SassyBlonde

Finally got everything transferred to MovableType. Whew. 'Nighty.

My husband is a big poop. Spent the night crapping at me because he has male PMS. As if our gig isn't bad enough without that. What a big dork.

So my hubby was just searching for a set of clean sheets in the closet when everything that I had stuffed in there to clean up for our Halloween party fell on his head... teehee

Whew-- we survived the 12-hour drive going home to AL-- (D drove most of the way). Time for some home cookin!

Woohoo! I just taught my mom how to use AIM-- I'm so proud! Her username, which unfortunately, I can't tell you all, is REALLY hilarious. Watch out, Cyberville-- here she comes!

Mmmm... just had Tin Roof Barbeque for dinner... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. They make the best baked beans and cole slaw I've ever had. Seriously. Yay! Mom says leftovers for lunch tomorrow! Woohoo!

Man-- Tin Roof BBQ is good, but I have some rockin' heartburn right now. Yeesh. Pepto here I come...

We went to check out a house today. Can I just say I'm totally smitten? It was built in 1923 and has been immaculately kept since then. No washer or dryer, but maybe I can live with that. It's almost twice as big as our current digs and only a skosh more in rent. (That being because it's owned privately and slightly more urban than where we are now)

Hubby and I discussed it a lot and really liked the place, so everybody cross their fingers!

So hubby called the guy with the house up today, but he was out and his answering service picked up-- they said that at 2:40 PM they got a message from him saying that the house was rented... we left from seeing the house at 2:00 and are hopeful that it's us he picked. Woohoo!!

So more on the whole house thing-- (I know, I know. Changing the subject soon, I promise!) what we'd be renting is the main floor of a post-WWI house. It's listed as a 2-bedroom, but it's freaking huge if given that.

We'd have an upstairs neighbor, who is the maintenance professional for our landlord's development company. (And consequently our maintanace man too I think) He's really quite a nice guy and really funny- he has a lot of old cars in the back, though.

There's also someone renting the office in the basement, but from what I understand, she's not there too often, so no worries. She lived in the house before we did, and since she's an IT pro, every room is fitted out with a cable connection. Hubby said he thought that Vaughn(? I think that's his name-- the guy upstairs) said the house has cable included... mmmmmmmmmm. I haven't seen FarScape in so long I'm starting to get antsy.

I was also really excited by the prospect of having a vegetable garden, which would be situated on a plot right behind the house. Fresh tomatoes... mmmm. No worries, though, because we're three blocks away from Safeway, Whole Foods(!!yay!!), and the farmers' market.

Ooooooooh, I hope he calls us first thing Monday morning...

We got it! We got it! We got it!

I'm so excited! We're moving on February 2nd, so there might be a little black-out then. Keep y'all posted.

Now, off to surf for window treatments... curtains or blinds? Hmmmm...

I've had a really great day today-- it was a snow day for hubby today-- he's almost never home on Saturdays!! Woohoo!

Loving life!!!! Not only is hubby home, but I have no concerts tonight or tomorrow and Car Talk is about to come on!!!!!

My ever-so-fabulous brother-in-law has just launched his website-- everybody go peek!

The Dragon's Lair

David took me to Ben's Chili Bowl tonight. What a fabulous place. Ellington ate there. Best damn Chili Half Smoke I've ever had.

Just wanted y'all to know that my sister is a total rock star. She's working PR for her label for the Dove Music Awards. Who, might you ask is she working with? A few little acts including Michael W. Smith, Jars of Clay, and Third Day. Rock on girlfriend.

ROCK n" ROWWWWWWWWWWLLL.

I have to weigh in on this link I found over at chicky.

This past week we were blessed with the presence of some friends who have a seven-year-old son. I have to say that I'm simply amazed at the devotion and sacrifice that parenting requires. That being said, I firmly place myself in the category of "Those Not Interested In Being Parents, Thank You Very Much."

