hiding behind those bangs

You'd think by the age of nearly 39, I would stop trying to affect the look of a Chinese Francoise Hardy or that bad mod girl in Quadrophenia, but yesterday I got bored and tried to cut myself some new bangs/fringe. I buggered things up pretty badly, but luckily Marsha rode to the rescue.

Getting new hair was what I needed to jolt me out of the funk that was this last week. I think I was feeling sorry for myself about the hips and the getting old with pain (have a hamstring strain and bad shoulders, too) and the putting on 8 pounds in two weeks. Pity party for one. It was dumb.

On the plus side, we've got our lovely child back from the abyss that was a long temper tantrum (the last of the molars coming in? really being 2?). I've got enough tomatoes for a BLT and a caprese salad everyday if I want. I've got a summer holiday where I am going to sup Drei Fonteinen and Cantillon from their sources. I've got a supportive mate and friends and family.

And when I feel crabby and sad, I can always hide behind my new bitchin' bangs and eyeliner.

Femoral osteotomy

That's what Dr. Mast says I need to consider. They cut the femur high up on the thigh and rotate the bottom part of the leg 20 degrees inward. This might help stave off the artificial hip I will be needing in maybe 10, maybe more, years. At any rate, my femurs are such freakshows that the surgery will help prep me for artificial hips later. The standard, off the shelf, hips won't seat properly into my femurs the way they are oriented now.

I appreciate the time Dr. Mast has spent with me (about 4.5 hours over two visits).

No guarantees, but what the hell. I'll shoot for the left hip this October/November. If all goes well enough, I'll shoot for the other next September/October.

This might mean that we can go to Portillo, Chile for a family ski in August 2008 after all. I am hoping to be there during Chilean Wine Week! I have the fact that I will most likely be a better skier than my 3 year old for the only time in our lives to look forward to. Will probably backpack around Argentina or Chile for two weeks after.

First BLT of the Season

Glenn Parker's Kosovo was the first tomato of sandwich substance to ripen this year. Bless Glenn. He is such a dear penfriend of mine.

The avocado was gratuitous, so I took mine out and gave it to the boy. We used Mahogany Smoked Meats bacon, affectionately known as "crack bacon" in this house. We also used nutritionless, but crunchy iceburg lettuce.

It was divine.
We hardly spoke for the 2-3 minutes we ate. I guzzled down some girlfriend ales (Pyramid Apricot and something weird and organic from Chicago) as dessert.
Certainly no time to take a snap. Maybe later in the week. Sandwich candidate number two will likely be a Kellogg's Breakfast (ooh, that sunny orange shall make a nice picture).

Meatfest 2007 Edition

Went off without a hitch. I ditched poor Matty who handled most of it to go for a hike up to Lower Lamarck with Naomi.
We didn't poison anyone. Yay. The turkey came out of the pit barbecue still a bit raw, though. We got given some nice wild boar sausage.
Janet and the girls set up a nice bar, and Michelle Pettit plied us with watermelon mojitos throughout the night. The other Michelle P. made some of the young men twitter at the thought of being her bondage fodder.
The young men coming to Bishop each year seem to be getting younger and younger.
A posse up from So. Cal are here to climb/peak bag, and they've been great. Looking forward to laying low with Matty and the boy next week, though.

Triple shots on the naked portafilter!

Because we really needed the extra caffeine.

10 year anniversary

Folks and this week's news have been reminding me that it is coming up on the 10 year anniversary of both the release of the Mutton Birds' Envy of Angels and "the Handover" of Hong Kong back to China from the Brits. Both are so intertwined for me, with Envy providing a soundtrack to that whole marvelous, emotional, special year spent with such special people.

The other week, before the Phoenix Foundation show, I put on my headphones and went out into the garden to tend the tomatoes. I had my own "best of" Mutton Birds compilation on. I nearly wept from hearing those songs together again. (The last time must have been when I went into labor.) I'd almost forgotten how deeply I loved those songs, that band.

It's been on my mind lately

From Ian Wedde's The Commonplace Odes

To my sons

Home's where you're always going, it's the place you've just
Left, where your father takes all the photographs
In the unfinished dwelling of the tribe. Tomorrow when it rains
He'll fix the roof, dinner's over and music
Still follows you into the street as night falls

Across the face of the brooding, neighbourhood hillside.
Hair falls across the faces of young
Musicians. They're dancing, their paws are running and running
In the dream chase, their hearts are broken and they cross
The world for love and then they come home

Again, these flaneurs &endash; they have eaten the meats of strange
Lands and heard the call to prayer startle
Doves from the battlements of seaside resorts where the gasoline
Was cheaper than at home. They've been where bear hunters
In the cold mountains make toys in the off-season.

