Tuesday, August 26, 2008

one of my many theories

is that as we get older, one facet of our personalities becomes dominant. I fear mine may be imperiousness as exemplified by Barbara Stanwyck.


Bear with me.

Also I see am so far behind that I have not described the rest of my birthday week but it was exhausting. In a good way. But now it's time to forge on to the Labor Day party and the Swamp.

Monday, August 18, 2008

machines are evil

So I finally get around to posting my Wheeling pictures and my camera batteries are dead.

I've received TWO birthday presents today in the mail. A Ry Cooder CD and an Emmylou Harris CD from Miss Jenks and a gift certificate to a wine store in Perrysburg from Karen and Wendell. Miss Jenks's card has the Starry Night on it.

And in the ongoing effort to procrastinate about sorting those CDs on the floor of the green room, I've done quite a bit of other cleaning and toted that high-top table and chairs out to the garage. I was going to put them in the middle room but I like that table that's in there now with its motley collection of stuff on it so they're in the garage until the dream of basement clean-up for winter use is complete. And I did a Pilates DVD.

My mom called on the weekend to say she is having a big dinner at her house on Sunday because her birthday is Monday. I will take her some tomatoes, of which I have about 30 or 40.

I joined Netflix the other day but I don't have my first DVD yet because they are having some distribution problem. It's I'm Not There, that Bob Dylan biopic. And I have unlimited live streaming of movies on the computer which I'll have to try some day when I have several hours to spare.

Plus I ordered some Cool Brew online because now I am a junkie for it. You can make one perfect cup of coffee in about 3 minutes. I got French Roast, which I had before, and mocha. Yumba.

I have been shopping to dispense with my money-off cards from various stores. I spent the $10 on a drying rack for outdoors at Ace Hardware and $10 off two bras at Kohl's and $20 towards two chairs I bought at Pier 1 which I have in the living room where the high-top table was. Now I need a stand/table. It's always something.

Have had peaches and raspberries on pound cake with vanilla ice cream a couple times because it is the perfect time for those fruits although the raspberries are gone until September.

I was supposed to have had bevs with Ann Bowers tonight but she became otherwise engaged with funeral visitation. Wednesday we are going to the patio at Jed's up on 25 at the lighthouse strip mall. Thursday is my birthday and no one has offered up any plan for eating which is of course what I wish to do. I would like to see that band at Howard's but

Friday we went to see the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings at Fat Fish Blue but alas the band was mightily changed. They were still pretty good. Saturday we went to the Maumee Summer Fair which was mediocre and the Pollypalooza which was fun, with an interesting local band Empire Drift and some snackage and mojitos out of the big bottle which stalkermom had blogged about.

I did a radio show Saturday and will do one again this week. We are doing them out of the WFAL studio because they are still remodeling ours. The board is not even in yet. Then the Falcons play football at noon on Aug. 30 which is good as we are going to the St. Mary's Riverside Bluesfest

It took me all week to recover from Wheeling.

Now blogger cannot save this post but fortunately I have saved it as a notepad file so I can paste it in there some other time. Machines are evil.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

mobile blogging, oh yeah

Thanks to stalkermom, I can now blog from my phone! Pictures with text or just text. Plus she showed me how to change my text setting to WORD so I can text much faster. I wonder if my daughter has known this all along. So I sent this photo of the wine bottles we corked at Kim and Jim's with baby carrots.

Bottles

Monday, August 11, 2008

Bluesfest

So far I have this video of Johnny Winter on YouTube. This alone was worth the price of admission for the whole weekend. Johnny is sitting down in the middle. Sherry also has a video. We'll have to get her a YouTube channel.



We had a wonderful time. Fred summed it up in the hotel room Sunday night with a sort of toast to what a really lucky special time it was.


Also I have this video of Todd online. I like to get him singing about the KPIG Swine and Soiree Dance, as he calls it.



And my birthday is coming up, so I have been deluged with birthday gift cards from the stores: I now have $10 for Ace Hardware, $10 off 3 $30 things at Macy's (although MANY restrictions apply), $20 from Pier 1 (which really isn't a birthday gift, just a new account gift), and $20 at Dillard's. Must shop. So I must brave the mall.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

in da boat

Here we are in the dragon boat. Too bad I don't have movie star shades like all the other wimmens.



Plus Todd Snider is at the Detroit Museum of the Arts, Fri. Oct. 17 for the cost of admission to the museum $8. I'm putting it on my calendar.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

catching up

Went to see Todd Snider at the Ark in Ann Arbor Monday night. I love Todd. He did a great show, told the football stoner high school story. Played for almost 2 hours. So here's a picture of Todd, heavily photoshopped since I took it with no flash.


Here are the Smiths sitting near us on the Conor O'Neil's patio.