Recently, more and more people have started asking the question of me and hubby. Thankfully not parents or in-laws, as they have a little more sophisticated view on the whole issue. Some people can be downright rude, when given my answer. ("So when are you two planning on having kids?" "Frankly, I'm not interested. I have forty kids-- I just give them back after a half-an-hour a week." "Never?" "Not as long as I'm teaching."

Now, I have to make a clear distinction here. Just because I don't want any of my own, it doesn't mean I don't like them. I work with them closely for thirty hours a week, after all. I love most of my students dearly, and thoroughly enjoy their company. Mostly.

Posted a whole lot of great pics from sis & my trip downtown today over at ShutterBlonde. Check 'em out!

It's always sad when someone young dies, but even more so when it's of their own volition. He was he grandson of a friend of ours, who ended his life last week by driving into an embankment wall at 80 miles per hour.

The thoughts run in an endless loop through my mind-- what state of mind and how much pain would he have had to be in to do this at seventeen? Going into his senior year of high school, loved by so many of his classmates and members of his community that the church literally couldn't hold another single person?

The receiving line snaked around the outside of the building and far out into the parking lot. His grandmother stands still in shock, eyes glazed over and staring blankly into whatever reality she is reliving inside her mind. His grandfather, stoic and pragmatic even in this moment, leads her by the arm to her seat at the gravesite.

His best friend, calm and composed, speaking words coming sixty years too soon and three days too late.

His acquaintance, who owes his life and continued success to the skills and perseverence of one now beyond such things, and whose emotion was so great he could only utter scant few words before falling to the floor-- an eighteen-year-old football star, the world at his feet, who had never met this boy's guardians, now clinging to them fiercely and thanking them for his short privileged time with his younger mentor, the young man who had helped him make college dreams a reality when he was sure there was no hope, no point.

His silent little sister, looking wide-eyed at the burnished casket blankly. Goodbye, Jeffrey, she whispers, fingers brushing the yellow roses atop his wooden coffin. No tears stream down her face. She already knows loss that most can't begin to comprehend. Mother, father, brother. She simply watches his grave silently as people move past her-- automatons, offering words that fall past her ears like so much water over a fall.

She suddenly looks heavenward, her eyes lighting and a smile breaking across her face like a sunrise. Her eyes return to the grave, into which she drops her gift of bright daisies and whispers, Bye Jeff... see you around...

Meet Gizmo, the newest addition to our family. He's 16 weeks old and too cute!

Just a shout out to our friends Eric and Susan-- welcome to their new son Frederick Cooper!

I just have to say, it's unbelievably fulfilling to have a little furry person snuggle up your chest to give you whisker-kisses after a long day. I loves me kitties!

Yay!! I gets to visit me seester in Nashville next weekend!! WHOOPEEE!!!!HOORAY!!!! :)

I'm so excited-- my sister's getting married and I'm getting to create the design for the dress!! Through a strange twist of fate instead of helping the designer that was going to do it, she's helping me. Go figure!

I'm so excited that I'll be able to help my sister have her perfect dress on her perfect day!!!

Who Wants To Be A Superhero? Me apparently!

I found this picture in a file today, and started laughing hysterically at myself. (My Mom would be appalled at the amount of dust present on that old organ in the picture.)

When I was little I paraded around in Wonder Woman togs (definitely not what's going on in this picture) and went around saving the universe as I knew it (rescuing crickets from puddles and such, whizzing around on my bike like I was flying). Of course, this was in between wanting to be a doctor, chef, or musician (hey, I got one right!)

Who did you dream of being when you were little?

It's not often that I write about my husband here, but I have to take a moment to give him props.

Reason #1 I Adore My Husband: This week I started my third concurrent production (yup, you heard right-- I'm playing three shows at three different theatres- feh) and I've been running around like a crazy person trying to get everything done. Unfortunately the cooking has been slipping past, so we've been going out to eat. The laundry got done, but not folded. The cat box didn't get cleaned yesterday. I haven't had time to vacuum anywhere. And he hasn't uttered one word about it. Not one. God, I love this man.

