COLLEGE: Like Kindergarten. But way bigger. And more expensive. And a lot farther away.

So we shipped our first born child off to college this past weekend.  So far she's been busy bonding with her three new roommates, exploring the grounds, and getting fed at all the free events the school's been throwing.  The rest of the time she's in her room with the Mac Book Pro (all the photography students get a computer issued by the program) editing photos she took here at home.  Oh yeah, she also showed up at her first class yesterday.  On time.

She's rocking this.

Now you're wondering how I'm doing.

I'M GREAT!

No seriously.  I'm handling this better than I thought I would.  I squeezed out a few tears on Friday night, in my bed, with my face stuck to her daddy's shoulder.  That was my hard time.  I'd spent the last half a year preparing myself for the basic idea that my kid will be not living in the same house as me during the week.  I introduced to her the concept of self-nagging.  She ended up not getting a steady job this summer, and while it would have been good to have some money earned up, she had time to work on her photography skills and talk to her mother about life and stuff, and also, grow up a little.  I had time to enjoy her presence.

I just had that one moment Friday night.

Okay maybe I've been choked up a couple times.

But I'm way more okay than I expected.

That child walked into the kindergarten yard all those years ago in her floweree-ree-ree-ree jacket and cute skirt and red rubber boots, wide eyed and free of expectations.  She walked out a couple hours later, looked at the yellow school bus, and burst into tears when I told her that she could't go on the bus because we lived just down the street and she had to walk home with me and her little brother.  That was my forehead slap moment.  I didn't prepare her for that!  I'd told her how when I was a little girl living on Grandma's farm I took the bus to school.  I forgot to tell her that kids who live two blocks away from the school walk home, holding mommy's hand, with little brother in the stroller.

Now she lives about an hour away from the school.  Her new home away from home is a residence building, just across the lane from a nice cafeteria and mere minutes from the school's photography studio.  Everything is a short walk.

I am pretty sure I thought of everything this time.  I told her about how my one and only year of college was different because I was 20 and married.  And how I had only been on a city bus once in my life.  And how I had a meltdown beside a bus shelter the night before my first class because the posted bus schedule looked like a Russian blueprint and what the hell was I doing living in a place with all these buildings everywhere, right beside each other... while my young husband sat on the curb with his head in his hands wondering what he was thinking, taking this little hick out of her natural habitat, the full realization sinking in that he had just married a crazy chick.

Selina is a little odd and quirky, but she's not crazy.  And she's not typical.  She's not swayed by what everybody else is doing.

Not like back in kindergarten.  She went in with full sentences and decent grammar and clear enunciation.  She came home the second day talking like a baby.  Oh wow.  Poor kid looked around with those big eyes and open ears and figured out that this is what we do in kindergarten.

I'm not really concerned that she'll come home next weekend talking with full-on vocal fry, sentences all dipping down at the end, eyes rolling, hair flipping, slouching, post-valley-girl apathy.  (Luckily so far her roommates don't fit that description.  Whew.)

MEANWHILE, back at the Ol' Homestead.

Bucky went to school yesterday without his sister for the first time ever.  He was ready with time to spare and had nobody to nag at to quick hurry up get ready don't make me miss the bus.  He drove over to the bus stop and everybody got to see him get out of the driver's seat.

I will now be the recipient of all Bucky's practical jokes and advanced trolling.  Unless he text spams his sister.  Which he will.  Because waiting five days for her to come back is a lot longer than waiting two hours for her to come home.

The Young Lady

My first born child is 18 now.  

She used to trot to school and whinny at her teacher.

Now she can drive.

She is well on her way into a promising career in photography.  She's gigging, she's set up for college in the fall, and she's getting to know other people in the photography biz.  

All week she's been on assignment for a music festival, which means she is doing specifically what she plans to do to make a living: taking pictures of musicians!

I am bursting.  

I can't even tell you.

Just overflowing.

This is the first time in I-don't-know-how-many years that it's spring time and I am not miserable.

I don't know why.  I don't know what's made me feel better.  And I kind of don't care.

All I know is, I'm okay.

Not 100% okay.  Of course not. Who is?  Not 100% of the time either.  But how do I know whether or not that's normal?  Maybe there are people out there who feel consistently great.  Or content, at least.  I don't, and I'm sure nobody I know does either.

But I'm generally mostly Okay.

Isn't that wonderful?

