Heaven's a Julep on the Porch - Punch Brothers at Lincoln Theatre, Washington DC, February 26, 2022

 Apologies for the crummy picture but we were far away... 

Last night I got to check a band off my list. I have wanted to see The Punch Brothers for years, and lucked out by winning tickets to see them with opener Haley Heynderickx. 

Both are Tiny Desk Darlings, especially Chris Thile who has performed with Yo Yo Ma, Nickel Creek, and the Pbros (as my friend Cate calls them) among others.

Seeing as I work at the home of the Tiny Desk it is sad that I've never been in the building when they've been there. 

But I did get to see Haley live and in person, standing a desk's distance away from her during her Tiny Desk here). And was so excited to see her. 

Haley is a singer songwriter, a beautiful voice coupled with her unique songwriting and poetry. A folk singer, a young old soul, and certainly worthy to hold an audience's attention with her performance. I always say when you go to a show, go and support the opener. And in this case - she was amazing and I hope she made some new fans. 

During her set, Haley commented on how quiet and nice everyone was, compared to the night before in Richmond where people just talked the whole time and she didn't think anyone heard a word she sang. So she wondered what was wrong with us. "DC is so serious. I walked around today and everyone was on their phones having very important conversations. I guess that's kind of normal here?" 

She has a song called "Oom Sha La La" (first song in the Tiny Desk link) where at one point she starts yelling "I need to start a garden! I need to start a garden!" so I told Sara if she sang this we had to scream back at her and Sara thought that was a plan. So she did, we laughed when she started singing it, and I apologized to the guy sitting in front of me for what I was about to do. We screamed right along with her.  People in the audience caught on and a few joined in, but mostly people chuckled, the guy in front of me laughed, and so did she. She thanked the audience for being enthusiastic about gardening.

Describing the Punch Brothers, that isn't exactly easy. You can use terms like Bluegrass, newgrass, avant garde grass, chamber music, experimental, and at times just weird and wonderful. See their 2015 Tiny Desk here by the way.

Doug kind of "meh"ed at me when I asked him if he wanted to go with me, and I knew that would be his answer. Not sure if it was he didn't want to go to a show or if he doesn't care for the Punch Brothers. I know he doesn't really love Chris Thile's early stuff with Nickel Creek, so I think that "meh" follows through to him currently. 

He doesn't know what he's missing. Especially based on the music he listens to every single day, these guys should really be the thing that rocks his socks off.

Five virtuoso musicians, top of their games. Stand up double bass, violin, mandolin, guitar, banjo. All string instruments and no percussion or piano. Percussion is handled by hitting the bodies of the violin, guitar, and mandolin.

I have grown to recognize Thile's playing so if I'm scanning on the dial of a radio and come across a song, I know it is him. Similar to when I hear David Grisman playing is "Dawg" music. Doug is a huge fan of Grisman/Garcia in all their different forms. I truly would have loved for him to go see this. So Mister Meh stayed home, and I took the aforementioned Sara with me.

We met in 2018 at a Guster show, and she lives about 4 miles away from us. She had a cursory knowledge of the band, and knew Chris from his APM stint with "Live From Here," the Prairie Home Companion replacement. To get acquainted, she dove on a list of videos and songs I recommended, and then she dove in deeper! She knew more songs than I knew, and sang along with just about every one. She even knew when to yell stuff back at the band when they performed. 

With a mix of songs with Chris singing, three and four part harmonies, and a lot of instrumental magic, they're a performance to behold.  They did an amazing cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." An audience that politely sat in the seats the whole time when there should have been hooting, hollering, and flailing was a little frustrating. At one point Chris was playing so stinking hot and a guy yelled out "GET IT! GET AT IT!" and everyone laughed and cheered. Politely. It was like we were hypnotized at times - just watching this artistry, this sorcery. Chris playing, bouncing and trading back and forth with Noam on his banjo. Breakdowns and slowdowns, slaps into wild revery and drops into soft harmonies and storytelling.

The show tonight wasn't sold out and part of me was so tempted to just go back for more, and get there super early and sit right up front. Hopefully the folks there tonight are a little more hype. 

Punch Brothers' setlist (not filled in as of this writing)

Haley's setlist 

Here's Sara and me, we wanted a picture of the evidence that we left the house, and not only left the house but had a really great time. I asked a rando stranger to take the picture for us and to please make sure to get Abe in the back. He could have done a better job of asking us to pose differently for more big giant Abe head. But it is good enough. 