Reason #2 I Love This Man: I got my box of Arbonne products in the mail yesterday (if you chicks have never heard of this stuff, it's amazing-- go try it) and in it was a little kit of men's stuff. Hubby has the finest skin-- you can't see a pore anywhere on his face-- but that also means that at age thirty, he's already got little pre-wrinkles. I don't care if he gets wrinkles, he's hott anyway, but he had mentioned being worried over it, so I got him the kit. He rolled his eyes when I showed him the face wash, toner, and face cream, but this morning before he left for work he made a point of putting my hand on his face and saying, "See, I used the face stuff." I totally thought he blanked me out, but he was listening and actually showed he was interested in my opinion. (This is not an unusual occurrance-- I just had to share this one because it kinda surprised me this time)

These are two of many reasons, but still, what a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man.

Turkey Day has once again come and gone here at Chez Sassy, and everything basically came out upright in the grand scheme of things. Hubby and I have been running non-stop for a while now, and it was good for him to unwind (and eat truckloads of food) with the fam yesterday. I, on the other hand, played the Thankgiving matinee at the theater yesterday, which was bookended by the aforementioned in-law fam time and food, and spiced with cell-phone updates from my lovely sister.

Every time I told someone this, I kept getting sympathetic remarks about it. Poor me? Not really. To be honest, it's the first holiday time I've spent away from family in a while, but I was doing what I sincerely love to do, and that made the day all the more special this year.

Recently I've had some life experiences which have served up to me large dose of perspective on a platter. I've done colossally stupid things, been terrified out of my wits for one reason or another, been stomped on professionally and emotionally, made friends, lost friends, and been on the receiving end of hospital notification phone calls (For those of you wondering or whom I've forgotten to tell, my grandfather is home and basically fine at this point). And yet everything has basically ended up in one piece so far, including me. Miraculously.

Every once in a while I will do something so incredibly and colossally stupid that even I can't believe it, and though I won't share the details of it here, we'll just say this particular instance was a life-altering experience in sheer terror. I spent four days in psychological purgatory, but for the first time in a long time I got a fresh perspective of my life and the near perfection I enjoy daily: A husband who loves me dearly, protects me fiercely, and puts up with my insanities patiently and rationally. Friends and family who do the same, even when they have no idea why I'm being such a nut. A lovely home and a thriving business, doing what I love to do the most. A strong personal outlook and a much thicker skin than I thought I had. This year I can truly say that I am completely and unequivocally thankful for my life and everything it entails. EVERYTHING.

So therefore I am thankful for conniving and irritating bosses, because the fact that I have to put up with them means I'm working at what I like to do. I am thankful for having to practice every day at playing music, because that means I have the means and the time and the ability to do so on my lovely instruments. I am thankful that my friend the Muse calls me to discuss her man troubles, because that means we're close enough to do so. I am thankful that my cats sleep between my knees at night and give me leg camps, because their presence adds years to my life in terms of humor and relaxation and companionship. And I am thankful for my husband, no ifs, ands, or buts.

It's amazing what the human body and mind can and will endure as we age. This afternoon, I finally made it up to see my grandparents, who have both had a rough time with their health lately. My grandparents are some of my favorite people in the world, and I don't get to see them as much as I'd like to, even when I come down for a visit here. This one was well-timed, since they both just got out of the hospital and are getting back up to speed, so mom and I picked the vegetables, made dinner, and cleaned the kitchen and put away groceries. And picked the garden again.

One of the things that amazes me most about my grandfather is his vast knowledge about all things garden. His large garden plot and the yard around his house still competes in spectacular sights with the most amazing of the botanical gardens I've visited, even though he's now 81 years old. The plants in his yard grow twice as big as everyone else's through time, patience, and intelligent work. I cherish the plants he gives me more than the items in my jewelry box, and guard them even more jealously.

He just had a scary brush with pneumonia and came home from the hospital yesterday after a week of ICU and hospital stay, so today we sat on the porch as he thinned the pots of petunias, and it hit me once again that his vast store of botanical knowledge will soon disappear with him. There is nothing to be done but pay attention and listen as he tells me about nematodes and peach trees and corn plants and crop rotation and rudbeckia. I want to be like a sponge, I want to be like a funnel: give me the knowledge, Granddaddy, I'll keep it for you. But time marches on and the approach of that day keeps ringing for me like a bell, so I'll have to use what little time I have here to learn. More, and more cheerful words, later.

