Please enjoy this picture of my dog, offering to assist me with some of the tiny cookies I made, and burned. He likes to help.
I planned on making a boatload of cut out sugar cookies last December, the way I do every year.
I enjoy the entire process: the dough making; the chilling; the coloring; the rolling, the cutting; the decorating.... Every year when the kids were little we did it, and now that they are grown I do it to entertain myself.
To be honest, without the kids, this is a zen moment for yours truly to sit at a table with royal icing, sprinkles, and all kinds of shit, and I love it.
One of the things I fail at is the follow through, if I say I'll send someone cookies. I usually don't. I'm the queen of procrastination, and cookies are best served to a recipient within a week.
Right around this time last year, with the pandemic and all the shit that the world was in, I decided I was just gonna do it. I would make AND ship cookies. Spurred on by my friend Morgan posting that she wanted someone to deliver her cookies.
Our mutual friend Dave Yonkman replied that he too wanted some "damn cookies" delivered to him. I got their addresses, and said it's on. Let's do this cookie thing.
Dave Yonkman, or DFY as many called him (the F meaning exactly what you think it does) was known for being a fantastic visual artist and videographer, collaborating with Guster and a lot of other bands. That's how we met. Lots of Guster fans were Dave fans, and Dave became friends with the fans, because Dave was a fan.
The fact that Dave knew who I was, and wanted some damn cookies baked by me delivered to his face, well hell. It made me feel magical and special and a geek.
Dave and I had years of conversations and discussions, but strangely we never met in person. We were never at a show at the same time, but we were typical online friends. We'd see things and think of each other. We'd share memes and images. We'd check in.
He asked me for an in for a job at a program NPR produced, asking for who to talk. I gave him names, I reached out to my own teammates who also worked on that program to give him a recommendation. He didn't get the job, and he would have been fucking amazing at it, and it disappointed me that it didn't work out.
Back to the cookies.
I got kind of a later start than I'd intended, and thought meh - no one cares if they get them AT Christmas, right? It's about the damn cookies getting into your face. I'm mostly just doing this to send to Jess, and Morgan, and yeah, now Dave.
People just want some damn cookies. In their face.
Then I got Covid. It knocked me on my ass (you can go back to December 2020 and January 2021 here in the blog and read all about the fun that was had).
I ended up in the hospital and everything, and Dave messaged me to check up on me, and I apologized that the cookies were not happening any time soon.
"JFC, Christine," he wrote back, "I don't care about the fucking cookies. I am worried about you."
Dave checked in with me daily during my 5 day hospital stay, and then when I got home. He sent me teaser videos of something he was working on (I know I'm not the only one he shared them with, but I like to think he did it to make me feel better). He wanted to know what he could do to help. He sent me jokes and more memes. He was there the whole time.
Dave passed away in January. Right around the time when I was starting to feel a little better. Right around the time I was strong enough to at least supervise Geoff in baking the cookies. We could do a small batch, decorate them, and ship some off to Jess, and then to Morgan, and... to Dave.
When I heard the news, this wonderful and fun person, this dear friend, was gone, I was just absolutely destroyed. He was in the midst of making a documentary of Guster's Drive-In theater show in NH late in 2020 (which I didn't go to, because I followed the rules about states and quarantines, and now I regret being a rule obeyer). I thought of his son, his family, all the Gusters, all the friends, and I couldn't believe we didn't have a Dave anymore.
This wasn't happening, this couldn't happen. But. It happened.
I had Ziploc bags set up, his with DFY in red sharpie, waiting to be filled with cookies to be sent to him.
I still can't believe he is gone. I can't believe I still have this ziploc bag with his name on it.
So this year. This damn year.
This year I made up for last year and all the years past. I made about 200 cookies. Mostly cut out christmas cookies and toll house, and some "christmas crack" but it didn't come out as good as it usually does because I didn't have enough brown sugar, and it shows.
The cookies have been ready, bagged, waiting. Boxes picked out for them to get put into. I was really making amazing progress in actually getting this all done, and then last week I just fell off the get the cookies out the door wagon. I'm not at all sure why this happens to me. Everything is good to go. Ready to go. Boxed up! AWESOME!
I could ask Geoff to do it, right? He does so much. But I remember the time I gave him a letter to mail, and he drove around with it for weeks in the car, because he didn't know you could put the letter in the blue boxes found all around town. He thought the post office had to be open in order to send a letter. Boy doesn't exactly know how the post office works, I guess. So. I didn't quite trust him to go.
Today. I did it. I just did it. I just got back from the post office. I shipped boxes to Jess, Morgan, Amy, Molly, and my sister. I have cookies to hand deliver to our former neighbors up the street. I am going to drive cookies over to Sara & Sean and the boys. Then there is Janeen.
Technically, after Sara & Sean I'm out of cookies but I'll make more for Janeen and her boys.
And we'll need some here for our Christmas. So I will make a couple dozen more cookies.
As I sat in my zen, dipping trees and stars and hearts in royal icing, writing in design with gel decoration frosting, adding red M&Ms to reindeer noses, I thought of Dave. I thought how much he would love sticking these cookies in his face. I bet he'd share them with his son. Of course, he would.
I miss you, Dave Fucking Yonkman.
And, even though I enjoy decorating the cookies all by myself, it is indeed still very nice that Geoff wants to do it with me. As evidenced here. Enjoy all the cookie pictures.
And happy christmas. If you didn't get cookies, let me know if you want some next year. I'll make the effort.
Getting Ready to start....
Mid process. This took 2 days.
Drying. I got a black "writing icing" marker, and had some fun with it!
Geoff gets into it, and you can tell which ones are his, which ones are mine.
The reindeer are always a big hit, but a friend of mine said she thought those were boobs instead of eyes, and skinny chicken legs. And now I cannot unsee that.
I don't smoke. I've never ever smoked. Never once, and I haven't smoked pot either. The concept of breathing in something other than air is completely alien to me. One of my big fears is drowning, and I think smoke inhalation is a step away from that so it is exceptionally unappealing to me.
My parents smoked my whole life. My dad did quit about 28 years ago on Thanksgiving. We were home with jess, who was a little over 1 year old. There was a blizzard, and he worked for the town. His job was to go out and plow. He missed most of our visit because he was working (I can only imagine the money made for basically 30 straight hours of plowing during a holiday!) and he would come by the house to get fresh coffee. My mom would brew him up some, fill the thermos, and send him on his way.
He told me in 24 hours he smoked four packs of cigarettes, and his chest hurt. His head hurt. He was in agony. And he looked at my kid, and said that he wouldn't see that baby graduate high school if he kept this up. So he quit cold turkey. And never started back up again. I'm still impressed with that.
My mom has quit a few months at a time over the past 30 or so years. Usually when she is sick. She has COPD so really, why bother quitting now ... right? But she would get pneumonia or bronchitis and end up in the hospital on oxygen, and wouldn't smoke for weeks and weeks, but would go back to it after a while.
My sister has smoked forever. She said she needs to quit, it's expensive, it's bad for her, but she still smokes.
Me, it grossed me out growing up. The smell, how it stuck to my clothing, my hair. It was disgusting. On some people, sometimes, the smell of the burned paper and tobacco lingering around them is not vile. But on me, it just hung there like stink on a monkey's butt.
I remember going to a youth group meeting in high school and the mom hosting the meeting took my coat and put it on the back porch. I was ashamed and embarrassed by that. She asked me (in the typical evangelical Christian loving mom way) "Christine, are you a smoker?" with this tone of judgement and arrogance. Looking down her nose at me like smoking could be the worst thing ever, and how could I ever come into her home stinking of this reek.