Spring has usually been awful for me.  I hate March and April.  Spring stinks.  Literally and metaphorically.  I hate the mud, I hate the erratic weather, and I hate the fact that I don't understand my own misery.  To top it all off, I'm irritated that I seem to be alone in this. Everybody else is all ooooh spring has sprung flowers birds chirping sunshine fabric softener and I'm all screw you all you happy morons dammit whatever crap arrrgh melting dog poop rotten hay manure shut up I'm tired don't ask me why I'm crying cuz I don't know go away I hate everything.


You know how that's been going for the last three months? More like this:

Hey... You know what, it's like, halfway through March and I'm... not horribly depressed.  


Hmmm.  I wonder.  Better drugs?  Got to ride more often this winter?  The past seven years of therapy have started kicking in?  That new Big Wreck album is awesome?  


Oh well.  Doesn't matter.


I think I like Ritalin.


I don't feel like getting off my ass and going out to the barn. But I'm going to anyways.


And now that I'm in the barn I don't want to leave the horses and go back in the house.


The Pug bounds through the new grass and I smile at him as we do our daily walk around the Old Homestead. 


I sit at the dining room table with my daughter and son and we laugh together.


I'm in love.  I've got my head on his chest, his heartbeat under my ear, his big arm around my back. I've been in love with him for 25 years.   


I'm.... happy.


Oh, dear God.  


I'm actually... tentatively... cautiously... happy.


Not like it changes a whole lot, because I still don't know why I'm crying.  I suspect these days, the tears well up because I just FEEL so much.  It's so different.  I've had so many long stretches of time --since I was what, twelve? -- when I didn't feel much of anything.  At its worst, I couldn't even feel any worry over my lack of feeling.  It was blankness.  It never felt right because I'm a person who sees and smells and hears and freakin' feels every damn thing around me.  The emptiness of depression is so deep and dark.

I never want to go into that hole again but who knows, it might happen.  What I've been telling myself for the last few years is this:

IF I DO FALL INTO ANOTHER DEPRESSION, I KNOW THIS TIME AROUND THAT IT WILL NOT BE PERMANENT.


But this year?

This year, Spring 2012?

I am not miserable.  I can get out of bed and stay out of bed and get on with my day.  I can fall asleep without lying awake for hours, worrying.  I can think.  I can breathe.  There are so many things wrong with my life right now (mostly involving real estate and the location of my husband's job) but hey man, I have a life.  I have not woken up dead.  Sometimes, believe it or not, I even open my eyes and think, "Huh, look at that.  I'm alive.  Cool."

Let's not ask why or wonder how long this will last.

I just want to let it happen.

THE FIRE SWAMP

The bus route takes my kids down this stretch of gravel road, where you could think you're hours away from anything man-made other than the road itself.

There's an interesting valley along there which Annyong has named The Fire Swamp.  (There are no Rodents Of Unusual Size though... I don't think they exist...)

Today after school we HAD TO take a little trip over there to take pictures.  She didn't even have her good camera with her but the light was so incredible she'd settle for iGadget pix. 

 Meanwhile, Bucky made fake wildlife calls and/or singing "the Trollolol Song" (fantastic echo in that forested swampy valley!) and I kept going on and on and on about the happy loud springtime noise made by millions of invisible critters.

A couple of things must be said about this little field trip, and the weather, and us:

This is bizarrely warm for the month of March in Ontario.  We were all wearing shorts and T shirts. I've been sleeping with my bedroom window open for almost a week.  I've had laundry hanging to dry on the wash line for a few days in a row. 

It won't last... we always get one last wet snowfall in April.  Always.  But we've been enjoying a rare early spring heatwave, the warmest I can remember in over twenty years.  

And, I LOVE WHERE I LIVE.  

We were out there for a good twenty minutes, and only one car came through.  And this is rush hour.  I love it, I love it, I love it. 

And while I'm at it, this declaring of truths and observations... my kids are awesome.  

One last thing: Yes, she took every one of these pictures with an iPhone.  Like, allow me to be convinced that she is a magician.  Yeah, the iGadget camera is pretty impressive but it's the eye behind it that counts.  

Why I CANNOT watch the Oscars tonight!!!

I'm going to bed because my daughter and I are getting up at 3:30 am to get on a train to the city so Annyong can do her college interview and portfolio presentation.  Yeah I said 3:30 am.  And yeah, I said COLLEGE.

I watched the red carpet show.  So far, best dressed - Stacy Kiebler, Glenn Close, Octavia Spencer.  No pix.  Gotta trust me on this one. That's all folks.  Goodnight.