This is another entry that I really struggled with in terms of sharing with the wide world or password-protecting, but I really need to get this monkey off my back I think, and there's no way this will fit on a PostSecret card, so here goes.

There's nothing quite like a visit from a parental unit to make your internal timeline jump back a few decades. (In point of fact, this post and this post by Beth Fish and this post by Aimee also had something to do with it as well.)

All of the sudden, I find myself reminiscing and reliving my high school life, which may or may not be a good thing. See, high school for me was the nearest thing I can think of to Hell, which I know is not abnormal, but still. There were good things that happened, I know it, but there are also deep, dark and scary things there. Things that crawl out and go bump in the night and can derail your sanity when looked at in bright daylight.

I was the consummate band geek in high school. I say that not as an apology, but as an identification. You know, the kind of kid who spent way too much in little rooms by myself obsessing over exactly how perfect that sixteenth note in measure twenty-seven sounded. During the day, my classes were merely placeholders that took up time until I could get to the band room and play my clarinet. This, for me, was not a social activity or an extra-curricular checkbox, but something that quite literally I ate, breathed, and slept. By the time I was a junior, I spent more time practicing than I did doing homework. (Which did turn out okay for me in the long run, but just as an explanation, I'm just saying.)

It turned out that this was a good thing, because the next year it was all I'd have: I spent the near entirety of my senior year grounded for a stupid juvenile prank (that I still wish had gone off as planned, they deserved it.) I suppose most people look back on the selves they had to inhabit in high school as juvenile and naive, and are proud to have moved on. I actually look back on that poor kid as being pretty strong in the face of some pretty severe torture, and I'm more proud that she survived at all. More importantly, I'm proud that she had the iron will and constitution to make it through the next six years and come out on the other side of the dark tunnel that followed.

See, I was the victim of a pretty spectacular group of bullies in high school. Like I said, not that this is an uncommon situation for a high school kid, but I rather tend to think that my situation went a bit above and beyond. As I've mentioned before, my particular brand of high school torture occurred at the hands of a group of kids we later came to call the Band Mafia. Now, this bears a little bit of explaining to those of you who didn't grow up in the band-obsessed culture of the Deep South. There are two forms of religion in Southern high schools: church and football. Because of this, the high school band, if it's good, gets a bit of the coattail football glory and a little bit of a pass in terms of the geek-thumping you get elsewhere for being band geeks. In fact, if you're good, it elevates you to just below the status of a star athlete in the eyes of your peers, which is where the problems start to come in.

The band kids were actually popular at my school, and as we can all remember, popularity breeds hatred between rival cliques, right? Date the wrong person, be friends with the wrong person, and it's all over. In my case it was a case of both all rolled into one. My best friend broke up with a popular kid in the Mafia, and the shit hit the fan. From being an uncomfortable high school dating squabble between them it somehow grew into the wholesale bullying of our entire group of friends. And by bullying, I don't mean Give me your lunch money-- I mean outright abuse. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I used to have a group of kids who walked out the school door behind me and recounted every musical mistake I made during band rehearsal as if I were a steaming turd on the floor for each one: a missed note, a flat entrance, a squeak. Things I would never say to any human being on the grounds of being served a restraining order. And they did worse, too, but I'm not going to talk about that here. Pretty hateful people, and a large and painful pill for a seventeen-year-old kid to take on a daily basis. Kids are bastards at finding the most hurtful thing possible to do to their peers, right? I used to dream of running them off from toilet-papering my house with a shotgun or having them arrested, no lie. The worst part is that their parents supported them in their behavior, and when we tried to return the toilet-papering favor, we were sold out by a girl we thought was our friend and I ended up being grounded for the remainder of my senior year. Fun.

