Yuppie Kiss

this year for halloween, ernie and i were a bit lost as to what to actually dress as. our first idea, was to go as a priest and a pregnant catholic school girl...but, we thought that this was a little cliche, and might get us arrested with boston being the kind of town it is. while having one of those "wouldn't it be funny if..." conversations when looking for costumes, we came up with this: Yuppie Kiss.
I am 'soccer mom paul stanley', and ernie is 'yuppie/frat boy/casual friday gene simmons'. (just a note to all who may not know us...we do not normally dress like this...from the button down blue shirt to the patriots cap, it was all a costume).

myspace...not just for breakfast

even though, on a regular and daily basis i hear a conversation on my commute between children around the ages of 10-15, commiserating about how this person or that person isn't on their myspace page, and how upset they are about it, i still think that myspace is a good thing, if only because i've discovered many bands that i would have normally never known existed.
here are some examples of bands i'm listening to on myspace:
a hawk and a hacksaw
i just bought their newest album, and it is lovely. wonderful autumn album to listen to while baking pies or braising some cabbage.

golem
yep, still on a gypsy kick and these guys are great. quick, makes me want to spin in circles and throw things in the air (like chairs or vodka bottles).

den flygande bokrullen
swedish klezmer! yes!

beltuner
oh, how i love paris...let me count zee ways...

einmal kommt die liebe
norwegian cabaret...smokey, lazy and efficient.

martin martini and the bone palace orchestra
sweet sweet cabaret type music from australia...and they even wrote a song about me..how marvelous!

adirondack yardsale'in

my sore and swolen feet have finally recovered from the 8 hour day we spent in warrensburg, ny at the world's largest yardsale. it's most definitely something i would recommend to everyone to go and do, at least once in their lives. despite the fact that our 7 month old puppy was much too excited about all of the great deals to calm down and let us do some serious searching in the piles, we were able to pick up a few amazing items. here are a few of them.

also, as shown by the sign, they take their yardsale and their parking regulations very seriously in warrensburg. best deal is to park in the fire station lot...five bucks, coffee and a clean bathroom.

throngs of salt and pepper shakers...all dressed up and ready for sale. 

not a purchase of ours, but hopefully someone, somewhere, picked up this box of porcelein arms. would make an amazing center piece for thanksgiving dinner. 

self explanatory and cute as hell. my favorite part is that wink that the pepper is giving you, and the disconcerted look that the salt is giving the pepper. that pepper's up to somethin'. 

full frontal creepy view... 

creepy jolly pink cheeked man pitcher... 

cast iron monkey in a tux candle holder...the prize find. 

october, a helluva month

the month of october is full of lovely little happenings that i'm terribly excited about. here are some highlights:
oct.11: this is the day mister doeg and i find out if we're having a bratty little girl or a snot nosed little boy. joy. joy. (but, seriously, i'm excited, not about finding out the sex, but about actually putting a face to what's been making me so adament and knowledgable about cloth diapers, circumcision, multi vitamins and meditation.)
oct.16: on this day at the natick high school, the man known to most as lemony snicket will be doing a reading. honestly, i've read not one of his books, but my special interest in this event is the fact that 'the gothic archies', (one of mister stephen merritt's many side projects) will be his 'backing band' for the reading. here is all the important info.
oct.19-22: the beat circus vaudeville orchestra will be playing at the anniversary event for the regent theater in arlington, ma...including burlesque performers, an acrobatic circus troupe, and an opera singer. all of those things together just make me all tingly. check it out here:
voltaic vaudeville!

and i know it's barely october yet...but this weekend i will be happily attending the biggest yard/garage/tag sale in the united states in warrensburg, new york. ahhh...i can almost taste the fried dough and smell the dusty depression glass.

more cheese than wisconsin

this WILL NOT become a baby blog. but, in searching the nets, i've found some really freaky stuff out there. such as:

no one puts baby in a corner

i grew up in rural, rural tennessee. the name of the town i grew up in was 'defeated'...a bit damning, but i took it in stride.
we were so far away from 'things' that we never had cable. not even basic cable. it was a mysterious, beautiful thing reserved for family trips, and vacations involving hotel stays.
when i moved out on my own, television (and cable) weren't that important to me. living on my own, i usually never owned a television. not in that high and mighty way that some people don't own a television, but in that, 'i can't be trusted to turn it off, ever' sort of way.