They bring the toys back for us to look at.
There's a painted doll that fits inside another,
And so on, until the story disappears. The tall
Stories of the tall boys. They come back
Like their great-great-grandfathers before them, lacquer-

Ware in their seachest, blue plates with unicorns
On the back, postcards of copulating gods,
T-shirts in languages not yet spoken,
An amulet, a faraway look. It's great to be home
Again, say our wandering sons, as they wave goodbye.



[Tricia's musings: I think about our folks taking the news that we'd be somewhere in the Pacific for approximately 9 months and marvel. Will Matty and I be so gracious when it's Wyatt's turn? I would not have traded 1998 for anything: Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, Pakistan, Kashgar, Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, New Zealand, Australia, Bishop. We were truly blessed with safe journeys and wonderful discoveries. We ate the meats of strange lands and heard the calls to prayer that startled, indeed, and we shared a bit with our folks. All that wandering marked us and in a good way.]

Hot Springs potluck

There is a bachelorette potlock at Benton Hot Springs tonight for Genevieve. I am looking forward to this.

Dad has Wyatt today and Matt is sailing Crowley with Ray.

I hope to have a quiet rest of the week with a good book or backlog of New Yorker magazines. Joe Boyd's account of folk/rock in the 1960s, White Bicycles, is coming in the mail.

I feel a bit stressed and I'm not sure why.

my morning sunshine

Houston, we have fruitset

Even with this 100 degree, 2 percent humidity, high wind weather we've been having, I am getting some fruitset on my 30someodd tomato plants. I've been diligent about misting and watering regularly. I also have a lot of paste and cherry varieties, which tend to perform better in the Valley.

Going to use Matty's custom stainless icechest as a solar oven to roast the tomatoes, which will start appearing in all their ripe glory (inshallah) in about 2 weeks.

Babbo, Party Boy

I asked Wyatt if he wanted to go to the rodeo tonight (the State high school championships are in town), and he said, "No, party."

Yes, Bishop is still the land of a thousand potlucks. We went to one celebrating the Solstice last night. There was another one celebrating the Solstice, but with African drumming until late.

Wyatt was rather well behaved in the mostly adult crowd. He doled out lovely hugs and greetings to his favorite aunts and uncles and to Baby Maximo, who was there for a few minutes.

When we explained that there would be jumping cows and horses at the rodeo, Babbo got interested.

White Trash Version of Bougie Yuppie Scum

It's the Solstice and what are we doing? Stacking our two plus cords of almond, walnut, and locust firewood for the coming winter. We're rich I tells ya, rich. We bought it early because it was on sale (2 cords unstacked $750), and we were given some because Grandpa Walt can't stand the thought of his underweight heir freezing his wee baws off.

It is nearly 100 degrees today.

Having burnt firewood since moving here in '98, I can tell that this is good stuff. It's dry, split, and comes in different shapes and sizes. We've got enough that I can keep a fire going 24/7 if I want.

It being close to the end of June, my thoughts turn to our annual holiday. We're going to Europe. It'll be 2 nights Amsterdam, 4 nights Brussels (for the Belgian Beer Weekend, baby!), 6 nights Paris, and 4 nights in Banyuls (on the Spanish border, Mediterranean side) with Paul and Sheila Doherty. Paul and Sheila are retired English friends whom we met in Hong Kong. They are the parents of Mark, one of our Hong Kong gang. We had the miles for all of us to fly free. Matt REALLY DID NOT want to do the Ride Across Iowa (you cycle through all these small towns and town folk feed you food sold from their front porches), so he lobbied for finally getting to the Beer Festival.

Considering that I will probably be on my ass for a fair bit of this early winter recouping from whatever surgery is coming, Europe will be a bit of a last hurrah for 2007. Stinky cheese and and tripe and geuze and lambics here I come! I'm hoping to pick up the last William Boyd novel for the trip.

The hostels, flats, and hotels are booked (Jesus God, Amsterdam is expensive. Our double room in a houseboat hostel is running 120 euros). The true sign that we've hit middle age and middle class is that I bought travel insurance. Bloody hell. End of an era.

From the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion

Michelle has taught me heaps about PR. Okay, the Inyo Register is not quite the New York Times. We nevertheless created the press release so that things could go smoothly the next time, if there's a next time. I really want to work on the venues in Mammoth and Tahoe. Despite the mighty unfortunate caption, the gist is there.

Cause for joy

Wyatt is engaged, kind, and happy. He is using his words. He is delighting in having friends like Auntie Karen and Uncle Skandar and his Gung Gung (Chinese Grandpa).
We couldn't ask for more.

I went to the emergency room yesterday morning. I had a gnarly headache that lasted for over 27 hours. I don't normally get headaches. I was afraid that I was having a stroke or aneurysm. In the end, it took 3 Vitamin I (ibuprofin), 2 acetomenaphin (sp) and massive doses of caffeine to make it go away.