I spent the entirety of my college years battling the echoes of those kids' voices and deep in a fog of depression. Is it any wonder that I'm not so excited about staying in touch with any of the people I knew back then? It even taints the association with the kids I actually liked liked at that point. I've recently been friended by a couple of the lesser aggressors on Facebook and MySpace, and I have to say, it's still pretty raw. I saw one of the Mafia in a restaurant when I was back home a couple of years ago, and I did everything I could to hide in the back of the booth as he walked by. D couldn't figure out what was going on, and when I explained to him I had a hard time keeping him from going out and beating the crap out of the guy then and there.

Don't get me wrong-- it's these assholes I have to thank for my current career. If I had been able to socialize my senior year, I probably never would have practiced enough for that elusive full-ride music scholarship, and I certainly wouldn't have learned to deflect the harsh criticisms that come with a musical career. And there were lots of good things about those years too-- I met D at band camp, played in Carnegie Hall and all around the South for honor bands, and worked real-life jobs that still shape the way I perceive the world in a tangible way. Still, notice that everything good I remember has nothing to do with school.

So, high school? Not a place I want to get back to, thanks.

For my intrepid B-I-L, because I quite literally held up the line in the craft store for five minutes juggling all of my crap so I could pick this up and buy one to take home and photograph. *smooch*

For everyone who like me is fortunate enough to have had parents who believed in you and supported you in following your dreams, something to think about when you go out the door to your dream job or work "hard" every day so you don't have to "sell out": "When You Weren't Looking, They Were Working" by Ben Stein.

Via Christine.

Want a really great blast from the past? Check out this list of toys that, according to Fark.com, "would be causing non-stop lawsuits in the 00s with injuries to the world's current frail group of obese precious snowflakes."

*laugh snort*

Sister Sassy and I survived at least three of these as far as I can remember: we had a Sit N' Spin and our own respective Big Wheels and backpedal-brake bikes.

More than one awesome family anecdote revolves around toys of this nature-- sis was reminding me today about a really hilarious story, told by my dad, about my fearless ride down a hill and in a beeline right toward some gnarly traffic on my Big Wheel. (I think that was the start of my bad karma with bikes, evidenced by the backpedal-brake bike that broke my leg in the first grade and the road bike that rid me of my two front teeth in college.)

The comments on that entry also bring up a couple of other contenders, too-- we never had lawn darts (I mean seriously-- what kind of pansy-ass kid in Alabama in the 80s had those? We made our own bows and arrows from scratch-- Jarts were for amateurs), but we did have a Slip N' Slide, and seriously there's nothing as crappy as grass burn, and the metal staples were sheer hell when you got a good run going. At one point we actually resorted to sliding down the slimy hill of the concrete culvert drainage ditch in our jean cutoffs because it hurt less. Tough little shits, us.

George would call it natural selection.

What were your favorite dangerous toys as a kid??

I am an inveterate procrastinator at heart. Most projects I undertake get finished at crunch time or not at all, and I'm a creature of deadlines and to-do lists for a reason: if I don't have a deadline I'll never finish. Sometimes that's because I overbook myself or burn out, but usually it's just because I forget or it falls off my radar until I'm down to the wire.

Now this can become a real problem when it comes to my philosophy of gift giving, especially for events like weddings and baby showers: I hate giving nondescript stuff off registries, or at least to give only that kind of thing-- I've had way too good of an example set for me by Sister Sassy and my aunt in terms of thoughtful giving. This of course means that I have to plan ahead, and well, you can see where that train of thought leads.

Procrastination was definitely the case for my friend's baby shower today-- I had a great idea for a gift weeks ago and simply got too busy with painting, cleaning and concert PR and let it slip my mind until my commute last night to the theatre. Crap, I thought, and resigned myself to another night of watching the Olympics like a zombie while I worked.

I had hit on the idea a while ago to do a watercolor calligraphy setting of this poem for her newly decorated nursery, but just hadn't dug out my aquarelle pencils and paper, so that's what I did when I got home. Hour by painstaking hour I outlined, inked, and washed, and eventually was left with the piece that I wrapped up for her this morning before I left, never having seen my bed and having burned through about five episodes of Jeremiah and a lot of esoteric sports coverage.

