Ah, 2008. I hardly knew ya, especially since I kept thinking you were 2009 all year.

I sit here in my pajamas at nearly 5 pm, having already visiting one of the 10 bars (we counted today) in my neighborhood for $1 mugs of Stag and the opportunity to hear someone exclaim, “That cocksucker stole my Fruit Loops!”. I’ve got Little Steven’s Underground Garage cranked, a Coke with a shot of Buffalo Trace bourbon, and I’m thinking about reflecting. However, having had two beers and a bit of bourbon, I’m going to need the assistance of my blog. That, and I’m lazy. There are invisible links after the name of each month, as I link to past entries that highlight my year. 2009. I mean, 2008.

Read the rest of this entry

• My sleep patterns are so screwed. I didn’t go to bed until 4 a.m. after Saturday’s concert. Slept for four hours, woke up with Activ-On withdrawl, went back to sleep at 10 a.m. and didn’t wake until 2 p.m. Sunday night, no sleep until after 4 a.m. I’m tired as hell, but here it is, twenty til 3 a.m., and I’m awake.
• On the plus side I finished knitting a snood for Kristina’s greyhound and finished reading “Jesus Land”. I’m also relieved the fridge of the last of the Christmas stuffing.
• What really doesn’t make sense is I had a super relaxing day. I took myself to lunch at Iron Barley – crab cake and beer! Then I spent over an hour browsing the used CDs at Euclid, scoring the one Andrew Bird CD I lacked, a compilation of ’60s girl garage bands, and the issue of Mojo magazine with The Clash on the cover from a few months ago. I never get to do that, and it was pure bliss. I think every CD I’ve owned in the past 16 years has found its way to the used bin.
• Two late adolescent girls came in, and I overheard them talking about how, as much as they like downloads, there’s just something about having the actual recording in your hands. Hope for the future!
• Oops. I just got sucked into reading the year-end lists on Euclid’s site. The lack of sleep and whatever is causing it are also causing me to be easily distracted and scatterbrained.
• Read the rest of this entry

Yesterday morning, Chloe the basset hound pulled down the Christmas tree. When Brian righted it, rather precariously, Romi the feline knocked it down. Assuming they weren’t the culprits of the original tree-felling two weeks ago, that means every animal in this house has knocked over the tree, which means Christmas is officially over. The end. Burn that motherfucker. Let’s see if my little pack of morons will try to pull the charred remains from the fireplace. I wouldn’t put it past them.

In celebration of the end of this skewed holiday, Brian and I hit the final in a series of 15th anniversary shows by The Bottle Rockets. You might remember our last BRox experience, when we took Clara Jane to see their in-store at Euclid Records a few months ago in hopes that she’d stop making me play “Radar Gun” for her 30 times a day. Not that I minded. I’ll take 30 Bottle Rockets repeats over 30 Laurie Berkner repeats any day.

This time we went sans kid, since it was an over 21 show. Good thing, too, because although my kid can boogie, she probably would have been pretty cranky after three hours of booty-shaking that ended at 1 a.m. I also don’t like it when people slosh beer on my kid, but I kind of like it when it happens to me.

It’s probably been around 15 years since I went to my first Bottle Rockets show. Ah, back in my college days, and all those Uncle Tupelo, Pale Divine (who are having a reunion show tomorrow night and I find myself completely nonplussed), early Wilco and the BRox. I remember seeing them in October, 1994, opening for Wilco about a week before my birthday. I’d probably piss my drawers to get a chance to see that again.

Read the rest of this entry

Hallelujah, it’s over and done. This Christmas season, with its myriad of ass-pains, is over. At least, the worst of it is. Brian and I have returned from my hometown. Clara Jane’s spending a few days with my parents. I’m looking forward to tomorrow night’s Bottle Rockets show and Sunday’s LiveFeed show at Cicero’s. It’s time to blow off the steam.I think our entire holiday can be summed up in this photo:

Oh, there’s a story, of course.

Christmas Eve, we were opening gifts with my parents, Brian’s parents and my grandparents. Part-way through a gift, Clara Jane stopped, and ran to the bathroom to pee. Ah, being fully potty trained – that’s the best gift ever.

