Posts

The Music That Made Me

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It's been quite a week for seeing some of my favorite artists, whose music was seminal to my development but who I last saw live when I looked like this: As mentioned before , it started out with Jane Siberry on Sunday (last seen at The Blooomsbury Theater in London in November, 1989). I still have a special place in my heart for Bound by the Beauty and When I Was a Boy , but after the concert I'm finding myself listening to her more experimental stuff with a new ear. Like Laurie Anderson, she's at the cutting edge of what music and performance art mean. Her work is beautiful and liminal and I'm so glad she is still making it! Last night, thanks to my friend David giving me his ticket (and his friend Ed transferring it to me!) I got to see Robyn Hitchcock at the Turf Club (last seen in 1988 in London, I want to say at the Hackney Empire but I honestly think it was a smaller club than that, maybe Ronnie Scott's?). I ran into our friends Troy and Rebecca who say th...

As the Kids Say, "Fit Check"

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If you know me, you will know that about 99.9% of my wardrobe comes from clothing exchanges. This means that, though I love my clothes, very little is actually the latest in fashion — or even intentionally chosen. However, I am absolutely in love with these pants , which are truly incredible and also more than a mortgage payment (though if anyone is reading this and wants to send me a pair I would not turn them down). By all accounts, they are life-changing. But then, there's college tuition looming around the corner. So I read about these dupes at Old Navy and thought I would give them a try. They're not a perfect match, but it's a reasonable attempt, and they were only $19.99 so both Beatrix and I are sporting a pair today (and let's put it this way, she care a lot more about fashion than I do). And it feels fun to have something new to distract me.

A Different Kind of Easter

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We're not exactly church types. But we celebrated today with some Easter baskets anyway, and then went to see the llamas at Forgotten Star Brewery. Ernie was very excited, he had never seen a llama before. Then we went to Broken Clock Brewing. Tonight, Patrick and I went to See Jane Siberry at the Dakota. I had last seen her in London in 1989.  It was like no concert I had ever been to, free-flowing and beautiful and courageous and exploratory and curious. And her eyes are just as incredible as they were 37 years ago.

Small Project Saturday - Yes, a Day Early

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Though we're not exactly religious, it's Easter tomorrow, so we did Small Project SATURDAY instead of SUNDAY. The focus was on the dining room: Where we set the puzzle table back up: Where I got some new chairs off FB Marketplace to replace the rickety old ones: They're  little low though, so they needed new cushions. I *finally* repainted the ceiling where we had had to repair it when the billeting Fringe artist massively destroys our toilet a couple of years ago and destroyed the dining room plaster. Before: After: Patrick touched top the living room ceiling too, where some stray 18th birthday party decorations had marked. Before: After: I fed the orchids and cleaned up the woodwork, surfaces, and floors throughout (plus dose wall and art dusting). And I used some prints I had to make some new light switch covers (though the placement on the Ingres is not ideal). It's all small progress, but the house feels clean and bright and nice, so I'll take it!

Small Project Sunday - Divide and Conquer

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We both had a lot of things going on today, so chose to divide and conquer for our Small Project Sunday. Patrick fixed the windshield wipers on Dusty the Truck, adding a new skill to his arsenal. I cleaned up the back yard — well, at least the seating area. While the difference might not look like much, it does make it a lot nicer out there for hanging out outside, including cleaning up an entire winter's full of dog poop from the yard. It's a little early still to clean out the beds, with pollinators still asleep in plant stems and such. My seeds in my little greenhouses have not sprouted yet either.

Ending in Athens

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(So I'm a little behind, but in general I have been impressed by how I have kept up) We woke up Wednesday and walked over for some coffee while we tried to suss what to do with our Greek Independence Day (note — the place where we got coffee may be like Brigadoon, it was busy that day and then I never saw it open again!) Once Beatrix was up we went over to Little Kook , which is a place that defies description. I have about a million pictures, but I think these few give the sense. And the food was surprisingly good! We then walked around looking at street art and to the National Garden, enjoying the sun.  By that time, though, Beatrix was near-dead from all the walking, so we ended up at Hoo Cut and Coleur Locale again. Not a bad way to end the day! Thursday, we started the day with loukades at a cafe close to the apartment.  We walked back and forth multiple times before sussing that the temporarily relocated entrance to the Agora was now right by the cafe (oops). The Agora, ...