Tag: friends

Christmas Spirit in a Cookie

gr4c53 Comments

c is for cookie

Typically, baking is not my bag. Hand me a jalpeno and I’m a much happier girl. Pie plates, measuring spoons, and proofing are just words I can’t be bothered with. Call it the Christmas spirit (or just plain crazy), but this year is just a little different. It all started with a resourceful review and a rug remnant. There are some people in my work life who have just gone above and beyond to keep my sanity. I owe them something – nothing short of my soul – for making my life just a little easier. So, I decided to bake cookies. Everyone loves a cookie, right? Never one to take the easy road I decided against plain old chocolate chip and ended up with:

  • mint chocolate chunk (2 dozen)
  • peanut butter chocolate chunk (2 dozen)
  • butterscotch (1 dozen)
  • butterscotch with almonds (1 dozen)
  • oatmeal with tuaca soaked raisins (2 dozen)
  • cinnamon chocolate chunk (2 dozen)…and finally…
  • plain old chocolate chip (2 dozen)

Luckily, I had really good company for this cookie quest – otherwise I would have gone insane. She and kisa sampled as I went, making sure my baking was on par with yummy. I could have easily gotten off track with the measuring with all the gabbing we needed to do! Here’s a teaser for an upcoming blog – I started the cookie quest on Saturday night because Sunday was another house hunting day. We were to visit the twin of the house I fell in love with in August! More on that later!

But, for now let me say I’m still not a baker. But, I have to admit – there was something very warm and homey about the smell of cookies baking in the oven; there was something very simple and childlike about being able to lick the big wooden spoon caked with dough; there was something very comforting and personal about creating something from scratch to say thank you.

Happiness is a fresh baked mint chocolate chip chunk cookie.

Cross Your Roads

gr4c51 Comment
Staring Down the House
Staring Down the House

Cross your roads and hope to fly. That was the message on my phone this morning. How did he know? I only told two girlfriends and a sister the news. I’m at crossroads yet again and it’s all I can do to hope for flight. Really.

My life is changing again. I think if I go back a few months, maybe a year ago, I said I didn’t want the same ole, same ole if I could help it. Well, fate has handed me another PassGo card and I’m changing again.

That’s all I can say for now.

Christmas Comes Early

gr4c59 Comments

rcbwq0
I got an email yesterday that made me smile. It wasn’t the email from my realtor preparing me for a showing of 11 houses today. It wasn’t the sweet comments from my friends. It wasn’t the approval to bring in volunteers (read: replacements) at work. It wasn’t my insurance agent’s new claim request. It was the announcement that my friend Rebecca will be bringing her amazing voice back to Northampton next month! She had even more good news – she doesn’t need to sell tickets in advance!

Here’s what I know: Iron Horse 12/21. More details to come.

Now I’m off to see (gulp) 11 houses.

Slip Sliding Away

gr4c55 Comments

img_1484I have always had a touch of social somethingness. Call it anxiety, call it timidness, call it what you will, but I’ve always had it. Lately, it’s gotten worse in a weird way. I’m starting to avoid other things besides odd people. Case in point: I didn’t miss my nephew’s birthday. I was aware of his two-ness all Sunday long yet never got around to sending him anything. I didn’t forget. I just didn’t do. Same with a grandmother. It’s remembering without reaction. Three anniversaries went by and while I thought of the lovebirds, every one of them, I didn’t acknowledge them. What is wrong with me? Those well meaning phrases, “I meant to…” “I wanted to…” don’t mean a thing. And I’ve never liked “It’s the thought that counts” because it’s a copout and besides, no one’s reading my mind as of late. I can assure you that.

Maybe it’s the househunt and the inexplicable want to live just shy of gangland. Maybe it’s the fact I *just* got my car back (today!) and it still needs more work. Maybe it’s the job and the disappointment that I don’t have the most enthusiastic team. Maybe it’s the family and the guilt of not making the trek to see them for the holidays. I can’t even pat myself on the back for running 5.25 miles today.