"No, my parents smoke and my mom dropped me off here, so it, I guess, um.... sticks to me?" I was like 15 or 16. And it was horrible, how I felt. I've never forgotten how humiliated I felt.
When I go back to visit, my parents have a nice porch that they sit on and my mom smokes out there. She doesn't smoke in the house. The interior of the porch is nicotine stained - the ceiling, the walls, the aluminum siding of the house. Yellow, brownish, and not the bright white it should be. My sister and I tried to clean it when my mom was in the hospital in 2017 after breaking her hip. We scrubbed, the ceiling the wall the floor, the porch furniture. We barely made a dent in it. When I was there last week I was looking at where we worked vs. where we didn't get to. The colors were almost matched up again.
My parents will pass away. We'll inherit this trailer and this porch. And I'm hiring a professional cleaning crew to oxidize and clean this porch. If my mom passes before my dad, I'm not sure my dad can live by himself (my mom can). So I want him to have a wonderfully cleaned porch. Because he sits out there and watches TV, and all summer it is Red Sox games on his little flat screen, while he lounges in the chaise lawn chair and laughs at the games.
So having never been a smoker, I've recently been thinking about some of the behaviours and habits surrounding this ... habit. I've been watching people smoke, they go out, they take a break from work, they share cigarettes. The art of handing someone a cigarette and then lighting it for them, with a nice lighter and not some Bic lighter with a football team logo on the side.
There's a kind of fellowship and kindness to it when I watch that. Words are not spoken. The recipient of the cigarette and the light, they don't usually say thank you until after they pull that first drag.
And then they have deep, important conversations about things. You can tell by their bodies. And then a joke, and there is laughter.
I think of rituals sometimes, these kinds of social agreements. As a non-smoker, I don't get to participate in these things but they are interesting to watch from a distance.
Once, while working for a small company, several of my office mates smoked. They'd get up periodically, head outside, and do their thing. As a non-smoker, I felt I deserved a break too. But I wasn't going out there to smoke. Instead, I'd play a game on the computer for a few minutes, and stop when they came back.
The big boss walked by, saw me, and proceeded to give me shit. I pointed out that four of my coworkers were in the parking lot, having a smoke. Me goofing off for a few minutes until they came back in, in my mind, was equivalent to them going out and talking about the Patriots game while puffing away.
He didn't see it the same way.
As a 30 yr old human instead of a 16 year old human like the one that felt berated by the mom at a youth group meeting, I just looked at him and said 'honestly, what's the difference, guy? Go out there and give them shit and tell them to get back to work the same way you told me to. I bet you won't.'
I won that argument. He never gave me shit again.
Part of me thinks about this acceptable behaviour, for people to take a break and walk away. Maybe I could have taken a break and gone for a walk around the building but games are fun. I prefer games.
And after all, we're all just playing games with our lives sometimes, right?
We're back from Thanksgiving. Usually we stay here, and host for those interested in coming. This year, we opted to go north.
It was .... a trip.
Kind of a last minute thrown together event, but it worked out. We had looked for an Airbnb near my parents' so we could make our own thanksgiving dinner and everything. But literally every listing was unavailable (hot take: remove your house from Airbnb or vrbo if it doesn't have heat and hot water for the winter months. Don't be a lazy host. mkay?)
We had no choice but to hotel. Luckily, there is a decent hotel near my parents' house, a little more expensive than what Doug likes to pay for hotels, but we get points. So. I booked it.
My sister met up with us. It was nice to have Linda with us for logistics with the dog and for hanging out drinking wine late into the night while watching Milk Carton Kids videos. She got to work from the hotel and really focus on getting things done while babysitting our dog. An Extra Special and fun chore for her.
Initially I thought about coming up myself, leaving on Friday the 19th on my birthday and returning maybe Tuesday before Thanksgiving to have it here. I invited my cousin John to come with me but he said he couldn't get off work (he is down in Richmond, VA these days).
With Geoff not in school, Doug looked at his vacation time and said that he could take a week off. We knew if we went, we'd want to take Geoff and we'd have to take the dog.
So.
On paper, it is 7 hours, 7 minutes to my parents' front door. With a lunch break, it took us about 8. Which was pretty great. Monday thanksgiving week travel worked out pretty great, note to self.
We had a quick visit with my parents upon arrival on Monday night, ordered pizza, and were tucked into bed early because it was a long day for all of us and Tuesday would be too.
Tuesday, Linda was coming up as soon as she could so I booked her room for her to be all ready for her to get there. We left the dog with my parents, and went up to Beverly and visited Backbeat Brewery where our friend Caleb is working. It was great to see him! We had lunch with Amy, it's been a minute since we've seen her too, so this was a wonderful day. Good food, good beer, good company, it was a great hang out time (and the beer review is here if you are at all interested).
After lunch, we drove around Beverly and I felt sad. I miss Beverly, Salem, Ipswich, all the good lovely north shore towns that are part of our life and history. I sometimes can't believe we left here.
We sat near Independence Beach and just looked at the water over to Salem. We decided to drive to Salem to go around the Willows and there was an accident closing the road before the bridge, so we drove up to Ipswich and went to Great Neck and Pavillion Beach.
If I could live anywhere, back up north, it would be up on the hill at Little Neck, away from town but with the lovely views all over and the area to walk about and just .... enjoy. Cue Barenaked Ladies singing "If I had a million dollars." The homes up there are mostly cottages, nothing huge, nothing too too fancy, very modest but also very scarce. Nothing for sale or listed on Zillow. Probably all secret listings. Ipswich is expensive (everywhere is expensive right now) so even the houses available in town there are way out of my imaginary price range. Same with Beverly. But it is fun to look and imagine.
After goofing off around Ipswich we resisted a visit to Ipswich Ale brewery, a favorite haunt of ours. We had a date to see Jess and have dinner with them and Carrie. And while it would have been nice to hit the brewery, we needed to keep our date.
Jess was house/dog sitting for our friends and we beat them to the house, so we got to go to the farmstand next to our old house (across the street from Jess) while waiting for them to come home from work. I got a pie and some fresh cut flowers for a gift for our Thanksgiving hosts. Jess got home from work and we visited with Mocha dog and gushed in adoration of the new kitchen our friends have had put into their house (jealousy).
Oh Mocha. I do love her. We call her Circus Dog because she can jump in the air and twirl around. Jess said that the dog usually doesn't act like this much anymore, she's getting older, but boy howdy did she lose her shit and go full on circus for us. Jess thinks it is because she remembers us, and was super excited to see us. I like that idea. I was happy to see her too.
Doug had picked his favorite Indian restaurant in a town convenient to both Jess and Carrie. We met up and started chatting but suddenly, oh my gosh, there is this couple playing music.
And they were not awesome.
They were singing all kinds of tunes, he sang solo first and was okay. But then she joined in and was just .... loud. She went from Patsy Cline, to Tracy Chapman... and it was unnerving. They didn't need amplification at all, she was quite loud enough without a microphone. But there they were. Singing. While we're trying to talk.
He played guitar wonderfully, I could have just listened to him play and I would have been very happy with that ambiance. But he completely destroyed (not in a good way) Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home" (hint: take it down an octave dude, you are not Steve Winwood). We laughed through most of it, it was kind of sad.
Had I known there would be music there we sure would have picked somewhere else.
Still. Laughing is a good thing when there is weirdness happening all around. It is kind of typical of what happens in my life sometimes. It was so good to see C, and I miss her, and need a week drunk by the pool in Naples with just food delivery every day and pool. Oh, and some pool.
We had a long ride back to the hotel. It was a long day and I was kind of full of emotions over it all.
