I noticed today that I have every Luscious Jackson album except Natural Ingredients imported into iTunes on this computer. I know I have the CD and saw it recently in the house, but it is escaping me now that I am trying to find it. I also need to sync music between my desktop and laptop because I imported a bunch of music onto the laptop over Christmas.

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From the latest TMBG News e-mail:

"They Might Be Giants are doing two big shows on January 31st in New York City! At 3pm, in celebration of their Grammy nomination, they will be doing a special FAMILY family show. The night time show will be a special new incarnation of the "Every Album Show" concept. More new, old, and different."

"Both shows will include our good friends the Tricerichops Horns!"

Sat. Jan 31 Family Show New York City at Le Poission Rouge
lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=30437

Sat. Jan 31 New York City at Le Poisson Rouge
lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=27590

Saturday, Dec. 13 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Call 508-831-5509 to reserve tickets.

Fri. Jan 30 Providence, RI at Lupo's
http://www.etix.com/ticket/servlet/onlineSale?action=selectPerformance&searchType=venue&displayType=list&cobrand=lupos&performance_id=883105

We let the worm composter go for awhile without regular attention, so we're restarting three trays this weekend. Laurel enjoys helping with the worms, so I'm only helping minimally this round. (My knees are thankful for that.) Some of the finished compost will be going to repot the ficus plants and restart the potted grass for the cat. The pineapple could stand to be repotted too, but I have to cut it back first. Not a fan of bromeliads poking me.

...

The Thursday winter weather postponed the school event where we're providing face painting and balloon decor to the end of the month. This gives me more time to buy some small Snazaroo palettes, a couple of stampers (with volunteers of unknown experience painting it's a good choice) and decide whether to buy cosmetic glitter. I'm considering the UV reactive Snazaroo paint too, but that would be for personal use.

...

After hitting another plateau of motivation/behavior with Laurel, we've been listening to the audiobook of Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication and applying it there. It would have been nice to do the Landmark Forum, read Richard Lavoie's books and listen to Rosenberg earlier in Laurel's life. Just Lavoie's books would have been much more useful to read while I was pregnant than the "What to Expect" series and never-let-your-child-cry books that made up most of my local library's parenting collection.

We've also been using new-to-her music as an earned incentive for consistent behavior, so this weekend I sussed out her taste in Desi music some more (I've been downloading desihits.com podcasts and noting artists she likes) and I bought Baby Loves Jazz and Vienna Teng albums to burn to disc for her to work toward.

A longer write-up from the show, as promised:

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Food at the House of Blues restaurant? Good.
Elevator down to the merch table, then up to the balcony? Very good.
Opening the wrong door and getting to see John Flansburgh less than 20 feet away? If I wasn't so startled, I would have asked him to sign Trish's cast or done something tasteless for the lulz.
Over two hours of They Might Be Giants? We were rocked.

Photo (from "Maybe I Know" encore) and video clip (from "Why Does The Sun Shine?" encore) coming in the morning.

Also: chkchkdylan is taller in person than I had expected. His fiancée is even more lovely than expected. And I am still shorter than everyone.

One good thing about our relationship: at lunch, I started telling Vogon about a funny-weird dream I had this morning after he left for work. (I went back to bed after dropping Laurel off at school. Yes, I'm spoiled.) He finished my sentence and said "You already told me about it." When I protested that I hadn't had the chance since I woke up, he continued "and you dreamed about buying a [item that probably does not exist in reality] for your sister's birthday gift".

One sad merely okay thing about our relationship: They Might Be Giants /and/ Dropkick Murphys are going to be at House of Blues Dallas within a week of each other in March. I can't see him wanting to go see either band. (Not that I haven't already seen TMBG live several times, heh.)

edit 1815: I bought four tickets to the TMBG show. I get to go to a concert with hot redheads in my posse! (Eat your heart out, paradoxymoron.) We are going to ROCK.

"Harmonicas are easy to pick up and play, and it sure beats sending tubas."

Damn you, NPR, for making me laugh so hard I had a coughing fit.

(And yes, we're seeing the doctor today. Gotta rule out strep and have the kiddo's cough evaluated since it's been a week without improvement. We had last week off school, but I didn't want to send her back with a cough that didn't become more productive or quieter after application of respective cold medicine formulae.)

Gimping along on limited music I was thrilled to find a bunch of TMBG because really, why live if you can't sing along with the Johns?

During a spoken portion of "Why Does The Sun Shine?", Laurel grins. I tell her, "It's a good thing you like this song, because otherwise I'd have to kill you and eat your bones." She laughed.

Now we're smitten with Verve's Baby Loves Jazz and have resolved to buy the Go Baby Go! album and all the books for my nephew's first birthday this summer. As they say at smallages, no-one should ever have to listen to the Wiggles.

Blogged for vogonpoet's future reference: Oboist Liang Wang: His Reeds Come First

Arrr! If ye be needing some merry tunes to help ye celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day, I've posted one in my Vox and a link t'free download on Amazon! Enjoy, me hearties!

http://oddharmonic.vox.com/library/post/blow-me-down-with-scurvy-and-pirate-songs.html

Singing along with "Reunion", it strikes me that I can't actually harmonize with myself.

I'd take a cue from karaksindru's tagline "Arthur looking for Fenchurch" and use "Amy looking for an Emily". Ideally I'd like to sing with someone that gets both jokes, but I simply can't sing all of Emily's parts comfortably.