Here's the hotel at Levis Commons.


We ate on the deck at Fat Fish Blue.


Here's the bar.


Suddenly, Fat Fish Blue has many bands lined up. Next Friday, Aug. 15, they have the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings who used to be the Mellow Fellows when Big Twist was still alive. You cannot tell from their website, which suddenly doesn't seem to be working, if it costs money to go see them. I emailed their contact link today and got a reply that their website would be revised soon so apparently the revision didn't take.

Tonight at GNO, Ginger revealed that Jimmy Farrell is looking to open a music venue in the back of SamB's and after more discussion, we are concerned that this will conflict with the opening of the Cla-Zel which has a bar in it now.

Also at GNO, we talked about transgender people, ridding your yard of skunks, and other fascinating topics. Ginger, Amy, Connie, Connie D., Maralyn, Sherry, Kay, Martha, Deb attended.

Connie gave me two pairs of earrings for my birthday made of koosh balls. They're lovely. Next month, GNO will be at a bar and October, Ginger might have it.

I have about 12 million things to do before Wheeling so I better get on it tomorrow night.

I have booked a trip to ND for Sept. 27-30. Dr. Sue is going out Sept. 12-19. I have a haircut at 9 and an optometrist appointment at 9:45 Friday morning.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Retail therapy and wildlife

Yesterday, in my quest for a yellow tank top that began Friday night at Kohl's where I didn't find one but ended up buying 2 other tops, I went to Levis Commons where I ransacked the clearance racks and came home with a pair of silk/linen pants, a linen tunic with lace vneck inset, a fuzzy pink pullover, an orange shirt with a tropical print along the bottom, a pink zip jacket printed with white seashells, a pair of brown sandals, and a yellow tank top. All for $135. About half price. Good shoppin'.

Then Connie and Amy and I went to the opening of Fat Fish Blue, where we had free dinner. They seated us at a table with a pre-printed menu that included your choice of appetizer (crabcake or catfish lollipops), the soup sampler (gumbo, jambalya, cornbread) to share, and four entrees: shrimp in cream sauce, beef steak with candied yams, pulled pork sandwich, seared catfish. Amy and Connie order rum and cokes and I order a mojito. The service was atrocious. Three different servers attempted to bring us various courses. My mojito shows up and the mint is not macerated. When I get the bill for it, I see it is a Voodoo Hurricane Julep. If they could not make a mojito, they should have said so. Plus it turns out it cost $9 so perhaps I was supposed to take home the stenciled hurricane glass but no one told me this.

Connie and I order the crabcake appetizer, Amy the catfish. They bring one crabcake and the lollipops but they cannot find (their words) my crabcake so about halfway through the entrees, they bring me a tin dish of crawfish, which were ill prepared. Here is how to eat one: Pinch the very end of the tail with one hand, and pull the tail meat out with the other. Well, you could not pull the tail meat out of these.

The entrees: Amy's steak was pretty good although fairly glopped up with carmelized onions and mushrooms, which she does not like and were not in the description. No candied yams, but bland garlic smashed. My shrimp were of the cocktail variety, large but basically tasteless and the sauce was overly sweet for my taste. Which is exquisite. The vegetables were steamed whole green beans which were OK but the julienne carrots on my plate looked like fat toothpicks, including the semblance of wood. Connie's pulled pork sandwich was delicious. It came with fries which looked OK.

The jambalaya was pretty good but the gumbo was bland and tomato-y. Other tables had different menus to choose from. The people next to us had southern fried chicken and salmon and a burger on their menu. Here is their regular menu.

So after deciding not to stick around for the free dessert (because we would have had to wait for 45 minutes for the comedy club to open where they were serving the dessert) we came back to town and went to our homes. I called Jenks and while sitting on my front porch, with the Big laying out in the yard, I see out of the corner of my eye a skunk advancing toward us. It gets within about 2 feet of Big who does not even blink or hiss or act concerned in any way. I get a flashlight and shine it on the skunk which trundles off across the street. About half an hour later, THERE IT IS AGAIN and once again Big is nonplussed but this time, the skunk is holding its tail in the locked and upright position, all fanned out and starts backing up to my steps and plants and I guess spritzing stuff although there was no smell and continues to be none today. I yell at it and it moves along and I get the Big to come in the house.

I had smelled skunk odor the other night out the front door when I went to let the Big in, although he didn't smell. I am calling the animal control people tomorrow.

In other news, Russell called me at work Friday to say he is coming today to remove his worldly possessions from my house. 2:30 and he ain't here yet.

My old boyfriend Barker was in town last week, but in his usual inability to get things straight, connections were missed and I ended up seeing him Thursday night at my house where we drink a bottle of wine.

Today so far I have watered with the Miracle Gro and swept the patio.