The common cold

So, what gives people colds? It is most certainly not from sitting on the ground or getting your feet wet, which is what my mom always said. (The woman who also cautioned me about raising my arms over my head while Tom was in utero because I would have a hairy baby. Sorry, Tommy. Shoulda listened to that one.)

The cold I have now is unattributable, having been impinged by too many factors:

--Airplane trip: commonly held to be vats of festering sickness spores

--Work: many are hacking

--Hard living: very smoky in that S. Carolina bar

--Lack of exercise: slacked off these last couple weeks

I feel this is the case with many illnesses, too many contributing factors to pinpoint any one as THE CAUSE.

Regardless, I have been battling this downward spiral with mouth spray zinc and Mucinex. Did I not get enough sprays in in a timely manner at the outset? Would it be any better or worse if I'd been more diligent??

Today, I am taking the bed rest and liquids approach. Some nice Sleepytime tea. Which I hope will put me into a nap. Not as if I've been out of bed since last night around 10.

Moving on, I know most of you did not even see the wine cabinet I bought in haste at Creative Elements in Grand Rabbits on Monday and returned on Saturday. They were very nice about it but it was just too much money for frankly a large dark stained box that matched nothing else I have and didn't afford me the extra serving area I had in mind. This one at Target.com might be just the ticket:


and it's half the price. User comments, however, vacillate between it being fairly easy to assemble vs. it being a "knuckle buster." It is about the perfect size: 40.38Hx26.5Wx15.75D". The other one was only 14 inches wide. Remain calm, the correct item will appear. Or some Zen-like saying.

Lots of music coming up. Although conflicting cards have been scheduled for the Feb. 15 GFT show.

Riverside blues fest in St. Mary's Labor Day weekend: one result on Google, Sonny Boy Terry.

The Trip to South Carolina

(Click on the pictures to see bigger versions.)

As you all know by now, Fred and I were supposed to leave Thursday night at 9:30 but our flight was cancelled. So we rebooked onto the 9 a.m. Friday flight that had a stopover in Cincinnati. Fred's credit card won't let him check in at the kiosk so we have to stand in the long lines and he gets boarding passes for both Detroit and Cincinnati but the kiosk says I have to get my Cincinnati boarding pass in Cincinnati. We see on the board as we are in the security line that our flight is delayed a half hour and of course, we are cutting it close to make the scheduled 9:15 time so we don't hurry through the airport but when we get to the gate, they're boarding.

We get to Cincinnati and stop in the smoking lounge where the Ozilite is handily installed for our lighting needs



and then just barely make the shuttle over to the other terminal where our plane is going out of. I don't have a boarding pass and when I try to get one, they say the flight is overbooked and I'll have to wait and see if somebody cancels. Which fortunately some guy sitting across from us did but he ended up getting on the flight anyway. Fred and I have a beer at a pub and then I see our flight is boarding and Fred says he's going to the bathroom so we are the last ones to board. But at last we are in Columbia and renting a car and zooming off to Buford's house with directions we have from MapQuest.

We get to this house on N. Royal Tower Dr. and Fred rings the doorbell and nobody's home so he calls Buford and says we are at his house and Buford says, No you're not because I'm at my house and alas, we have directions to Buford's OLD house where he has not lived for 2 years but that's the address Gus had given Fred. So we get directions to the new house and drive over there and almost immediately Tony and Joe and Melissa and Buford and Bomeli and Fred and I leave for the S&S bar for a couple beers.



Bomeli had driven down, leaving at 5 a.m. so he got there right about when we did. I have a 2:30 conference call for work so I'm on that while we're driving and when we get there I sit on a bench outside to be on the call, and Melissa brings me out a beer. Here is the bathroom in the bar which has biker handlebars in the can.




Then we go out to the lake house on Lake Murray where Gus and Stubbs and Rod are







and we party on down. View from the deck.




The beautiful steps.

The shack a couple houses down.





and soon, it's time to leave for dinner at 5:30 at the fried place which is actually called the Buffalo Creek Grill. I ride in the back of the Suburban.






I had fried catfish and fried oysters and fried okra and red rice and hushpuppies. Fred had some great crab cakes and something called Thunder Cake for dessert, which he raved about all the way home. Don and Sandy who own Bootleggers where the guys were playing ate with us as did John, the barbecue guy who cooked for us Saturday night.

Fred and I were lucky enough to get to stay at the lake house instead of with Buford, where Tony and Joe were staying. And then it was time to go to the bar to play. We all crowded into the Suburban except Bomeli drove himself. There is drinking and music and frivolity and we closed the bar at 2 a.m.