SPIN THE BLACK CIRCLE

Oh yeah.  Vinyl.  Good ol' grooves.

What you are seeing on that turntable is... JOHNNY CASH AT SAN QUENTIN.

On the back of the album sleeve is my Auntie's maiden name, and the date: January 1970.  

That makes this record older than me by about 11 months.  I wasn't even an idea yet.

It's been years since we've had this record player working.  On the weekend, Jethro and Bucky finally tracked down a store, luckily not too far from home, that sells this obscure item known as a stylus.  They had to buy the entire cartridge, the whole black thing at the end of the arm.  Jethro didn't mind, even though it was kind of pricey (we'd already turned down an opportunity to go see RDJ at the movies because we didn't think we could shell out over $60...) because it's a good piece of gear.  Might even be worth more than the whole record player.  haha.  

We've got this nice record collection, made up of a combination of the following:

My record buying years:

-Duran Duran

-Tears For Fears

-The Clash

-Led Zeppelin

Jethro's record buying years:

-Ozzy Osbourne

-Black Sabbath

-Led Zeppelin

-Yngwie Malmsteen (I'm not even kidding)

My parent's record buying years:

-Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

-Baja Marimba Band (that is a seriously great record)

-Marty Robbins

-a few obscure gospel bands/ cousins and other relatives who sang hymns and got some vinyl pressed

My sister's record buying years:

-Bryan Adams

-Blondie

My mom's sister's record buying years:

-Johnny Cash

-Gordon Lightfoot

-Joni Mitchell

What an amazing collection!

We've got a Bill Cosby comedy album next to Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual.

Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet and Simon & Garfunkel, The Sounds Of Silence.

(I am going to name a critter Garfunkel some day.)

Van Halen, 1984 beside XTC, English Settlement (another great record, obscure in my neck of the woods)

Forgotten Rebels and The Cure.

INXS, Listen Like Thieves and ABBA...pick one, I had a serious ABBA phase between ages 9 and 11!

We've got a Molly Hatchett record.

We've got the Iron Butterfly sleeve but Jethro turned Innagaddadavida into a frisbee about 30 years ago.

We've got two copies of Zenyatta Mondatta by the Police.

People, we've got a Sigue Sigue Sputnik record.  I'm not kidding.


ISN'T THIS FUN!???!

It's been so long since we could play records.  We've been in this house for over two years and only recently got our stereo system set up.  This is a temporary home... we weren't even planning on being here this long.  But we missed our music.  Now we can watch TV, watch a movie on DVD, I don't think we can play our Wallace & Gromit VHS ("everybody knows the moon's made of cheese...") and I don't think we can play cassettes (yes we still have those too, how do you think we listen to all the Van Halen?) but I do think we can play CDs... there are four remotes and I'm still not sure how to turn the TV on --seriously, four remotes and I'm still getting off my butt to hit the channel button? We've got an iPod dock hooked up so we can drop an iGadget in there and listen to a playlist.

And now, WE CAN PLAY RECORDS!

Last night Bucky discovered Blizzard Of Ozz.

We'd given him the disc last year and were shocked to hear how different it sounded.  Apparently somebody thought it would be a good idea to re-record the bass and drums.  We thought it was a terrible idea and decided to ostracize that CD, promising Bucky we'd get the ol' record player fired up.

So I gave Bucky the tutorial on Dropping The Needle.

There's the hissing and crackling, and there's Randy Rhoads, and we grinned.  The record skipped.  I giggled.  "It's the real thing, kids!  There's nothing else like it!"

Jethro later said, "I played the crap outta that record.  I bought it used, and then I played the crap out of it."

Well kids, it's not perfect.  The turntable has a nasty ground hum that can be heard between tracks.  There will be noises coming out of those vinyl grooves that aren't music.

But the music is there.

It isn't compressed, it isn't crushed down into MP3 files.  It doesn't have any of that ProTooled sandpaper-on-the-ears bullcrap.  It wasn't mastered so loud it hurts.  Music shouldn't hurt.  You should be able to turn it up and enjoy it without suffering hearing damage.  Jethro has been devoting his career to making good-sounding music and making a stand against music that just sounds like a wall of fuzz.  A lot of teenagers have grown up on recordings that have been processed to death.  And they listen to slammed files with no dynamics and way too much noise.  They listen to it loud, in earbuds.  They don't really know how recorded music is meant to sound.  Half the time they've only got one earbud in, which makes Jethro tear his hair out, because he spends 16 hours a day mixing in stereo -- as in, each side has something different going on -- and these guys are only listening to one side.  They're missing half of it.