The good news is my dog did well at my parents' house, met some people, made some friends, and Linda used him as an excuse to bring him back to the hotel and chill while waiting for us to get back.
Wednesday my sister had to work remotely for the day. She kept the dog, and we took my parents out to my their familiar for lunch. It was a nice time, I could write a ton of stories about my mom and this establishment.
I'll hold my tongue.
Doug had discovered that there was an interesting place for us to stop at after lunch, and we wanted to take my dad there, but my mom was fussing about how he had to do his recycling so he was quickly defeated.
Next time, dude. We'll kidnap you and take you. Promise.
We headed over there, the place is called Stone Path Malt and they process barley to turn it into different malts for brewing. It is literally right through the woods behind my parents' house. Had no idea it was there until Doug did some beer searching and found it. Holy guacamole.
It was a really cool place, and we got to meet the co-founder/owner and chat with him for a while. I did a write up of the visit here if you want to read. Here's my favorite picture, not sure why it came out so distorted but it looks super cool and I like it. Malt is magical, yo. Check out the different beers you can get from different malt. Magic.
After visiting Stone Path, I was feeling incredibly exhausted, and opted to go back to the hotel while Doug and Geoff had some time together and went to Lucky Goat and Buzzards Bay Brewing. I ordered pizza, and we had a meal and crashed.
For the past few years my parents have been spending Thanksgiving with friends that they've made in town. B and D are a little older than I am, and they've been exceptionally kind to my parents when they have gotten sick or needed things. It's always nice to know someone is physically there and can get in touch with us fast should we need to head north.
My mom told D that we were coming up and she said we simply had to do Thanksgiving with them, she would not stand for anything else. We had thought of just doing our own thanksgiving (since we couldn't score an Airbnb in the area) using my parent's kitchen, but we decided that we'd take her up on the offer.
It was a tight fit, but they made everyone at home and it was lovely. The food and company was great. Doug and I took Phin for a nice walk and met a neighborhood cat who really loved us. Damn what a great cat. It was a really good time, even though we didn't have the benefit of leftovers.
Here is a picture of us and my dog who invited himself to sit for the portrait. He's a freaking riot.
Everyone please look at my dog and how wonderfully he sat after inviting himself to the picture.
My sister said to me before we the shot "we should have a picture taken of us for our last thanksgiving."
I looked at her and said "did you really just say that?" She was aghast. "Yes I did!"
Welllllll. We'll see where we are next year? In May, Bart will be 82 and Shirley will be 79, one day apart. Damn let's just see what happens, right? But honestly.... I hate to say it, I won't be surprised if one of us is not in the shot next year. So look upon that there picture. 2021 in a Nutshell, eh?
After Thanksgiving, on Friday we had a plan for us to go see my aunt Beverly in her home on Cape Cod. She has Alzheimer's, and has been living in this really nice facility for a while since her sons arranged things (my cousins Billy and John). She hates it. She doesn't remember a lot of people. She frustrates my mom.
"Everyone died and left me here alone," she says to my mom.
"I'm still here," my mom says. "What happens if you die before me, and I'm the one left here with no one."
"Oh," my aunt says. "Everyone died and left me here alone..."
Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
My sister, mom, and I went, while the boys went out to a bar.
My aunt recognized Linda immediately, but she didn't say my name but I think she knew me. My mom said that usually she goes to visit and Bev is sleeping. And she'll sit there for 2 hours doing crossword while Bev sleeps.
We were there two hours and had lots of laughs and jokes, and it felt like a good visit to me. I know that my mom or Billy have different feelings when they go visit her. Billy said she fights with him and he has to just smile and walk away.
My mom has her frustrations, too, but both of them continue to go visit. Because it is what you do.
I'm hoping it isn't the last time I get to see her. We had some laughs for sure, and I like laughs. Hell yes I like laughs. I'd like to go back in the spring, and hope she is still there to see.
I took my mom and sister to a favorite restaurant for lunch, while the boys finished up their bar visit and came across the canal to meet us at my cousin Billy's house.
After a little while, my sister took my parents back home because they were both wiped out, but we stuck around for a long time after.
My cousin Billy's son Nick came home from work. He is a couple months younger than Geoff. I took this fun picture of the two of them. Geoff is 6' 2" and Nick is 5' 5". We have a famous picture of the two of them and another cousin right after all 3 of them were born, within weeks of each other, and Geoff was a giant out of the gate.
I love that Geoff smiled for this picture (it helps he had been pounding beers all day long between his time with Grampa and Dad out at the bars and then arriving here at the man cave). I'd love to get the third cousin in for a picture too - not to actually recreate the original shot but to have something updated after like 25 years with all of them together.
It was so much fun to spend time with family. I love these jerks, and we don't get to see each other too often at this point.
After we left Billy's (with plans to get together at a house they have in NH sometime in the spring) we headed to the Buzzards Bay Brewing Company to have our final favorite neighborhood beers there and some Thai food. The Thai food wasn't awesome, but we were happy to be enjoying beers from a very favorite brewery there.
Saturday morning came too soon. We'd intended to leave early but Doug rolled over when my alarm went off. I did some packing and texted a college friend who lives really close to my parents to say hi. The last time I was there we didn't get to connect. She was out running errands and offered to come do a drive-by hug chat. Doug finished organizing the family to go while she and I chatted in the lobby. It was super nice to catch up. I'm fully supportive of her son on his Eagle trail, and really enjoy her and the family. Wish we'd been able to spend time with her boy.
Hitting the road about 3 hours later than "Let's get an early start" Doug intended, we finally hit the road. It is 7 hours 7 minutes to our front door but took us over 10.
I was very happy to get home. Boy was I happy. I love going to visit, but it is far, and it is kind of draining. I wish it wasn't so.
That said, I'm already looking forward to my next visit.
Hoping all reading this had a great Thanksgiving too.
When last we spoke of Geoff, he'd had the rug pulled out from under him, end of the academic career, and a few weeks of heartbreak and self pity. It still continues, in fits and starts. Instead of 10 days of not showering and drinking all the bourbon in the house, he's sort of back to living. He has showered, he goes to the market, he walks the dog. He hasn't gone to the gym but he's "thinking about it." Which are all good signs.
Then last Thursday morning, he tells us "I have a job interview at 2pm."
Oh. That's nice. What's the job?
It's in a produce processing facility. He got dressed - he doesn't have pants that fit, and his tucked in shirt had a big beer belly hanging over. He didn't shave because every year even though he doesn't raise money for it, he does "Movember." I don't know why. The pocket of the one pair of jeans that fit was worn through where he keeps his cel phone in the front. I could see his underwear through the hole so I told him to keep the phone pushed down so the pocket covered the inside of his leg and obscured the boxers.
He looked a mess.
In my head I was quoting Jerry Seinfeld "and you want to be my latex salesman..."
Off he went.
Two hours later he's home, with a stack of paperwork to fill out, direct deposit, and medical forms (he waived those since he gets insurance through me), and policies and procedures, rules and regulation, forms and agreements.
"I take it they hired you?"
"Yes, I have orientation Tuesday at 9am. Then I get to start working."
Okay.
"How much are they paying you?"
"$12 an hour."
Doug was livid. You don't just take the first job you interview for when there are so many good things out there. He had sent Geoff several jobs all paying $15 an hour or more. They had kind of a fight.
Geoff blew up that he's trying to move on with his life.
Doug said that the jobs he sent him were not just better jobs but closer jobs. Jobs in the town we lived in. He's going up almost to where he used to work. He yelled at us that we told him that he could not go back to that job and yes, we did, because we wanted him to find something better and closer.