I honestly have to say it was worth it, though-- after opening mounds of cutely wrapped bibs, blankets, clothes and equipment, she was eventually handed my brown-paper-wrapped packages (note to self: if your package doesn't have riotous scrawls of pink and blue or puppies on it, the Vera Bradley-toting shower coordinator will place it at the back or under the table like a red-headed stepchild no matter how big or small it is) and after pulling the paper open, her eyes filled with tears and she hugged me close. (It didn't hurt either that the other gift made her howl with laughter.) At least I hit this one out of the park, even if it was last minute. Woohoo!

People, I am tired. Sick and tired.

Even after the joy of the election results, there have been a few things that have been bothering me greatly about this election cycle. The most important, and the reason for this post, has been peoples' lack of ability to discuss the issues that we all grapple with intelligently, calmly, without histrionics or name-calling, and our apparent inability to even try to understand or at least respect peoples' right to their own opinion. And frankly, I'm done with being sick and tired.

I never intended this as a political blog as such, but very shortly it's going to become a lot more so. In the coming days and weeks I'll be posting a more in-depth analysis of my opinions on some issues that I'm sick and tired of everyone not being able to discuss like adults, with open comment sections for that discussion. Moreover, this blog also will become a much more public forum for me rather than simply a private journal, so expect some tweaks and changes to that effect. (Nothing major to report yet, but I'm still working on it.)

I will welcome your reasoned dissent, your arguments, and your personal analysis and experience. What I will not welcome is name calling, ultimatum dropping, hysterical guilt trips and personal attacks. Those things have no place in the larger discussion about these issues, as they do absolutely no good in solving the problems that we all face, they only spawn more problems.

I'll sign off today with a challenge to you all:

• Research the following issues and come up with reasoned and researched argument for why you are for or against them. Most of them require more than a one-sentence epithet to explain intelligently.
• Once you have researched an issue, write a post about why you feel the way you do, and include your supporting data. These rules apply: the supporting evidence must be scientific, analytical, or first-person anecdotal in nature. You must cite your sources and provide links where applicable. Hearsay and religious dogma do not apply, with the exclusion of statements of personal belief. (e.g. "I believe God says" not "God says." Not everyone reading here necessarily believes in the same God as you.) Please provide scripture references to define those beliefs-- that counts as evidence if it backs up your personal stance.
• If you can do so, suggest how we might move toward solving this problem in a legal and civil way.
• You can do this for more than one issue if you feel strongly about them.
• Include the graphic to the right (right click and save) to show you're in.
• Link back here and post a head-up in the comments so I know you've done so.

• Taxes
• Abortion
• Same-Sex Marriage
• Education
• The Wars (both Iraq and Afghanistan)
• Healthcare
• Poverty And Welfare Reform

I know it's been quiet around here lately, but if you've been following the Twitter feed you know there's been some crazy stuff going on in my family the past couple of weeks. In short, there's been no shortage of karmic oh-my-God-I-can't-handle-one-more-thing going around at Chez Sassy, and I'm very much due for a vacation. Let me give you the recap:

• My grandmother died. So incredibly life-changing on a number of levels, but that's for another day with more beer.
• We're down to one car. Insanity (n.): Christmas season with two musicians and one car. OMFG.
• Sick cat in the vet hospital as we leave town for a funeral. Seriously, if it wasn't for the Muse, I would be losing my mind.
• Left my theater job after seven years of growth, challenges, and finally sheer hell. Glad to see the end of it, really.
• Met two of my all-time favorite people in real life for the first time yesterday. Planning on spending a lot more time with Amy and Jeff. Totally blissed out.
• Family time, or the lack thereof-- D's in Maryland, I'm in Alabama for Turkey Day. Alone. To. Face. The. Family. Beer, please.
• The project got a major boost-- we heard our non-profit status was approved today.
• Going back to China twice next year on tour-- yay for more tour diaries, and I may even have some solo goodness on this one.
• Needless to say my nerves are pretty jangled at the moment, and I swear to God that if I have to deal with one more asshole right now I am going to totally lose my shit.