Let's face it: the entire music industry is a broken rusted shadow of its former self.  We know this first hand.  We live it.

And Bucky and Annyong go to school, stand on their little soapboxes and proclaim all of this to their misguided peers.... and are met with uncomprehending stares.

Ours aren't allowed to have a million small files of music on their iPods.  They are allowed to have like, a couple hundred, that are in big files and sound good.

So we listened to Ozzy last night.  Wine is fine, but liquor is quicker.  Tonight we'll listen to the story of Mr Crowley.  Tomorrow night we'll listen to side 2 of Johnny Cash cussing his way through a set of songs to the appreciative howls of a bunch of prisoners.

GOOD TIMES.

It is far from perfect, vinyl, but I don't think we've reached a perfect method of recording music yet in the first hundred years of the art and science.  Records are better than wax cylinders.  Besides, wax cylinder players are even harder to find than record player needles.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine... I keep my eyes wide open all the time...

Why the Best of 2011 List is not done yet

I have this teenager who needs the computer to apply for scholarships. As in, college. Photography. Yeah, college. That really is more important.

The List is going to be great though. I'm getting James Franco to host. I hear he's done a hosting gig before and therefore has experience.

Merry merry happy happy etc etc....!

Well people, thanks for joining my Christmas blog party, and if you missed it, I'll catch you next year!

I'm going to take a week or so off. I plan on hunkering down with the family and it would be kinda uncool to be blogging when I could be actually interacting with my favourite humans, you know, in real life, in real time.  Keepin' it REAL man!

I've been doing some serious soul searching these past couple weeks, and giving myself a few good pep talks.  Gotta do that sometimes.

Conclusions:

-Not everybody (Me) is happy during Christmas... and yes there is a lot of pressure heaped on us, to be and act and do what somebody decided we should act and do and feel.  I think we should be allowed to feel how we feel.  All the time.  So yeah, I feel chafed and scraped by that kind of happiness-conformity.

-Doesn't mean I have to be miserable.

-I'm the only one who gets to decide how miserable I'm going to be.

-The very core of Christmas to me, is good.

-I have family that I love and who love me back.

-I AM BLESSED.





I hope all of you, each and every one of you, finds something to be blessed with this Christmas.

Be well, be merry!  (Unless you don't wanna be!)

ps,
41.  Forty-one.  Forty-ONE.  There's the hill, and I am on my way down the other side.  Should get easier from now on, eh?  hahahahahahahahaaaaa

A year with Oakie

 Last year, Halloween was on a Sunday.  That's the day we brought Oakie to the Old Homestead.  When we left the Little Valley, my friend Susan was getting Spyder ready for trick-or-treat.  (We don't get trick-or-treaters out here.  But I had to buy candy.  Just in case, right?)

So we've now had a full year with this sweet little chestnut Quarter Horse mare.

I won't claim that she's perfect.  I always wrap her front pasterns when riding, to keep her sound.  She tends to be very forward, as in, you don't need much "gas" to make her go!  She only tolerates children, but she is awesome with my adult students.  Even though I know she could ride a little better -- more impulsion from her hindquarters, slow down some, get the lateral movements tuned up -- I really enjoy being on her back.  She's so responsive and eager.  

She looooves to be treated kindly.  I think most horses do, but she really appreciates a good spa day.  Her lips twitch with happiness when you go at her with a nice soft brush.  

And she's got the most beautiful large eyes.  

She and Annyong have developed a lovely friendship.

So yeah.  This horse stays with me for life! 

Jethro plans to drag me KICKING AND SCREAMING to New York City!!!

He's really gonna do it.  He's gonna talk me into it.

When I tell people he's taking me to NYC with him in a couple weeks, I get reactions like "Oh wow you are so lucky!" and "Woo hoo glamorous jet set life" and the sarcastic kind of "Yeah poor you, being forced to go to the most fabulous/ glamorous/ famous city in the world."

Are you friggen kidding me?  Hello, that city is full of people.   Like, wall-to-wall people.  And I bet 89% of them are bigger than me!  It's all loud there and like, polluted probably, and loud, and you can't see the sky unless you look straight up, right?  And if you believe what you see on TV everybody gets mugged at least once a day.  I've never been mugged in my life.  I'm not even sure exactly what it involves but I'm pretty sure I don't want it happening to me!