The title of this post comes from one of the Punch Brothers songs, and I highly recommend it. Here's a version live from 2018. Do watch and enjoy. Heaven is a Julep on the porch... 

Late February (Already) Update

It's been a quiet couple of weeks around here, but as always, it's less quiet than I usually think it is. Quiet because we haven't done much of anything exciting other than work. Which is okay. It's too cold in my mind to go out and do stuff, and then on the super nice days in the past week, it was too work-busy for me to want to go outside. I realized that the last time I went to Doug's aunt was kind of the last time I even left the house. Left. The. House. I didn't even go outside with the dog. Until yesterday, I think it was over two weeks since I set foot outside the building. I'm becoming that person. Things will get better and more outsidey, and then I'll complain it is too hot. We have a short window called April.

So here are some updates. 

Me & Work

Phase 1 of the big project that I've been working on since late 2019 (pre pandemic! in the before times!) is coming to a close, and phase 2 of the project hopefully will be kicked in by late March. We'll get a breather to assess the help documentation, work on the help documentation for the next phase and the phase beyond that. Several of us had pondered what our roles will even be with phase 2, and things are sort of starting to look like they're coming into focus. So hopefully it'll all make sense in the next few weeks. 

We have a new teammate joining us, and I've known about it for a long time (months). I'd hoped he would have come on board in early January so he could ramp up and finish the project with some knowledge of this phase 1 process, but it isn't to be. We'll finish next week, and he starts the Monday following. He and I are good friends through work, and he brings a lot of strategy and smarts to the table. He'll be a lot of fun to work with. 

Very much looking forward to that. 

My company took Presidents' Day and made it a floating holiday, which to me makes no sense at all considering how many people have kids, and school is out that day. Like. Why? You gotta take your floating holiday on a day that you would normally have off anyway? Who does this serve, except for annoying parents. I decided I would take it off, and celebrate the Presidents or whatever. 

Which leads to the next update.

Doug's Aunt

Adventures continue with Doug's aunt. She didn't check in with us for 2 weeks, and we haven't volunteered to go over. Honestly, we needed a break. I emailed her last night to check up on her, because her silence is unusual, and I basically was worried they'd been somehow jettisoned out of the house permanently by the county at this point. 

Things are very bad from what she explains.  The county representatives have been at her house twice in the last two weeks. 

She said one of the county representatives went through her kitchen and removed all the food that was expired so "everything is gone! All my food is gone!" I said "well yeah, that makes sense. If it is expired food, it shouldn't be in your house." But she was so mad that this person violated her pantry. How dare she. I shook my head. I could just imagine the dates on some of the food. Probably 2007 like the AARP magazines I've thrown out. 

I said well this is good - I'll come in and clean the pantry and shelves and take you shopping for up-to-date food, and label it and then you just have to promise to eat it before it expires.

She said that the county is going to hit her with fines next. So she's about to get fined who knows how much. And she has no fucking money. So good luck with that, county. 

My thought today was to go over there and help. Doug has a ton of work to do for a report (or three, I think) that needs to be submitted Monday. He told me he is going to be working all weekend because reasons. So I was just going to go by myself. Then he tells me this morning he should be done with a big chunk of things by about 2pm, and he wants to go do something fun. We have done nothing fun for weeks. Zero fun. He can save the rest for tomorrow. 

It sounds good to me. I'm willing to leave the house. 

I have off Monday, see above, so I just emailed her to let her know I will be there before lunchtime on Monday. I'd like to sleep in maybe past 8am. On my holiday. Honoring the Presidents and junk.

My Dad

My dad got sick about 2 weeks ago. My mom said he'd stopped eating more than a bite or two, was lethargic, slept all the time. And then on a Monday morning, I think it was the 7th, he said to her "Don't call an ambulance, but I think I'd like to go to the emergency room." 

So she took him - they eventually saw him and admitted him, and put him in the ICU. He had fluid in his lungs pretty badly but they didn't say it was pneumonia. His blood pressure was jacked up to like 220/60, which isn't good. They eventually got things stabilized, the fluid lessened or gone, and then he caught two bacterial infections from being at the hospital, Pseudomonas and Klebsiella. Both are HAI - Hospital Acquired Infections. You can't get these from walking around town or eating at your favorite watering hole or going to Wally-Mart. 

