodic, was brilliant, and accompanied us on our honeymoon back in August 2005. Even today, when I hear any of the tracks on that album, I can see the roads we traveled through the Middle of Nowhere, Maine. I envision Niagara Falls and the stunningly pretty day we saw them. I remember the prairies of South Dakota, the mountains of Wyoming and Montana, and the weirdness of Yellowstone. It is good road music, is what I'm saying, and it remains evocative to this day.

His new album is just released, Golden Delicious. I haven't had the hard listening time with it yet, but so far, I like it almost as much as Haughty Melodic. Bruce managed to find out about a free show he was going to play, at Criminal Records in Little Five Points. He played an awesome 45 minute set, acoustic, taking requests from the audience. He was quite the stickler about people not interrupting his performance, which I appreciated. It was great- I was almost directly in front of him, up on a ramp and a few feet away, and though there was a comic book rack in the way, necessitating that I stand on tiptoes, I had a great view, otherwise unobstructed.

Driving away, trying to decide what else we would rather do, I happened to visit Mike Doughty's website, and noticed that he was playing a full set at the Variety Playhouse, also in Little Five Points, later that night. We turned right around and went back, found parking and got tickets. We had Indian food for dinner, and walked into the club about 10 minutes before his band took the stage. It was a great crowd and a great show- everyone was very enthusiastic, it was crowded enough to feel full but not so crowded that I couldn't see or had personal space issues. The band was fantastic; they played a smattering of the great old stuff, and a bunch of great new stuff too. They had a great sense of humor too- Mike announced at one point that it was a "critical juncture in the show." It was the song before the Fake Last Song. During the next song, he announced, they would do the big rock-n-roll finish, introduce every band member in a counterclockwise direction using their entire Christian names, and then they would all face the back of the stage while we clapped (or not), and then they would turn around for the Encore. They decided that facing the back of the stage was easier than walking off and coming back.

And that's exactly how it all played out. I thought it was quite entertaining that they announced it all in advance.

Anyway, it was a great show, great energy, lots of fun. Check out Haughty Melodic and Golden Delicious when you have a hankering for some great songwriting and catchy alt rock with some experimental bits.

Of Course

Because we were set to go on vacation next week, of course my daughter has come down with the first cold she's had, oh, since our last vacation. It's been a good while since her last one, anyway. She has an immune system like clockwork.

But wait, you say. If she's sick now, it means she probably will be mostly recovered then. Yes, yes she will. Selfish as it may seem, it's not really her health I am concerned about. Let's see...she started being symptomatic yesterday, I can avoid it for three days, add two for incubation... aaannnndd I predict that I'm getting sick right around Thursday of this week. Which will make my vacation just peachy.

Bruce says I shouldn't write about this, "Because it's like The Secret, only like it's a bad Secret. You'll make it come true by thinking about it and writing about it." It's the Power of Negative Thinking all the way around here these days.

Happy Easter!

My dad and stepmom came down, and we and my sister and brother-in-law went to breakfast and then to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

Caetlin had a really awesome time. We all did. Happy Easter!

UPDATE: I should note that Caetlin is not unhappy in that last picture, just tired. We walked to the field she's pictured in above, which all told was maybe a mile, and she spent most of the walk back on Daddy's shoulders. She was pretty pooped by then.

My Knees Hurt

I had this whole post written yesterday, about how I had taken a walk to a law firm up the street, and how it had turned into this big ordeal, but what it turns out I really wanted to write about was the fact that I fell down and skinned my knees. It hurt, and continues to hurt today.

Here's the relevant part:

I rolled my ankle in my heels, and I pitched onto the concrete. I ruined my shoes, scraping the leather off the entire toe of one of them, and skinned my knees horribly, though thankfully my pants were not torn. Skinning one's knees is just such a grade school thing to do, and I thought of my daughter and how she cries immediately and forcefully when she skins a knee or her hands or bumps her head. I had new sympathy for her right then- we forget how much skinning one's knee really stings, besides being a really kid-like injury.

My knees hurt and my shoes are in the trash, and that's pretty much all there was noteworthy about that.

Sad

So, Georgia was unable to hold on against Xavier today. I was disappointed, but I think it is worth remembering that they weren't supposed to win, and that they performed better than they had any right to expect by leading for most of the game. I actually watched the whole thing, and about halfway through the second half, it looked like their- for lack of a better word- immaturity caught up with them. Not chronological immaturity, but emotional immaturity. They started playing sloppily, flailing about. And then they couldn't come back.

Still, a great end to a bad season. Hopefully they can recruit this year.

Things I Did Today

Today, I did these things:

1. Closed a deal. Actually, spent two-thirds of the day closing the deal, working email and the phone, stress churning my stomach into bright knots of pain. The deal itself was not hard, but because of a few extenuating circumstances with things my client needed to deliver, the outcome was in doubt until it actually funded. Also, my client is on the other side of the world, so it grew more and more difficult to get things done as it got later and later at night where they are.

1a. Spoke to people in three different countries.

2. Had to tell someone on a conference call (unrelated to the deal mentioned above), "No one here really cares who screwed up or is interested in pointing fingers. We just want to make sure it gets fixed." The person I was telling this to was definitely the screw up.

3. Taught my daughter to sit down in order to do the"Nose to Toes" yoga position that we're learning in our baby yoga class. If she tries to do it standing up, gravity makes actually bringing her nose to her toes (without bodily injury) very difficult.

4. Heard my daughter tell me she loves me, unprompted, after I asked her to give me a kiss.

5. When playing with her foam bath letters and numbers, realized that my daughter knows the number 7, and taught her how a W can be an M if you turn it upside down.

6. Wore myself out lifting weights tonight after Caetlin went to bed.

7. Had a tasty meatball sub for dinner- Bruce makes the best meatballs ever.

8. Watched a little America's Next Top Model (oh yes, yes I did. I am not ashamed. Nope. I own my crappy taste in TV).

9. Wrote a blog post.

10. Collapsed gratefully into bed, knowing that I won't get any emails in the middle of the night, at least not of any substance. Knowing that I don't need to wake up early in the morning to work, and knowing that there is a decent chance I actually will get to take a long lunch to go watch the Georgia game tomorrow.

So ends yet another day of "having it all." Was this what our moms' generation meant when they broke through the glass ceiling for us?

Wish For Spring

Yesterday, it smelled like spring when I walked out the door to go to work. It was the kind of day that, when I was a kid, even all the way through college, I would wear shorts to school even though it wasn't close to warm enough. I would freeze all day, and protest through my shivers, "But it should be warm enough!" It smelled fresh and cool, and of growing things.

Driving home for lunch today, I noticed that it seems like the trees have started flowering almost overnight. Last week, it was still cold and grey and the trees scratched the sky with their bare limbs. Today white and pink line the roads, even on the short drive from the office to the house. A smear of green here and there. Many colors of tulips closer to the ground.

The Allman Brothers' "Blue Sky" has been running through my head for the last few days. It's a spring song, to me, a happy song of love and of course gorgeous guitar. I had an appreciation for the Allman Brothers bestowed upon me in college that has never left me, for which I remain grateful.

I'm ready for warmer weather, sunny days, bluer skies. I know that soon it will be too hot to breathe, that I will daily battle bad hair and high power bills in all the humidity, but for now, I'm ready for a change from the dreariness.