Miss You, MCC

But I expect she hasn't missed me at all. One year ago this evening I was in the audience experiencing the music of Mary Chapin Carpenter. Live. As in, in the same room and sitting close enough to recognize her! I am listening to Ashes & Roses at the moment. Earlier I had The Essential MCC playing while I cleaned my bathroom. Making that particular task more enjoyable. I really must fit in a listen to time*sex*love before turning in. Tomorrow August arrives. And while I'm turning up the calendar I usually ask where has the summer gone. No answer yet. I'll keep y'all posted.

Mushroom Conundrum

I like mushrooms. I also like recycling. Which brings us to mushroom packaging. In the past when I purchased mushrooms, they were almost always found in the blue foam box like the one on the left. Foam of this type is not recyclable which left me feeling slightly guilty about making trash. Lately I've been finding them in a box like the one on the right, a corrugated recyclable package which makes me happy. But there are some problems. Often the paper package is too wet or dirty to be accepted by recyclers. Only if I can clean it up and dry it out properly do I toss it in the recycling bin. Also, the mushrooms keep better in the foam container! If I leave them even a few days in the paper one, the shrooms turn to a slimy mush! Rendering them inedible and the package definitely trash. So I have developed a compromise that is working out pretty well. I purchase my fungi in a paper container. When I get home I transfer them into the foam box. I then have a clean, dry paper container that can be recycled! And the foam box will last until the next millenium, I expect. Guilt solved, mushrooms stay fresh, everybody's happy. If you're coming over for dinner, you'll just have to pick them out if you're not. 

The Heggs Rock!

The video currently playing on Facebook is of this band covering another Bruce Hornsby tune, but this will most definitely do. They played the main stage at Jazzfest as well as the second stage in another incarnation known as Spooncat!. The Hegg Brothers band is local, mind you, local talent! Many of them live elsewhere now and must be imported back to South Dakota in order to perform together. The thing is, they're so good that I know when I move away I'll come back to see them. Unless I can get them to come out to Colorado for a command performance. Damn. I want to be Queen.

The video on Facebook is of Across the River and is also professional quality thanks to South Dakota Public Broadcasting! But I can't get it to upload here!

I'm Meeeeeeeeeltiiiiiiiiing!

Even though there isn't a great deal of heat in the kitchen it has proven to be too much for Mr. Melonhead. 

Meeting Miss Mira

Introducing my most recent great-niece, Mira. With her most lovely parents, Megan and Justin. 

And because the adorable Mira looks a little worried in the group shot, here is another adorable pic. And, yes, she is that much more adorable in person. I must say she is a most excellent collaborative effort on the part of her parents. As well as adorable.

Eleven Years Ago Today

There are only fourteen possible calendars for the year in the way we measure it. I know, seems like there ought to be more. Given that there are seven days to the week and that any year must begin on one of those days gives us the the first seven possibilities. The other seven arise from the existence of leap years, which also must begin on one of the seven days of the week. The difference comes in with the addition of that extra day at the end of February, rendering the rest of the year numerically different. Which means that eleven years ago today was also a Saturday, the last Saturday of July in 2002. Which in many ways was a day when my life took this fork in the road rather than that one. Which has me thinking that you just don't know what any given day has in store for you when you open your eyes in the morning. One thing I do remember specifically about this Saturday in 2002 is that we had recently taken delivery of a regular queen size box spring topped by a mattress sort of bed. The previous seventeen years we had been slumbering on a waterbed quite happily, thank you. Until my back and sides began to protest on a nightly basis which I attempted to remedy by poking pillows here and there for relief, never thinking it was the bed itself that was the problem. Earlier that summer we had taken a family road trip where I discovered that after a single night sleeping on a regular bed that my pain had disappeared. Prompting the purchase of one that we had been sleeping on for a week or so. The new nightstands had not yet arrived so we had fashioned a couple from cardboard boxes. When you are accustomed to living with pain it seems a miracle when it goes away. That's what I remember upon waking that morning as I noted the time on my clock radio sitting atop my swanky corrugated nightstand. That my back and sides didn't hurt. Saturday, July 27, 2002. Nothing particularly notable about this Saturday, July 27, 2013. But there are nearly five hours left in the day. And if I manage to stay up til after midnight without turning into a pumpkin, Saturday ain't over til I go to bed. 

The Rules

Eat if you're drinking out here on the sidewalk. That's all there is to it. I find it interesting that they don't say what the penalty is for not following this local statute. And whether the punishment is exacted on the drinker or the establishment that is irresponsible enough to allow such behavior. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer those drinkers who might overimbibe without eating stay outdoors. Hosing down the sidewalk is easier than mopping a floor, that's what I always say.