curse you, ragweed

My allergies have suddenly erupted. I keep remembering all these things that happen when the cold weather comes.... My sinuses become a problem which is constantly tended to, especially for singing. I feel like I have to drink tea all the time. My skin gets so dry. My hands are always cold. I have to wear a coat. The sidewalks lose their cafe tables and become vast bleak expanses of concrete.

Luckily I got one more amazing summer festival in last weekend. It was the 12th Annual Hideout Block Party, and it was faaaaaaaaaaantastic. I had to go to a WW conference thing on Saturday so I couldn't get there until about 6, but I did make it in time to see Neko Case headline.

Note: I didn't take any of these pictures, but found them all on Flickr tagged with Hideout Block Party.

Ben was there filming. He has been doing lots of video work lately and he just approached the owner of the Hideout and asked if anyone ever films the block party. Turns out nobody ever has, and Ben got hired to spend the weekend capturing the festival from all angles.

Late Saturday night Jesse got into town, and Sunday we went to the block party together. We biked over and then biked back home to get the tickets and biked back over again,

and started the day with bloody marys (do I have to capitalize that? Marys? Maries? maireeeeez) from Lily who was working at the bar.

The Jon Rauhouse Sexet that started the day was great.... everyone could use a little steel guitar and redheaded spitfire in the morning.


Pedal-powered TV, blender, shower with Working Bikes


Honeyboy Edwards is still doing his thing


The ever-entertaining PuppetBike


Lunch break bike ride to Pizza Metro, back in time for head-and-shoulders-singalong-watermelon-tossing antics of Tim Fite


Mucca Pazza

Mucca Pazza

Mucca Pazza

Mucca Pazza

Mucca Pazza

Mucca Pazza


I love the trombone girl. Actually I love all of them.

Robbie Fulks' Michael Jackson cover set complete with a full cast of zombies doing the Thriller dance through the fog. Incredible. Crappy Youtube video.






Lots of jumpy dancing to the New Pornographers my favoritest band.


And then more late night dancing to Ratatat and DJs and getting a backstage pass and watching from the roof of the Hideout as the whole thing came to a close.


Do you see?? It was so awesome! I was sore from dancing and my ears were ringing and I was bursting with joy. What a day.

It was great having Jesse there, because we share a lot of appreciation for the same stuff in music. He loved Mucca Pazza of course. Of course! You also love them! Everyone loves them! They are great. Jesse was a great person to spend the day with. For all the many artists I know in Chicago, I haven't really found anyone who shares my taste in music. I know people whose tastes overlap with mine, sure, but there's gotta be someone else out there who's crazy for vocal harmonies, horn sections, lyrics and banjos. And maybe a crooner and an acoustic guitar and a hammond organ. At the same time? Maybe. Sufjan can do it.

This week I have been subbing a little bit and working around the house. Our pantry is clean and I have a newfound appreciation for my Monday piano students. They are coming so far, and I'm getting better with my bag of tricks for teaching the class, and I really enjoy the time spent with them. This also leads to a new appreciation for my co-teacher Heather, and I'm glad we are paired together.

Cat's still cute. Made granola. Finally saw Molly's new sweet loft.

I was never much into playing dress up when I was a kid but I am really enjoying sitting here in my living room, blogging over coffee in Ben's boyscout hat, a zipup hoodie, running shorts and cowboy boots.

endings and beginnings

Hello.

It has been a time of change. In the midst of my new/old/nonexistent job stress I was brought back to reality when my mom called to tell me that my grandma was in hospice care and that I should plan a trip to Milwaukee very quickly. I did make it home on Friday 9/5, after getting subs for first day of WW and piano classes and birthday party gigs. Grandma was to the point where she was just sleeping all the time and we could not rouse her. We visited with her and with our big family all weekend. There were sad and happy times, and lots of sharing of memories, both in and out of the hospice. Listening to a newly found recording of Grandma singing solo at Uihlein Hall in 1974. Singing The Lord Bless You and Keep you in her room. Singing karaoke songs we hadn't picked with Jesse at Frankenstein's. Listening to a cassette tape of my 8th grade interview with Grandma for a class project. Lunch in the Village with my mom and Betsy. Photos. Stories. Dinner and too much wine with Ben's family. Cousin Ryan's first football game. Frozen custard. Pizza or sub sandwiches in the family room of the hospice. Lots of hugs and tears and laughs. The nurses at the hospice told us we were giving a wonderful gift to Grandma and to the people on the floor by bringing so much laughter. By the end of the weekend Grandma's breathing was very labored and finally on Sunday night around 10, while her children and their spouses were around her singing, she took her last breath.

The funeral was the following Saturday. It was an incredible service. The Milwaukee Choristers (Grandma was a member for 41 years) sang, there were beautiful flowers everywhere, tons of funny and sweet photographs of Grandma and her loved ones, hundreds and hundreds of people, a wonderful meditation by J;m Rand, great hymns, bagpipes, and best of all the soaring high notes of Grandma's voice through the speakers. She would have loved it. So many people came. People from her many churches, friends from grade school, close and distant relatives, entire families of all of her children's spouses, Choristers, friends from the neighborhood. It was followed by a meal downstairs, also well attended, and finally at the end a little bit of time where it was just our family sitting around in the church basement talking and laughing and telling stories. We all drove out to the cemetery after that for the burial, where again we sang and cried and put flowers on her coffin amongst the big trees, as well as on the gravestones of her parents and uncles and aunts. We ate dinner at a big German restaurant, where we sang German songs and Scottish songs and cheered until they shut the door on us. We had custard for dessert, crowding around the booths in the corner of Omega. Butter Pecan-- Grandma's favorite!



