NaBloPoMo

Stick Season

Noah Kahan – Stick Season

My husband, son, and I drove up to my daughter’s for Thanksgiving today. She is cat sitting and didn’t want to leave the cat overnight so it just made more sense for the three of us to go up there. We brought most of the food with us and cooked it there, which worked out fine. I did have a new appreciation for my mom during all those years when we would drive an hour and a half up to my grandma’s and then my mom would get busy cooking for the giant crowd. My grandma might peel and chop potatoes but she was not a great cook and I think it was just an unspoken arrangement that my mom took over when we got there.

We had a storm blow through on Tuesday night. The wind was so strong that the sound woke me up in the early hours on Wednesday. There are two pine trees in our neighbor’s yard that hang over our driveway and there were hundreds of pine cones (and the pine needles, a never-ending battle) littering the driveway and the street. The street sweeper even came by and made several passes to try and get them off the road. Before the storm there were still leaves on some of the trees but as we got on the road today it was clear that stick season is upon us. It’s just gray-brown barren branches, with some pine trees sprinkled here and there, as far as the eye can see.

My daughter is a huge Noah Kahan fan. I went with her to his concert back in September because she needed a ride. She had been playing his music in the car pretty much anytime we were driving together so I was already very familiar with it all. She had first described him to me as this guy who writes songs about living in New England, which is certainly true. But the more you listen, the more you come to learn that it’s also depressed, heartbroken guy who is suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder because he’s living in northern New England songs. My daughter used my phone to stream her playlists while driving and now Spotify suggests playlists to me with titles like, Sad Girl Indie. It’s not really my jam but I appreciate the scene he paints with this song. There’s another one called “Northern Attitude” (now with Hozier joining in to the delight of all the sad indie girls) where he sings about being raised out in the cold and on little light, and I find myself nodding along.

At the end of September, tickets for the two Noah Kahan shows at Fenway Park next July sold out as soon as they went on sale. My daughter had one in her cart but when she went to purchase it, it disappeared. She was crushed and was sure she had screwed up somehow but someone I know at work had the same thing happen to her. I think the Red Sox site was not really set up to handle the kind of demand it got that day. I felt sorry for her and did my usual thing of looking for other cities where he might not be as well known and where tickets might still be available. It basically came down to some places in Canada. She is only half joking when she talks about going to Quebec in April to see him. I would love to go to Quebec again but in April? That is still stick season for sure.

At Pace

Cola – At Pace

I almost forgot about posting tonight since my son wanted to watch TV with us. The show ended and I was just about to say, welp, I’m going to bed, then I remembered.

All day it has felt like Saturday since I had the day off. I’m so glad it is only Wednesday and, aside from tomorrow’s cooking, it will be a pretty low-key day. Then there will still be three more days before work comes knocking. I should probably try to accomplish some household task but I also might just read Patrick Stewart’s memoir, Making It So, which I borrowed from the library this afternoon.

Long Holiday

Flyying Colours – Long Holiday

While I was at work today, my husband went to pick up our son from college for Thanksgiving vacation. I got home expecting to see him but he was already out with a friend. Ah, the freshman home for the first long holiday weekend.

It is looking like it will be a pretty low-key visit. The friend he was out with earlier is working at a big box store and consequently has to work tomorrow and Black Friday, and I’m guessing Saturday too.

I am ready for Thanksgiving but I am not ready for it to be Christmas shopping season. Thanksgiving is early this year but it feels like it was just Halloween. There is so much that needs to be done before Christmas and it seems unlikely it will all happen.

For now, I am going to delight in not setting an alarm for the next few days and spending time with the kids.

Getaway

Earth, Wind & Fire – Getaway

You all know I don’t like winter. The cold, the dark, the ice, the dark, the lack of green, the dark. When it starts to get to me, I dream of getting away to somewhere warm and sunny, preferably by the ocean. This past winter was not a bad one when it comes to snow and freezing temperatures, a side effect of climate change I’m sure. The lack of light is persistent though and the only way to remedy that is to go somewhere farther south or west.

Back in January I was really fed up with everything. The amount of time and energy that people were needing from me was just too much, and coupled with the usual winter doldrums, I was desperate to go somewhere. I happened to be talking to one of my sisters on the phone and mentioned that I wanted a vacation, a mama vacation as I had started calling it, a vacation from being mama, where no one would bother me for a week. No phone calls, no asks to take care of something, no doing anything for anyone but me. My sister and her husband bought a summer place up in Maine and part of me was thinking about asking her if I could just use it for a week to be alone. But going to Maine in the winter is not my idea of a getaway. Then my sister said, hey, they had a week at a timeshare that they had to use or lose before March and they weren’t going to be able to use it, did I want to go?