But, I'm going to NYC because he wants to take me with him.  

Sigh.  I know, I know.  I'm lucky.  Being this guy's wife has meant going places I never expected to see.  I come from a long line of farm families for whom an overnight stay is next to impossible.  I can't say I didn't want to see different parts of the world.  It's just that as a kid, I never expected it.

Most of all, I'm just not a city person.

Jethro is going to the Audio Engineering Society Convention.  He's never been to one, ever, in over 20 years, because he's always been... you know, working. Doing that audio engineering thing that he does. He's going this year because he's presenting a speech.  If he's gonna go he's gonna go big.  That's just how he operates.

He'll be doing a talk on How He Plans To Revolutionize The Way Music Is Recorded.

Don't ask me, man, all I know is I had to go to Montreal with him so he could listen to two versions of a song on a machine that doesn't dither the sample rate conversion...digital file...non-pro-tools... um, thingie.

Bottom line, for me, is the chance to spend four days with my man.  I am, after all, the president of his fan club.  I gotta be there.

It means leaving the farm though.  And by that I mean, I have to leave the teenagers and grandparents here - man I hope the kids are going to be okay, taking care of the grandparents, haha.  The kids will be responsible for a dog, a house cat, two barn cats and three horses.  There will have to be some arranging to get everybody to the bus stop, and to an early morning band practice.  I'm lucky to have teenagers who actually have a clue about how to do stuff.

Can you imagine if this was an actual working farm?  Like with 100 dairy cows?  Yikes.  It's hard enough to leave here. I know it'll be okay because we've gone away before.  But it always worries me a little.

So.  Little Hick in NYC.

Can I get excited about this?  I hear there are some pretty big art museums in NYC.  I'd like to see that.

Jethro thinks I should set up some lunch dates with literary agents.  I clamped down a bitter laugh.  It don't work that way, folks.  I mean, it would be nice.  What would I do to meet JANETREID the Shark Herself?  That would be awesome!!  But that's not how it works.  Instead I think I'll just get my picture taken with the front door of the building her office is in.  Close enough?

My American writer friends tell me I won't get mugged.  Probably.

And in case you wondered... Yes I will most likely be wearing at least one article of clothing with a John Deere logo on it.  What else would I wear?

So if you live in NYC, and for some odd reason you are reading this, if you happen to see a smallish woman wearing clothes with pictures of green tractors, clinging to the arm of a large man, staring up at buildings in slack jawed amazement, yep, that'll be me.

The Last Gasp of Summer

That's always how the long weekend feels. 

Jethro and I took the kids and the dog up to Lake Huron.  

Everything cooled suddenly the last couple days, which was a bit of an adjustment after a pretty darn hot summer.  On our way up Highway 8, just as we went through Seaforth, we got pelted with rain.  I mean, raindrops this big (hold your thumb and forefinger together), and with great force. It turned into an epic experience... we were listening to Apocalyptica, and it was during "Helden" which is actually a cover of David Bowie's "Heroes" but trust me, waaaay heavier (seriously?  The frontman from Rammstein singing in German over cello metal?  YES)  when the torrential downpour happened. The storm was about as long as the song, and peaked when the song was ripping through a climactic thunder clap of shrieking distorted strings.  You know what it was?  It was awesome.  Truly.  Then on our way out of town, the clouds sort of gave up and the sun came out - just as the song was ending!  I know- TIMING.  It was incredible.  

Annyong declared that she would totally remember that for the rest of her life.  

We went to Goderich.

A couple weeks ago, a tornado took out the town square.  

I didn't want to be a gawker.  But Jethro insisted on putting some money into the local economy... tourism will be taking a beating these days.  He just wanted to show Goderich a little love. 

It's so easy to love.  

 In the background, you can see the part of the salt mine that didn't get hit by the twister.

Geez, Bucky is getting shoulders on him like his father.  

Annyong and Bucky both had to check out the playground.  Why not, nobody else was.  

And here in the background you can see where the twister did hit the salt mine.  Looks like it's been crumbling for 30 years.  Nope.  Less than ten minutes.  Less than five, probably.

We never know when Nature is gonna come along and kick us in the teeth.  

Count your blessings every time you're spared the wrath.  

She even takes arty pictures with an iPhone.  

