I Only Hate Barney When Someone Is Looking

My kids moved into the “I Hate Barney” (and Teletubbies and other ‘baby’ shows) phase quite some time ago.

But my 8 year old is across the street playing with a friend so the 6 year old has the TV to herself. And damned if she didn’t just watch Barney. And now she is hopping around doing whatever it is the Teletubbies are doing.

With all the cultural crap encouraging them toward overly-mature entertainment and interests, it is nice to see that, left to her own devices, my baby is still – well, a baby.

Songs To Tank A Political Career

Via Kirby, here’s a fun twist on the Friday Random Ten.

1. Take out your iPod (or Zune, I guess…really, who buys a Zune?)
2. Press shuffle songs.
3. Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song?

I wasn’t really sure what the criteria should be for disqualification, but I figured I would just fire up the iPod and see what popped up.

If the criteria had anything to do with owning embarrassingly bad music, I would have been disqualified in three clicks, with “Eyes Like Twins” by Wilson Phillips.

My sixth song, “No Good Man” by Billie Holiday, might do it. Who would vote for a woman for president who stays with a man who cheats on her? Oh, wait…keep going.

Song 33 might do it – “Damn Girl” by Justin Timberlake. With such lyrics as “baby, give me some of your tasty cinnamon, give me some of your feminine gelatin” (wtf??), I would be excoriated by anti-sex religious conservatives and the laughingstock of, well, just about everyone else.

But I think the real kicker was song 39 – “Outside” by George Michael. Hard to justify having sex with strangers in public restrooms. I mean, look at what happened to Senator Larry Craig, and all he did was tap his foot.

Friday Random Ten

I heart my iPod.

1. When Ye Go Away – The Waterboys
2. Seasons Change – Corinne Bailey Rae
3. The Goodbye Look – Donald Fagan
4. Stranger In My House – Ronnie Milsap
5. She’s A Lady – Tom Jones
6. Man For All Seasons – Difford and Tilbrook
7. Ne Dans Le Rue – Zebda
8. Hanging By A Thread – Nickel Creek
9. Whistle In – The Beach Boys
10. Won’t Make It Better – Del Amitri

Sibling Drama

I did something I knew would be problematic: I let Amelia have a friend for a sleepover without also inviting a friend for Natalie. And just as I expected, just as happened last time, it is causing major sibling drama.

To be fair, yesterday went pretty smoothly. We picked Graycen up around 2:45 and for most of the day, all three girls played together really well. Natalie only had a couple of minor “they’re leaving me out” moments. They played in the girls’ room, played Wii, played outside, made ice cream sandwiches and their own pizzas for dinner. When it came time for a bedtime story, Amelia wanted to read Cinderella but Graycen was curious about the book Mike was reading, so since she was the guest she got to pick the first story – and she picked Mike’s book. It was pretty funny watching him read about the lead-up to World War I to three little girls piled up on the couch with him. At bedtime, Amelia decided she and Graycen should sleep in big sister Sarah’s double bed (since Sarah wasn’t here) rather than on the floor or bunk beds in her own room. Of course, Natalie wanted to sleep on the floor in the same room. When I suggested she sleep in her own bed, she started to cry. So I figured what the hell and made her a place to sleep on the floor. When we finally put them to bed, Amelia fell asleep almost immediately but Graycen and Natalie stayed awake whispering and giggling for quite awhile.

So overall, yesterday was emotionally uneventful. But today has been a whole different story. Apparently Graycen slept on the floor with Natalie, which did not sit well with Amelia. And the fact that her friend and her little sister are getting along so well has thrown Amelia into complete misery. She is mad at Natalie for ’stealing my friend’. She’s been pouty and angry and tearful. I finally asked Natalie to watch TV on her own while the big girls played in their room, to give Amelia some time alone with Graycen (which made Natalie unhappy), but a few minutes later Amelia came out and said she feels so bad she just can’t get in the mood to play. I persuaded her to go read in my room for awhile to calm herself down but that didn’t last long.

I’ve tried to explain that its OK to share friends, that her friend still likes her even if she likes Natalie too. I’ve tried to help her see that she is focusing so hard on how bad she feels that she is making herself feel even worse. I’ve pointed out that her friend may feel hurt that Amelia is basically ignoring her.

