Rest in peace

LeRoi Moore 1961-2008
photo from the Dave Matthews Band website

I didn’t talk about this last week because I was still trying to wrap my head and emotions around it, and all I could really pull forth was “broken” and “sad” and “never be the same,” which didn’t really seem like enough, even though it was exactly what I felt. And so, I took a walk, and listened, and let some tears fall, and listened some more, and talked about it in my limited handful of words with The Husband, and some friends to whom the situation was equally grief rendering.

All things get easier, or at least, they soak in enough that they become part of you in a way that you can process them.

Last Tuesday, LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and one of the founding members of the Dave Matthews Band, passed away. I’ve written here about concertgoing experiences in the past, recently in fact, and so I feel the pull to say something about this turn of events. I never met any of these guys, but they’ve been an intimate part of my life for over a decade. Their music has been with me in times of joy, anger, and sadness. Always. To me it feels like freedom, love, turmoil, and so much more. I have made friends through this band, traveled to other states to meet new people and see these guys play. I feel that I am part of a community because of them. It breaks my heart that he’s gone, and to know that they lost a dear friend. My condolences go out to anyone that has been inspired by this band, and especially to those closest to Roi.

Rest in peace, Roi. It was a pleasure to see you play.

“It’s easier to leave, than to be left” -Dave Matthews

Swathed in gray

Yes, it’s a scarf, one of 4 that I had on the needles at any given time in the past month. I finished this one, though. It helped that it is shorter than your average scarf, a neckwarmer only. But not “only”. This is no “only” anything, this is Neckwarmer. A Neckwarmer in yummy charcoal wool tweed, speckled with cream colored bits, and knit in what I’ve decided is the easiest, yet most beautiful pattern. A Neckwarmer that is profoundly hard to photograph. I love it.

I got the bug in my bonnet to make this scarf after seeing Alex’s version. Since I don’t know anything yet about gauge or sizing, I just made it as wide as I thought appropriate, which now I believe may be a little too wide, and therefore shorter than I’d hoped. But nonetheless, it still turned out pretty groovy. I also didn’t follow the instructions for making the closure, I made it up at the end. Which may not seem like the best idea to this girl who, as I’ve mentioned, doesn’t know much about knitting, but it seemed to work out. I had a tiny swatch of yarn left over after binding off, which I just sort of half assedly picked up a stitch and knit one row of slip knots into a small cord, and then attached the other end to the neckwarmer to form a loop. That really doesn’t explain what I did, now that I think about it, but I’m not sure I CAN explain what I did. Anyway, I sewed on a largish vintage pearly button to contrast with the gray, and voila!

And, you know, with my propensity for buying only one skein of yarn in a colorway, it’s kind of the perfect project, since a full length scarf requires more than one skein of yarn (Duh, you say), and of course twice the knitting time, as I’ve recently become aware. The time it takes to knit one of these is more up my alley. I may have to make another.

Olympic Wrapup

I have decided that synchronized swimming is officially my favorite summer Olympic games sport, beating out lanky Michael Phelps by only the smallest of margins. We’ve been trying to watch as many of the wierd events as possible, in addition to all the regular ones, which let me tell you doesn’t work well with my schedule, but let’s not think about that. We’ve still got days and days of olympic events saved on tivo, and I’m sure I won’t be able to watch more than 20 minutes of them. Fencing, which is interesting to us because we both independently took fencing class in college. Which was great fun! We managed to finally find the gold medal match of the elusive table tennis event. That was pretty awesome. And Olympic badminton is hilarious. Canoeing and trampolining were pretty entertaining too. But synchronized swimming takes the cake. We watched the larger teams (of 10?) compete, and their headdressed nose-plugged gasping-grinned heads bobbing in unison was compelling, not to mention the feats they can accomplish with no oxygen and their legs sticking straight up out of the water. It’s amazing. I only wish they would have shown more footage from underwater. It’s crazy they way they stay upside down, and form those lifts. I would totally go see that if I went to the Olympics. You should check it out next time. And, I swear, the summer games has a way longer list of odd events than the winter games. I mean, rhythmic gymnastics? Seriously? Ok, but I will admit to you now that that ribbon is mesmerizing, as much as I wanted to NOT watch it.

It’s not quite fall yet, but it’s around the corner. School starts this week, and the first university football game of the season is on Saturday, which means that our neighborhood will be flooded with drunk people dressed in red. I’m kind of excited. Though, I can’t believe that summer went so fast! Before I know it, the pumpkins will be infecting my brain, minestrone soup and butternut squash will be all I crave, and snow will be flying. I think I’m going to be a pirate for Halloween. I need to find an eyepatch. Or perhaps Marie Antoinette.

Thanks for all of your supportive whisperings last week during my moment of weakness and vulnerability. You all are wise, you know that? Things are moving on now, as they always inevitably do.

Warning: Confusing Metaphor Ahead

When I was younger, in my Great-America-going days, there were all of the big scary full-of-awesome-fun rollercoasters, and there was one coaster that was more geared toward the fraidy cats like me – er, um, the younger kids. This one was smaller, didn’t go upside down, was a bit slower than the other big boys, and wasn’t nearly as scary. My friends called me a wuss for not wanting to ride the big ones the first year I went (ok, maybe they didn’t, I don’t really remember, but I know I felt like a wuss), but I just couldn’t bring myself to stand in line for that one that went upside down and all around. I’d get all nervous and scared.

