barney rubbles

tonight i went to barnes & noble to read magazines & bond with my friends who are featured in Us Weekly & People magazines. or, rather, to forget the rough day it'd been: ain't it funny how quickly life can seem overwhelming & unmanageable? the same load was so much easier to carry yesterday.

so, i went in, decided to buy the latest copy of M.S. Living (oh, the Autumn issues are great!). when i got up to the register, the girl at the counter said, "hi. i haven't seen you at open mic in awhile." ha! i know someone somewhere in springfield. it was a good thing.

i used to hate these, but now...

cabin fever

we drove south on hwy 4 for 30 minutes, snaked around some corn fields & wooded areas & met jason for lunch at his latest worksite: a cabin built by slaves in 1810. there were old ax marks in the exposed beams & joists where the wood was sized & cut for construction some 200 years ago. it was originally built for jefferson's men & was located in arkansas until it was moved to this lakeside location in central, southern illinois. what a cool job.

plain happy

today i feel crazed with happiness. evidence of bipolarity, perhaps, but i can live with that. we're back in i.c., andrew's back in class, and i have a couple of days before i start work again. our life is our own again. nobody else's responsibilities to take on, nobody else's stuff to take care of, nobody else's routine to which we must conform. it feels so good. and it's cool and rainy here, and i can wear long sleeves.

have a slice of lime.

what they say is true

omaha is cool.
the list of places to visit, though? i'm not convinced they pointed out the truly good stuff.
if you, whocares readers, were to make a list of suggested sites, what would you say?

to get us started...

- hotshops
- the diner
- the garden of the zodiac (just kidding)

news flash - omaha is cool!

i was flipping through readymade magazine ( http://www.readymademag.com/) in borders yesterday and came across a two-page spread with the word OMAHA across the top. it's not very often that you see that! this was what the piece was about:

"Five places to visit now: New Orleans, Oakland, Detroit, Providence, and Omaha. Our team of insiders reveals why some of America’s least glorified locales are becoming detour-worthy destinations. Clip out our crib sheet for where to eat, stay, shop, and ogle. Plus: Profiles of local designers, artists, and business-builders to watch."

click the link above to see the list of must see spots. i haven't been to some of these places...anyone been to dixie quicks or A and R salvage recycling? they both sound pretty great. of course, our marks is on that short list too. :-)

tuesday

comes out on tuesday. if you buy it at target, you get a $5 gift card.

oldest

last night we watched little clips of napolean dynamite with annabelle: the dancing scene, the dancing scene, the dancing scene again, and the end scene with the tether ball & "delicious sea bass". most of the time i was watching annabelle's face & it was delightful. she had the most contented smile the whole time. and i started thinking about the oldest child in a family (ahem, most of you) & it started making sense: the special bond between parents & their firstborn.

i'm not meaning special as favorite or preferred, but more like unique & more understood.

if it's raining...

my top favorite views on youtube today (it's friday, cmon!):
1. patty griffin promo video
2. iron & wine at lollapalooza. sam beam's head looks huge. and the lame cheers!
3. feist "muschaboom" video. the wind is hilarious.
4. this really is a cool feist clip. except the bizarre bodysuit.
5. live BE GOOD TANYAS. frazey ford on vocals like old times.
6. live BE GOOD TANYAS. banter is great. mumble. mumble.
7. "first day of my life" from the memorial park show. ali & daphne called me during this song from the show. that was cool. ope! forgot the words, dude.
8. "goodnight & go". i love this song. the video is odd.
9. "time after time" video. i loved this video when i was a kid.
10. "everything is everything" by lauryn hill. what a video!

sufjan at sokol

so you misseed the show last year: but i found this live footage at youtube & if i'm not mistaken, it's the from his stop at sokol auditorium. there may be more from that show. check it out.

the liberated imagination

1. The fact that God made earthly reality and set the human race over it means that the artist's and critic's preoccupation with human experience and culture is God-ordained.
The Liberated Imagination, Leland Ryken

sneak a listen

you can listen to a track from the be good tanyas new album, "hello love", due out october 10th. follow this link & "listen to the podcast". they are the 3rd (last) track. not what i expected but it's really great.

mac-a-roni!

i love photobooth.

newbies

posted (ing) some new songs over the next few days.

excavating

we've been cleaning out the hall closet this morning. look what i found! i don't even have a cassette player but i cannot get rid of these tapes!

iowa city pictures

go here to see the iowa city pictures i have. send me the ones you have & i'll add them.

familia de cinco

for those of you who weren't in iowa city this past weekend: i am ten weeks pregnant with kiddo #3. hooray.

super F

you know you're pregnant when "love lift us up where we belong" & "if i could turn back time" make you cry in the grocery store.

glasses are hot!

fake food

we went downtown for some hot dogs from weinerdogs. they were good, good, good.

take you riding in my car, car

i've been singing "i can't sleep" for most of the early morning (phil collins' tune), so so so excited to hook up for the WHOCARES FIRST ANNUAL (BOOK CLUB AS AN EXCUSE) RETREAT!!!

see you there!