Eventually we stopped by for a nice meal at a place with an outdoor patio, where The Pug was sort of allowed but not really.  He had to stay outside the fence, where he alternated between crying for Mommy (that'd be me) and greeting restaurant patrons as they came by the front entrance. 

I leaned over and stuffed fries into his mouth.  Look, I never do that, okay?  But they were really tasty, and he'd been quiet for a few minutes, so I figured, aw heck.  Last weekend of summer.  Have a fry.  

Seeing the damage in the town was...heartbreaking... yet hopeful.  There are so many trees lying on their sides, with their roots gone vertical because of the way they were lifted out of the earth.  Trees with nothing left but spikes of thick branches because the funnel cloud stripped everything else away. Piles of rubble stacked neatly at the curb.  

Windows boarded over with plywood, spray painted with messages:

Thank you volunteers

We will rebuild

We'll be "The Prettiest Town in Canada" again!

All choked up.

I wouldn't have recognized the town square, which was all fenced off.  It didn't look right.  Totally unfamiliar.  It wasn't just the boarded up windows and missing walls.  I couldn't quite place the wrongness... it was the trees.  They're gone.  The inner square was like a park, and all of those trees are gone.  What's left of them has been cut up and taken away already, probably done while the hydro crews worked.  It was eery.  

Tornadoes are so unfair.  

But it's amazing how people can band together, help each other, and overcome.  Do some grieving, and get to work.  Move on.

Summer's gone.

This morning, I sent my younguns off to school.  

Every year I take a picture on the first day of school.  This is her last year.  Oh my gosh.  

I think next weekend we'll take the pool down...

MUSE: The band we'll do a 9 hour road trip to see.

This is the word I heard a lot of over a three day period:

LOLLAPALOOZA!

And this is the other word:

WERGONNASEEMUUUUSE!

When Annyong excitedly told me that Muse would be playing Lollapalooza in August and that it's the closest gig to us they'll be playing for the next two or three years because they're all moving back to England and they'll be writing and recording their next album so they won't be touring for ages and plus Matt&Kate have a new baby and Wolstenbeast and his Mrs will probably have a sixth baby cuz they seem to have one baby for each album and also Dom might get a new puppy so WE HAVE TO GO SEE THEM IN CHICAGO IT'S ONLY AN EIGHT HOUR DRIVE AWAY FROM US WE HAVE TO DO IT and also my friend has to come with us because we played the entire Origin Of Symmetry in the dance classroom lying on our backs at lunch hour and we looooove this band more than anything ever.

(Annyong, hanging around before A Perfect Circle played their set.)

So after I said no a couple times and then broke down into coming up with lame reasons why we couldn't go, I came up with an idea.

You kids get jobs and pay for the trip, and we'll go.  

And you know what?  They totally stepped up.  They did it.  They made this trip happen.  It was so worth it.  It was worth the cost and the drive. (And the stress.)

(Our last road trip in the USA was overshadowed by a lot of anxiety and tears on my part, so I had some hesitation about the whole thing.)

You know what?  Our kids are fantastic - funny, cool and goodhearted - and choose excellent friends.  Spending a day in a Volkswagen with the three of them was a truly wonderful experience.

Know what else was wonderful?  Muse.

(Jethro took the pix. The girls were closer than we were.  I had problems with this but it's not a rough crowd.  More fanatically enthusiastic appreciative rocking than moshing.)

We've been to a lot of concerts, Jethro and I, over the last 20-plus years. He has been making musicians sound good for a living for his entire adult life.  Our standards are very high.  Muse didn't just meet our expectations - they exceeded. Even if they hadn't brought the lights and videos and lasers and like, exploding spaceships and stuff, they'd have blown my mind.

They are so technically good, and musically complex plus haavy and on top of that they have a sense of humour.  They did a little AC/DC riff between songs and I'm so sure I heard some Rage Against The Machine in there too. Their whole set was gloriously stage-banter-free.  Just the basic, thank you, you're a great audience kind of thing.  Specifically, "Thank you for coming to see us tonight.  We know you had options.  You chose the right one."  Heck yes we did.

Oh and because this is a ROCK BAND there had to be a guitar getting rammed through the kick drum.

(I think it's ok.  It took three techs to get it out of the kick drum and replace the skin, but I'm pretty sure he brought the same guitar back out for the encore. Hey man, rocking is not a gentle art form!)

Also, Hunky Bass Player is lookin' goooood.  He's had a rough road of his own the last couple years and he's awesome.  