So. Um. I’ve kinda been riding a rollercoaster today, with stressed out nervous belly cramps and on the verge of tears. Something that I shouldn’t really talk about here is getting to be too much for me. Too much responsibility. Under confidence and overwhelming. I’m more in the spotlight than I was a few weeks ago, and I don’t want to be in this spotlight. I just want to hide. And I’m getting suggestions that completely contradict each other making me think I may be stuck in the middle of something political. it isn’t me and I can’t wrap my mind around why I am in this situation.

I really just want to ride the pipsqeak fraidy cat coaster until I can get off quietly and softly and move on to the ride I really want to ride.

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Tipsy and a little sunburned from playing mini golf. Sometimes you just need to go out and get kinda drunk with the people you work with and then go take polaroids.

Lucy Lulu

I was gonna blog about moving day. Not ours, but moving day in Madison. The 2 days where half of the city moves out of their apartments, sits on their stuff, homeless for a night, and then moves into a new apartment. It’s a parade of moving vans. I was gonna blog about some fresh seafood we’ve been getting for Friday night dinners. And the corn, and the fresh heirloom tomato salsa that I didn’t even take pictures of because it was eaten up on huevos rancheros for breakfast and dinner in the same day. I was gonna tell you about how good it felt to run 4.5 miles for the first time, even though it hurt like hell at the same time, and I was also gonna tell you about the ripe tomatoes in my garden, and the one pumpkin that is getting oranger by the day.

But I lost my voice. My writing voice, at least. Summer is slipping through my fingers and I am trying to slurp up every moment and glistening ray of sunshine as it comes. So posting may be sporadic around here for awhile, because I don’t know if my voice is really back yet or not.

However, as of Friday evening, we have a new addition to our little family. Meet Lucy.

We’ve been intending to get another cat at some point for most of the summer, but with all of the traveling and out of towning that goes on all summer, we kept pushing it back to when we knew we would have some time at home. We still have another long weekend planned in September, but when we heard on the news that the Humane Society was hosting an event they dubbed “Catapalooza”, in which all of the area rescue organizations would be in one place with their cats up for adoption, we swung by, just to see if there were any calicos that we might like. We figured it was as good a time as any as they would have a bigger selection than a regular day.

There were so many cats and kittens there, it was crazy. Crazy cuteness, and crazy hopefulness that they would all find homes. And there were 4 or 5 calicos, more than I thought there would be. We didn’t really expect to come home with a cat, we didn’t even bring our carrier. We thought we wouldn’t find the right one, or they’d want to check references. And The Husband had stood firm in his opinion that we should wait until after the next trip. But he rolled over pretty easily when he scooped up this kitty.

This little sweetie was part of a litter that lost their mom very early, so they were bottle fed by a foster home, which means that she is really attached to people. She loves everyone. Which is good, in that she’s not scared of anyone, and loves to be held and sleep in laps. But it’s a tiny bit worrisome in that we don’t want her to be codependent and neurotic. But we’ll just have to see how that goes. Hopefully, once she gets over hissing at him, she and Nari will keep each other company, since he’s been so lonely after Suzie passed away.

When they announced over the PA that she’d been adopted, we could hear a bunch of people cheer and clap from the other areas in the building, some for the joy of any adoption, and some likely who had met this little gal, and it was a nice feeling. I just about cried when the woman who fostered her came to say goodbye as we were leaving, wishing her well in her forever home. I hope she likes it here.

Meditate.33

Week 33 . Meditate Project

Out of focus

I got back from a happy hour in celebration of a team member’s new job, and then a birthday party where I tried Egyptian street food consisting of rice, lentils, noodles, tomato sauce, and hot sauce, of which I can still taste the warm savory spice. Although I was not in Egypt. Pity.

It’s a ridiculous week, though, and I am blog lazy, and so I really have nothing today but that. On top I am realizing that summer is fleeting and so close to gone, with my last semester of school starting around the bend and work piling up.

So it is what it is. I hope your week is going fine fine. Have a beer.

Feeling tired is directly proportional to feeling good

My legs are stiff, tired, and don’t want to move. My head is swimming, my chest full. My skin, warm, tingling, my eyes heavy. This weekend I spent as I do once a year, alternating sleeping with a two night cavalcade of tailgating and Dave Matthews Band concerts at Alpine Valley. It’s one of my favorite things, favorite places to be on that long weekend full of driving and laughing and drinking and dancing and singing. I’ve seen the band so many times that my excitement level for the shows no longer peaks days or weeks ahead of time, but hours now. When I drive into that parking lot, that’s when I get really excited. And when they’re done on Sunday, I bask in the awesomeness, but am also morose in the lamentation that the experience is over for another year. So it’s not only the lack of sleep and wild ecstatic dancing that I now recuperate from.

I took Monday off of work because getting home from the show at 2:30 am, there’s no way to get enough sleep to be a functioning human at work given the hour that I normally get up for it. And it turns out, I pretty much completely forgot about the blog all day too. I’m still kind of bringing myself back up to speed, or down to speed I suppose would be more apropos, from that high-low thrill ride. It was such a great time, as it always is. I can’t wait for next year.

Meditate.32

Week 32 . Meditate Project

I found Operation NICE via Patricia, and I haven’t been struck by a good new blog so quickly is awhile. Melissa reminds us that a little NICE goes a long way. Go read it, it’s inspiring. Especially the post about the Highwayman. Awesome.

I’m quite looking forward to live music and fun times this weekend. Happy Friday ya’ll!