Amazing

A couple years ago the Awesome Fiancee and I were wandering aimlessly about our wonderful city window shopping for nothing at all. We dropped into a store that sells all sorts of weird knick knacks and trinkets like hot sauce that vows to burn center parts of your anatomy or aluminum Batman lunchboxes. We were puttering around the store when we noticed the music wasn't mindless drivel or elevator music. It had substance. It had strength and sincerity. The singer was clearly talented and we played the guessing game on who it might be. It doesn't sound like Aretha Franklin or Sheryl Crow, certainly not Madonna. Her voice was full, rich and strong and on top of that the song was simply beautiful. We kept listening wondering who is this? We finally asked the shop keeper, it was Ingrid Michaelson covering an Elvis Presley song, Can't Help Falling In Love.

Fast forward to the present day, we now own a cd of hers and are more familiar with her amazing work. We heard Ingrid would be doing a show near our fine city right around our wedding, so we marked off the day in our busy pre-wedding calendar. We arrive at the venue and after a little snafu with our seats we eventually get settled in. About 45 minutes into the show Ingrid settles down at her piano and reads from a piece of paper that someone named Brian is asking her to the prom and that he can't wait. Cue funny banter and jokes about being too old. She then says it's a wonderful thing when this song is sung to or for someone very special and launches into Can't Help Falling in Love. After the last chord had been struck and the applause subsides for her cover of The King's work, still overflowing with joy and emotion the Awesome Fiancee holds up her phone and points to it saying, "I asked her to play that." "What?! How'd you get her phone number?" No, the Awesome Fiancee didn't call or text her. She created a twitter account for the sole purpose of reaching out to her directly to request that she play the song as a surprise for me.

I am the LUCKIEST MAN ALIVE.

Ye Olde Brew

Once upon a time the Awesome Fiancee used to live in a very cute little cottage type house that dated back to the 1920's. When she moved into the house there was a stash of empty bottles in the basement that were rumored to have always been with the house, dating all the way back to when it was built. A lot of them had been covered in dirt and mud so it appears someone possibly dug them up somewhere on the property while planting a garden or found them laying around and just decided to hold onto them. They're old, quirky and cool looking and just exude us, so when we combined housing units we decided to take the bottles with us and clean them up so we can use them as decor for our wedding.

Well the wedding is a scant 17 days away (!!!!!) and we're ramping up our bottle cleaning efforts. Yesterday I grabbed a couple that seemed to hold some real promise in the cool and quirky looks department and started in on them. After I had scraped away some of the dirt and mud on the first one I noticed it had "Suffolk Brewing Co., Boston, MA" stamped on the side. I used to live in Boston and have lived in New England all my life and have never heard of that brewery. I thought it was really cool and decided to keep plugging away on the cleaning to find out what else we had. I started in on the second one and found "Continental Brewing Co., Boston" stamped on the bottom. A little time with Ye Olde Google tells me that the Suffolk Brewing Co. in Boston was open from 1861 through 1890! I'm holding something that is close to 150 years old AND it's a piece of glass! Flush with excitement at my Antique's Roadshow moment of discovery I did some digging on the second one and found this article in the NY Times archives from August 8, 1900 discussing the merger of the Continental Brewing Co., of Boston, MA with 9 other Boston breweries to form the Continentals Brewing Co. (no that's not a typo)Now that I know what we have I may dial down the cleaners I'm using on these bottles.

Sans speedy crispiness

I remember a brief period in my time on this rock when we didn't have a microwave, but I was too young to be anywhere near cooking appliances to understand the experience. Eventually one did arrive. As I grew older with one at my beck and call it became the end all be all and I treated the stove like a second class citizen. The microwave did everything for me. Every conceivable food item that needed heat thrown at it went to the microwave. I'd shudder if some sort of food item COULDN'T be nuked. At one point in college I even used it to dry out some damp (clean) socks. (Thank you Uncle Buck.) Ya. When in doubt nuke it!

The Awesome Fiancee had a microwave that went out in a blaze of glory. Literally. As fate would have it the prior owners of our charming estate left us a titanic microwave. It was a Model T of microwaves. It was as big as an old TV and took what seemed like an eternity to heat things up. Not all of the parts on it always worked but alas we decided to hang onto it because it was a working microwave. We used it when it was convenient and didn't really think about replacing it. Our biggest concern at the time was where do we fit it on the counter? Our kitchen is modest and the titanic sized microwave wasn't helping our cause. It had slowly sucked the life out of the counter. The sink would fill up with the dirty dishes from breakfast and by the end of dinner they had migrated to the stove top. We decided we really don't have room in the kitchen for it and it wasn't blowing anyone away with its heating prowess so after very little deliberation we gave it the heave ho. I wondered what it would be like not having the capability to warm up left overs in 3 minutes or cook a meal in 5, or cook popcorn as easily, or rejuvenate that dying cup of coffee. The Awesome Fiancee on the other hand didn't seem to be as concerned. She knew something I didn't. She could see beyond the great beyond. She could see a time that people once knew when life was simpler and people with pacemakers didn't have to hide. She saw life without a microwave and didn't shudder. She assured me everything would be just fine and ironed out my food concerns: yes popcorn can be made on a range top, leftovers of all types can be reheated in a saucepan and we can still create fine dinners just not as quickly.