I’ve said everything I can think of to help her, but I guess sometimes kids just have to struggle through it and there’s nothing you can say to fix it. So I’ve spent alot of time this morning just cuddling her in my lap, loving her… and doing some struggling of my own, watching my child do the hard work of growing up and trying to accept that I can’t take the pain out of it for her.

The Lefsetz Letter

A few weeks ago I stumbled across The Lefsetz Letter. Its a blog, mostly about the music industry, written by a guy named Bob Lefsetz.

He’s a bit of a blowhard, but it seems to me that he is more or less on target with his criticisms of the music business. And his absolute passion for music comes through in every diatribe. Its a terribly interesting site. Some of the things he discusses (and here I am cribbing from the sketchy Wikipedia entry on him) include:

1. The diminishing role of the major record labels in current recorded music
2. The decline of physical musical formats (primarily the decline of CD sales as alternate online music services such as iTunes continue to flourish)
3. The prevalence of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing as the primary source of digital music distribution
4. The need for a legitimate and licensed Peer-to-Peer or similar distribution service to facilitate the next working business model for the music industry.

Monday Music

A few songs I have been listening to or just discovered/re-discovered lately. Click on a link to listen.

1. Shut Up And Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
2. Boy Or A Girl – Imperial Drag
3. Come Along – Ice Cream Hands
4. White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
5. Edge Of The Ocean – Ivy
6. Secret (You Know What) – Freddy
7. Primitive Painters – Felt (Throwback to college – Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins does the backing vocal)

Friday Random Ten

Is it too early for happy hour?

1. Tell Her This – Del Amitri
2. Hey Deanie – Shaun Cassidy
3. My Prerogative – Bobby Brown (love the shoulder pads)
4. One Step Ahead – Split Enz (never saw this video before – the dancing, if you can call it that, cracks me up)
5. Is This All? – Jonatha Brooke
6. Home – Sheryl Crowe
7. Small Blue Thing – Suzanne Vega
8. Missing You – Jem
9. No One Like You - Scorpions (great song, still rocks after all these years)
10. Volare – Gipsy Kings

Latest Belly Dance

I am doing a little belly dancing this summer. Other than a few classes in late April and May, I haven’t done any dancing since the show I was in last August. I was supposed to do a show in May but didn’t have time. So I am very psyched to have a chance to dance again.

Z-Helene is choreographing a showcase piece for her annual Troupe Choreography competition in August. The music is “Jimmy Hafla” by Djinn (the first song on their MySpace player). She recruited a dozen or so dancers and we got together last night to learn pieces of the choreography so she could decide which parts she wants each of us to do. The dance involves three separate groups plus two soloists.

We haven’t seen the entire choreography for each of the groups yet, but I am a little nervous because she put me in the group using veils. Some dancers like props – veil, cane, sword, wings, etc – but I have never gotten into it. I’ve learned basic veil technique but have never practiced enough to feel particularly competent. During the one dance I remember performing with veils, I dropped one end of my veil and it took me a minute to recover. No big deal, it was a group choreography so it wasn’t like the focus was on me. But still, a little nervewracking. Anyway, Helene likes giving me parts that take advantage of my height, and veil certainly does that. The taller the dancer, the more you can really show off the veil, wider and higher sweeps and such.

So once again, my adventures in belly dance will challenge me with something outside my comfort zone. I will have to get more comfortable with veil as well as lots of spinning (which I tend to avoid if I can, spotting takes practice and all the practice makes me dizzy). And of course, in addition to whatever benefit there is in pushing myself a bit, its great to have an opportunity to dance and perform. I’m not any great shakes at it (so to speak), but I do love it.

This Week’s Downloads

New on my iPod this week are Adrian Whitehead’s One Small Stepping Man and Sloan’s Parallel Play. I’ve given both a couple of preliminary listens.

I had never heard of Whitehead before, but the Absolute PowerPop review (and hearing snips of three or four of the songs) convinced me to give it a whirl.

Usually, my practice is to listen to a CD over a couple of weeks before putting up a review, to get a feel for it and to make sure I initially don’t overrate or underrate it. Then there’s this disc, which I received three days ago and have listened to only a couple of times, and which I can say is easily the best new disc I’ve heard in many a month.

Adrian Whitehead hails from Melbourne, Australia, and he’s on the incomparable Popboomerang label, home of many great power poppers. He’s been mostly a sideman, with my only exposure to him being the track “Spector’s Dead” (which appears here) on a Popboomerang comp from a few years ago. As good as that track is, nothing prepared me for how great this full-length is, in which Whitehead has shown his utter mastery of 60s and 70s-influenced pop forms that all of us in the power pop community enjoy.[…}

Folks, step right up and meet the #1 disc of 2008.