for four years, i've lived in massachusetts without cable. and just this past weekend, my husband, sweet thing that he is, broke down, and hooked basic cable up to our television. i'm assuming he was much too tired of vegging out to re-runs of the gilmore girls. (a show which annoys me to no end, but i watch it like i would watch a train wreck).
in my current 'condition', i watch much too much television, being too tired to move most of the time. and here are some observations i've noticed about basic cable. (being completely new to the whole experience at the age of 31)
1. i've seen way too many pieces of movies with patrick swayze these past few days.
2. i wonder if kids in southie get stoned and watch the catholic channel...one sure reason why you should never smoke pot...one minute you're calm and baked on your parents couch, and the next moment you're sitting in confession, telling a hole in the wall how 'that sister mary catherine really is all that, and a bag of chips'.
3. why doesn't mtv play music videos any longer?
4. miami ink is a much better show that inked.
5. rachel ray is getting fat.
6. those mythbuster guys have no reason to be 'that' cocky.
7. .57 channels and nothing's on...so true, bruce, so true.

cheerios

glockenspiel glockenspiel

not much of a secret ernie and i are keeping to those of you who read this, but if you are not aware of the happenings in our life, here's a post hint.

i have a fever, i need more glockenspiel.

(if you click on the albums you can actually hear a few song samples from most of them...the versions of the cure songs made me giddy to tears)

worst sugar cookie ever

i don't know what is worse than a bad sugar cookie. how can you mess that up, really? apparently, the crew at au bon pain in downtown crossing in boston have figured out the secret to the worst sugar cookie ever. be alert and be warned.

stolen from a friend...

i could not bear the thought of not posting this picture after a good friend was kind enough to share it with me. he found it at a flea market in wisconsin and bought it for a mere five dollars. it fascinates me.
brothers? father/son? uncle/nephew? lovers?

what do you think?

'hang down your head for sorrow...

hang down your head for me...'

just wanted to convey, in this blog forum, that i'm so awfully and terribly upset that mr. tom waits is on a little tour right now, and ernie and i aren't going to be able to make it to any of the shows. we've put our heads together, we counted our last pennies, we were even going to try not eating for a while and possibly going without electricity (after all, mister waits is worth it)...but still we couldn't find it in our budget to make it to any of them. even the show that's tomorrow night, in my hometown of nashville, on my baby brothers birthday.

my heart weeps.

i'm not sure how i missed this. he passed on july 7th. nothing confirmed, some say diabetes, some say cancer. maybe he'll finally get some much needed sleep. rest in peace.

if i were a rich man...

my life has been filled lately with news too big for the blogosphere at this point...so, instead, i'll relate an amusing conversation i had with a five year old last week.
ernie and i were fortunate enough to be the caretakers of a lovely five year old girl last weekend, while her mother (ernie's cousin) is in africa helping build houses in rawanda. her name is olivia, and she's quite precocious, and always witty. one of her favorite things to do while at our house (other than play with, or 'terrorize' our five month old hound dog) was to lounge around on the hammock in our back yard. one day, while her and i lounged on the hammock in the sun, she said the strangest thing to me.
olivia: 'can i ask you a question?'
me: 'sure'
olivia: 'why do you guys live in an apartment, if you're so rich?'
me: 'what??!, why do you think we're rich?'
olivia: 'well, you have a hammock, and a dog, and a shed, and you can watch movies in your back yard...' (back story, ernie and i occasionally borrow his projector from work and hang a sheet in our back yard and watch movies outside...while olivia was here, we watched 'mulan 2', and she loved being able to run in front of the screen and interact with the characters).
me: 'we're not rich, we're just fortunate.'
olivia: 'whatever'

it's funny to see your life through the eyes of a five year old...

it was an interesting day for us when we found at that our dog, could in fact, fly. 

just peachy

i suppose my favorite part of summer must be eating fresh peaches. unfortunately, i've recently discovered that peaches, at their ripest and juiciest perfection, do not commute well and bruise easily.