There are stars in the Southern sky

We'll be under those stars tonight for the Eagles in concert at Piedmont Park. Hope they play this song.

Merry Christmas from Dixie

Yes, I know it is a country song, but this became my favorite Christmas song when I moved away from Georgia and was homesick. I still like it. So here it is for you.

Merry Christmas from Dixie. It is raining in the pines, not snowing. At least not here. But it is a peaceful Christmas night.

Pimp My Playlist

College Football season starts tomorrow night (finally!) and I'll be watching NC State play South Carolina on ESPN. Tech gets started early on Saturday afternoon. Break out the mimosas and sausage balls (and of course, ball jokes). It'll be too hot for bourbon (and way too early in the day).

I started a playlist for game days. What did I leave out? I think it needs more cowbell.

Blitzkreig Bop - Ramones
Rock and Roll, Pt. 2 - Gary Glitter
Unbelievable - EMF
Kernkraft 400 - Zombie Nation
Lets Get It Started - Black Eyed Peas
Get Ready For This - 2 Unlimited
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) - C+C Music Factory
Song 2 - blur
Tubthumping - Chumbawumba
Pump It Up - Elvis Costello
Enter Sandman - Metallica
We Will Rock You - Queen
Bad To The Bone - George Thorogood and the Destroyers
The Perfect Option - The GTGs
Ramblin' Wreck - Georgia Tech Marching Band

An Evening at Eddie's Attic

Christmas came a little bit early this year! My friend Shelli got me a table for four, front and center, at the cozy Decatur music venue Eddie's Attic to see Kelly Joe Phelps last night. Phelps is a singer/songwriter/guitarist that I discovered when I started getting into blues and folk artists a few years back. He showed up on many, many recommendations lists, so I bought one CD. Then I bought all of his other ones. Shelli and I saw him perform a few times at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA. The first time was an especially memorable experience. A strong summer thunderstorm had passed through the area and left Northampton without power. The show went on anyway, as a purely acoustic performance, and with the stage and tables illuminated by candlelight. The audience obliged by being especially quiet and we all had a great time.

Here is a taste of what a KJP show is like:



If you like it, support the artist by buying some of his stuff. Or better yet - go to one of his shows. He's headed back up the east coast to New England this week.

One Down... More To Go

Hmmm. It seems that picking out a Top 100 music list involves more work than I thought. It will take another day or two for me to come up with one. In the meantime, I am happy to report that I have purchased various and sundry vegetables with the intent of cooking up some of your recommendations. I decided to go roughly in order. So tonight I sauteed some baby spinach with garlic, salt and pepper (thanks, thewritegirl!). Even though PDM does not normally like cooked greens, he said he liked it, and I did too. I think next time I will use less oil and salt, and maybe a tad less garlic. But this one's a keeper! Next up: LL's fried zucchini. I also bought some asparagus (y'all had several ideas for this veggie) and a few sweet potatoes that I intend to roast.

Just an ordinary Thursday night...

... but sometimes the ordinary can be very, very satisfying.

This thought occurred to me as I was sipping wine and listening to a local duo sing "Into the Mystic". I was sitting next to the man I love. Our friend Boomer was tending bar. We talked to the owner for a few minutes; he is also friend of ours. We had full bellies after a good meal. I had the lobster ravioli. PDM had his old standby - fish and chips with beer. Laughing and talking easily, we were watching the Braves game on a big screen TV while listening to the live music. The place was full, but not crowded. The musicians, Mike and Barry, have a long-standing regular gig at this place on Thursdays. They play the kind of old rock and roll that is always welcome and never goes out of style, and enjoy an easy back and forth with the crowd during their performances. They're regular guys in jeans and tee shirts, just like most of the patrons. And as we listened to them play, that's when it hit me out of the blue: it doesn't get much better than this. Nothing fancy, just good.

At the end of the evening, something on the check made us smile. Boomer had been running our bar tab as "PDM+WIFY".

Everyone Else Is Doing It

Yes, it's another meme. But why not? They're fun. This is borrowed from kat, and beth, and trinamick.


IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...


Opening Credits: Piece of the Rock (Mother's Finest)

Waking Up: Bell Bottom Blues (Eric Clapton)

First Day at School: I Have The Touch (Peter Gabriel)

Falling in Love: D'Yer Mak'er (Led Zeppelin)

Fight Song: Choctaw Hayride (Alison Krauss & Union Station)

Breaking Up: Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing (Chris Isaak)

Prom: Second Hand News (Fleetwood Mac)

Mental Breakdown: Blue Sky (Allman Bros.)