I am kind of annoyed that these things literally could have killed him. Great job, hospital. Five more days in the hoosegow, with an IV feed to knock them out. He got released yesterday and when I talked to my mom he was resting. He said he was treated incredibly well, but they barely let him sleep, which is, of course, the downside of being in the hospital. So he is now happily home in his own bed. Sleeping. 

I had offered to go up for a couple of days. My mom told me that would be "pointless" because I wouldn't be allowed to go in and see him. I said "well, I could help you with things..." and she said "meh." 

Then she complained that she took my dad's sheets and blankets off of his bed, and it took her literally two days to wash them and dry them because, of course, they have a tiny washer and dryer. Not a giant put all your fleece blankets in here and wash them thoroughly and dry them completely kind of washer and dryer. I said to her, case in point - I could have come up and taken all that stuff, and all your clothes that you don't wash frequently enough, to the laundromat, and been done with it all in about 90 minutes max. So she conceded that it would have been a good idea but it was done and over with. 

Can't change the past you sure can just bitch about it. 

Hopefully he's well and fine and not needing any follow up anything, other than regular check ups with his doctor. We'll head up in the spring for a visit or something.

Phineas

Phin's former mama came to visit us last weekend on her way up to see her brother for his birthday. 

I had hoped that Phin would like be .... excited? to see her. But also a little worried he would be, and want to go with her. 

I don't know what dog brains are like. For instance, Gonzo knew Aaron's name, and if we ever talked about Aaron, he'd start looking for him. It always broke my heart a little. But Gonzo was always the "smartest dumb dog" I ever knew.

In our case, Phin didn't get too excited. Sat on the couch next to her. Went to sleep. Shed white fur all over her black shirt and pants - and she thought that was funny.

She'll always be his mama though. 

Next Monday is his one year anniversary of coming to live here with us. So almost to the day, from their last time together, they got to see each other. For the record, she didn't stay away because she was heartbroken or anything. After she adopted him out to us, she took a job in California and was out there for quite a long time. She moved back here after Thanksgiving, figuring she was more East Coast than Cali. And she settled in southern Virginia. When she left she told me that the set up here, and the people we are, is exactly what she wanted for him. The fenced yard, the companionship, he's doing well and she can see it. And that makes her glad for the decision. And I am glad too. 

Yesterday I took him to the vet for his annual check up. He's put on some weight (maybe a little too much) since coming here. He's got a problem with his back right leg - it's not bending when he walks so the vet described it as "jacked up," like her own leg when she had a bike accident a few years ago and shattered the bones in her leg to a million pieces. She wants to do some X-rays just to see if something is super wrong, or, arthritis. She said he walks fine, moves around fine, you almost wouldn't notice it if you weren't looking for it. But we did notice it - and so did his former mama, and we discussed it last week when she was here. He is an older boy, 11 already, so the weight gain and maybe some advancing arthritis is the problem. He got some pain meds, and we'll see about X-rays in a week or so. 

Here's some Phineas to bless your face. Doing what he does best, and chilling with a side project I'm helping my friend Matt with. 

Oh and here's another one because yes. Magic hour. I wanted to catch his eye open because the twinkle from the sun was just unreal, but it didn't work out. Just look at that little bastard.

Alright. I think that sums it up. Going to do a little house cleaning and laundry folding while Mister Man does his job stuff, and then we'll see what we're up to for the afternoon. 

On the next episode of Hoarders

 I don't write a lot about family things anymore outside of our direct unit of 3 humans plus one dog, because I'm not sure who reads this blog. I once found out that someone from my office 20 yrs ago was reading, and she sent me a terse email because I'd said some things about her that she didn't like. I pointed out, it's true though. You do that thing. And maybe it's super shabby of me to let you know it bothers me in this way but. It's true. Sorry you found out about how I hate when you talk like a baby to us in the office, instead of talking like a grown up.

And then the whole thing with a certain bank happened, and they used my blog against me. So. I have kind of not written in my true voice with how I see things in quite a while. 

And I think folks from that certain bank still read my blog when I post, so. Hi. How are you, bank? 

I send extensive long detailed updates that need to be voided from my mind and heart via email to C and Linda. They are the only two I feel I can grouse to.

In the spring of 2021, we found out some stuff was going on with Doug's aunt. She and her son (Doug's cousin) live in Virginia, about an hour from here. We thought we helped her sort out a few things, we thought she understood what to do, we didn't hear back from her after we went out to visit. 

And the situation got even more grave and bothersome, as we came to find out at Christmas Dinner. 