Saturday, the weather was crappy, 38 degrees and raining, so we hung out at the lake house. I made breakfast for all 6 of us



and then we reclined on the massive furniture and watched TV: tennis and the last half of Psycho and the last half of Death Wish and some golf. Played some poker. Fred and Bomeli had gone out for some lunch in the afternoon and brought us back some dry rub wings for a snack.

Then time to go to the bar again where the John guy had prepared and brought in pulled pork in mustard barbecue sauce and deep fried pork chops and potato salad and cornbread and jalapeno cornbread and yeast bread and pinto beans with tomatoes and banana pudding. Everybody at the bar ate, about 50 people, probably. So there's more drinking and smoking which you can do in the bar there and then some guy called Captain Telegram came in and there were two birthdays celebrated with balloons and a stuffed monkey and singing and two cakes.




That second night, the guys sounded even better. Rod was smokin' on the axe. The crowd was an interesting mix of young people and middle-aged folks, lots of couples. Plenty of shag dancing which is not the lascivious bump and grind the guys had talked about but some sort of modified Texas two-step thing.





The host and hostess. Or Mike and Lulu as they are called down there.



These people used to live in BG and Fred knew them and so did some other people in the band. The woman got up and sang harmony on Mustang Sally and she was fabulous.




So we close the bar again and get to bed about 3. Sunday we tidied up the house and went to the bar to pack the equipment so Fred and I got going about noon for the drive to the airport and the 4:15 flight. I had left my gloves in the restaurant Friday night so we went to buy some new ones and all the stores were not opening until 1:30 so we see a Wal-Mart that's obviously open and go in and I choose some gloves and go to the check-out where they cannot sell me the gloves until 1:30 (it's about 1:10) because of some rule about selling clothing before 1:30 on Sunday. What's up with that?? Finally we get the gloves and drive to the airport and have a beer and watch the football game on some tiny TV, the only one in the airport. So they board the plane and Fred has to go to the can and we are the last ones on. Although it was only 4:05, everybody with a ticket was on the plane so the pilot said we would get off early but alas, after the taxiing around, we get off the ground at 4:34. The pilot says it's an hour and a half flight, but alas, although we landed around 6:10, we took forever to get to the gate and then pull up to the gate and disembark, so it's 6:50 by the time we get off the plane. But the car started right up and we were home by 8:10.

Deja voodoo

I rented the first two episodes of the second half of the last season of The Sopranos and they looked eerily familiar. How could this be? They haven't been out that long. I guess all that killing and family sturm und drang is just ongoing. But I will persevere to the final episode. Soon.

Last night was the radio meeting before which Connie and I ate burgers at Beckett's.

Going to New York Feb. 4-6 for some training. Having dinner with Anne Monday night then training Tuesday, out to dinner with the company people, half a day training Wednesday and on the plane at 6 p.m. Staying at the Empire which overlooks Central Park on the west side toward the bottom. W. 63rd St. to be exact. Only 3 blocks from the meetings at ABC Central on 66th. Roomful of Blues is at Joe's Pub Tuesday night for 2 shows, 7:30 and 9:30. Might swing by that. It's way down in the south of Manhattan but just a block off the Broadway subway line.

Here are some kitchen pictures. Still haven't painted that window or got a curtain thingy. Click on the pictures to see bigger versions.







I'm thinking that woodwork needs to be a different color. Suggestions?

Saturday, Amy and I and other interested parties are going to the a couple of antique/collectible stores in downtown Toledo for amusement. The place I got the monkey and the CD cabinet.

Listening to Todd Snider's Viva Satellite on which he sounds a lot like Tom Petty on the first couple of songs. It's with the Nervous Wrecks which includes Will Kimbrough. On my list of to-do's is to learn Horseshoe Lake but it remains unaccomplished.

Johnny Winter is at both the Wheeling fest and the Ribberfest. It's not announced yet on the Ribberfest website but it's on pollstar.

Work is tiresome. There are a ton of unanswered webmaster emails about how people don't like the new site and I should just blast through them with a stock reply but like I have time. It's always something. Equipment failure, unresolved login problems, emergency road closings, new logos for ad campaigns, conference calls. But I gotta do this year and pay off the stuff, Karen's car, the kitchen, Anne's plane fare.

I had a dream the other night about how I went to buy a pickup truck and I was about to drive away with it when the salesman says he has this deluxe SUV for me, white, I don't know what make, and so I take it and am delighted. Cars in dreams are always your life. I think this means I'm wanting to trade up in life but I should not set my sights on a pickup truck life when I could have some tricked-out SUV. I'm sure it was a hybrid. Oh yeah.

Next week, South Carolina. Where it's 70 degrees most days.