I don’t happen to agree with that final sentence but it certainly got my attention. So far, Caitlin’s 60s Pop Song, Saving Caroline, Spector’s Dead and Better Man are the songs I like best. The whole thing is a nice listen if you like Beatles-inspired stuff.

Sloan’s album has one really stand-out song (Believe In Me) which I could listen to repeatedly – and in fact, already have. Several other songs are quite good (Witch’s Wand, The Other Side, I’m Not A Kid Anymore). The rest are just OK. However, I like it enough that when I get some time, I plan to go through their previous albums since I had never heard of them before this year.

Already Sick Of Summer

Its too darn hot.

Days on end of 100 degree heat and we still have over three months of boiling to go. Half an hour out of the shower and I am ready for another. I am constantly sweaty and slightly smelly and my clothes are always damp and my hair is usually wet underneath.

I have taken to wearing skirts alot just so my legs and other parts can breathe a bit more. Last week I was wearing one made of some fake fabric – rayon or some such – and realized while I was talking to someone that I literally had rivulets of sweat running down the backs of my legs. Rather embarrassing, I’m sure if anyone looked closely they figured I had peed myself. The fabric didn’t absorb any of it, although the trade-off of more absorbent fabrics, like cotton, is that my clothes look wet.

Then there’s the sunscreen I have to slather on. I cannot bear to wear sleeves when it is this hot. Tank tops at the very least, camisoles are better. But I burn so easily that I’ve got to wear sunscreen every day. So I always smell at least vaguely of sunscreen, and of course sweat mixed with sunscreen is just a lovely combination. Ecchhh.

Is it just my imagination or have summers in Austin been hotter these past few years? I moved here in August of 1992 and summers have always been hot, but I swear the last four or so have been off the charts. Or am I just getting older and less able to withstand the heat? I love Austin, I love the place and the people and my life here. But this time of year I become just a smidge more amenable to my husband’s crazy ranting about moving us to the Upper Peninsula.

Its Got A Good Beat And You Can Dance To It

I don’t suppose it will hold up under repeated listens, nor is the video any great shakes. But this song is pretty catchy.

Making Muscle Young Again

This is interesting.

Manipulating stem cells in old muscle can restore youth to aging tissue, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley. Scientists altered the activity of a molecular pathway to make stem cells in older tissue produce new muscle fibers at levels comparable to young stem cells. They say that their findings may one day lead to novel therapies for age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as possibly to the reversal of the atrophying effect of aging.

But don’t give up your gym membership just yet.

Conboy says that regulating the TGF-beta pathway may provide a therapeutic possibility for treating age-related muscle disorders. However, she adds that shutting down the pathway altogether may lead to unwanted consequences, such as tumor growth and other side effects.

There’s Broke and Then There’s Broke

What kind of broke are you?

I am pleased to announce that the stack of bills that has been eating away at me like a cancer has finally been reduced to shreds. The endless phone calls from creditors has been silenced and we can once again go back to living from paycheck to paycheck like all good Americans. We are now broke….but not in the nerve wracking, oh my goodness we are going to lose the house, not be able to afford groceries, im going to die from a stomach ulcer from nerves kind of way. NO, no…just the regular variety broke….as in “Our broke ass aint goin’ on vacation this summer”. Its so nice just to be that broke again.

Thanks to a project I had in the spring (which interfered with my enjoyment of an important family event and resulted in some of the worst shoulder pain of my life due to being hunched over my laptop practically 24/7 for about two months), we are not currently broke. However, since I freelance, I never really know when the next paycheck will come along. So whenever I get paid, I have to wonder how long I will need to make it last. We routinely spend more than Mike brings home, although if we really needed to we could almost live within just his paycheck. My paychecks mostly go toward stuff like private school tuition, after school activities, what few trips we take, eating out, occasionally paying down bigger chunks of student loan debt and all those extra expenses you rack up when you don’t stick to a strict budget.

Once I pay taxes on my 2008 earnings to date and pay for the Disney World trip we’ve got planned for the end of summer, I figure I’ve got enough banked to last us until about November. Fortunately I have a couple of other projects going right now. One is fairly small, probably only buys me about another month. The other – whenever the bulk of the work materializes, estimated sometime during the summer – could be a pretty decent chunk, enough to buy me another 4-6 months.

