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.

Twenty Twenty Too

Mid January already. How'd this happen? 

I've been in a little bit of a fog, and every day goes by I forget to do things, like write the first blog entry for the year. After the Cookie-Palooza in December, after Christmas, after New Years, after Geoff's 25th birthday (longtime readers of the blog know I started this stupid thing when he was like ... four?) we start to get into the doldrums of winter. No good outside fun because it is cold and stupid right now, honest to God cold, not just me becoming southern cold. 

So this will be a dull stretch until we can go do some fun. Here are some highlights that I can remember.

Geoff and I ran an errand for Carrie back in December, she needed some parts picked up in Frederick, so we took a drive together. I had a vacation day to burn, so I figured what the heck, let's go for a drive. 

I like it up there, and I'd live up there or even further north if there wasn't a chance of me having to come back to the office, or Doug going back to his office. The commute would suck out loud.

 Geoff is also looking at a new academic program in Arlington VA so this would be a silly place to live. At least for the next couple years, I guess.  

But it's mountainous, beautiful, wide open. We got the parts (note: the bed of the jeep is shorter than I think it is!) and stopped at a brewery between Frederick and our house. We've been there before and I did a write up, but Geoff hadn't visited. A small reward for riding in the passenger's seat pulled up all the way to the dashboard, with a perilous sharp piece of metal nested in the headrest directly behind his noggin.    

We survived the journey as I prayed the whole way that no one would rear end us on 270.

The tasting room was done up for Christmas, the only thing missing in this space would be a gorgeous hearth. It really is a nice room. I asked Geoff to take my picture, telling him I'd like the tree in the shot. 

This is what I got from him. I told him "this is awfully close!" and he said he didn't like the lady in the background of the shot so he moved around to make it just me. Makes sense. 

We got some snow, real actual measurable snow, right after the new year. And it stuck around for a goodly amount of time. 

We had plenty to eat, charged batteries, and patience. Other people in Virginia did not. People got in their cars during the storm, and then got stuck on the highway all over the place. 

Some people were stranded for a day or so near Strafford on I-95 due to some jackknifed tractor trailers and other cars that just couldn't manage to drive in the heavy snow.  It sucked for them, but at the end of things I did not feel badly for these people. At the time of day they got stuck, in all reality and honesty, they never should have left the house. 

It seems like everyone wanted to blame everyone else for everything aside from self responsibility and poor decision making. Blaming others when people are being fuck all stupid about weather. 

It's the government's fault, it's climate change, it's the forecasters' fault. No, dummies. It's your fault you got stuck for 27 hours on the highway. People actually tried to blame the new, incoming, not yet sworn in Governor of Virginia for this catastrophe when the outgoing dude could have ended his time with a major victory by getting things figured out.  You can't blame the new guy until he's in as the new guy, folks. That was kind of hysterical. He's a jerk and all but none of this was his fault.

Here's a lesson for you. Don't leave the house if it is actively snowing, ever. Unless you are bleeding to death or need to get to a hospital. Your boss can suck it if he demands you come in. No one should risk their lives so a Panera can stay open.  

Stay inside. 

You see it is actually snowing so no, right now is not the time to go to the market. 

No, Senator dude, you don't leave at 1pm during a snowstorm that started at 6am to head up north to DC. Nothing is worth it. Stay put.  Nothing happening in DC is that important, I swear to God himself, for you to put yourself and your staff/driver in danger so you can get up there. Get a clue - monitor DC happenings from your house. Or your office in Richmond. No meeting, no people, nothing is that important.

I have to say that most of this area is in absolute denial when the forecasts are being put together. The NWS and all the TV stations call for us to get a boatload of snow, and we get flurries or nothing. The region is kind of a snow hole, snow happens to the west, north, and south. But never right in the DC area. So when they say "we will get 6-8 inches of snow!" literally no one believes it. We'll get a trace. 