Oh my god, did I want to go! Where could I go?!?! There were several different locations but in order to pull this off, I decided it needed to be somewhere I could drive to because I also was doing it pretty last minute and didn’t think I could swing a flight. So California and the Caribbean were out. Arizona held no appeal for me anyway, I wanted a beach. So we got on Zoom and she shared her screen with the timeshare website so we could check out the options. Virginia Beach was a maybe, but I really liked the look of one of the places in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. South Carolina was someplace I’d been through, but never to, and I liked the idea of being able to check off another state. Plus, there would be palm trees. Palm trees!! To a New Englander, a palm tree is a sure sign of vacation. You are far away. It will be warm. So she booked it, and I set about planning my mama vacation for mid-February.

I asked my best friend if she wanted in on this free vacation and she immediately said yes. Escape the frozen north? Done. We decided to rendezvous at a different sister’s house outside Philadelphia and leave my car there for the week, then drive as far as we felt up for on that first day. We made it halfway between DC and Richmond and picked a hotel from the car. The next day we headed to Richmond, another place I’d never been, and marveled at the things already blooming in the Fan District. We had some lunch and then hit the road for the long haul on I-95 through North Carolina, into South Carolina before hanging a left and heading for the coast. It started to get dark, then rain, so we had no idea what anything looked like until the next morning.

It looked green. The rain had left and the sun was breaking out. I was eager to get outside so we got ready and went to survey the resort. Resorts are not usually my thing but I am not one to look a gift condo in the mouth so I was perfectly happy to make note of the several pools, hot tubs, shuffleboard court, etc. And the palm trees. Oh, the palm trees! We then ventured off to the beach, just a short drive away. Wow. Seemingly endless miles of white sand beach.

My family was on notice; you may only call me if someone is in the hospital. We did arrange for a family group call on Valentine’s Day but otherwise I was to be left alone. My best friend and I made excursions from our timeshare but we did also make regular use of the pool and hot tubs. We walked on the beach every day. We went to Brookgreen Gardens, courtesy of an online friend (hi, Paul!) who graciously told us so much about the region and put up with our multiple stops to take pictures of things in bloom. Each day it got a little warmer and on the day we decided to go to Charleston it was approaching 80°. In February. We put our feet in the ocean in February. I was so happy.

Alas a week is never quite long enough when you’re on vacation and we had to head back north. We chose a different route on the way home, through Wilmington, NC where we had lunch at this draft house where you get a wrist band and pour your own beers from some crazy number of taps. We drove through Mt. Olive, pickle capital of the world, then the slog through every major city back to my sister’s.

We talked about making this a regular thing, and where else and what else might we do? My best friend really felt the drive down and back was not great so maybe next time, with advance planning, a cheap flight would be better. Then maybe a city, so we wouldn’t need a car. Charleston? Savannah?

I am not sure I will have the luxury of taking a week off this coming February or March with a big project at work needing to wrap up around then. But maybe a long weekend. Just to see and smell the flowers, the beach, and the palm trees. Feel the sun on my face. Go without a jacket. Put my feet in the ocean. It might be time to start thinking about it.

The High Road

The Feelies – The High Road

Sophomore year of college, 1986, I lived in a brand new dorm with a roommate that was just unluck of the draw. We had nothing in common, hadn’t known each other before, and I mostly tried to avoid being in the room at the same time as her. She had a group of friends that also lived on our hallway so at first she spent a lot of time in their rooms. But somewhere midway through the fall semester she had a falling out with them all so she was in our room more. She transferred after the first semester and I got a new roommate who was placed with me because she was on academic probation and they felt she needed to be away from the distraction of her boyfriend, Vinny, back in South Philly.

Most of the girls on our hallway were the stereotypical big, teased, permed hair, tons of baby blue eyeshadow kind of girls you see in 80s movies. There were two other girls who were more like me though. One of them really seemed cool. She had a Room With a View poster on the wall, instead of the ubiquitous Top Gun, and she even knew the Feelies. She was from New Jersey (along with half of the campus it felt like) and she’d had a summer job at some newspaper or something, where someone in the band worked. I can’t remember the details, lo these 37 years later, but it was like three degrees of separation from my heroes. Even if she was totally nonchalant about it, that was enough to make me a little nervous around her. She also had a boyfriend who was pretty cool which made her seem way more successful than I saw myself as being.