The fighting is pretty brutal. The yelling. We've never been yelling people.
So he starts the new job, he has to be there at 6 am, so he gets up at 4, leaves the house no later than 5:15am. We're back to what it was like when he was taking the train to DC. The dog wakes up and thinks it is time to eat at 4am, and then drives me nuts for an hour. Eventually we all get back to sleep when Geoff leaves.
His hours are supposed to be 6am - 3pm, but he's been working until at least 5. We have one car, so he's been taking it, getting home at 6, and we've been a little trapped.
He found out the other day he was supposed to come in on Saturday as well, thinking his schedule was Monday to Friday, like normal. Okay, so they need people to work extra hours.
He gets a text last night that he has to come in Sunday, too. The tone of the message was rude as fuck. I'm thinking to myself "okay, so guys.... guess what. It isn't that people don't want to work, but they don't want to put up with this kind of bullshit from their employer for $12 an hour, every day of the week, for 10-12 hour shifts.
I guess pre-thanksgiving there is too much work, not enough people. So it isn't optional. It's required. I get it.
He's exhausted, and seeing the truth of what Doug said about not taking the first job. He said "they hired me under false pretenses," and I said no not really, you took a food job in an economy where there aren't enough workers and it is right before the holidays. Companies need people to work, and need a lot of work done, so this is challenging for them.
He wants to quit his job, and told me that he thinks "maybe after the new year."
How about no, quit now. It's okay. This job isn't for you. Not the best fit and that's okay. Just tell them "I can work through X date." and see what they say. Tell them sooner than later, and if they tell you to just go home, just go home. If they try to talk you out of it, tell them you need off until Monday November 29th. You're going out of town. If that's not cool, well then.
We decided that we'd go see my parents for Thanksgiving, and we need the car. So this is not negotiable.
"Oh great, I can go north to see family and friends and they'll see I'm a complete failure and fuckup." Here we go again.
So we'll head up to my parents on Monday the 22nd, we'll come back on Saturday the 27th, we'll figure out Thanksgiving (my parents have plans that I don't know we can just invite ourselves to, but we can figure something out). We'll have the dog with us, so it'll be difficult to go out to eat, or for us to bring him up to Jess. They are house sitting for our former neighbors and their dog is not good with other dogs as much as our dog is not good with other dogs. So that would be an unmitigated disaster if we tried to do something there.
I have friends who freak out or stress if they don't have a plan 100% in place in advance. We're happy to have our hotel room all set, at a decent price instead of holiday prices, and we'll get it all ironed out.
So that's the Geoff update, the us update, the Thanksgiving update. I kind of just wanted to stay here and cook, but we're locked in with the plan. The plan is the plan. And while we are there, we can work with him on applying for jobs.
It was beautiful outside last weekend, Doug headed up to the roof to clean the gutters, and Geoff and I were using the handsaw to shorten large branches that had fallen off the trees into fire pit sized bits.
Our neighbor was out raking his leaves, and blasting Vivaldi. Which was nice. It's fun to listen to Vivaldi while doing yard work, and not having to listen to endless leaf blower noise. I told him how much I appreciated that, and he said "Fall is the best time to listen to Vivaldi." Too true.
I shall refer to him as Neighbor Dude.
I apologized for the noise the saw makes. "We'll be done soon!" He waved it off and said it's not a bad noise, "It sounds like work getting done."
Part of me wants to remember that when I hear the leaf blowers going for hours in our neighborhood, instead of Vivaldi while using a hand rake.
He noticed the work we were doing and the fire pit, and asked if we wanted some branches that had fallen off his trees for our collection. I told him sure, we'd gladly take them. He dropped them over the fence and we chatted. Some were long and thicker, and needed cut down; others short and dry so Geoff put them in the shed door and stomped the middle of them to break them down. He looked like he enjoyed that level of destruction and breaking things. What 24 yr old person doesn't enjoy that kind of thing (heck, what 54 year old person doesn't, I'll be honest).
Neighbor Dude and I chatted while he raked and Geoff hauled wood over to the pile to get it out of the way for more work. He stopped in his tracks, looking down.
"Oh dear," he said. He used the edge of the rake to flip up a good sized animal carcass. It was a possum, and we both cringed. From the roof, Doug was pondering how a lone possum would be dead in the yard, like did it get stuck in his yard and the gate was closed, and it just couldn't escape? Can't they climb trees? I wondered if it ate poison put out by the other neighbor to our west (she thinks we attract rats by not keeping our yard spotless. I think she doesn't know the difference between rats and squirrels, to be honest).
He pondered what to do. Do I just put it in the trash? It seems undignified. It deserves a decent burial, doesn't it. We agreed. Yes. The poor beast. It was large and healthy looking. Possums are important creatures, and truly I hoped that the other neighbor had not offed it intentionally. He decided to bury it.
He got a hoe from his shed, but I handed him a much mightier shovel to do the job. "Don't let her see you doing this," I told him. He asked why. I explained that she thinks we attract rats. He laughed and said she said that about the prior tenants of this house.
"I have never seen a rat in this neighborhood," he said. "There are so many feral cats, and pet cats that go outdoors, they keep things tidy." He shook his head and set to work digging. Geoff and I cut a little more wood. We stopped to watch him lower the possum into the hole.
"Rest well, dear friend," he said.
"Godspeed," I added.
"So," he handed me back the shovel, "you've lived here for months now and we have not spent time together. We should have coffee."
I said that sounded great. When works for you?
"How is tomorrow?"
Uh. Short notice. Maybe. Tomorrow being Sunday, Doug likes his morning routine and then Football All Day. So it would have to be early. I suggested waiting until Saturday next, and he agreed that would be nice. 10am is perfect. Yes. Okay. Coffee at 10am on Saturday the 13th.
Today.
I texted him at 9am to ask if we were still on and 10 was still good - he agreed. I threw an apple blueberry cobbler into the oven, knowing it might need a little more time to cook so I planned on texting him a few minutes before 10 to let him know we'd be about 15 minutes late to give the cobbler a few more minutes.
Doug was slow to get ready - he is a little grumpy in the mornings, and doesn't relish giving up his goofing up on the phone time to be social, so he was still in his pajamas at 10, as I was putting on my shoes and getting ready to let the dog out and text Neighbor Dude about the slight delay due to baking cobbler.
Doug and I discussed whether or not we should set up the kennel since Phineas is sometimes not well behaved when alone. Geoff has a new job and isn't home today, so the dog would be super solo.
While we were deciding, Neighbor Dude showed up here. He had a shopping bag with him, full of bagels and cream cheese, and berries and lox.
Truth is, we had never decided where coffee would be had. Here or there. Us or Him. I assumed him, he assumed me. Oh the hilarity that ensues!
He was apologetic, and said we could go to his house but Doug ushered him in, this is better so the dog won't be alone, this solves that problem! And, there's a breakfast cobbler in the oven, it needs a few more minutes, so this is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Come on in.
We apologized that our house is a little messy. I quickly cleaned off the coffee table, moving the junk mail that had piled up, Doug's laptop, and arranged the nice coffee table books that were covered up by us neglecting their display, all while noticing that it had more dog hair on it than I initially thought. And I cleaned that up. He was either unoffended or exceptionally gracious. When you live, eat, work, sleep, wash, rinse, repeat all in the same one space you become blind to the mess after a bit, I guess.
He and Doug got to talking about medical stuff and junk. I brewed a pot of fresh coffee (we had finished off what Geoff set up/started before leaving for work), and got the cobbler out of the oven to cool down for a few minutes. I set up a little tray with the berries that he brought, and poured the coffee.