Usually I sit safely at home and laugh at the forecast of 6-8 inches. I rag on people who tweet "OMG SNOOOWWWWWW!" and I can still see the blades of grass poking up through the 1/2 inch of "measurable" snow. I say "this isn't a winter storm, this is a Monday in Boston!" 

This time I got to sit safely home, look out the window at it coming down to beat the band, and said "huh. So yeah. There's some snow." And it was pretty. Here's a little instagram slideshow.

We had Geoff's birthday. Geoff's 25th birthday.

Took him to a brewery/restaurant in Hyattsville that we're fond of and have been to many times. He's still rather depressed with the whole school/work thing but this was nice to do, and we had a lot of fun. Geoff would be good working at a brewery if he had a little more skill with things like sanitizing/cleaning/etc. 

His attention to that level of detail is lacking in a lot of ways. He's also not very customer service friendly, and I don't think he'd make a good bartender except for people who are not shitty drunk. He's probably punch someone who is an asshole. 

But. Maybe hey.... a job in a brewery itself as an assistant might be good. He knows the product, how it is made, what it entails to turn water and a bunch of other stuff into beer. We've pondered pointing him in that direction. We're still working on things with him. 

Oh, and right now, today, I'd be hanging out with my sister, Ginger, Cate from Atlanta, Debs from Virginia Beach, and we'd be getting ready to head to a hotel in DC for check in. We would be meeting up with Sean and Sara, and their 6 yr old Henry who was looking forward not just to a hotel, but seeing a concert with me. But. 

The entire tour got canceled. Thanks Covid. Shows are being rescheduled for May, and we have to wait to see when things are going to be set back up. The Boston dates are rescheduled, and I didn't buy tickets to those shows because I know better than to travel to Boston in January (even though we did it a couple years ago). I'm now curious about tickets to those May dates and I hope they do not reschedule the DC dates for our anniversary, because that would be bad..

I took today and tomorrow off (and it crosses my mind I probably should have taken Thursday off too because I would have been waking up in a hotel). I thought about keeping the hotel, and just having a place to day drink and sit by a pool. But better thoughts prevailed, and we decided to save the money for the next adventure, whenever it happens. 

Doug's birthday is Sunday, so I'm trying to figure out if we go somewhere on Saturday and stay overnight. Initially, I had joked around about taking him to Pittsburgh on 1/23 and I'd go to a Guster show and he could hang out in the city and watch football at a bar, but that's a little shabby. I really wish he liked the band enough to go see them. But he's said "I've seen them enough times," and he's not interested. He doesn't care if I go off and see them, spend time with my sister, but he's more "meh" about going to concerts in the first place. 

I looked at Annapolis for the weekend, Philly, Atlantic City. Nothing is happening, no fun to be had. Just a hotel and dinner. I can do here for staying and dinner out. He has mentioned wanting to go to Berkeley Springs, which is up just south of the skinniest part of Maryland, it's less than two hours away. Maybe that would be an option. To be decided. I guess. The good thing is, this time of year even the nicer hotels have space, and they're not super expensive. So. Yay? I can help the economy with a $100 hotel stay and a dinner that costs about that at a nice nice place, and day visit to a local brewery? hmmm. 

I guess that's about it. I've got a little project for my friend Matt so I'll dive in after lunch in a few minutes and rock out on some book nerding. I'll close with this. Phineas doesn't love the snow, nor does he hate it. He sat nice for me, and I took a picture and put it through a filter on instagram. I kind of love how it turned out.

DFY and the cookies

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 like doing the tiny trees. 

Smoking

 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?

A tale of two Beverlys. Thanksgiving 2021

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.

A new job that is not going to last

 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.

"Let's have coffee" a story of Neighbor Dude

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. 

Cross Posting from Shenanigans With Dave

Yesterday I did a thing. I wrote about it in the Beer Blog, because it was more beer involved than (a)musings related. If you are at all interested. 

We are still working on our emotional and rational response to what to do with Geoff. But hey. 

We had a blast at an event at a brewery and you can go read the whole thing, even if you don't like beer. 

Also, I make a killer amazing mac and cheese, in case you are wondering!