We’ve got much more of a cushion than many Americans do (today, anyway), yet it still feels like we live paycheck to paycheck. Its just that my paychecks sometimes come alot farther apart than most people’s do.

Friday Random Ten

Welcome to the Happy Birthday Sam! edition of the weekly iPod shuffle.

1. Too Drunk To F**k – Nouvelle Vague (how appropriate)
2. I’ll Never Fall In Love Again – Tom Jones
3. Your Fractured Life – Air Traffic
4. Blame It On The Weather – B*Witched
5. Hurricane Season – Billy Pilgrim
6. Cold As Ice – Foreigner
7. Baby – Rufus Wainwright
8. Loose Tongue – Neil Finn
9. Liberation Front – Thievery Corporation
10. Full Of Stars – Turin Brakes

And in honor of the birthday boy…a blast from the past.

Estelle

I’ve been listening to Shine, a recent release by UK singer Estelle – its an R&B record with some touches of hip hop and reggae mixed in. Its a great summer party album, something I can imagine listening to while sitting on a patio sipping frozen margaritas. (So, ok, you can’t go wrong with almost any album if margaritas on the patio are involved…but still.)

I like American Boy (featuring Kanye West), which seems to be the debut single. But I think my two favorite songs on the album are Wait A Minute (Just A Touch) and No Substitute Love (which borrows from George Michael’s song Faith) – both of which I can imagine Lauryn Hill singing. There really are only a couple of songs I don’t really care much for, and even those are ok.

Best Prayer Ever

From my three year old nephew:

god is great, god is good, bow your head, do your thing, pay for our bread, amen.

What A Weekend

Our family had quite a weekend.

Friday was Natalie’s 6th birthday. I went to her school celebration and later we had a family party with cake and presents. The favorite appeared to be the kid-sized Groovy Girls tent, which matched the doll-sized ones the girls have.

Saturday was Sarah’s high school graduation ceremony. Numerous family members attended as did Chris and Eileen and Sam. After the ceremony there was much rejoicing and picture-taking.

Unfortunately at some point during the event, Sam’s back went out and, on the walk back to where we were parked, he collapsed in excruciating pain. Mike helped Eileen take him to the ER. Poor Sam.

Later we took Sarah to dinner at Chez Zee. Afterward we came home and let her rip into envelopes full of cash received from various relatives and her graduation gifts from the family. Her big present was a MacBook. However, I was most excited about the gift I’ve been working on since soon after Mike and I got married. For all these years, I’ve been putting photos in a set of albums just for Sarah, with the intent of giving them to her when she graduated. I love it when a plan comes together.

Sunday we went to a graduation party at Sarah’s mom’s house. And then we came home and began trying to recover from the weekend. I’m still tired.

You Make Me Wanna

You Make Me Wanna is the sexiest song I have heard in a long time. It deserves to be a soundtrack for something slow and sweaty. If you don’t start breathing just a little faster, get just a little tingle listening to it – well, you may be dead (or else the sleep-deprived parent of a small child). My favorite bit is the transition from verse to chorus, and how the beat kind of stops and the music lingers and Lewis sings “I wanna” right before the chorus starts. Ooh. I get a shiver.

The song is from Lewis Taylor’s second album Lewis II. It wasn’t released in the US but I ordered it online recently, along with his first album, Lewis Taylor. I highly recommend both.

One of my favorites from his first album is Lucky. He recorded an acoustic version of Lucky for The Lost Album. I really like both versions. Another great one from the first album is Bittersweet.

Putting The “M(mmmm)” In Marriage

Ladies and gentlemen…start your engines.

Sounds like an interesting, if exhausting, experiment. I can already hear the jokes my husband and certain friends (you know who you are) would make if we were to undertake such an endeavor.

Friday Random Ten

This weekend we have Natalie’s birthday, Sarah’s high school graduation and related festivities, plus my mother-in-law coming to town. I have a zillion things to do and yet here I sit…

1. Uncle Walter – Ben Folds Five
2. Tomber Les Nues – Zebda
3. Car Wash – Rose Royce
4. Magnificent – Estelle
5. Lone And Anger – Kate Bush
6. Behind Closed Doors – Charlie Rich
7. We Are The Champions – Queen
8. Your Eyes – The Sundays
9. One Night In Bangkok – Murray Head ( I love this song!)
10. Magic – The Cars

My Baby Is 6

Today my daughter Natalie turns six years old.