My dog then jumped up on the sofa, next to Neighbor Dude. And then, climbed into his lap. Literally on top of him.
"I think we are now becoming very best friends," he said. Doug wanted to shoo Phin off his lap, but he insisted Phin stay.
He called him "Phil." I did not correct him.
Then, Phineas started doing this weird thing that he does that we tolerate... he likes to lick fabric for some reason. He has one pillow on the couch that we allow him to do this on, and if someone is over, which is incredibly infrequent, we move the pillow away from the couch. It's a dirty little secret here. And now you (and Neighbor Dude) know.
Because the pillow was not on the couch, Phin started to lick Neighbor Dude's pants.
I booped his snoot and told him to stop. Neighbor Dude laughed and said "oh no, this is fine."
No ... it is not. You are being unbelievably gracious and my dog is being a freaking weirdo. And I am so sorry. Phin stopped for a while and just rested his chin on Neighbor Dude's leg looking up at me.
It was time for another round of coffee, so Phin jumped down and followed me to the kitchen (the room with food and he loves food and where's the food can I have some food?). I gave him a treat in his dish to keep him occupied and I brought out the coffee. Neighbor Dude's perfect black jeans had a giant pile of white dog hair all over them. He gently brushed it off and said it was okay, he loves dogs, he'd love to have a dog, but is at work so much that it wouldn't be fair to the dog. So this for him was just fine.
Still, in my heart I'm mortified. You know I'm mortified.
Phin got up on the love seat with Doug and fell asleep, snoring loudly. I was just waiting for him to fart to finish off the full Phineas Experience.
"All of his affection giving wore him out!" declared Neighbor Dude.
We talked about the neighborhood, and how we lived up the street for a couple years. He bought his house in December, right before we moved in, and got the tenant in the spring after having work done on the basement to update it and get it ready. Previously there had been a rather large family living in the house, so he knew he wanted to rent the basement out, and it needed the full monty in order to get it to that point legally.
He is from Cairo, and did his medical residency in pathology at Harvard, so we talked all about Boston. We talked about snow. How Doug does not miss it, but he likes it, once a year.
He had also lived in Omaha, Nebraska (speaking of snow!) and Houston, Texas. He said that a lot of people told him that Boston was not a friendly city, but he found Omaha to be the most unfriendly and actually kind of overtly racist.
Considering that a lot of people think Boston is one of the most racist cities going, he said that wasn't the case. He made great connections and found community there, where he had nothing in Nebraska.
He said living in Boston was great because of the quick access to the ocean, which he misses living here. I couldn't agree more. For a while he was looking for a job in Florida, and had a job interview in Miami. He decided after the interview to take his rental car down and go to the ocean, and check out Miami Beach. He then ended up stuck in traffic trying to get to the airport, and missed his flight by over an hour. He decided Miami was not for him.
He said so far of all the places he's lived in the USA since he moved here in 2013, DC is the most friendly. Perhaps,he thinks, that is because so many people are from far away, and people are looking to make friends, and he's very right.
We talked about Cairo, and Egyptian politics, and how the current president is trying to deal with the huge amount of population and congestion. He told us about New Cairo, which I had not heard of, and how people are being moved over to the East to alleviate the pressure of population.
I didn't realize 20 million people lived in Cairo. He shared a lot to about racism in Cairo and Egypt in general. With people coming in from other countries in Africa, there is a lot of Xenophobia. But on the whole, Egyptians are very loving, and caring, and want to help the Syrians and Sudanese who find themselves coming in.
Just don't try going to Turkey to get the same compassion.
We talked about Canada. How Doug and I had really unique experiences in Quebec. He said he speaks fluent French but the French they speak in French Canada sure isn't the French he speaks! He had a really hard time there trying to talk to people, in either French or English.
It was a really nice and rather lovely experience. I told him next time we have a bonfire, I'll text him to see if he is around and wants to come over.
He left a little before noon, said goodbye to Phil, who seemed very sad to lose his new best friend.
We've had a weird, rough, and unexpected week here at our house.
Geoff got released from his academic/clinical program last week.
Academically, he was doing great, but he had a couple of missteps and some issues with evaluations, and because of that, he failed the clinical portion of things.
They let him know last Thursday and he's been an outright mess ever since.
Can't say as I blame him. I'm kind of a mess too.
Things were going incredibly well, but, sometimes there are issues with Geoff and his learning disability, and they reared their big ugly heads and everything got derailed. And here we are.
Unlike when the children were younger, I would write long and detailed descriptions of the goings on in life. Here now, it's not my story to tell. It's his.
But.
As his mom, as any mom? I'm really sad. I'm deeply disappointed.
In him a little bit; in the school a lot a bit. I think he got a screwed in some ways, and some of it is because of Covid.... I think the school could have done more to prevent this from happening. But in the end, it belongs to Geoff.
I think they sucked at communicating with him. And as he has a communications based learning disorder, communication is key. And I'm not satisfied after talking with a few people so far.
Geoff and I had a meeting with the chair of the department on Tuesday after I spent repeated days trying to get someone to talk to me. Thankfully I have a good friend who understands how these things work, who works with student success, and she told me the magic word of "FERPA" to get permission for the school to talk to me. It's like Academic HIPPA. Frustratingly, they couldn't return my emails or acknowledge that I was even contacting them because reasons. Once I said FERPA, they contacted Geoff and had him to fill out a form to give me permission be talked to.
Frustrating beyond imagination. I can't imagine anyone who doesn't know how to play the game with this getting through anything.
I left somewhat dissatisfied, even though she was very nice and encouraged him to other programs.
We have a meeting tomorrow morning with his academic advisor/accommodations director. He's been the go-to for Geoff to get advice and guidance through this whole academic process. He's a good person. I like him.
There are options. There are always options. Geoff can do things. But Geoff is about as defeated as I've ever seen him. The picture above is from him just crawling into my bed, not to be with me but to be with Phineas.
We're encouraging him to pivot, think about where to go next. It's so hard to turn your head and look for another path, or another option, when you're just looking at the floor and you cannot move.
I was drawn, once again, to Frank Turner, and his song "Don't Worry."
Please watch that video. Please listen to him. Hear his words. I sent it to Geoff but "it's not my style."
Okay. But still. Hear what Frank has to say. Like, I want Frank to just come to our house with a guitar, and sit Geoff down, and sing into his face. This is as close as I'm going to get that. And to be honest, this song is going to help me too going forward.
So, we are dealing with this sadness, with this complete implosion of his plans. This time next year we'd hoped, Geoff hoped, that he would be having a full time job, his own apartment. He was on target for graduation in August of 2022. And now a dream deferred... is not a dream denied, to misquote the famous Civil Rights credo.
As for Geoff, he has no desire to put a new plan in place.
If nothing else in life, after twenty years of this blog, you've seen our family adjust, do that "pivot," and make things work. We have gotten good at this. The unexpected. We say when mom breaks her hip 3 weeks after we move to DC, "of course you did." And we work with the flow.
Nothing is a showstopper for us. If anything, we wait for the show to get the curtain fixed or the lighting figured out or the fire alarm to clear and the audience to come back in, and the show goes on.
So this is wild time for us. A hard week. A very hard week. Pile on three of the wildest site launches I've done, with problems, issues, and some horrible missteps, it's been rough.
We've gotten through worse, right?
We'll get through this. Pray for us, for our strength, and for The Boy. Especially.
This is a long and complicated post. I've rewritten it several times. I may edit it. I may just let it be. I'm not sure.
Dear Reader,
You know (all three of you who read this blog) I'm a fairly well adjusted and mostly rational person. I mean, once in a while here in the blog I do express my inner frustrations with life, indeed. But, for the most part, out in the world amongst other people, I do not lose my mind.