Since I never achieved true friend status with her, I kind of lost track of the two of them once that year was over. I saw the boyfriend now and then at the campus radio station but that was more like across a room full of people sightings and let’s be honest, I would probably have avoided talking to him anyway for fear of saying something stupid.

I got thinking about them today though because I read that Rosalynn Carter died. I was reading her obituary and remembered that a few years ago, after watching a documentary called, Jimmy Carter, Rock & Roll President, I got curious about what Amy Carter was doing. When I Googled her I saw that she had married a guy who had the same name as the boyfriend of the girl down the hall my sophomore year. I thought that seemed like a weird coincidence. But today I fell down the rabbit hole and I can now confirm, it is the same guy. They got divorced but they have a kid together, and it is just crazy to think about. I am 1000% sure this guy would never remember me, but I can still picture him in his girlfriend’s dorm room with the Room With a View poster and this album playing on the stereo. 

(You should check out that documentary if you haven't before.)

Addo

Adwaith – Addo

I discovered this Welsh band sometime earlier this year. They come from Carmarthen, which is just wild to me. When I was in grad school in Wales, Carmarthen was the closest place to get a train, and it was still about an hour away by bus. It wasn’t that far but the roads are all narrow, one lane in each direction, and very twisty and hilly. I’m not sure it’s large enough to be called a city, but it was certainly larger than our tiny little town which had more sheep than people.

Recently we got an email from a friend of ours from Germany who was at the same tiny university with us that year. She and her family have been living in London and took a short vacation out to Wales. She sent us pictures of herself and her teenage daughters on the campus. It was rainy and gray while they were there, which seemed pretty fitting.

We have often thought how fun it would be to go back to Wales and show the kids the place where we met. I think they would be kind of amazed by how remote it is and how small the town is. But part of me would also like to go looking for whatever scene Adwaith is part of. I think my time there would have been really different if there had been music like this I could have checked out.

Beginning to See the Light

Velvet Underground – Beginning to See the Light

We decided what we’re doing for Thanksgiving and it does not involve me driving up to fetch my mom, nor frantically cleaning my house to have it mom ready. I had been feeling a little guilty about it but now that the weekend is here, I am so glad I am not giving up both days to sit in my car.

I also got some good news on the work front and both kids are doing well at the moment, *knock-knock* so things are looking up. Oh! And the Christmas cactus I was sure I had killed has one flower and three buds on it! The world is a shit show but the things I can control are positive and I think that’s worth celebrating.

Not Tonight

Pip Blom – Not Tonight

According to my Fitbit I didn’t even manage to get five hours of sleep last night, so I am too tired to write something of substance. Hopefully I can catch up on sleep a little so tomorrow I will be able to give it a little more thought.

Break My Soul

Beyoncé – Break My Soul

Put aside the hellfire that is the state of the world in 2023 and take a few minutes to focus on yourself. I know that many days, just getting through it is all you can do. But try to find little breaks in all the gloom and look for something that might give you a little boost.

Music can often do that for me. If you are reading my blog I’m sure that it does for you too. I am not really a member of the BeyHive but there’s no denying this song. So this is me telling you, blast some tunes and get out of your head. You’ll be better for it.

Speeding 72

Momma – Speeding 72

I have been trying to remember this song and this band for weeks. The only thing I could remember was that the album cover had a blurry picture of what I swear is the same red Subaru my mom had decades ago. I finally found it again this evening so I am posting it to be sure I don’t lose it.

When I was driving home, in the pitch black at 5:00, I kept having to move my head to avoid being blinded by some giant SUV’s brights. I know these new LED headlights are definitely brighter, and if you are alone on a back road that’s great. But on the highway they are blinding. I feel like it’s actually dangerous. I long for the days when cars had lower profiles, like my mom’s old Subaru, or the Volvo in this video.

Speaking of driving home, we did end up replacing the alternator, serpentine belt, and two tires on my car. Fingers crossed that it is now in great shape for winter and can just have the usual oil changes. New windshield wipers are also due but I have been waiting for the trees in the driveway to stop dropping sap onto the cars. I will just need to keep an eye on the forecast and be sure to swap them out before the first winter storm.