Well, there’s one gift that’s better. That gift is a lifetime of blackmail material against one’s child.

On Christmas day, we were repeating the gift-opening with even more relatives and some family friends when once again, nature called. Clara Jane once again jumped up and ran for the bathroom. Now, that’s a kid with some excellent potty skills, I’m thinking. Not once but twice she stops unwrapping gifts to potty.

And then my mom started laughing, because this is what she saw:

She knew this trip to the bathroom was going to take longer. Not wanting to miss out on precious gift-unwrapping time, my ingenius, if not ill-mannered, child came up with the perfect solution: put the potty chair in the middle of the festivities for a little crap n’ unwrap!

Being able to share this stories and photos for the rest of my living days? It’s nearly vindication for that tantrum she threw at the botanical gardens the other day. Hell, it almost makes up for the 32 hours of labor.

Since I don’t have any songs about Christmas crap, I turned the iTunes Genius loose with some Bottle Rockets, in honor of their 15th anniversary.

Read the rest of this entry

Clara Jane and I went to the annual Gardenland Express display of Christmas flowers and model trains at the Missouri Botanical Gardens today. Doesn’t she look like she’s having an awesome time?

That gleam in her eye? Certainly that’s Christmas cheer, right? That’s not possibly the glare of a brewing temper tantrum, straight from the bitter pits of Hades, set to erupt about an hour after this photo was taken, right?

Wrong.

Read the rest of this entry

Tonight, Brian, Clara Jane and I volunteered at the women’s shelter where my friend Kate has been volunteering. While nothing extraordinary happened, it was still an extraordinary experience. There weren’t any moments like on a very special episode of any ’80s sitcom in which upper-middle-class characters learn about homelessness by going to a shelter and seeing a familiar, unexpected face. There were no poignant moments of women confessing what led them to the streets.

There was a lot of explaining what quiche is, and lots of accolades and thanks. I should have made five instead of four.

Shortly before we got to the shelter, Clara Jane asked, “When are we getting to the homeless shelter?” Hearing those words come out of my kid’s mouth threw me. She repeated some of the stuff we discussed last night – sometimes people don’t have homes or places to fix their meals, and helping them is a good thing to do. Hearing her say these things made me regret what I’d told her, because I’m concerned that I’m teaching her to pity. I don’t want to teach her to pity; I want to teach her to respect, no matter what a person’s station in life may be.

Regardless, I don’t think she said anything like that to any of the residents. Instead, she let them dote on her. I don’t know how many times tonight I was told that my daughter is an angel. She certainly acted like one, aside from arguing with a woman about what she should eat. The woman has two children, ages 5 and 7, and she seemed to want to mother Clara Jane. So I let her. She managed to get Clara Jane to eat the carrots that she had previously deemed “not the right kind”.

Just because someone is without a home doesn’t change her as a person. Once a mom, always a mom.

Kate had told me about one woman who would absolutely adore Clara Jane, and she wasn’t wrong. Clara Jane and this woman held hands during grace, and sat together at dinner.

Afterwards, I was sitting in the dining area with the women. The woman who’d mothered Clara Jane had given her a chocolate Santa as a reward for trying everything on her plate. The other woman said, “Oh, I had a goodie for her, but I can’t top chocolate.” She went to her cot, returned with something behind her back, and said, “It might not be chocolate, but I hope she likes it.”

And what should she hand Clara Jane?  Another one of those slutty Happy Meal Barbies that Clara Jane loves so much, the ones that led her to begging for a Barbie for Christmas. One of the Barbies she didn’t already have, even.

I doubt if we’ll see such a joyful, surprised reaction on Christmas as the one Clara Jane gave that woman who gave her the Barbie she’d been wanting so badly. Clara Jane and the woman in the shelter, each giving what they had to give. That’s better than anything in the pile of presents I came home and wrapped tonight.

Oh no. I’ve only been up for 12 hours, so the day is still young! That’s right. It’s ten minutes to one in the morning. I slept around 12 hours last night, not including the 4-hour nap I took Saturday afternoon.

Hey. It’s Solstice. I figure it all balances out. Don’t ask me how.

I found a way to fix the holiday blahs that I had on Saturday. Besides hibernating, although that helped, too.