An incident after the Frank Turner/Counting Crows show at MGM National Harbor a couple weeks ago is something I want to share because I'm still trying to process it.
Finally getting to see Frank Turner was a dream come true for me, and my heart was so full. Counting Crows didn't disappoint, and if you read the last entry, yeah, Adam does weird things with the singing of his songs anymore, but overall, it was delightful.
After the show, we played penny slots kind of on a lark, and won back the cost of the tickets, the crummy food we ate, and the gas we put in the car to get down there.
I was pretty happy as we got to the elevator to head down.
Your humble narrator was in a very good mood.
A disheveled, unmasked, older white man holding a Shake Shack take-away bag stepped on the elevator first, and held the door for us. He immediately started pressing the close door button, even though 4 black people were trying to get on. They (the 4 black people) managed to get in, and rode down 2 levels.
We were going 2 levels further down, same floor as the old man.
When the four other passengers stepped off on their floor, he started pounding the close door button again.
He said "It never fails," and he shook his head. "Bunch of ni**ers sat down and fucked the table on me, it never fails. Those kind of people shouldn't be allowed in a nice place like this."
"Rough night? heh heh heh," Doug said, and I am not sure he heard what the man just said, and was just reacting to his overall demeanor.
As for me, if I didn't have a mask on my mouth would have been visible - open as wide as my eyes.
Dude then says, "Those c**ns do it all the time, they ..." but he didn't get much deeper into his sentiments. I put a stop to it.
"The fuck did you just say?" came out of my mouth. Loudly.
He was muttering more things, but what I said pulled him up. He looked me straight in the eyes, and said "oh you got a mouth on you, you're worse than me!" You better fucking believe it, champ, ole buddy, ole pal, and here it comes. Get ready.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You don't get to say that to us or anyone, you racist motherfucker!"
The elevator opens at our level in the parking garage and he exits first, fast, with me on his tail. There are 10 people in the parking garage lobby, of mixed races and appearances, all waiting for the elevator to go up to the casino. And there goes the racist, and here I come behind him, yelling.
He says something I can't quite hear or process (because I'm screaming at the back of his dumb head) about me and "those people."
I continued yelling at him, calling him out. Thinking of my friends, all through the years with the "those people" comment, I couldn't bear it.
"You don't know me, and you don't know my people, you racist fuck," as he booked it out the double glass doors on one side of the lobby, and Doug waited for me by the doors on the other side of the lobby.
"Fuck you and your racist bullshit," I screamed through my mask. Hopefully that phrase snagged the ring around the collar on the back of his filthy sweatshirt like an outraged, angry animal, biting and clawing through his skull.
I walked over to Doug, we walked out the doors to go to our car, and we have not spoken about this at all.
And that makes me mad, a little.
My outburst didn't need for him to congratulate me for being harsh/right/tough with this guy. I also don't need for him to tell me "you know, you shouldn't engage with these people."
None of this was performative. None of this was something I wanted a cookie or a pat on the head for. I know me, and maybe you know me, and I'm not going to put up with that. I wish Doug had the same outrage as I have, sometimes. But he plays it safe.
I think Doug thinks we're going to get us knived, or beat up, or murdered one of these days.
My mouth is going to get us in trouble. Okay, yes, I get that.
Case in point: A few years ago we were at a hotel once in Pennsylvania where a couple good ole boys who were also staying at the hotel who were in the parking lot taunting and baiting the young black kid at the front desk to come out and fight with them off camera.
The kid wasn't taking the invitation. I sat at the window, with it wide open, listening. I heard him say "I don't need this, I'm in college. I'm just trying to do my job. I asked you to keep it down in your room and in the parking lot because the other people staying here are blowing up my phone. I'm not going to fight you and give all that up and end up in jail."
I wanted to go downstairs and stand with the boy. I yelled a bunch of shit out the window at the guys in the parking lot at that point. Doug yanked me back from the window as he was on the phone with the police to get them to come and respond to the situation, as I expected at that point (or at least I hoped) the cops of Center Township were on the way.
Doug has a "let the authorities handle this" philosophy and I do respect that. Truth be told, I wouldn't be able to reason with two drunk fuckers from Alabama if their girlfriends, who were also yelling at them to knock it off and come back in the room, couldn't.
And of course the cops came. And of course the guys were like "oh, gee officer, I'm sorry if you think that maybe there was some yelling. We're just having some fun. Nothing is happening here..." and the cops left. Only to have this all start over as soon as the tail lights approached the mall.
But. In this case. On the elevator.
You get on an enclosed elevator with me, and you think it is okay, or "safe" to open your mouth to a couple white people and we'll be all "yeah, ni**ers, amirite?" right there with you... you picked the wrong person to lift the front of your KKK hood towards and show your face. Because I see you.
I didn't have enough time, but I wanted to say other things. Here is my list of items I would have said if he had turned around and not tucked his ratty tail between his smelly ass cheeks and run off.
1. Did it cross your mind it doesn't matter what color people are, that maybe you just suck at gambling? They didn't fuck the table on you, you just suck at this. Spend your money on other things like hygiene.
2. They shouldn't let those people in a nice place like this? Have you looked at yourself, my man. You look like a fucking pig sty, you fell off the tractor and straight into the manure pile. You are filthy, dirty, motherfucker outside and inside. Why don't you use money to buy laundry detergent instead of gambling.
3. Who do you think we are, that you're safe to get in here and open your mouth like that just because we're white. We're going to agree with you? You've made a big mistake with that kind of assumption, you fossil. You relic. You piece of shit.
4. Too bad you didn't win some money because you could build your ass a time machine to go back to some fucking Jim Crow era bullshit southern town and hang out with those of your ilk. You can badmouth black people and give them shit at the counter at Woolworth's while they are just trying to eat some lunch. You could go yell at an elementary school girl just trying to go to class, with a police escort. Yeah, too bad. Too bad.
5. So that Shake Shack bag? I bet a person of color made you that food at 1am working their ass off. I bet you didn't tip. And I sure hope to fuck you choke on it. Enjoy!
6. They shouldn't let those kind of people into this nice of a place? Have you taken a look at yourself, inside and out. You shouldn't be allowed in. You're the problem.
I'm still mad. This ruined the night for me.
And I have a lot of feelings.
Frank Turner has a wonderful song about just being nice, called "Be More Kind." Here's the song if you want to go watch, and I hope you do. I picked a live version just for you. There's a little tremble in his voice in the long held notes, and you can feel a little nervousness about playing live on air at the radio station (hat tip to WNRN).
I was happy that night.
For me, this song is church. It is like a hymn. Like how I feel about Guster's "Hang On." Frank sang it that night and I could feel Counting Crows fans in the audience become Frank Fans.
Before he sang it, he said something along the lines of remembering we're all human, we're all made of the same things, we're all going through stuff, and to think before we treat someone badly.
I always try to do that, friends. You know me.
Another case in point: After the show, as we were walking around the casino, seeing all kinds of people, just having fun. We saw bridal parties, and girls nights, and old couples. Black, white, Asian, so many people. Some amazingly well dressed and some not so much like Mr. Racismpants that I'd run into later.
I had a smile on my face, even though the music was too loud and wasn't my style, my mask was on and I was smiling. Beaming.
We were on line to get some halfway somewhat decent food from a BBQ place in the food court, and there was a woman who was there just waiting for french fries. She'd been waiting a long time. My food came, it had fries. So she asked the girl behind the counter (very nicely) when hers were going to come. There had been a mix up. they never cooked her fries. She was a little upset, so I offered her my fries right there.
