hey, porter

I still need to do a review of the Del McCoury Band's last show at Wolftrap. Without a newspaper deadline to keep, I can't seem to meet any deadlines. Just wanted to make a quick post to say:

RIP Porter Wagoner

Here he is in a youtube clip performing "Run That By Me One More Time" with my hero, Dolly Parton.

Go Sox

Wanted to echo the wishes of my husband and the rest of Red Sox to say Please Sign Lowell. Please Sign Lowell. And to add my wonder: The fans said PLEASE when they yelled this after Sunday night's game. If you've been to any live sporting events recently, you'd be amazed, too!)

I went running today. If you knew ME you'd be amazed. I'm not promising this is going to happen more than once, however. This is what happens to you when your friends pledge to do half marathons. I have made no such pledge; I'm just along for the ride. (Or run, as it were.)

someday, someway

In 1985, I had tickets to see Marshall Crenshaw play at After Sundown in Blacksburg, Va.
I also had a curfew.
So I stayed through Let's Active and then turned into a pumpkin before Marshall and his band ever played the first notes of Cynical Girl, which at the time was my all-time favorite song, not to mention an important part of my I-am-so-done-with-high-school persona.
My friend, Jen, had a curfew, too.
But we don't have curfews anymore, which is how we ended up finally seeing Marshall Crenshaw on Sunday night.
The crowd was decidedly middle age. WE were decidedly middle age. Which meant our conversation went something like this:
"Has it really been... GOD. IT'S BEEN 22 YEARS. THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT?"
"It's right."
"But it. GOD!"

I was afraid the show was going to be like that, too. Me and Jen, MIDDLE AGE, watching Marshall play his old hits while we tried to figure out where the time had gone and whether we would ever consider wearing tube tops again.

But it wasn't. It was great.

Marshall Crenshaw did play some of his old hits, but with new arrangements, sometimes jazzy, sometimes bluesy, all on a hollow-body guitar like Maybelle Carter used to play. He was good. Wry. Funny. His voice sounded like he'd been doing shows like this a lot lately: just himself and a guitar and two hours of singing. But he was still in fine form, his guitar chops were excellent, and his choice of covers (A Merle Haggard tune, The Who's Whiskey Man and Woman on Death Row by the late, great Lee Hazelwood) shows that he has more than just a good pop music sensibility. He has a good sense of music history. He's a fan as well as a musician. And his new stuff (think mortality but with a beat you can dance to) is still hitting me where I live.

barbie

My neighbor is trying to talk me into doing an Iron Girl competition next year. I try to point out things like: I haven't run since high school phys ed. She seems to think this doesn't matter very much. She seems to think wrong.

"The running part is only three miles," she says.

Yeah, but...

"And the swimming is only 30 minutes. You can swim for 30 minutes."

Yeah, but...

"And the bike riding is only 15 miles," she says. "What's 15 miles on a bike?"

Fifteen miles on a bike is FIFTEEN MILES, I think. 

"I'll think about it," I tell her. And I will.

Our discussion led to whether or not there was a Triathlete Barbie. My daughter got a bunch of Barbies from a kind neighbor recently and Triathlete Barbie was not among them. Enough has been said about Barbie to know that I'm already covering tired ground when I accuse the Barbies she did get of being whores. But I have to say it anyway. I mean, can't Barbie be fancy without a faux leather pants suit that was obviously designed for a dominatrix?

betta

For our first pet beyond caterpillars we got a betta, as of yet unnamed. (Candidates include Screwblue, Aqua, Sharky and Zeke.)

One hour after we got him home, my daughter said: "Look! He's not dead yet!"

So far so good, but I still think we'd better name him soon. If we don't, what will go on his tombstone?

Be kind to others

In trying to teach my kids the Golden Rule I have realized that I don't follow it myself, at least not often enough. I'm not kind to strangers. I try to be kind to the people I know, but deep down, I can still be a bit of a bitch. Since this is the information age, I decided to look it up on the internet, a simple google search for "how to be kind." I came up with this from WikiHow. It's a decent list as far as that sort of thing goes, but I cracked up when I got to the bottom. Related searches included "How to be happy" and "How to cheer up a grumpy coworker" and "How to make simple beaded earrings." Until now, I hadn't put together the link between kindness and simple beaded earrings. Now that I know, I'm off to the craft store. I feel kinder and gentler already.