Something to do in Iowa City...

Well, leave it up to Lindsay (you guys are going to love her!) to do some research... turns out there is an Indian Bizaar at the Iowa City Fair Grounds on Saturday from 11am-4pm... might be fun! (click the title for the link of info.) Also a nice feature of the bizaar, it is being held by People for People. The proceeds to go the homeless in the area.

tour de friends

allow ali's "tour de friends" to continue.

baba wawa

ali & i are watching daytime TV. what's with these glasses?
and we came up with a new name for joy bihar:
joy bezoar. she's so not funny.

homestar

go here. select the "the theme song".
name dropping in this song is so funny!

i motor you

there is something about using physical strength to motor something else: a kayak, a bike, a kite. something about a coordinating cause with effect in the moment that makes me feel very alive. i pull this string, the puppet leg goes up. i dig the paddle into the water on the left side of the boat, we veer right.

raising kids can be hard because they don't exactly work the same way. thankfully.

but on certain days, it's nice to appreciate life's cause & effects that are precisely what we expect.

something new

we just needed something new up here. so why not me?

TGIF

i've never had to take my kids with me to the gynecologist. i didn't even know it could be done. but, when it's time for the yearly visit & your only two friends in town are unavailable to babysit, it has to be done. so the girls & i drove downtown this morning & met my new OBGYN, dr. bradley. when i made the appointment a few weeks ago, i tried my hardest to find a female doctor in the city who was taking new patients. exhausted, i called one recommended clinic & said i had no preference for a doctor. the receptionist on the phone said, "dr. bradley is open. oh, you'll like him. he's cute. hee hee." how awkward. i think i'd actually prefer a homely OBGYN.

and let me tell you, kids will ask many questions in the examination room. violet was quiet & chewing on a toy. annabelle was trying to see around the privacy curtain, under the privacy curtain, and anywhere i didn't want to be peeking. she held my hand when my blood was drawn, asked me how much i weighed after i got off the scale, & wanted to know why our doctor left the room so quickly. friends, i am so glad it is the weekend.

8 Treadmills - Brilliant

Caron, here is an idea if you ever make your own music video.
(click the title for the video)

Wine-Oh

Hey all. Would you post your fave bargin-priced-but-really-good wines?

Aren't these a riot?

Baby shower invites on sale at Reprodepot.com (link in title)

slow dark mornings

Lately I've been craving fresh baked goods for breakfast. This morning we had some strawberry-cinnamon muffins, warm & gooey, at 7am. The mornings have been lingering & what better way to curve with the natural arc of time's slow passing than to remain at the breakfast table and wait it out. Gillian Welch is a fit companion for such mornings.

Pass along your favorite breakfast ideas. I'm running out of ideas. Paired with morning music.

Help!

So, I've got this art fair coming up and I need to get a booth/tent thing. It needs to be white or off white and needs at least 2 sides. Buying is so expensive. Renting from a place really is, too. Does anyone have one or know of someone who does? I'd pay you/them to use it for the weekend. (I'm stressed out about this whole deal, by the way. What the heck have I gotten myself into?! Arg.)

Hey Big O Gals... anyone for a carpool?

I'm hoping to leave for our weekend get-away around 3 or 3:30 on Friday because I need to take a pit-stop in DesMoines for Lindsay... anyone like a lift?

Planes.