I don't remember the last time I yearned for a microwave and I haven't screwed up any meals due to the lack of the microwave. Not a one. All the meat makes its way out of the freezer early in the day and the range top takes care of heating up everything just fine. Leftovers? No problem there either. Beet risotto with walnuts and goat cheese? Range top took care of it. Chicken and rice? Done. Lentils? Steaming on the plate. When we registered for our wedding I never even thought to suggest a microwave. Thanks but no thanks we're all set, we don't want one.

Red Rain

So I never thought I'd say this amidst a wonderful sunny summer afternoon but I want rain. A solid continous everything gets wet when you walk to the car kind of rain. Rainy days are a nice change of pace, they have a sort of refreshing feel to them. All the plants and the lawn and the trees have a satiated look to them and every non living thing seems a bit cleaner, brighter, and rejuvenated.

We have had 1 day of solid appreciable rain fall in the past month. I'm not some sort of gloomy person that derives pleasure when it's grey and rainy, I love a sunny and 75 degrees kind of day anyday. But this is crazy. Crazy. Our lawn looks like a dirt road and our trusty rain barrell is empty.

Our rain barrell has saved our bacon this summer: holding every scant drop of moisture the heavens threw our way so we can keep our illustrious garden going. Without any of the wet stuff falling out of the sky these days we've resorted to drastic measures. Yep. We finally caved and turned on our hose to water the garden. It felt awkward cumbersome, and unfamiliar. We obviously use water in our every day lives but this was different. Our rain barrell had done such a wonderful job it had become our standard when watering the garden, and we didn't worry about giving the tomatoes a little extra moisture because hey it's free! Now it's over. Well, until the next rain which is predicted for Tuesday. Rain rain come back anyday you'd like!

Stop Making Sense

After one spin of a Talking Heads album and it's pretty apparent that their front man and creative steam engine David Byrne is an interesting chap, the name of their live album is entitled "Stop Making Sense." Ya. I do like their music, talented bunch. So I recently ran across David's book Bicycle Diaries. I admit I had judged it before I even laid my hands on it, I thought it would be odd and interesting. I even hoped that it would be weird and at points captivating in its oddity and hopefully include some discussion on cycling. David did not disappoint.

So he started riding a bicycle as his primary means of transportation around his adopted home of NYC in the early 80's when motorists didn't give a damn about sharing the road with anyone, especially cyclists. He found it to be more convenient and exhilarating to whizz down the dirty potholed streets. It also afforded him an opportunity to see and experience a lot of things you wouldn't if you were stuck underground on a train or crawling through traffic in the back of a cab. As his work and personal pursuits of interesting and different things took him gallivanting around the third rock from the sun he started bringing along a folding bicycle to explore his destinations. The book is broken out into chapters devoted to cities he's visited, a record of what he's seeing, doing, or people he's meeting with and most interestingly what he's thinking as he's cruising around these foreign lands. Oh boy.

In the chapter devoted to one of his trips to Berlin he ponders what he calls the biggest self-deceptions of life; that life has a "meaning" and that each of us is unique. He opines that "Maybe what we think of as self, of us as individuals, of each of us with unique personalities and character, also exists in dogs, and might even extend down the food chain as far as insects. Insects with character and personalities? Why not? Why stop with doggies? An insect might be just like me. I, what I call I, might not be unique at all." For the meaning of life he mentions that religions all over the world have dealt with this and continues on and on. We can skip that one.

Then there are his thoughts on language as a prison while cruising around Manila on his collapsible 2 wheeled steed. He said "The Philippines did have a written language before the Spanish colonists arrived, contrary to what many of those colonists subsequently claimed. However it was a language that some theorists believe was mainly used as a mnemonic device for epic poems." He continues, "One theory regarding language is that it is primarily a useful tool born out of a need for control. In this theory written language was needed for control. In this theory written language was needed once top-down administration of small towns and villages came into being. Once there were bosses there arose a need for written language. The rise of the great metropolises of Ur and Babylon made a common written language an absolute necessity-but it was only a tool for the administrators. Administrators and rulers needed to keep records and know names-who had rented which plot of land, how many crops did they sell, how many fish did they catch, how many children do they have, how many water buffalo? More important, how much then do they owe me? In this account of the rise of written language, name and accounting seem to be language's primary "civilizing" function." And ya, it gets better, "What's amazing to me is that if we accept this idea, then what may have begun as an instrument of social and economic control has now been internalized by us as a mark of being civilized. As if being controlled were, by inference, seen as a good thing, and to proudly wear the badge of this agent of control-to be able to read and write-makes us better, superior, more advanced. We have turned an object of our own oppression into something we now think of as virtuous. Perfect! We accept written language as something so essential to how we live and get along in the world that we feel and recognize its presence as an exclusively positive thing, a sign of the enlightenment. We've come to love the chains that bind, that control us, for we believe that they are us."

Wow. OK. So it would be difficult to get through a modern day without the written word but do we need all the trappings of modern society? Many cultures and people over the course of history seemed to get through their lives with the spoken word passed down generation to generation and some hieroglyphs to compliment some of their stories. Instead of texting IMing or emailing we could all revert to using crayons and pictures. I call dibs on the Burnt Sienna!