I feel as though I am slip sliding away from my heart. Some will read this and call me over reactive. Prima-donna dramatic. I think it’s just the opposite. I don’t have the energy to care. My enthusiasm has flat lined.It’s as if I am dead to me.

counting them up

gr4c57 Comments

When I recited the exact date of when I met a friend she chided me, “…speaking of demons! You can’t let go of yours!” I had to laugh. I was ready to blurt out the old caught in the act, “it’s not what it looks like!” Because it is true. For all intents and purposes it doesn’t look like I have let go of anything.
But, as I explained to my friend, I have good demons. I keep them with me to remind me of how my life could have turned out; where I could have been. I think of her brother and know that I am not vain enough to think I would ever have any impact on his life. So, if our relationship had worked out I would be a puzzle piece in his very complicated life. Fate has run its course and everything would be as it is today. There is a demon and his name is Care, because I still do.
Then there is the demon Gabriel. He is the angel of hurt and pain. He exists to remind me of of troubles far deeper than anything I live with today. Liked a drowning survived I have surfaced.
I cannot forget the demon of Humility. I cannot forgive myself for the pains I have caused others. My selfish need to be the center of someone elses world at a loved one’s expense. I never, ever want to go down that road again so I cannot let myself forget.
So many demons to keep for so many reasons. I love them all, need them all, want them all.

And yet. My friend is right.

I was having dinner with someone the other night. We sat stabbing pasta and fiddling with drink straws while discussing family and the expectations bred within bloodlines. Something she said struck a nerve, rattled a belief, and disconnected an age old longing. Just because you are tied by genes doesn’t mean you have to be tethered. I thought I wanted that tell-all, close as shadows siblingry – the first to know, the last to let go kind of relationship. In all actuality I have never known it or needed it. Another demon to let go of.

Strange How the Mind Works

gr4c55 Comments

I was silent all day yesterday because the mind was in overdrive. Funny how that is. There are some days that are stickier than others. Why is that? Why do I remember everything, every little detail, like it was yesterday? The details are stuck like flies on the fly strips of my mind. Twisting and turning, but never completely shaking loose. I can remember the color of your shirt. The way your boots were left untied. The stillness of the room when it was all over. The heavy door closing with a quiet click. The leaving.

There are four days in September that replay like a movie in my head. Anniversaries of a different kind. They pull me down, wear me out. Curiously, each year my reaction to them is a little different. Some years they are as insane as a Stanley Kubrick film – images and memories too bizarre to handle calmly. I succumb to fits of crying, fits of rage. Other years I am dispassionate and objective, surveying the scenes with a cool eye and a cold heart. It’s not that I don’t care or that I’ve forgotten what these scenes mean to me. I’m just able to turn my head from them a little easier. They can’t touch me.
This year I surrounded myself with distraction. Little Miss Socializer. The Big E with all of its glutinous overloads. Greasy food. Flashing lights. Throngs of people. Crazy carnival music. IM’ing for the first time in three years. TalkTalkTalking on the phone. Sitting down to do nothing. Still, the scenes played out – like a movie half ignored. Something flickering in the background. Even when my past came to visit me I couldn’t admit to the memories. I played dumb and talked about the breakwater, ever repeating ‘you were the only one.’ Because that was what mattered then. Matters still.

Now it’s the day after. The clouds have all blown away. Someone has removed the fly strip, thrown it away for another year. There are other memories to come, but those will be met with predictable ease. I will look them in the eye, recognition comes with a nod and then, then I move on. Strange how the mind works.

Rebecca’s Iron Horse Night

gr4c52 Comments
Raining in Georgia
Raining in Georgia

I never remember to write a setlist while Rebecca is singing. I never try to write a review while in the midst of her music. It is hard enough to acknowledge the friends and family around me let alone pay attention to pen and paper.
Yet. And yet trying to review after the fact is always a daunting task. The mind is a funny thing. I might remember something out of order. I may remember something that may or may not have ever happened. Who really knows?
But, here is how I think it went:

  • Breathe
  • Tell Kyle
  • Miss You
  • Nashville (? new song)
  • Hold Me
  • Home*
  • Raining in Georgia**

* Encore encouraged by Vance Gilbert
** Performed with Vance Gilbert

After a small confusion with the tickets we all finally got seated and situated in a darker than dark corner. We sat at a high, wobbly table on stools too high for me. I remained half standing, turned away from my party in order to enjoy the show.
Rebecca looked great. Summer has agreed with her (love the haircut – somehow it looks different from the last time we saw her). She opened at the keyboard with Breathe, the song she wrote when she was just 16 years old. I always picture something different every time I hear this song. She didn’t go back to the keyboard again, but played guitar for the rest of the set. I’m not sure of the order of the rest of the show except the last two songs.
I’m sure Nashville isn’t the name of the new song but Rebecca told a funny story about how when she moved there she missed Massachusetts…but as soon as she came home she wrote a song about coming home…to Nashville. I know exactly how she feels. I have that same pull to Colorado.
Hold Me is always going to devastate me. I can remember the day after I finished running 13.1 miles for LLS I found out someone I had been running in honor of had since passed, my friend’s cancer was back with a vengeance and Rebecca’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It made me feel like everything I had been fighting for failed in some twisted, horrific way. Rebecca’s mom was at the show and I’m sure she had tears of pride in her eyes as she heard Hold Me.
I am greatful to Vance for getting Rebecca back on the stage to sing Home, the Cowboy Christmas song. It’s definitely one of my favorites from the Turks album (it ends the album). I love the fiestiness of it.

