2 Things @ Once

Lollapalooza: I Can't Believe I'm Even Half Considering This

I was listening to Blind Pilot last night and popped over to their website to see if and when they might be passing through Chicago on tour. I was surprised to discover they're part of this summer's Lollapalooza lineup. Then I looked at the rest of the lineup and discovered quite a few of my favorites listed: The Decemberists, Neko Case, Band of Horses, Bon Iver, Kings of Leon, Airborne Toxic Event, Animal Collective, TV on the Radio. Enough to definitely make me think it might be worth the price of admission for the three day festival.

Let me stop right there. The fact that I even entertained this idea for more than five minutes is hilarious since a) I hate crowds, b) I hate standing and listening to live music (I'm short), c) unless it's an opera, I'm not much for live music in large venues, d) I'm "old." Even when I was in my twenties, the idea of standing at a music festival for hours (and days) in a hot summer crowd wasn't my idea of fun.

But, then again...

BVI, Sooner Rather Than Later

When folks ask me how my recent vacation was, my one-word answer is "fantastic", quickly followed by "we're already planning a return trip." No exaggeration. On the last day, after we'd sailed into the harbor, docked the boat, unloaded and performed the equivalent of checking out of our floating hotel, the six of us sat around a table in the marina restaurant, spending the final hour (before two of us headed to the airport) toasting with Bloody Marys and making plans for two years from now, when we'd do it all over again.

Well, we may not have to wait that long. Sunsail knows how to take advantage of repeat business by offering a discount rate to recent customers before the island high has had a chance to wear off. The catch is you have to sail before a year is up of your last sail date. So, assuming the ayes have it, I may be back to counting down to a BVI April all over again.

AirPort Express: The Sweet Sound of Music, Minus the Headphones

Yesterday I was at the Apple store getting my defective MacBook battery replaced (no charge) so of course I felt I had to give them some of my money. I used the visit as an excuse to finally pick up an AirPort Express to stream music from my iTunes to the house stereo speakers. For too long now, I've been headphoning it while working on the laptop or plugging into a pair of tin box speakers with lousy sound, especially when in the kitchen cooking, which was a lot.

Now, in addition to much improved sound, I have the convenience of piping music wirelessly from the laptop. Sweet. The sound is great and I'm saving my ears by not relying on my headphones quite so much. My playlists will get even more of a workout and I can stream iTunes radio stations (like Radio Paradise) which I haven't tapped into in quite a while. I can also take more advantage of the Genius feature, which I really like as a way of mixing up the music in my library. It's a much better alternative to random shuffling through the songs, allowing me to serve up a list centered around a particular song. It's still random but related, flowing together better than something that pulls from the entire library.

I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

Art and His Art

Last week's impulse pick-up from the library (Art by Patrick McDonnell, creator of the comic strip Mutts) has quickly become Wee-J's new favorite book. She gravitates to it throughout the day and giggles every time we get to the page with her new funny word on it--"doodle." Think about it, "doodle" is a hilarious word.

Lots of color and creativity and very few words tell the story of a little boy named Art who loves to create art. When I checked it out from the library and our friendly librarian Martha praised the book saying, "I hope it inspires your little one," I thought she was just being, you know, a friendly library lady. Not so. This book has been a real inspiration to the budding artist I spend time with. On numerous occasions, as soon as J and I finish reading Art, she makes a bee-line over to her craft table to draw her own "art."

There's been lots of talk about "art" lately. She'll point to little Art's paintings in the book and say "That's art, and that's art, and that's art" and then we'll be in the kitchen where her drawings are taped up on the fridge and she'll say, "that's art and that's art." And before you know it, she's back at the art table, drawing her own squiggles and doodles. It's amazing to see a book have such an immediate and positive effect.

If you have any young ar-teests in your world, I highly recommend this sweet and inspiring book.

My iTunes Library: The Zero Playlist

In my recent shenanigans prepping the trusty iPod for vacation, I finally got around to culling from my music library a lot of the junk I'd accumulated over the years. (Where did all these INXS songs come from?!) I was continually coming across music I didn't recognize or had completely forgotten I owned.

A few weeks ago, I created a playlist of all the songs that have never, ever been played and I'm going through them one at a time, listening for clunkers (hit delete), winners (rating them 4/5-stars where they're dropped automatically into a faves playlist), and sorting songs into various other playlists. Every day I chip away at the list a little bit more--only 1,648 songs to go.

Saturday 3 p.m. ~ Cleaning Out My (Media) Junk Drawyer

Backyard Gardening: Taking the CSA Farm Box to the Extreme

Attention Illinois backyard gardeners!

Friends of mine are considering devoting a sizable section of their backyard to a vegetable garden this summer. (I personally have room for a couple of pots of herbs and a few cherry tomato plants, so I'm living a bit vicariously through them here.) In talking with my friend, I was reminded of the summers of my youth when my parents attempted to plant a veggie garden in our backyard.

I say attempted because I grew up in San Diego, on Point Loma, where the ground was mainly sandstone. Not the ideal canvas for creating a bountiful garden. But we had fun doing it, with moderate success. Tomatoes, green beans, and zucchini did well. I think zucchini will grow anywhere. Folks who plant zucchini are soon enough giving away giant squash to anyone (friends, relatives, the mail man) who will take them off their hands. (Unfortunately, zucchini is one of my least favorite vegetables to cook with. There's only so much zucchini bread I can eat.) We grew lettuce (no deer or bunnies to nibble on it) and I remember a thin carrot of two as well.

But I digress. The point of this post was to ask my fellow Illinoisians (Illinoians? Illini??) who tend their own veggie gardens what they've successfully managed to grow. My knowledge of gardening in Zone 5 doesn't extend to vegetables, so anyone who can provide any advice, I (and my friends) would appreciate it.

First Thunderstorm of the Season

It's 57-degrees, raining and there's lightening every now and then over Lake Michigan. A big roll of thunder just rumbled out to the east for what sounded like miles after the sky completely lit up in a flash. The forecast for the next few days has temps pegged in the 70s and 80s, so I'm calling it summer time. Our neighbor barbequed burgers this evening and they smelled great. I'm thinking of breaking out the grill this weekend as well. Two days ago the forecast called for snow flurries but I think we've finally turned the corner.

Books Read by the Weight

As the name of this blog will testify, my usual modus operandi is to spin two plates at the same time. That goes for cleaning house, cooking, walking. The one area of my life where that's rarely, if ever, true is reading. I don't like to read more than one book at a time. I never have.

Occasionally, however, circumstances lead me to juggle multiple books at once. Not since college has it been this bad. I'm currently wading my way through more than 2,000 pages, bouncing between the exciting classic thriller The Count of Monte Cristo (which I barely made a dent in on vacation) and A Team of Rivals, which I've already renewed once from the library. The Lincoln tome is good but not the kind of book that benefits from stopping and starting, and yet I'm so far into it that I don't want to stop only to have to re-read it again at a later date. I can barely remember what I read two weeks ago, let alone two months or two years from now.

Alas, I need another week of vacation to just read, read, read.

Post-Vacation Hangover

Other than my regular 10-hour stints with Wee-J yesterday and today, I'm totally out of my normal routine. Ever since getting back from the islands, I've been in a kind of fog, like I traveled through six time zones or halfway around the world. I get home at the end of the day and once I stop moving, I lose all energy. It's 8:30 p.m. and I'm seriously considering packing it in and going to bed.

I started downloading my photos this afternoon while Wee-J was napping and I'm eager to get started culling through them, but I can barely keep my eyes open. As soon as I hit the save button on this entry, I'm calling it a day. Night all.