Finn's first plane ride. A true success. No peanuts though, what's with that.

the greatest

while we're talking kid stuff, i have to admit that i love violet's new stage in life: mommy is the best thing in the world stage. she shares her drink, toys, snacks, kisses with me generously. she runs to me when i come back into the room. this may be the most rewarding time in a baby's life, for the mama.

cwazy

to all the whocares moms: you are exemplary.
other people's crazy little kids make me really appreciate the good child-rearing skills you practice. on behalf of future generations, thanks.

the maker

when i do something really stupid, i feel this certain burn inside. it is undeniable. call it holy ghost conviction. call it the weight of guilt.

and sometimes there are other moments that i feel that burn: when some deep truth becomes illuminated; when i think about dying before my children will are old enough to remember me; and certain songs are arranged in such a way to cause a trance-like mindset & that certain familiar burn to flare.

willie nelson's album, teatro, was his finest. download "the maker", with emmylou harris on harmonies. i hope you experience that same sensation.

otter retriever

take the animal personality test that we were taking at the whe---'s house.

ANIMAL?

TV-free childhood

i was listening to a podcast this morning about the idiot box. there were studies presented. factual information provided. watching just one hour of television a day stunts the mind-growth of a pre-schooler by minimally 20%. shows directed toward children move too quickly & retard their attention spans, thus increasing the possibility that the child will develop ADD by age 7. all of these really interesting facts. all really motivating & kind of challenging. and if you had talked to me seven years ago when i didn't own a television & rarely ever saw movies, i may have had a more radical response. a "let's join arms" reaction.

but i pause because my kids rarely watch more than 45 minutes of television per day (except during a crazy heat wave); we rarely watch more than 45 minutes of television per day, and it's usually a show on DVD; we don't have cable; we don't watch smut. and i like what we watch. but then on another day, i'd be drawn to media-free mornings.

and i want you to help me. say TV is bad. say it ain't. members & non: grow up without? grow up with? don't watch it now? let's join arms & talk.

o-town

this one's for you ali

my friend from college, baxter, does pop art of sorts. here is one of his many, the famous bob dylan.

as someone lays dying

ever since the corpse of spencer barclay was found in the basement of whit's end on adventures in odyssey, circa 1990, i have been--half jokingly, half seriously--afraid of finding a dead body. i can't really handle horror movies. i don't like mummies on display. i didn't even do so hot with the shrunken dead body in "wise blood." the worst nightmare i've ever had is about exhuming a body, which really, i can't think of anything i would rather do LEAST in all of life. no, no, no. a few incidents to demonstrate my point. once, a couple of years ago, my sister kelly (maybe the other sisters were there too, i don't remember, but kelly for sure) and i were driving at night and it was raining. we got to state street, which is this really wooded street near where we live, and there were police cars all over and they had dogs out, sniffing around. as soon as i saw the body-sniffing dogs, i turned the car around and went home another way. i said it was because i didn't think we could drive through. like the cops wouldn't let us. kelly swears to this day that it's because i was afraid they were in the process of finding a body and i just didn't want to know about it if they were. that's incident one. incident two: when i was in college, there was a kid from omaha that also went to my school. one day i saw him in our little cafe on campus, and he said to me, "hey, did you hear that they found a body, shot and then burned, at 60th and state, in omaha. that's right by your house." sure enough, it is. bastard. that's why i'm not friends with that guy. good thing i wasn't living at home when it happened. incident 3: again. in my college days, i read faulkner's "as i lay dying," which is all about the bundren family, taking their mom's rotting body back to her home land so that she can be buried with her people. pretty much every character in the story narrates a section, including the dead mother. they are all crazy practically, and two of the boys think that the sounds of whatever bugs are coming from her coffin are actually her talking. it's pretty awful. and the wood of the coffin features heavily. at any rate, at the time, i was sleeping on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed made out of unfinished wood, and when i would lay in my bed at night, i felt like i was dead and buried and inside the coffin with the moldering body of addie bundren. so i stayed with emily until the book was finished. and then incidents 4 and 5: this spring, when omahans started hunting mushrooms, dead bodies kept turning up. amber harris in hummel park. and then that one woman inside that 50 gallon drum. whatever it was. seriously, i try not to know the details. but even as i hate this stuff, i still sort of want to know about it. that's why i didn't stop reading "as i lay dying" or, at a much younger age, turn off adventures in odyssey. so anyway, there are two spots in omaha where you can regularly smell very strong, bad smells. one is near lake cunningham. the other is on 50th between the radial and maple street. my theory is that dead bodies are the cause. so i was explaining a much more abridged version of this to my coworkers at lunch, half afraid my theory was right and half hoping it was. and then shelli, one of the x-ray techs, explained to me that the cunningham lake smell is half rotting fish (because they drained the lake) and half rotting cabbages from wenninghoff farm. oh the relief. oh the disappointment. i'm still not sure about 50th street...