A relaxing weekend

Man, it has been MONTHS since I've been able to say that. Yesterday, I spent $9 at the Goodwill and got three tops and picked up pants that have been at the drycleaner for 2 months and went to the heinous Kroger, all before going to Turbo Kick at the gym. Where my instructor is going to Mexico, to Isla Mujeres for a vacation. Aaaahhh.

Then I went and got Amy and we ate at Rev. Chico's. Can not recommend. The burrito was pretty much like the one you get at Qdoba on Main St. I had a Cuervo marg and it had a funny, smoky taste, but was not all mixer sweet like some I had in Mexico. But for the price, I say nix. You have to specify all ingredients of your order on a slip of paper. Amy had a pork panini that was passable. Came with fried plantains which were over-breaded with corn meal. The atmosphere was nice though, felt comfy even amongst all the exposed brick on the walls. The same guy did that interior that did my kitchen.

Then we went to Home Depot and Big Lots, where I got a grill cover so I can put my grill on the patio and GET MY CAR IN THE GARAGE. I never thought it would work but Amy came over and traffic-controlled me in.

Friday night, I poached a piece of salmon and made linguini with olive oil and fresh basil and roasted grape tomatoes and sauteed portabellas and green onion and garlic, of course. Tonight, I made some salmon spread to have on this delicious rosemary bread I got at Churchill's with some nice soup. I see I have whacked my thumb lightly with one of those new knives my boy got me for Christmas. That includes this cool sushi knife.

Also I got my bird feeder hung up and raked the back yard and put hardware cloth (as they are calling chicken wire these days) around those 2 bushes in the far back because already they are showing signs of having been munched on.

And I did a radio show today for the Melkotes. Yesterday, I watched Citizen Kane which I had never seen and Living in Oblivion, a movie with Steve Buscemi that was goofy but amusing. Also have Mean Streets which I have not seen in years, if at all. Another one of those situations where you know all the pop culture about it, as my daughter says, but never really saw it.

Am WAY behind on New Yorkers, have like 6 by the bed. I won't have this problem THIS Christmas as I will be saving them to take to the beach.

Listening to I Enjoy Being a Girl on WBGU. FM. 88 1. Bowling Green Ohio.

Tuesday I have a haircut and a radio meeting. Wednesday is GNO. May have to pass. Have to start going to the 6 p.m. Turbo Kick on Wednesdays this week.

What is the frequency, Kenneth?

Sherry has chastised me about frequency of blog posts so I'll make a better attempt this year. Oh yeah, kinda like a resolution.

Listening to T-Bone Burnett "Power of Love."

On New Year's Day I stayed in the house all day, waiting for the 3-5 inches of blowing snow. Which didn't come.

I love that Churchill's off Dussel Dr. I went there Wednesday after work and got a Greek salad, enough for 2 servings, and a container of sweet potato bisque, 2 servings and a hunk of salmon and a half a sliced loaf of rosemary olive oil bread. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Can't get that in BG.

Called Annie tonight for an hour. Just shot the breeze. She's still kinda freaked out that she's moved halfway across the country. But overall, sounds interesting.

Oh yeah, New Year's Eve at Amy's. At midnight, we all did jazz hands instead of kissing. Lots of card playing. Quite the spread of chow. Meatballs, cheesy potatoes, BBQ beef sandwiches, shrimp, cashew city. I get home and think I've left my phone at Amy's so I DRIVE OVER THERE like an idiot at 1 a.m., primetime to get picked up, but alas the phone was on the mantel at my house the whole time. Duh.

I gotta reprogram that thermostat. It goes down to 62 at 10 p.m. which is a little chilly plus it shoots up to 70 at 6 p.m. On my list.

Last night, I watched Bad Education, a Pedro Almodovar film which was about drag queens and tonight, I went to the gym for the last Thursday Turbo Kick class which has been replaced by Pilates starting next week. So I'll have to leave work early on Wednesdays to get to the 6 p.m. Turbo Kick. So I'll have that and Body Sculpt on Monday and Turbo Kick on Saturday at 10:30. It's good to have a plan.

No radio shows this month EXCEPT this Sunday I am doing the 2-4 p.m. slot for the India music show. But I will not be playing Indian music. I expect hardly any shows from now til May.

The St. Mary's Blues Fest has announced they will hold another one this year. No date posted but I assume it will be the Saturday of Labor Day weekend which is Aug. 30. So for August we have Wheeling, Ribberfest, my birthday weekend and the St. Mary's fest followed by the Swamp.

I am thinking about trying out for the Black Swamp Players "Witness for the Prosecution." Auditions are in March and the play is the first two weekends of May.