"Can you give me that small take away container, and a fork, and we'll move my fries in there."
The girl behind the counter was stunned, the lady said "oh no no you don't have to do that! I'm sure it will work out here." The girl running the food line booked it out back, and the counter girl said "we get our fries from the Crab Cakes place because they have a fryer, I'm so sorry we made a mistake, I'm so sorry..."
I was still willing to give away my fries, they were piping hot, probably straight from the Crab Cake place... and the other girl came running back with a basket, over full, overflowing, with golden fries. She was apologizing, everyone was apologizing, and it was lovely. And there were french fries.
As we walked away with our food, the lady who finally got her fries said "that's the nicest thing I think anyone's offered to do for me in a long time."
"It's okay, really" I replied, I should save my carbs for beer, so. It wasn't the largest sacrifice I ever made. I'm really glad you got your fries in the end!" We parted ways smiling, and I got to the table where Doug had gone ahead of me to grab a seat. I didn't have to tell him the story, I didn't need an "attagirl! Aren't you sweet!" And he ate my fries for me.
So I was in a very good mood. I was living the Gospel of Be More Kind, the way I like to do.
And then all this happens with the guy in the elevator, and I'm mad now. Part of me said that I could have just said "oh no dude, that's not cool. Don't be like that." Part of me said I could have just said nothing, like Mike Birbiglia's famous bit about what he should have said.
It made me feel like I was unkind to someone who maybe needed some kindness. Would that have been a better witness for the Gospel of both Frank Turner and Jesus, when it comes down to it? Especially after Frank gave us the loving lesson, the "sermon" as it were on how we should treat others.
I don't know this guy. I don't know his life. I could have been kind while also letting him know that what he said was unacceptable.
And then another part of me is full of "oh, hell no, Christine. No." It had to be said. I had the opportunity. I took it. This guy has probably had through his whole life a pass on whatever he says or thinks. He's surrounded himself with hate. He sleeps with it and wears it, and expects that every other white person he encounters is on the same time.
In doing what I did, am I doing Be More Kind on behalf of other people who weren't there to receive my kindness as I read this man to filth?
And I probably didn't change how he thinks or feels about Black People. But I'm not taking shit like this anymore. And I don't think anyone should. And that in the end, does kindness.
This dumb experience also reminded me of two other times in the last couple years that I've stood up to others on behalf of someone who really couldn't at the time. Perhaps I'll dip into those stories soon.
On Friday, I got a raise. It's nice to get a raise, isn't it?
Especially when I feel I have been working harder than I've ever worked at a job before, it's nice to be given more money as recognition of what I'm doing. Although some would say I'm working my ass off, maybe hire someone else onto the team. We did recently, so I'm working on bringing people up to speed.
And, to be honest, I hand picked these two people because they both worked at stations, and they know how to already kind of do my job.
And they're great.
I love them. My job/my life is already better for them being on the team.
But this isn't a post about my raise. It's a post about this past Friday night.
I've wanted to see Frank Turner for years. Going on like 10 plus years now. But our schedules have not meshed. Frank is in Boston, I'm in Pittsburgh. Frank is over there, I just left. Frank comes to Boston, I move to DC.
Regretfully, while I was living near Boston I didn't buy tickets to go see him in a split bill with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. I hadn't really yet started listening to Isbell, and didn't want to see a split bill with a band I wasn't familiar with.
To this day, I kick myself. Because now, I'm also a Jason Isbell fan, and I desperately need to see him live too. Well. Bad decisions come back to bite.
A couple weeks ago, Frank posted on social media that he was so excited to be opening for Counting Crows. I said, well damn. I had NO idea this was happening. Heck. I'd like to go see that.
Mostly for Frank, to be honest.
Since hearing about the gig, both here at the Casino and southbound down in Richmond, I'd been dropping hints to Doug that I really wanted to go.
Doug muttered "yeah that sounds interesting."
The days went by, and I kept looking at tickets, and quietly mentioning it was happening.
I just got the news about the raise. Doug had a bunch of heavy duty work things and a 4pm meeting come up unexpectedly on Friday. I was ready to couch my disappointment as I went downstairs to tell him about the raise.
I pitched, again, the concept of going out to seeing a show.
"We could, you know, go ... see Frank Turner and Counting Crows at the Casino to celebrate, maybe," I said, "or...." cringing as I think about how this could be me passing on yet another opportunity to actually see Frank Turner fer chrissake, "we could just order Chinese food or something and stay home."
Doug said "that's today? It's .... Friday? I thought the show was Saturday."
"No, I replied," they're in Richmond on Saturday. I'd suggested that we go and stay overnight on Saturday but you said that was far and you didn't want to." (It's True. I did suggest such a thing).
"Are there tickets available?" he asked.
I showed him available seats on Ticketmaster for Verified Resale, there were two that looked really good.
"Okay let's go," he said. He went and put on a Hawaiian Shirt, which made me laugh.
I said, "I could buy these or we could just go to the box office, and buy tickets in person and avoid Ticketmaster." He only heard me say "I could buy these..."
And he didn't say back to me, "Yes, buy those."
So in my mind, we were getting in the car and going, and ... I was going to check with the box office for what tickets they have, and if they are too much, buy the verified resale.
Well, we were about 5 minutes away from the venue, and I'm checking some other seats to see if the prices are dropping yet, and I told him that the 2 tickets I'd shown him... were gone.
He flipped out. He couldn't believe I had not bought the tickets, at the house.
He thought I bought the damn tickets. He never heard me say that I was waiting to check with the box office (they weren't answering the phone). I felt confident in my plan. He was irate. He wanted to sit in those seats because no one would be sitting up on him, they were end seats in the side balcony. WRRRAARRRRRR.
Doug and I often have the "I didn't hear you" or "I didn't understand what you meant by that" moments, but here we were barreling down the highway to a concert without tickets in hand as a result. But I was confident in my damn plan. It was going to be great. He didn't see it that way. I told him to turn around and go home, or trust me. And hell, if worse comes to worse let's play some slots, eat a dinner, get some complimentary cocktails or some shit, and maybe go over to that big ass ferris wheel on the Potomac and have a ride.
He didn't say anything and kept driving to the casino.
I felt a little sick to my stomach and looked at other tickets, some were selling for $100 plus, the floor seats 2nd row were $400 each.
In My Head, Screaming: C'mon, man. Show is in an hour, you dicks. Drop your price to something reasonable! You're going to eat those tickets, you shitstain! Drop the price! fer chrissakes.
We got to the casino at about 7:30 for the 8pm show, found the box office, and indeed they had really good seats available for only 20 bucks more than the tickets I missed out on.
I bought them.
And yeahhhhh. They were incredibly good seats. Hell, if I go back to this venue, this is exactly where I am going to sit. I'll always buy tickets in this spot for the rest of my life. Worth every penny of the 20 bucks more per seat. I pointed out to him where the seats were for the other tickets and he said "Oh what the hell. You can't see half the stage from up there. How do you see anything...?"
So glad I didn't buy them. Because then I would never hear the end of it about how shitty the seats were.
Hell. Yes. I'm going to see Frank Turner. Finally. I could just cry.
Sad that there is no mention of him opening on this ticket, but, that's the ticket. That's the view of the stage. And we were there.
Doug was tired - he didn't eat before we left. And when we got there and secured our tickets he opted not to buy food at one of the concessions because "14 dollars for a sandwich is ridiculous."
Okay. so you're going to be hangry and tired. That's alright. You sleep. Frank would say "Sleep is for the Weak" but. Go on. I'm here, happy you're here with me. Alright.