As a special treat Vance Gilbert asked Rebecca to join him for a song. No other headliner does that (least not while I’m there). They sang Raining in Georgia together. At first it was simply amazing. Then it turned funny as they tried to outdo each other (last time they did this Rebecca ended up doing a handstand on stage because she couldn’t compete with Vance’s scat abilities). Rebecca’s voice has a richness to it. It takes you places. As Vance said, Rebecca has the voice of a broken angel. So, so true.

Thanks for the tears, girl. They needed to be shed.

Tonight Tonight Tonight

gr4c59 Comments
Miss You cds
Miss You cds

 Could I be anymore freakin’ excited about tonight? Probably not. I can’t remember the last time I saw Rebecca perform. Wait. I think it’s coming back to me…she had just sat next to Aaron Neville on a plane and had been to the CMAs. We hung out for a little bit to hear about her jetset life in Musical Capital Nashville, TN. Okay, so even though I can remember the time I still can say it has been way too long. Waaay too long. As you all know, Rebecca Correia is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world and, and, and she just happens to have one of my favorite voices, too. Her Miss You cd is amazing, lyrically and instrumentally. I think it goes without saying she puts more heart into her music than 75% of what’s on the radio today. Seriously.

So – tonight. Tonight! Tonight we will sit in incredibly uncomfortable wooden chairs that creak, we’ll be incredibly squooshed together, we’ll be enjoying incredibly BadForYou food like pulled pork sandwiches and nachos laden with cheese. We’ll indulge in wickedly evil Wicked Wally desserts dripping with chocolate slime. We’ll laugh at each other and enjoy Rebecca’s goofy stage presence while her voice fills a void. At least, that’s what will happen for me anyway!

Have This Time

gr4c55 Comments

IMG_3586

I am trying really hard to not always write about the negative. It comes out so dramatic and unfailingly stupid. Except, it’s really hard to write about anything else when the sole purpose of the write is the rant. The negative is what got me here in the first place. Back in the day I would crawl around the rooms in my mind and pick out the crap that bugged me the lost. Writing was like opening a window and chucking the worst offenders out. While most of the stuff found a way to crawl back in, some of it was banished forever. If only one out of twenty crapoids disappears for good then mission accomplished I say.
Here’s the reality of my existence: I am dramatic. I am sensitive to the world around me and hypersensitive to how it treats me. When my mother tells me I’m not ready to handle a house (and maybe should get a condo instead) it hurts my feelings. How much of a failure after 40 can I feel? A lot. When people joke that my near-two nephew “didn’t kill me” I get nasty. It’s almost like these people still see me as 16 or something. I tend to shut down and shut out. Okay, so I won’t share the house-hunting antics with those who naysay. So, I won’t mention how my nephew made my heart fall out when he balanced himself on the edge of a 15 foot drop.
So. Those are my negative notions – the things I need to toss out of the attic. Will they find an open window in the basement? How soon will they crawl back into my head? I don’t know. Guess it’s up to me to secure the house. For now, I have. This time.

Mercy Me Mocha

gr4c54 Comments

Serious FaceCar Cat
I wanted to wait a little while before writing about Sean’s gig because, well, because I needed to take it all in. It’s funny how music works that way on me. Sometimes it just reaches out and takes hold and won’t let go. Sometimes it thieves my heart away and other times it just leaves me silent.
In the past I wanted to drag as many people as possible to see shows. Promote, promote, promote! It got to the point where I had exhausted the friend list and got nothing in return. It got to that been-there, done-that, same ole-same ole routine. Some fans didn’t stick while others have stuck around to this day. It use to stress me out – that line of lovers and haters. These days I go where I want to go and don’t worry about the fan base, the fanfare. It’s gotten simpler. Much.
So, seeing Sean started out as something unexpected. Back when I first heard his music I froze in the middle of the floor. I must have looked ridiculous and I’m sure I got laughed at. I’m going to skip the oft-mentioned review of how his voice sounds and tell you what really grabbed me. I hear drums in this one-man, one-guitar show. I hear a beat so loud and solid I can do nothing more than stop and stare; barely breathe. Combine that with absolutely amazing lyrics and I have been hooked ever since.