The 2007 tomatoes are setting fruit beautifully and no signs of disease, yet.

Exhaustion Taketh Over

Spent the weekend at Fallen Leaf Lake en famille for a work conference of mine. I have the greatest employer in the world, and it lets me bring my husband and son to what is a great setting in Lake Tahoe.

Hung out with 150 folks at the conference. Caught something viral. Still went ahead with my scheduled CT Scan and MRI in Truckee. Slept through the whole MRI. Came home to some gnarly winds.

Exhausted. There is a potluck/poker night here tonight. Jen is leaving town. After her student teaching gig at the high school, she found a fulltime gig down south. Tonight's is a special going away edition in her honor.

Horsepower is out now!

The new and improved Horsepower on Young American is out now!
It's got a new version of "Blue Summer," which features prominently in Taika Waititi's highly acclaimed "Eagle vs. Shark," "The Drinker," and the video for "Going Fishing."

You can buy it here.

Wow, I guess it was a fantasy come true

A year to the week after I started scheming about bringing the Phoenix Foundation to Bishop, it came true - and beautifully to boot!

The band came, they saw, they conquered.

We got the extendo disco remix 2 hour long set, the dancing fools in wigs and boas, the heartfelt "It's a Lie!" singalong, the "give me a C-A-R-N-I-T-A-S!" spellout, the high quality New Zealand style meatpies, the mixed age turnout, the Paiute (the American Indians who settled the area) turnout (THANK YOU FOR COMING. THIS WAS A HIGHLIGHT FOR ME), the cancer fighter turnout (my conga line partner, a crazy hero of mine), the baying for "MORE!", the rare "This Charming Van," "The Drinker," the fabulous new "Bright Grey" AND "Purple Rain" encore....In short, we got everything.

You have never met a kinder, lovelier band of men who could sing and rock. Everyone, men included, flirted with Conga playing Will, and everyone, even grizzled old desert rats, now hold court and tell anyone who'll listen what a great band the Phoenix Foundation are.

I've seen this time and time again. The band start playing to a room of strangers and end the night being feted like good mates done bloody effing fantastically good. I know that's how I joined "the army."

Nearly 150 Owens Valleyites showed their generous, beautifully tan, fit, and manic natures and the band responded by giving us a party like we haven't seen in a while.

We're predicting that couples who were at the show went home and got it on casually.

Bless.

Pino Pies

I have mail ordered pies from Placerville (Z-Pies) and from Florida (Four N Twenty Pies, from Oz), but now my mail order days are over!

Pino Pies is a new business in Bishop, and it's run by an honest to goodness Kiwi named Dulcie. The pies are fab and the price point perfect ($3.50 if you buy in bulk). She only uses high quality ingredients (meadow farms "crack" bacon, organic sirloin, etc.). I might the luckiest girl in the planet. I just need to get my hands on a big bottle of Watties. Mmm, I can taste the spicy anise before the vinegary tomato now.

Dulcie and her husband Troy have agreed to have pies available at the concert for those of us who are too disorganized to have dinner ready. BYOB and pies and gig. It'll be a little bit of the Antipodes in little ol' Bishop.

Woot!

Flight of the Conchords on HBO

I know I have always groused that I liked them best when they didn't talk about getting it on with women ....the Bus Driver Song is still my favorite. It reminds me of why I love the Front Lawn so - perfect storytelling encapsulating hope, loss, regret.

I was not prepared for how awesome the Flight of the Conchords' HBO special would be. Michelle, Matty, and I piled around the laptop and watched and laughed and laughed.

Good on them!

The character Mel, the married stalker fan, kind of scares the hell out of me. Please dear God, please let that not be me.

Staying focused

I suppose I have always wanted to bring a band like the Phoenix Foundation through here because this town is not only marked by its striking beauty, but by its resource of really awesome folks.

Derik, whom I didn't know two weeks ago, has supplied 75 percent of the backline gear (3 amps, keyboard amp, keyboard stands, guitar stands and now drums and lighting). Milo and Chris are opening even though what I am able to offer them keeps dwindling. Dan, another gentleman I don't know, is bringing a mural up from over an hour away (and gas prices are over $3.50 a gallon), so that we can use it in the show. People have bent over backward to help so far, and I will never really be able to pay all of them back. I have ridden the core group of friends very hard.

They ask brilliant questions, they keep offering to do more, and they keep me focused.

Sam from the Phoenix Foundation said that this stop was their "wild card," and noted that the band were really up for it. Even in my moments of insecurity and nervousness, I know that it's going to be a wonderful match. Bishop deserves a hardworking, endlessly talented, and endearing band like the Phoenix Foundation and they deserve an attentive, appreciative, and unpretentious audience like us.

Beers all around. My shout. The keg of Allaghash White arrives tomorrow!