(Annyong and I are trying to remember if someone yelled "Wolstenbeast" during the show.  She thought so... then I said, oh, maybe that was me....)

 Seeing a band live is an experience.  In the olden days we weren't allowed to bring a camera or tape recorder, but in this age of camera phones and gadgets, everybody's recording. (Dern young whippersnappers.) But it's not about that, even though we panicked to get a few pix for the girl.  It's about being there for a musical moment that is happening NOW and will never happen exactly the same way again.  We can say we were there, loving every second of it.

And I have to say, Musers are a pretty devoted lot of fans.  In general, the crowd was there to adore the musicians  and jump up and down, singing along, word for word, hands in the air.  I've always said I figure it must be the hugest buzz in the world to be a person on a stage having the words you wrote sung back to you by oh, thirty thousand people, give or take a few thousand.

I have a lot more to say, about Muse, about Chicago, road tripping and teenagers, and good ol' America.

Pretty!  That's not the moon; it's a Lollapalooza balloon. 

But for now, the kids are still coming down off the buzz, and since they just happened to both get this week off work, I'm letting them sleep in.

According to my daughter the Muser...

All must make the pilgrimage.  

They all look so SERIOUS in these pictures.  How does that work?  How do you get Matthew Bellamy to stand still long enough to take a picture?  

Muse are in North America RIGHT NOW, which is the same continent my daughter lives in!!!!! 

OMG IT'S LIKE WE'RE RIGHT BESIDE EACH OTHER

THEY'RE LIKE, ALMOST BREATHING THE SAME AIR AS US, EXCEPT ACROSS THE GREAT LAKES!!!!! 

I've decided I fully support this particular rock band obsession.

That is all.  Goodnight.

You know it's bad when a 15 year old boy is grossed out.

After wrangling with a saddle blanket, because I just can't seem to get it one straight first try, and wrestling with a billet / cinch / latigo combo, my son took a look at me on his way out of the barn and said something like...

Wow Mom.  You're sweating so much you're actually dripping.  That's...pretty gross.






(He doesn't tell the horses they're gross when the sweat drips off them.)

I can't get the right title tonight. But I have pictures. So...yeah.

My adorable funny smart odd brilliant beautiful goofy pretty bouncy silly weird amazing talented wonderful daughter, is...

17 years old.

She can drive me places now.  Legally and everything.

She is becoming quite a great little photographer.

She makes ADD into an asset.

She's a great singer and plays, like, four instruments.  (Not often enough though, in my opinion)

 Nag mom says practice.

Notice the MUSE Tshirt.  

Her giggle brightens the whole house.

She is so good with all the animals.  

She can back the pickup truck into a parking space.

If there are empty spaces on either side.

No seriously she can do it.

She can drive standard shift too but she doesn't think she's good at it.

Nag mom says practice.

She's sitting beside me right now and wants to say something...

Okay so first off, I don't play those instruments WELL... just, ehhhh. Second, I know I can drive a standard but I don't want to kill Dad's car!! It's got a very sensitive clutch doncha know. Also I actually don't have crazy eyebrows in real life. :D

My ray of sunshine.

And oh heck it's Friday, so have a small dose of Depp.

Happy weekend, people!

My 16 year old daughter is madly in love with a 32 year old English rock musician. Should I be concerned?

If she's going to be crazy about a musician, I guess it's okay to be infatuated with Matthew Bellamy of Muse.

Oh she is most definitely in love.  Her brother says she's crossed the line into creepystalker mode.  She knows his birth date, where he was born, where he lived when he formed the band and what age he and his bandmates were at that time.  She knows when his girlfriend (you might have heard of her - Kate Hudson?) will be having their baby.  She knows where the band's studio is (not exactly but general vicinity!) and she has researched their discography thoroughly, right down to live records and DVDs. So far, she owns three studio albums plus one live CD/DVD package.  She can connect a Muse reference from any conversation.  Every time she's on FB she posts a Muse lyric.  She has racked up hours and ridiculous hours on YouTube watching their videos and then when she'd seen all the music videos she started watching interviews, and now she has memorized her favourite musician's accent, facial ticks, and his funny laugh.  She has tons of pictures in her file on the computer.  (I don't know where she got that habit from ahemjohnnydepp.)

She loves him.  She adores his habit of wearing shiny suits on stage. She thinks it's awesome that he intends for Muse to be the first rock band to play in outer space. She loves his crazy fast talking, she loves his singing voice, she loves his pretty blue eyes.  Everything the guy does, in her opinion, is either funny, cute, or amazing.

