OMG!

Adeline is a celebrity!!! Chris posted her photo on cutewithchris.com! Scroll down to May 20! Look at the blender pet! Yessss! Cutewithchris.com is part of my daily website browsing. I love it and I cannot tell you how excited I was to see my bean on his site! I jumped and jumped and yelled, and Adeline's ears shot back in delight as she bolted down the stairs, presumably to do a victory lap around the kitchen floor that made her a star.

Adeline is a little bean. She is the best and my heart grew bigger with all of my love for her and she purrs and loves us and we all snuggle and rub our cheeks against each other and it is the greatest ever.

Her cuteness has been deemed official. Thank you Chris. OMG.

In other news, spring is awesome. And it brings on vices, like wanting to kiss beautiful strangers and celebrating each jean-jacketed day with a beer. Or 4. After several weeknights in a row of drinking to various reasons (Kevin's back on the Tuesday night shift! Tom and I are playing at an open mic and we don't go on for two hours! Taavo's in town and this place has great margaritas!) my stomach went on strike. Both from the rumbly inside and the squishy outside. I appeased the inside with many veggie-packed, healthy meals and homemade granola with yogurt. As for the outside... I realized that although in my head I believed I was in great shape, in reality it had been a while since I'd gotten any kind of regular cardio exercise. For a little while over the winter I joined a crappy gym in a park fieldhouse, where I learned that I hate going to the gym. I haven't been biking as much, due to picking up Finn after work, working less shifts up north, and having lots of days when I have to bring my guitar with me. So I bought some running shoes.

When we went shopping for the running shoes, Ben first encouraged me to seek out good quality, so we went to a fancy running store. There were no prices on any of the shoes. A nice salesguy came to help me, bringing me shoes to try on and then watching me jog on the treadmill to see if they made my foot line up right. When I found some Nikes that worked well he was like, "Awesome! You're getting your first running shoes! You must be psyched!" They were $95. I felt really pressured and embarrassed; everyone in there felt rich, and I was really uncomfortable that it had gone from browsing some shoes to an assumed hundred dollar purchase in 15 minutes. So I thanked him and told him maybe I'd be back later. We went to Kohls instead and I got some New Balance shoes for half the price. The reason I like the idea of running is that you don't need anything, and I was freaked out by the folks who were way into the fancy running gear. If I decide one day that I'm way into it and want to get the fancy shoes, I'll be back to visit my salesman friend.

Then Ben and I went for a run and I almost died and was sore for two days.

The most fun of all is playing music with good friends. I remembered this last Wednesday, crashing my old guitar class and then playing at the Bad Dog with my banjo friend Tom. Despite my many musician friends, we rarely sit around and play together. To this I say: Bollocks! There shall be more music playing amongst friends! I play lots of music, and even make a living doing so (!!!), but it's different to teach a class or go to a gig than it is to have fun sharing a favorite thing with a favorite person. This past weekend I did 3 parties/events. They were all fun enough but drained me of my energy and almost cost me my voice. I feel weird that so much of my music playing is connected to money, and if I'm getting enough, blah blah. I don't want to be all snobby. So I need to make sure I have that balance.

Stuff I've seen lately: Taavo, Iron Man, Molly in a play, Son of Rambow, a piano student terrified of the word "ghost," Meara, guitar students getting engaged onstage after class, my cat on the internet.