Because of that, for the past few weeks, we've been trying to help her out with this situation which has gotten wildly out of control.  There's a lot of background on this that I won't expound upon (though it is quite the story). 

The county is now involved in her life and wants her house cleared out. Yes. 

It's a hoarding situation just like on TV only without the dead animals, diapers, and giant bags of trash (thank goodness). It's all relatively "clean," it is just a lot. And I mean a lot. Like too much. Doug called it an "archeological dig" to get through to find the coffee table. He was super proud of himself for getting a path to the recliner so she can safely get there to sit. I thought he was being ridiculous until I got there and saw the place for myself, and then I congratulated him for the work he did.

We've been there three times, the first time Doug and Geoff moved a whole lot of stuff out to a storage unit with his cousin, and the next visits had me participating in was a sort and purge. Over and over.

Part of me initially thought we just need to pick everything up and move it to the storage unit, and then sort after. But no. I wanted to go through before things went to storage. Mostly to clean things.

After all, if you have 7 boxes that you can reduce to 2 boxes, and the equivalent of 5 boxes goes in the trash, that's space saved in the storage unit. 

This could be us every weekend for the rest of the year if we dedicated ourselves to it (but we will not, we cannot). When we got there on two Saturdays ago 2 people couldn't stand next to each other, and by the time we left, all four of us could stand there. This is what it looked like. Believe it or not - this was progress. 

Look at all that damn floor you can see. Clearing this space out was 4 hours of work. But.

It was a temporary victory. When we came back the following Saturday, it looked like I hadn't done a damn thing. I walked into the room and almost screamed. I went outside and breathed heavily, and almost screamed. 

But I started to think about it. Okay, alright, okay, okay. They were bringing things from upstairs and bringing it to the Living Room, and I was able to sort and pack and organize things without having to go upstairs to the other messy messes of rooms.... But see below for what I walked in on, and imagine how horrible I felt upon seeing it.

Damn.

We could keep doing this. A week on, a week off, whatever. But. 

The problem is the level of urgency with this situation at this point. 

The county wants to send in a crew for thousands of dollars at her expense (thousands of dollars she does not have, of course), to remove everything. Remove it to where? Who knows. Probably a landfill. Thing is, she actually has items of dear value. And separating the wheat from the chaff is super important before someone else comes in to sweet everything out. Thus the 7 bags of trash 3 boxes of stuff to go to the storage unit is something helpful. But I would need 2 weeks vacation to just daily go in there and do things.

If I had two more people with me for the sorting/purging, (Doug is doing a lot of the heavy lifting and putting stuff into the jeep to take to the storage unit) I think it would go much faster. Doug can't really work inside - he's allergic to cats (she has one cat) and he's allergic to bullshit. He walks in there and flips out and it makes him upset. He stood there last Saturday and just looked at the dining room and said "This is ridiculous." 

Yes. It is.

She's in her very late 70s, and thinks she's going to achieve/complete projects she has in her brain.

Last week was about me putting watercolor paints and a canvas into a box to go to storage and she was mad about it. "I'm going to start painting again." 

Sure you will.

But she won't. She never will. I mean, she does not have the restorationist skill level at this point that she may have had when she was my age. She can't and she won't. 

So moving this to storage gets it out of the way. The county won't come, and just take all her assets to the dump. 

She emailed me today saying "things are missing" and asked if I threw them out. An iron rabbit (it's outside in the front patio) a basket (she has like 100 baskets, what basket. which one), a remote control for the TV (never saw it), a small glass box with 2 dogs in it. 

I won't even get into the fight she had with her son as to where the storage unit keys went. She blamed him for losing them, and then called him "irresponsible and disorganized." I literally sat on the floor and laughed, that she'd blame him for being ... irresponsible and disorganized.

Doug said most of the stuff she says is "missing" is already most likely in the storage unit.  And she just needs to relax because more stuff is going to move over so ... deal with it.

I wish I took more before and after pictures so we could track the progress, show the county how much is working. But I didn't want to make her feel shame by taking pictures. 

This is Friday night. Doug and I have not discussed going over tomorrow. She emailed me a few times through the week to ask where things are (ie: the remote control). She continually puts the "cart in front of the horse" as it were, prioritizing things like having Verizon come and upgrade the internet and TV boxes but, how's about we get things cleaned up first??? 

So I don't know what the latest and greatest is from Virginia. We'll see what happens. Cross your fingers we can help and get her where she needs to be.