Category: Life Is A Spell

We read on the couch and listened to the rain last night and made what might be our last fire in the fireplace until Fall. Tomorrow morning we open the street pool. The temperatures are are headed up for the next five days. Rick kicked my ass in horseshoes after work today. We plan to see Ken Frank’s other band play tonight. Gotta bring earplugs for that. I’ve switched to kids opaque watercolors and plan to paint for a bit before heading out. I’ll report back on these earth-shattering events.

I tried to help our neighbor, Leo, get his tractor started but his battery wouldn’t hold a charge. Leo himself has a similar problem. He told me, this getting old stuff is for the birds.” He managed to get his tires inflated but we couldn’t start the tractor. He says, “I used to be able to fix things” and I know this to be true. He used to have projects lined up on his workbench and most of them were for other people. He shook his head and said, “I’m getting dumber every day”.

We managed to get to the Outlet Mall in Waterloo without getting on the New York State Thruway. We followed a car with one of the new NY license plates, the retro looking yellow ones with blue lettering. This part of the state has more trailers than Bloomington Indiana. And for some reason, in the middle of nowhere, an abundance of storage lockers. What could possibly be inside these things? We rented one for a few months when we moved Peggi’s mom up here and they cost a fortune. “Mini Storage”. Self Storage”.

All of the stores carry essentially the same stuff. Only the music is different. It was kind of fun trying to figure out the demographic they were each going for. Does eighties music appeal to those who were there or today’s kids in the midst of some sort of resurgence? We had to make a phone call arrange assistance for Peggi’s mom and couldn’t find a phone out here. We may be the only people left on the planet without a cell phone. A clerk in Calvin Klein said he thought they still had one in the food court but that was about a mile away. So we did some mall walking.

I wanted to buy another pair of Timberland work/walking shoes (work as in the stuff you do outdoors) so headed to the Timberland Outlet. I tried one one shoe on and walked around a bit looking at others. I decided to go with the first pair. I had the other shoe in my hand. I was looking at it but I couldn’t find its mate. I asked a clerk if she had put it away and I got Peggi got involved in the hunt and then it dawned on me that I had the other one on my foot. The clerk looked at Peggi and said “You’ve got a lot lot to put up with”.

Trish, who’s married to one of the letters in “LDR” down at the Char Pit in Charlotte, says they tried to burn this old biker bar building down but it didn’t work. It’s a few doors down from the LDR and it looks like a Hollywood set. This whole part of town is kind of funky but LDR was hoppin’ when we stopped by for a Friday fish fry.

Pete LaBonne is visiting. He played with Margaret Explosion on Wednesday and has been preparing his 24 album “Gigunda” set for a digital release, 320 variable bit mp3s with the original cover art. I put a track from 1994 below. It’s sort of rude.

We watched the T.A.M.I. show dvd Wednesday and then again last night over in Rick and Monica’s basement. That thing is exhilarating. Watching James Brown I was thinking about how the husband of a childhood friend of Peggi’s. He was a huge fan of the Detroit Red Wings and had a heart attack while watching one of their games. The doctor ordered him not to watch any more games.

Here’s Pete LaBonne – Club Joker Is Wild

These Christian warriors’ heads look like specimens on a mad scientist’s shelf. I was really taken by this collection in this morning’s paper. I’m planning on painting them. And it has been so much fun to watch the pope squirm. Almost as much fun as watching the Code Pink woman accost Karl Rove in a Beverly Hills bookstore.

The long cold winters in Rochester make for a dramatic Spring entry. The first sign for us is these yellow flowers popping out of the snow. We have a batch right near our work windows but there is still too much snow back there for flowers. We spotted these behind our house and were elated.

There is a sense of dread though when the weather breaks. Activities are piled on top of one another and it is almost impossible to get anything done. The winters here are perfect for holing up with indoor projects and I sense that season coming to a close.

Someone called this morning on our work line pretending to be happy because the sun was shining for like the seventh or eighth day in a row. I say “pretending” because the delight in the sunshine was wrapped in a a complaint about typical Rochester weather. I know some people suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder but if the sun is that big a deal leave. Why do we have hear about it? Go to Florida or South Carolina.

We spotted Monica coming out of the woods with the dogs so when we came across this in the middle of our ski path we knew this snowwoman was her handiwork. The snow had started to melt yesterday and then it froze again today so it was quite slippery. I fell three times before getting off our property but we stuck with it and then really zipped along in the relatively flat woods behind our house. It was warm in the sunny spots and we spotted a chipmunk surveying the landscape. They hibernate all winter and breed first thing in the Spring. Come to think of it, maybe that snowwoman is breeding.