I love my family.

Ben came too, for everything. He is part of our family and everyone loves him, including Grandma. We are so blessed to have such a family. This was the first time I lost a grandparent, and it was hard, but it was beautiful and a source of much learning. I was sad to leave all my relatives and head back to Chicago, but life goes on for the rest of us even after we pause to take notice of a life that has ended.

The new session of classes has been simultaneously energizing and exhausting. On Monday and Friday I am teaching six classes between WW and piano, which makes for really long days but I'm thankful for the work and at least there is a lot of variation from class to class. Kids' voice classes on Thursday, which have been fun and going really well with lots of help from Mom's folder of notes. I've been spending my vast new freetime doing productive things like drinking coffee, playing with the webcam Ben brought home from work, wearing my pajamas, and making a Facebook page for Adeline. I did manage to do some good hanging out with Meredith, plan some classes, go for a run, and clean a bunch of clothes out of my closets to try and sell/donate. I've subbed some classes and booked some gigs. In the evenings Ben and I have done some fun things like renting Paris Je'Teme and biking to Handlebar to do a crossword puzzle. I also had an exciting first rehearsal with the new band It's A Girl, which is Miki's project of songs of joy and redemption. Heavy on vocal harmonies and theatrics, made of Miki on vox and piano, Jason on vox banjo guitar, me on vox guitar piano drums (!), and Elizabeth singing too. What a relief to make happy music with fun people.

Gotta get out of the house!! It's not going to be 69 degrees and sunny forever.

Happiness

I think my Google Reader is a little screwed up because it just told me about a few months worth of Pink of Perfection posts today. In any case, I've been really enjoying reading everyone's Happiness Lists, which was the July POP Project. I'm sad I missed the opportunity to make a list in time myself but I might do so later. For now, check out some of these other lists. They're great! http://www.pinkofperfection.com/2008/08/pink_of_perfection_project_jul.php

keeping it together

Those piano classes didn't run. Which means I quit my job at the desk for no reason, and I'm losing a good third to half of my income.

Okay.

It is lame, and I keep cycling between feeling angry/devastated/hopeless/courageous and in denial. I often feel like I got tricked into quitting my job and upsetting a lifestyle that had worked well and made me happy for some time. But I know that quitting and making that decision to change was a risk, and nobody promised it would go well. Although I certainly was given the sense that I could count on at least some of those classes to run. Change, change, change. Julia went to Stevens Point. Summer is over. Friends move away. College, law school, grad school, Old Town Schoo1... I need to improve my ability to change. Or moreso, my ability to approach change.

Thank god Adeline is still cute.

The long weekend was good. Friday night I saw Mar Car!be at the Hideout and then got dinner at Thai Lagoon with Ben and Emma before going for ice cream at Taste of Heaven and to see Too Much Light. I love the Neo Futurists, a lot, and have often imagined another life path where I ended up one of them. At the show they made an announcement that they're doing a workshop which I am considering signing up for. The guy said they work on teaching you how to make theater about your life, and Ben made some crack about how he couldn't imagine me wanting to talk creatively about my feelings, which earned him a punch on the shoulder.

Saturday we got breakfast at Vella, shopped at H&M and walked down by the lake. I did a bday party and then Emma and Ben made a yummy dinner which we ate in the backyard. Emma headed back to Mwakee and Ben and I enjoyed a beautiful night biking down to the South Loop to see Mucca Pazza. There's another potential life I can imagine having; being part of Mucca Pazza. I LOVE MUCCA PAZZA. I am a Mucca Pazza ambassador. Watch out, because if I know you, I will probably try to force you to see Mucca Pazza, and then you will LOVE IT. People at Wabash Fest or wherever we were were not the kind of usual audience they have, and they were astounded and confused but ultimately thrilled with the band. They put on such a great show. In the morning I was sore from dancing. Ben and I had a less-fun bike ride back to our hood, which involved a lot of cabs, tourists who had never seen bikes in the street before, drunk drivers and assholes. We felt better once we got to the Handlebar, amongst our people, and even better once we helped the staff (both working and just hanging out there) complete a giant Tecate can beeramid, and probably the best when we were crawling around on the bar and dancing on top of the bar stools to hair metal and Huey Lewis and the News. It was an incredible night.

Sunday was a slow day, where I used most of my energy for a lovely bday party and spent the rest grazing. We ate some Pizza Metro, some apples at the farmers market, some Pasadita burrito. That night we saw Vicky Christina Barcelona at Piper's Alley, which I enjoyed very much. It was a fun date.

Monday was our Laborbecue. I made a peach pie and an apple crisp, and Ben made baked beans and a variety of meats and sides and corn salad. We had a good sized crowd, and Jason brought his banjo again and got some music playing, which recieved occasional applause from across the alley and lured a neighbor to visit and become friends. We have tons of leftover food.

I've been smelling some bad smells. Our alley smelled terrible with all the overflowing garbage cans from folks moving and the pickup day delayed for the holiday. Thank goodness they got picked up today. And when Ben and Emma and I were walking around the Gold Coast on Saturday, we noticed that the ENTIRE GOLD COAST SMELLS LIKE PEE. Ben thinks it's from all the small dogs and the total lack of grass. It's a good theory.

And in case you didn't know: WTF, St. Paul. Nightmare.