The people in front of us were discussing with the people in front of them "is there an opener? the ticket doesn't say there's an opener but I heard there is?" So of course, your humble narrator is all "oh, yes there is. Let me tell you about Frank Turner and his mandolin playing sidekick Matt Nasir."
I tell them about how I'm actually there to see them more than the Counting Crows. They laughed. "How do you know about this guy?" the dude bro of one of the couples says to me.
Oh honey. Let me tell you.
I tell him how I was driving to work at the cooking school a million years ago, well, 10. And the favorite radio station of everyone alternative in Boston, WFNX (RIP you wonderful station), played "If Ever I Stray."
I got to work, pulled up youtube and watched the video. Then I told Jo, please look at this. Look at this guy. Listen to this song.
Bloody Hell. I love this. She loved it.
The guy in front of me is beaming, whips out his phone, and says "Okay, what albums should I get."
I told him to watch Frank first, and then I'll let him know. I wouldn't want this young man angry with me cause he dropped a bunch of cash on Amazon Music to buy albums for a guy he turned out not to like.
Frank and Matt come out, introduced by Adam Duritz who long ago shed the dreads and now looks like a high school English teacher who is hipper than all of you.
They start off with "Recovery" which in my heart makes me think of our friend Chris Kelly living his sober life (and they also played Not Dead Yet, which Chris says "It's about me.") It's nice to tie thoughts of Chris to Frank Turner, especially as he is the person who introduced us to Counting Crows one late night in 1993 at a bar that had TVs in the floor, and a DJ spinning tunes to the empty space. Chris asked the guy to play "Murder of One," and he did. And I was hooked.
Matt is a lovely mandolin player, and harmonizer to Frank. When they do songs together like "The Way I Tend To Be" it is just lovely to hear them blend. Frank sometimes "scream sings" but I love that punk energy and excitement. It makes me think of Billy Bragg in his younger years beating the snot out of his guitar and hollering "In a mail order paradise!!!!!"
I'm sitting there, giddy as fuck, as they go into "Photosynthesis," which includes lines that make me think of Geoff in Elementary School and lines that make me think of me:
For Geoff, at the age most of the children are in this video: "I won't sit down, and I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up...."
And for me: "Oh when no ones yet explained to me exactly what's so great
About slaving 50 years away on something that you hate
Look, I'm meekly shuffling down the path of mediocrity
Well if that's your road then take, it but it's not the road for me ... And if all you ever do with your life
is photosynthesize
Then you deserve every hour of these sleepless nights
that you waste wondering when you're gonna die."
By the way: Please read this wonderful write up from another Frank Fan for some feelings about this song.
All told, the setlist speaks to my heart. A newer song about his marriage and relationships in general called "The Work" made me cry a little, especially the part about memorizing your partner's family tree, and heeding the warnings about when you're close to crossing the line, and about how I didn't buy the tickets at the house but wanted to go with my plan of buying the tickets at the venue.
He told the tale that it was his anniversary of his first video date with The Missus (Jess Guise) six years ago and that she was furious that he was on tour.
But.
He was on tour because he was invited to open for Counting Crows. How could he not?
Frank has often told the story about how his sister introduced him to the Counting Crows as a young lad. They made him the musician he is today. He had been mostly into hardcore and metal, and in fact his first band was a pretty hardcore band. "August and Everything After" became an obsession for him, he learned to play all the songs, and he loves this band.
There were times we could have but those were times we were rolling coins to put gas in the car so we could drive to Florida and stay for free at a friend's condo and eat Ramen noodles while looking at the ocean, just so we could go on "Vacation" with the kids.
We just never got around to seeing them. And as time went on, they put out some live albums where when I listened to them, I said "wow. What is Duritz doing to his songs?"
Doug refers to Adam's live performance style as "Shatnerizing." If you are familiar with William Shatner singing Dylan songs, you'll know what I mean.
He does not sing the song insomuch as he kind of does an oral interpretation of the song. He has said in interviews often that it is up to his mood the night of the show. Sometimes he's happy, sometimes sad, confused. So he just does it different every time.
It was funny because we knew it going in, and sure enough here we are listening to him Shatnerize the hell out of "Mr. Jones." It's kind of cringeworthy, and it's also really weird to see people around us trying to sing along, and being confused by the song changes.
I get it, I get why he does it, why it happens. He's telling a story and pushing the emotional engine to a whine that you can only really do in person sometimes.
Duritz makes his song and stagecraft into an off-Broadway show.
He acts out his songs, the people, what they're doing and thinking. Like "walking on a wire in a circus" in "Round Here," and calming himself with hands over his face and looking up into the rafters as "she has trouble acting normal when she's NERRRRRRRRVOUS..."
I almost feels like it is time for someone to do that, take this band's songs and make a show. Adam can star. The new album, Butter Miracle Suite One, is full of songs that you feel would be amazing in this kind of a setting.
I feel the new stuff is so much like Bruce Springsteen: the characters; the storytelling; the craft. If you watch the film here, you'll hear and see it too. My guess is that Springsteen fans will either hate it or love it. But it feeds into my idea that Adam deserves a musical show. Just like Brue, but. Different. And only Adam can star. No one else can pull this off in a traveling show.
The rest of the band, all of the Counting Crows, a lot of people don't know their names and all because Adam Duritz is Adam Duritz, are just amazing musicians. My favorite member of the band is Charlie Gillingham, who plays mostly the piano, the Hammond organ, and the accordion. You know his organ playing on so many of the songs like "Rain King," for sure.
As much as I love Kevin Hearn of Barenaked Ladies when he is up there playing blue sparkly accordion on songs like "Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank," seeing Charlie rule that stage like the captain of a pirate ship during "Omaha" was a truly unforgettable experience.
His white hair and beard give him this wild salty look, straddling the stage, going from edge to edge like a pent up animal ready to escape the cage. It was tremendous. I wish I had a photo but I'll just remember the beautiful man doing his beautiful thing in my head.
Musically, this is one of the tightest bands I've ever heard, so for as much as Adam will "Shatnerize" his songs and confuse the sing-alongers, this band doesn't miss a beat, a note, a screaming chord. They took songs that are gentle on the albums and turned them into raging rock anthems.
"Long December" never sounded better.
Frank Turner came out at the end with Matt Nasir to sing on "Hanginaround" and you could tell he was just living his best rock and roll kid life right there. I didn't take a lot of pictures because we were just a touch too far away for things to come out right, but:
The white blur at the left of the shot there, that's Frank, jumping around like the world's happiest boy.
Both Frank and Adam gave between song speeches of their mutual admiration of one another, and at the end, Adam was up on stage by himself when the house lights came up and he thanked everyone for coming out, for making them feel so good, and he said he'll see us again soon...
"...because, we're back."
And yeah. They are.
Oh, two final things.
The guy in front of us ended up buying "England Keep My Bones," "Positive Songs for Negative People," and "Be More Kind." He told me that during the show he was facebooking his buddies to go to youtube and look at videos for the songs, and through the show he'd turn to me and ask "what's the name of that one he just played?" His friends were all writing back and saying "WHO IS THIS GUY!!!"
Made a convert, I think. Maybe someday I'll see him at a show of just Frank and the Sleeping Souls headlining. That'll be nice. I'll recognize him immediately because he reminded me so much of my friend Ben back home, who actually just went to see Jason Isbell the other night and said he thought of me a lot.
And after the show, we found food. It was disappointing, but it was food. We walked around the casino and Doug took out some money for us to play some penny slots.
We won almost $300, which basically totally covered the cost of the tickets, the food we ate, and the tank of gas for the car.
And that, my friends, is the saga. I'll save the fight I had with a guy in the elevator for another post.
