Monday, January 15, 2007

laughing my head off

1. Phoebe was giving everyone nicknames on Saturday morning after all three kids had climbed in bed with us. "Mom is Guitarlady. Papa is Birdman. Moses is Legoboy. Ollie is Natureboy. And I'm "Love-My-Family-Girl." At this point we all rolled our eyes, gagged on the saccharine and promised to remind her of that nickname in about ten minutes when she started terrorizing her brothers. I said, "I would have called you CraftySally." Ollie said, "I would have called you Crap." I laughed my head off. He had heard "crap" on "Dirty Jobs" and--bless his little heart-- didn't know what it meant. Now he does. But darnit, the name didn't stick.

2. Moses lost a tooth last Wednesday.

3. Not to be outdone, Phoebe yanked a tooth out on Thursday. That night Paul was sick in bed with Strep and I had rehersal for Friday's show, which lead to bourbon drinking and merry-making. I got home late and went right to bed. In the morning Phoebe came in and said, "Guess what the tooth fairy brought me. Nothing." Ooops. I suggested that Phoebe wasn't on her master schedule since she had yanked the tooth out before it's time. Paul shouted from the other room, "Maybe she was in a horrible accident! Did anyone stop to think of that?!" I laughed my head off. The kids did too--we're raising people as twisted as we are.


4. I cut Oliver's hair.


5. Phoebe drew this picture on the white-board in our kitchen. If I had any reason to be ashamed or worried, I would have been horrified and erased it. As it is, I laughed my head off. "Mama likes wine. Papa loves birds." (why does this look like a link? it's not.)



6. The show was wonderful on Friday. As I said, it was a full-house. Robin did a seven minute interview on Live at the Mill on Friday morning. It's a live show on our NPR affiliate out of Lincoln showcasing arts around the state. She was also on local radio. We both did interviews for a very nice article that ran in the Hastings Tribune. The publicity helped, but people just seemed really excited to hear local musicians/songwriters.
I did the opening song "Ohio" with Robin & Cody on vocals, Dan on banjo, Christie on fiddle and Jay on bass. I was nervous, especially to go first, but it went well. Everything went well, barring my Weepies cover in which I couldn't seem to get my fingers to play C-sharp-minor. Thankfully, Peter was wailing away and covered it some. Oh well. I sang harmony on a couple tunes--Stephen Foster's "Hard Times", on which almost everybody played and Cody's cover of Kasey Chamber's "Pony." Robin & I split the vocals on Dave Carter's "I Go Like the Raven" because neither of us wanted to learn all those crazy words. I played accordion on Todd's "Blackbird" and the song he and I wrote together which is either called "Black 13" or "Nothing Comes Easy." On that last one I not only manged to play accordion and sing harmony, but to dance, as well, because it is most definatley a dance tune (especially with Jay on drums). Most of you have no idea who these folks are or what it all means and to that, I say, you'll just have to come to the next show.


For me, the highlights were Dan & Todd singing "Wagon Wheel", Christie playing fiddle on "I Go Like the Raven", Cody singing "Blackberry Blossom" and Todd & I nailing "Black 13." And we raised much needed cash for the Listening Room. The LR is a non-profit, volunteer run organization that is generally short on cash. We have our sales tax due shortly and now we can pay it, plus have a cushion going into the spring season. Yeah.


7. I almost killed somebody with a peanut allergy(okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration). We had some friends over, spur of the moment the other night. Friend #1 brought some cookies. I know she has a nut allergy. She was looking at the ingredients list with new friend #2. I figured #2 must also have a nut allergy, but didn't think much of it because nobody said anything to me. I made cookies from some frozen dough given to me as a Christmas gift. I was pretty sure it had peanut butter in it. I set the tray down on the table and said, "I think these have peanuts so..." And #2 literally ran for the door. She was grabbing her coat to get out of the house. It turned out fine--the cookies didn't have peanuts, but if she had even smelled peanuts she would have started throwing up and turning blotchy. Now, I'm totally aware of how serious nut allergies can be--I'm no allergy deny-er (I saw Freaks & Geeks when super-bully Allan put peanuts in Bill's sandwich), but I guess I'd thought there'd be a warning that I might send somebody to the hospital! Now I know. Hopefully #2 and I can still be friends, as this was the first time we really hung out. Oops. I felt awful.

8. We're buying a Honda Fit. It was down to the Scion XB and The Fit, which cost the same, have the same amount of interior space, the same warranty, about the same gas mileage and are almost alike in everyway--except the XB looks a lot cooler. A lot. Price & gas mileage were our two big factors. We just can't afford a hybrid at this stage, but want the next best thing. Then Paul read here that you can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. The Honda Fit gets 3 miles per gallon more than the XB. Done.Posted by Picasa

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmm, good luck with the Fit. Honda is being stingy with them at the moment. They don't send them out based upon orders, but are keeping the demand high by only sending a few at a time to the lots. I know Paul's Uncle Ron and Aunt Donna were on a list of three months that kept getting extended longer and longer. There was not one single fit available in the entire region of Chicago, so they had to go for a mini.
Hopefully you will fare better on it.

emdunbar said...

we were told sixish weeks to get our car delivered. we're going to the dealer tonight to place said order. i would think demand would be high regardless of honda's shennanigans--it's a sweet car.