You're Doing It Wrong

Today is the 7th anniversary of our moving into this house. Hard to believe. It’s gone by quick.

We haven’t made any interior changes like getting rid of the wallpaper we hated when me moved in. We’re just not motivated in that way. I wish we were.

The only work we’ve done is replace some windows with storm windows and that air conditioner was a biggie. We also have someone prune our trees.

When I was younger, before the house, I always thought that I would be happier if I had a better living space. Bigger or more private or mine or whatever. And a part of me always thought that was a geographical fantasy — that if you’re not happy where you’re at, you’re not going to be happy anywhere.

But I love our funky house. I love our neighborhood. And I love living with Bob.

I divided my rhubarb over the weekend.

I didn’t even know I had rhubarb until last year, I think. I thought it was some random volunteer in the garden and I neither removed nor encouraged it. Last year it was extra robust and I harvested and decided to learn more about rhubarb which according to Billy “grows like weeds” in Wyoming.

I found this article about rhubarb and marked my calendar so I could divide this month.

I figured once I started it would all make sense but actually I ended up digging up this gigantic root ball and I gently tried to separate what I thought were the rhizomes and ended up breaking things apart with big ugly cracking sounds.

I bought two bags of compost and separated the thing into 8 new plants. We’ll see how it does.

Via The Banterist

Definitions for people who get coffee at that place:

Antiventi
A person who rejects company size lingo and orders their beverage in small, medium and large.

Hesitip
The act of waiting until the employee can see you place money in the jar, so you can get credit for it.

(The Banterist is worth your time. Super funny.)

We saw Rebirth Brass Band last night.

The tickets said the doors opened at 8pm and the show started at 9pm. We arrived at 8:25 and first they said they weren’t open yet but then they decided that right at that moment they would let people in. But they told us that the band wasn’t in the building although they’d called and assured the club that they were “10 minutes away.”

The two of us and another dozen people about our age funneled up the stairs and into the club. By the time the band started playing at 9:15pm there was a decent crowd gathering. (This always happens when Bob takes me to something I’ve never heard of. I develop this bizarre misplaced distress that no one will come see the show like I’m personally responsible and the people will feel bad. It usually ends up being packed to the rafters.)

The crowd was half people like us, big music fans (or their significant others) and the rest were hipsters. I could tell because the girls all part their hair crooked and have ironic accessories like purses made out of cans of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. The guys have ponytails or carefully sculpted bed-head and shirts with heart-stopping patterns. And they all wear pathologically quirky eye-wear.

It was super fun. The band is from Louisiana and plays kick ass party dance funky fun music. We had a blast. AND they finished at midnight. I was in bed by 12:30a.

Via Gawker

Yesterday, Maxim assistant editor Steve Mazzucchi attempted to eat 50 sickeningly sweet Cadbury Creme Eggs.

How come no one ever challenges me to do something like this?

The whole thing is photo documented if you visit the link. Yeah. And actually, I don’t want to be challenged to do this. Just bring me Cadbury Eggs to eat at my leisure. I like the caramel ones, too. (I ate one this morning. I have to eat them in the morning because if I eat one too late in the day, I can’t sleep.)

Here’s one more Dylan quote that I forgot last time:

[Describing an 8 second film of Robert Johnson, blues guitar hero] “He looks nothing like a man with the hellhound on his trail. He looks immune to human dread and you stare at the image in disbelief.” p. 287. I should probably point out that if you follow that link, it claims the film Dylan saw that inspired that description is not Johnson.

I finished another book this afternoon (Sidney Lumet, Making Movies) #12 which means I’m in still on track. The last two books have been non-fiction and I feel like I’m not reading when I read non-fiction. Next is going to be fiction. I’ve still got Momaday and there’s a Proulx in the pile, and I, Elizabeth which is a fatty and a little daunting.

Bob commented that it was an interesting choice to choose books that are short so I can make 50 for the year. I think it’s kind of stupid, myself. I think his logic was that I could sample a lot of different things over the course of the year.

Also, now that I’m reading on the train, it’s a whole different way of reading. A. It’s harder to concentrate and B. I’m reading in short 20-25 minutes bursts twice a day. Barely enough time to get immersed before I have to put it away until later. Not my ideal way to read.

In other news, today the air conditioning was installed. It was much more complicated than I expected. At one point we had 4 guys here. Every time we get something installed it seems like they have to drape cords, cables, wires, pipes, or whatever around the house and under the eaves and tuck under the siding or staple around the deck or something. I’m wondering if this is genuinely worrisome or just something that offends my sense of order.

Typical: I’ve been poking around here this morning because I woke up early and didn’t have to rush and now I want to leave in about 20 minutes and I still need to comb my hair and completely get ready from scratch.

I finished the Bob Dylan book yesterday: Chronicles. Volume One.

I’m not a Dylan fan which isn’t to say that I dislike him, only that I never voluntarily spent time with his music so I only know things that have been on the radio or TV or whatever.

I loved the book, the way he writes, the way his mind works. I started marking some pages with quotes I wanted to include here and then when I went back to check the marked pages, half the time I couldn’t figure out what passage I’d intended.

Here are a few:

He describes a guy, “he looked like a riverboat gambler.” [p. 63]

“If you have to lie, you should do it quickly and as well as you can.”

He and Bono have this discussion which includes something about the birthplace of America. They were talking about Vikings and Minnesota in the 1300s. [pp. 174-175] I’m sure my rant here is predictable. We’ll leave it at that.

RE: Rappers (he admired what they were doing)
“They were beating drums, tearing it up, hurling horses over cliffs.” [p.219]

Update #1

Last month I wrote a post about the death of Max Schmeling. I knew there was a Tante Irmgard story but I couldn’t remember it and I not-too-generously suggested he was a cranky old man.

I was wrong.

Dad asked Tante I about it and she said he was connected to the Friendship Force in Hamburg. Friendship Force is a travel organization with the idea of promoting peace through international friendship. More here.

When Irmgard was involved with FF she wrote Schmeling a letter and invited him to meet with some international visitors. He promptly wrote back and thanked her for the invitation but kindly excused himself, more or less because of his age. Apparently he wasn’t cranky at all, but rather, a nice and generous man. Pamrentz.com regrets suggesting otherwise.

One time when Irmgard was with Friendship Force she traveled to the US. I can’t remember what state but she stayed with American FF members and in the morning they didn’t drink coffee and offered her none. (Any person familiar with German hospitality is cringing about now.) She finally asked if there was any coffee and they searched the bowels of their kitchen cupboards and presented her with a jar of instant so ancient she had to chip it out of the container. She called it “Roosevelt coffee” because she suspected they bought it when he was still in office.

Update #2
My second update concerns flipping off the Trimet driver.

According to OtherBob, the trains are on some sort of system where the driver can’t just hold the door for the running passenger to hop on. I guess this makes sense since there are other trains and road crossings and so forth. I apologize for the bird and removed the curse and hope it didn’t cause any inconvenience.

Last night we were at Everyday Music. I got Paul Westerberg – Folker. As we were walking back to the car, Bob said that he got Maxwell and now had the entire Maxwell catalog.

I started singing: “I always feel like somebody’s watching me-eeeeeeeee.”

Bob has a puzzled look on his face. Then he stops walking and says, “That’s ROCKwell.”