Driving: Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith)

Flashback: Send Me On My Way (Rusted Root)

Getting Back Together: Cold Shot (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)

Wedding: If I Fall You're Going Down With Me (Dixie Chicks)

Birth of Child: Come On In My Kitchen (Robert Johnson)

Final Battle: Two Trains (Little Feat)

Death Scene: Red Rain (Peter Gabriel)

Funeral Song: Eight Piece Box (Southern Culture on the Skids)

End Credits: What It Is (Mark Knopfler)

I'm shocked that iTunes did not try to slip in some Nickel Creek.

I'm no doubt supposed to tag some of you. If you like this meme and it sounds like a fun thing to do, consider yourself tagged.

May Day

How's your May Day going? I'm stuck inside an overly air-conditioned workplace with almost nothing to do except look at the gorgeous day outside and wish I was somewhere else. I like to stay busy at work. This is the main reason why I don't really like my "alternate work location" that I have to go to 2-3 days a week. The other reasons? Parking sucks, the food sucks, and the computer sucks. I had about four applications open and the dang computer was making such a ruckus I started to worry for my own safety. Something in there was spinning around faster than Linda Blair's head and I was concerned that any minute it would break through the case and come flying out at me at warp speed. Well. Anyway. It didn't.

One of the things I do to keep myself from talking to the walls is to bring in the local newspaper when, like today, I suspect work is going to be slow. In today's edition, I found out that Atlanta has an official "Smog Season" which starts today and lasts until the end of September. I did not know that... mostly because there is smog here pretty much all year 'round, any time the weather is nice and it doesn't rain for a while. Ozone in the stratosphere is a good thing, but in the troposphere - not so much. When I'm outside this evening, I'll be sure to cough and wheeze festively, in honor of the occasion.

I'm thinking of celebrating May Day (or the Opening Day Of Smog Season In Atlanta, whichever) by buying some shoes. Zima will probably celebrate by getting stoned on catnip over and over (it's hard to keep her away from there now). But if your May Day is not complete without someone dancing around a May Pole (I almost referred to this as 'pole dancing' - whoops), then here ya go:



Happy May Day, Lei Day (Hawaii), Beltane, Workers Day/Labor Day/Day of the International Solidarity of Workers, "National Love Day" (Czech), "Lusty Month of May" (Camelot), Mother Goose Day, Save The Rhino Day, First Day of Smog Season (Atlanta), etc.

Go out and be happy! If you're not happy, watch the video. It'll help, I swear.

Digging in the dirt

"Digging in the dirt" is the title of one of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs, and also what I spent most of my weekend doing. I spent several hours on Saturday weeding - mostly wayward monkey grass. Anything with "monkey" in its name is bound to give you trouble... it doesn't stay where it belongs, and is nearly impossible to completely remove once it escapes. I also found out the hard way that using my left index finger as a brace for prying out deep-rooted weeds with a garden tool was a bad idea. Very effective, but by the end of the day my finger was swollen and a little numb.

Today was more fun. With the tedious chores over with, it was time to plant. A quick trip to the nursery was a success for the herb garden. Last week they didn't have anything I wanted, but this week the selection was much better. A little too good, in fact. I made a few impulse buys of some unusual varieties of mint and planted them all together in a large pot (mint is highly invasive, so confining it to a container is a good idea). The rest of the herbs were going to have to fit into the herb garden somehow.


Since I got a few more herbs than I originally planned, I had to enlarge our herb garden before I could get started. I can see how this will play out: every year I will get too much to fit the existing boundaries and will have to make the herb bed larger. In a few years, there won't be any grass to cut on that side of the house! (Hmmm, that's not such a bad plan.) I still need to get mulch for the expansion, but the herb garden is done. Since herbs are food, it means this area is exempt from Georgia's watering restrictions (currently three days a week from midnight until 10am only). Hooray! In the photo above, the latest expansion is the part without any mulch. And the large plants in the back of the bed are some amaryllis (NOT an herb) that were there when we bought the house. Now I have to figure out what to do with the three pepper plants I got. They'll require yet another expansion of the herb garden, or I can keep them in pots.

I also bought some catnip to plant for Zima and Moxy. It hadn't been out of the car for ten minutes when Zima found it, knocked it over, rubbed all over it, ate a few leaves, and got extremely stoned. I'm sure she will have hours of blissful fun, provided she doesn't literally enjoy the poor plant to death. The photos below show her first encounter with it after I planted it in the flower bed. I went back out there later and she still had her face stuck in it. I just hope all the other neighborhood cats don't discover it. I'd hate for my front yard to be the local opium den for felines.





But now I've gotta go - PDM just pulled some barbecue ribs out of the oven that have been slow-cooking all afternoon and I'm in danger of drooling all over the keyboard.