So, the four of us made the tiny trek north. We wandered around town, peering into shop windows, our minds tasting the menus plastered there, lazily looking for the best place for a bite. We settled on a new place – first night open to the public. Good food, better atmosphere, great service. I made a mental note to come back. I know someone who would think it perfect.
Mocha Maya’s. Just in time for music. Sean Rowe (Speaking of perfect). 

I have to admit I had to ask Sean for a set list because a) he has new music I haven’t heard before & new(er) ones I have yet to commit to memory. Here’s what he remembers:
Surprise
Jonathan (the song I called ‘creepy’. I don’t expect anyone to understand that…It’s why I love Halloween). 
Wet
Rock me baby
Shorty
why i sing the blues

I also think In the Diamonds was in there somewhere, but I have no idea why. We did listen to Sean on the way up to the gig…

My new favorite song: Wet. Beyond beautiful. Sean doesn’t have it on his website as a free listen-to, but it will be on the new album due out Sept 4th, 2008 (hopefully)…

My next gig: July 4th!

ps~ I’m including Mocha Maya’s website because the people there are really super cool. They”ve let me know they loved Sean and will get him back as soon as they can. As soon as they do, I’m there!
Pumpkin Lights

Glad You Think It’s So Funny

gr4c54 Comments

pukeI had another one of those failed restaurant meet-ups a few weeks ago. I was supposed to meet someone for dinner. He thought 7:30pm. I thought 5:30pm. I sat there wondering if he was waiting outside while I was inside doing the exact same thing. Toying with my wine glass, fiddling with the silverware, smoothing the tablecloth with my fingertips, reading the menu until I had it memorized, staring at the artwork on the walls. I’m sure the waiters thought I either had a kidney problem or I was having an affair as they filled my water glass for the eighth time. My friend never came. Until 7:30pm

This week we were able to connect and I’m almost wishing we hadn’t. Before me sat a BBQ burger with BrianFries and crunchy pickles. I was ready to dig in. Before I could take a single bite my friend eyed me and asked the WhatsNewQ. I knew I should have started eating first. After I told him my latest he threw his head back and laughed. Laughed and laughed. Laughed so loud other diners turned with curious looks. Laughed and laughed until he was crying. When he was finally finished and had swallowed the last chuckle he managed to ask, “how in God’s name do you get yourself into these messes?” A tear hung in the corner of his eye and a giggle escaped. I could feel another bout of uncontrolable laughter coming my way. Through gritted teeth I admitted I had no idea. And added it wasn’t funny. Burger aside I had to explain. Or at least try to. My life is one big soap opera minus the orphaned surgeon who never knew he was sleeping with his sister and actually died 3 episodes ago but still managed to seduce the bull fighter’s CIA wife in Africa last week. When I said I was done with drama I should have said I’d like to be done with drama. I’m dreaming if I think I can ever fully escape it.
I never did finish the burger…or even touch the fries.

Boy Bomb

gr4c510 Comments

IMG_1002

I’ve got this guy close to my heart. I think he reads me but then again, I’m not really sure. Maybe not. He’s a road warrior. Hardcore. If he does read me, that’s cool because I want to thank him for being so freakin’ cool. Okay. That was cryptic. I DO mean “read me” on a couple of levels. One maybe more than another.
Yeah. I can hear some of you now. Yes, I’m a married woman. So be it. But, I have this friend. I’ll call him Joe. We’ve had 22 years of something. Friends, lovers, roommates, coworkers, enemies, siblings, classmates, partners, pen pals. I’ve read to him. He’s drawn me. Been there. Done that. I think we have been just about everything to each other at one time or another. I guess I could say we have ultimately ended up where we started. Full circle friends. Only this time he’s not hiding more than several cans of beer in a multi-pocketed jean jacket and I’m not climbing out back windows at 3am. Friends of another era. Kisa’s cool with that. I’m cool with that. It’s not that complicated. It’s cool because I’ve grown to hate complicated.

I go through stages where I miss the snot out of Joe. Then, he’ll call. As if he knows. He gets me laughing. Gets me crying. I want to tell him everything crazy, but his phone crackles and we lose connection. He’ll call back but only to say see ya. Next time. Later, baby. On the road again. And again. My favorite question is not Can you hear me now, but Where are you now? He just laughs. My brilliant boy bomb.

Here’s what I meant to say to him: Boompa: thanks for Arizona. If I could get the darn pic off my phone I’d post it here. I’ll think dream about Zion. I’ve always trusted your travel sense. Congrats on the camp. It’s where you belong. You’re good at everything Weld and you know it. I’ve got issues but we’ll talk about those another time….when you’re within calling range. You know you owe me, myself & moi lunch. 

Oh, and one more thing, don’t pick on the girls too much. We bite. Really.