This is a twist on the Letter Meme. Instead of coming up with ten items for a certain letter, you come up with five song titles for a certain letter and explain why you picked them. If you want to play, leave a comment and I'll give you a letter, then you post this blurb in your journal along with your list.

solcita gave me E and I'm going to do nine because I feel like it.

( Sadly the song "Silent E" does not begin with 'e', but these song titles do. )

Listening to today's episode of 50 Skidillion Watts Of Good Will, I thought of a few things I'd like to say to revme before they fall out of my head:

• I love your dad's sense of humor. In a parallel universe where I don't have circumstances that keep me from traveling too often, I'd like to move to Seattle and be adopted by your family for awhile and eat really good food and stuff.


• It seems like Elephant Six is everywhere right now. I'd call it a sign from a higher power, but it's really just the corner of my music library I've been listening to lately. (:


• I almost cried toward the end of the show when you played one of my favorite Talking Heads songs. Also, isn't there something in the Sand in the Vaseline liner notes about "And She Was" being inspired by a gal that would get stoned on a slope overlooking the Yoo-Hoo factory?


• I still want to marry Henry Rollins and read Heidegger to our babies. (That has nothing to do with the show, I just wanted to say that.)


• I am confused by the Ditty Bops' tour schedule. They have a bunch of Colorado dates this year and I'm not there. So frustrating. If I budget well between now and August, I think it'd be neat to buy their new album and a t-shirt as consolation prize/birthday gift. Bike!


• "Dead Man's Party" makes me want coffee. Weird.

There's something kicking around the back of my head about barbeque sauce in relation to your Seattle restaurant post at stevefm, but it's going to continue fomenting for awhile before it makes sense. I may wind up drawing a map under some acetate and pouring different kinds of sauce onto their respective geographic areas to help illustrate my point just because it would look REALLY cool. I don't know.

...

And on a totally unrelated note except that it happened while I was listening to the show:

[1939] Seg: Girl, you know everyone.
[1939] Me: No, just the freaks.

Laurel's carry-on is ready to go. I have the rest of the packing to finish and one more load of laundry and dishwasher cycle to run, as well as making sure the living room and kitchen are good to go while I'm gone. I'm glad I got the master bedroom dusted and vacuumed this week so I don't have to do that again, though I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with the plants. I guess I'll call him every other day and ask him to water them, but I promise to take a picture of the Meyer lemon tomorrow so you can see the fruit in case they go away while I'm gone.

I'm getting my Laura Cantrell fix tonight since I haven't acquired a card for the MP3 player I have yet, then I'm burning a couple of mix discs for Laurel and asking Vogon if I can borrow his portable DVD player. I plan to take a break from my current fast read for some lighter vacation reading, probably Paul Collins' Sixpence House since it's been patiently waiting for me since Christmas (thanks again, revme!).

I'm going to miss my daily reading here and my editing spurts at Muppet Wiki, but maybe I'll score some used Sesame albums or DVDs for our collection while we're on vacation. Heck, maybe I'll score a VCR so I can type up segment lists and credits for all the videos I have boxed up until I repair or replace our shorted-out one. (For those of you just tuning in, Laurel fed the VCR a penny last year.)

As always, I'll have my cell phone with me if you want to get ahold of me while I'm out of town.

Earlier this weekend I had iTunes on random and Talisman's rendition of "Wanting Memories"[1] made me cry.

In other news, I transplanted two of the 4" potted herbs Vogon bought a few weeks ago into 12" hanging planters, so now the oregano and curly parsley have room to grow. I also started the strawberries he bought a little kit for and was disappointed by because it came with seeds instead of plants. After researching the variety, I learned that Temptation is a seed-raised strawberry that's almost entirely without runners. If I had a little more confidence and the right tools, I'd like to try growing strawberries in a hanging tube.

Would anyone be interested in a garden photo post in the next few weeks? It wouldn't be until after I have the rest of the seedlings and 4" pots transplanted into larger pots and get some more pyrethrine spray for the spider mites on the lime, but it's been almost a year since my last garden photo post.


1. "Wanting Memories" is a Sweet Honey in the Rock song. [lyrics] [MP3: Talisman - Wanting Memories]

If you could recommend only one Great Big Sea album for me to buy, which one would it be? Why? (Don't feel obligated to provide an explanation, I'm just curious.)

An interesting find via bookslut: Douglas Coupland interviews Morrissey

Or something like that, anyway.

Vogon often leaves the television on in the study while he's not watching it. I'm pretty good at tuning it out, but today I heard the melody of They Might Be Giants' "Twisting" coming from the TV.

After running in to see what the heck was going on, it turned out that the WB network is using the song in ads for a new show, Modern Men.

I'm sure it will be mediocre at best (like most WB shows), but it was really weird to hear the Johns' music on TV that wasn't composed for a theme or advertisement.

I was tagged by iconoplast to: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

My seven songs:

• Laura Cantrell - Bees


• Shankar Mahadevan - Pretty Woman (from Kal Ho Naa Ho)


• Ryan Shupe & The RubberBand - Oh How I Miss You


• Splashdown - Waterbead


• Sweet Honey In the Rock - Oh My Goodness, Look at This Mess!


• Cal Tjader - Soul Sauce (Fila Brazillia Remix)


• Vanessa-Mae - I'm a Doun

If you haven't done this yet and want to, consider yourself tagged.