My friend Kate is in town, and she’s been volunteering the women’s shelter at her mom’s church. I had wanted to provide a dinner or two (the shelter relies on people bringing in meals), but the schedule is full of volunteers for the rest of the season (through March). Which is great news. As much as I wanted to pitch in, I was thrilled that they had a waiting list.

Well, they did have a waiting list. Not anymore. In what might be the worst case of no good deed going unpunished, one of the people who had volunteered to provide many of the meals was laid off from her job on Friday. Such is life at the end of 2008, I guess. One day you’re set to provide food to those without. The next, you could very well be the person in need.

Read the rest of this entry

Dear Christmas: End, already!

I realized this morning, when I couldn’t drag myself out of bed to go to my kid’s school Santa Breakfast that I am really, really over the holidays this year. I think I said that a week or so ago, but this time I’m really over them.

I’m over them to the point of being pretty down. After Brian and Clara Jane came home from breakfast (Clara Jane said that the Santa was a “dress-up Santa”), I went back to bed and stayed there most of the day. It’s not that I was tired. I just couldn’t think of anyplace I’d rather be.

Sad thing is, shortly before I went to bed I listened to Clara Jane recite the bulk of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” to the cat. I must be funked out, because something like that would normally send me to the roof with glee. Today, I just wanted quiet.

Grinch. I am her.

Read the rest of this entry

When Clara Jane isn’t pestering Santa for her own Barbie army, she’s been begging for art supplies. Not that she doesn’t have a houseful of art supplies. Just about every surface in our house has a supply of markers, crayons, glue, scissors, paper and stickers should any creative emergencies arise. Which they do. Often. She wants to be an artist, she says, which means lots of practice.

I don’t mind this one single bit at all. Being a little on the creative side myself, I love that we share this trait. Brian thinks we’re a little whacked. Rather, he doesn’t remember do imaginative, creative stuff. That’s all I did and to an extent, still do.

Today we hit the Action/Abstraction: Pollack, de Kooning, and American Art 1940-1976 exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum with Kate and her little friend Esther. Before hitting the exhibit, we did a study in contrasts:

I’ll bet you can accurately pick which child will wind up rolling on the floor at the museum snack bar before the day’s out!

(That would be mine.)

Read the rest of this entry

Remember two weeks ago, when my dear friend Summer left two bags of puffy Cheetos (and possibly a midsized bottle of Absolut that might have been drunk) on my porch? She’s at it again. Today she showed up with Christmas gifts: two Vosges Mo’s Bacon Bars (that would be a high-end chocolate bar filled with bacon) and a ham.

Oh, not just any ham. It’s not in a can. Or deviled. Or deli sliced. This bad-ass meat chunk is a leg, bone included. It’s from Wenneman Meat Market.

You know it’s good ham when it comes from a place that uses “You can’t beat our meat” as  their catch line. When I opened it and Clara Jane, beside herself with glee shrieked, “Oh! I wanna have that for dinner tonight!”, I almost threw it in the oven right then and there. It’s so big that dinner would have had to happen at 3 A.M., but still. I can eat ham at 3 A.M.

Geez. Give Summer a styrofoam cooler full of sausage for her birthday once and the pork just keeps coming.

(Really, I’m thrilled. This will most likely be my favorite gift this year because let me tell you, I really like ham. A lot. I also love that Summer doesn’t hesitate to leave Cheetos on my porch and give me a giant smoked pig leg for Christmas. That’s a person who truly gets what makes me tick.)

Now that I’ve got you all hungry, I’m going to bring on the guilt.

If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you know I’m a sucker for hunger relief organizations. While I will help my friends raise funds for their pet causes, when I’m deciding where to help, I always go for the hunger organizations. For one thing, if people aren’t getting their most basic human need met, well, something’s seriously fucked up. There’s absolutely, positively no reason why anyone should go hungry. Ever. Also, having gone through culinary school, run my own tiny catering company, taught people to cook, and written about food for a good chunk of the past decade, I feel obligated to help people get fed. Not just the ones who can afford catered events or wine-soaked classes on how to throw cocktail parties, either.

Read the rest of this entry