It's pretty healthy.  She respects and admires his talent.  She's in awe of him, of the fact he sings, plays piano, plays guitar - quite shreddingly and energetically - as well as writes and produces.  He also fiddles with modifying his guitars and has had a hand in designing some freaky new guitars. Her guy Matt is genuinely talented.

(Yep, that does appear to be a keytar.  The guy's got guts.)

It's serious.  She is even more in love with him than she was with her first big infatuation....

Eicca Toppinen of Apocalytica.  I didn't think it was possible for a girl to be more obsessed than she was with this guy, but she's gone on to a whole other range with Matt Bellamy. Eicca is still a hero, and always will be because she is very loyal.  But Bellamy's her guy now.

I do think the kid has good taste.


And I can agree about the pretty blue eyes.

I'm partly to blame for this obsession.  I've liked this band for years and have a very clear memory of turning right in the subdivision on my way to our house when this intense haunting and rock-thumping song played on the radio.  You know how every now and then you hear a song that speeds your heart rate, stands your hairs on end and covers you in goosebumps?  And it's good?  That's what "Time Is Running Out" did to me. Other singles always got turned up when we heard them.  When That Twilight Movie came out, and I took Annyong and her friend to the theatre to see it, us three and a whole bunch more screaming girls and their mothers, and like, three uncomfortable looking guys, we were totally squealing when "Supermassive Black Hole" played over the slightly goofy baseball scene.

(Because Muse is also Stephenie Meyer's favourite band... Annyong is all, "I knew that band before the Twi-hards claimed them!!")

So I really dug this band.  Of course, me, I always fall for the bass player with the puppy dog eyes.  That's him, on the left.  Swoon.

Of course that cute little drummer on the right is adorable too eh?  Darn Englishmen.  

Anyways.  Why I'm to blame: This past Christmas I picked out a Muse CD for her.  "Black Holes And Revelations." It's got some heavy singles on it.  I hadn't heard the whole album before, and when we listened to it in its entirety, we were all impressed.  Heavily impressed.  And of course that set up the whole THING.

It all went CRAAAAAZY after that.  You know nobody does crazy like a 16 year old girl, especially when that girl is half ME.  She never had a chance.  Falling in love with musicians comes naturally to her.  Poor kid. 

Muse really are an incredible band.  They're not nearly as well known here in North America as over in Europe.  (Hey, fellow North Americans - what the heck is generally wrong with us over here???!!!)

No really, are these guys too weird for us?  They're just perfectly weird enough in our house...

Look, even Jethro is a fan of this band.  And he doesn't give it away easily.

After that, the Girl HAD TO HAVE the most recent record, "The Resistance."  I bought it but we made a deal that she'd shovel out the open shed in the barn to work it off.  Then she had to have "Absolution" so as a result I have a nice clean barn.  Total win-win.  So far, other than constantly nagging the kid to shut down the YouTube, this little Muse fixation has been okay for me!  Although, from now on she's got to bring her own money with her because I'm running out of barn chores for her to do.

Oh, and she also batted her beautiful eyes at her Daddy, gave him $20 and asked him to pay the other $10 so she could have the live package, "HAARP".

She also has the Resistance songbook.  You should see this sheet music - it's gorgeous.  Seriously, I've never seen music notes looking like art. She asked the webmaster of their site if she could photocopy it and use it as wallpaper; a guy emailed back and figured it would be okay!

She gets frustrated that she struggles to play the music.  I tell her that I doubt Matt Bellamy learned how to play Chopin soon after learning to walk.  I tell her I'm sure Matt Bellamy plays piano and plays guitar every day.  It's called practice.  I tell her if she wants to honour her favourite musician she should practice and play his music well!

I'm just trying to put some positivity into an obsession I sort of kickstarted.

But it could be worse, right?

I mean, he's quite unattainable and quite taken, so it's a totally harmless, and I'd argue even healthy crush.

He's obviously an inspiration.

He's this serious musician, slightly bad-boy as a good rock star should be, but also kinda goofy and funny.

In general, they're just a bunch of lovely young fellas, aren't they?  Absolutely charming.

Sigh.  They'd probably fit right in around here.




Most of all I approve because he's hardworking and talented.  That's the kind of person I want my kids, either of them, to emulate and admire.

Having said that, I got my stinkeye on any of those gangly zit faced punkasses in her music class.  I'm just sayin'.