Birth and naming story after the jump…

More Songs From Way Back

I was introduced to Kate Bush’sThe Kick Inside my freshman year of college. She’s one you either love or hate, I think. Songs that I have played a zillion times over the years include Moving, Saxophone Song and Rhapsody In Blue.

The latest installment of Popdose’s series on songs that hit the lower end of the Billboard Top 100 during the 80s mentions a band called The Breakfast Club. Those of you into music trivia may already know Madonna was part of the band at one point. Anyway, I used to love their song Right On Track. The video is fun – who doesn’t love seeing people in chicken costumes?

I think I’ve mentioned that I was a Jellyfish fan. Two I loved were That Is Why and Baby’s Coming Back.

You know Nick Heyward from Haircut 100, but he has been a solo artist since 1983. I must have listened to Whistle Down The Wind a million times in college.

I had Hunters & Collectors on cassette back in the 80s. I loved The Slab, although the singer in this video doesn’t sound quite like I remember. I also liked Inside A Fireball.

Speaking of 80s cassette tapes…I used to have Aztec Camera’s album Love but apparently it is now out of print and iTunes doesn’t have it. I’ve seen reviews that dismiss it but it is my favorite AC album (although my favorite AC song is Oblivious). Songs from the album include Deep And Wide And Tall, Working In A Coalmine, and How Men Are.

And two for silly:

Here’s one you probably missed – and really, you didn’t miss much. Dog Police got momentary radio airplay while I was in high school. What a shocker this band (of the same name) never went anywhere.

Oh noooooo! Fish Heads!!!

A Chapter Ends

My stepdaughter Sarah was in third grade when Mike and I got married. For several years, we usually had her two nights a week and every other weekend. When she started high school, though, the routine changed. Her mom had just moved far south, about half an hour away from us. But her high school was only two miles from us. To minimize her morning commute to school, she began staying with us during the week and spending the weekends with her mom.

So for the past few years, Sarah has been a regular in our weekday morning routine. The little girls and I get up around 7:00, and at some point before we leave the house (usually around 8:00), Sarah gets up. She fixes herself breakfast (scrambled eggs on a tortilla with melted cheese is the recent standard) as we are nearing time to walk out the door.

Well, today was Sarah’s last day of high school. As she was fixing her breakfast, it occurred to me that while she isn’t leaving for college until late August, today was the last day that our morning routine would include Sarah. Even if she is with us during the summer (which she won’t be, much), she doesn’t typically get up before lunchtime without a reason. Today was the last day Sarah will be a kid in our house getting ready for school.

A chapter in our family’s life ended today. And since I am a total sap, I had to grab my camera and document the occasion. (For those who don’t know, every year on the first day of school, I take a picture of Amelia and Natalie holding a sign that says “First Day Of …” preschool, kindergarten, whatever grade it is for each of them.)

Pugwash

My latest “listen to it over and over” music find is 11 Modern Antiquities from an Irish band called Pugwash.

This is a fantastic power pop album with so many great songs I haven’t yet settled on a favorite – “Take Me Away”, “Clusterbomb”, “My Genius”, “Your Friend” and “Limerance” are all in the running at the moment. “At The Sea”, which was apparently co-written by Andy Partridge, is like the XTC version of “Pulling Mussels From A Shell”. Other notable contributors include Jason Falkner and Michael Penn.

Here are a couple of good reviews.

Blog Therapy

Cancel your therapy appointment and start a blog instead.

I don’t believe my blogging typically qualifies as “expressive writing”, so I guess I am stuck with the therapy bills until I put more energy into it.

SATC The Movie: Review

Eileen and I saw the SATC movie this afternoon. The story was completely predictable, which is to say – it was perfect. Funny, mindless eye candy. Exactly what I hoped for.

While I found the attempt to place SATC in cinematic context moderately interesting, I had no expectations that the movie would be anything more than an extra-long TV episode on a giant screen. I only asked for it to do two things: one, make me laugh and feel good; and two, have nice sets and amazing clothes to look at. Mission accomplished on both counts. Sometimes all you want is the cream filling, and I found this fluff to be deeply satisfying.

My only complaint is that we didn’t get to see Samantha and Dante go at it.