Wednesday's Song of the Week

Hooooooly shit New Ryan Adams. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. Guh. Love him. Looooove.

Check out the studio version here.


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Just because you have lyme disease doesn't mean we feel sorry for you

You know what, Irene? You were just a bitch. BAM.

via Shlooby Kitten

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The Apocalypse cometh

Tuesday was a beautiful day here in Boston, despite being a bit too chilly for my emotional comfort for an August afternoon. Stuck in a windowless office for the better part of the day, I decided to stretch the ol' legs after a lunch spent bent over my computer with a walk to the beach in South Boston. Turns out, while I was out enjoying the sunshine, an earthquake hit the east coast for the first time in a babillion years. Let me repeat that: an earthquake hit the east coast. Kind of.

When I got back to the office, completely unaware that anything was amiss, I was greeted by an excited gaggle of cubicle dwellers. The building was shaking. I was so scared. I need to call my mother. Never experienced anything like it. Naturally, I was all the wha? For realz? Ya'll sure it wasn't just that construction that's been going on outside? Maybe they dropped something ... large. Maybe it was Ted in his cubicle after a particularly questionable trip to Boloco.

So I did what any hard news junkie would do when confirming alleged stories: I checked Facebook. And hoo boy was Facebook's roof blown off with earthquake chatter. Don't even get me started about Twitter. Photos of the earthquake devastation were flying in from DC to NYC. The following content might not me suitable for young viewers:

Earthquake Devastation

photo by jmkinley

Clearly, people up and down the east coast were all shook up. LOLZ see what I did there?! Let's joke about disasters! Did you hear the one about the Gulf oil spill? But I will admit, it was all rightfully so. If I was sitting at my desk on the 32nd floor of a high rise in Philadelphia and the whole building started swaying, as I've heard they did, chances are I would have shit my pants. Heck, even if I was on the ground floor of my office building here in Boston and the room started shaking, I STILL probably would have shit my pants, assumed we were being attacked by terrorists, and called my mother to tell her I love her and please give my awesome record collection to my dear baby brother.

But to think, all that fuss and I didn't even notice. Gah knows I love a good national panic. And here I went and missed the whole goddamned east coast earthquake! My first shot at becoming a natural disaster survivor and I totally blew it. How am I ever going to demonstrate to the world my superior survival skills? I've been practicing my push ups, you know. Or how about my compassion for my fellow man when I risk my own life pulling other survivors from dangerous rubble? Who's going to take my picture? Who's going to interview me on CNN? What about my once-in-a-lifetime chance to say, "hey, d'jou feel that earthquake today? Gnarly, right?" GAH.

Granted, if I had to be anywhere when an earthquake hit, sitting with my feet in the sand ain't too bad of an option. But I digress.

Before the earthquake chatter could even die down, the east coast turned it's collective eyes south towards Hurricane Irene as the barrels towards us. Great. First a baby earthquake and now a hurricane. In the same week. It's the Apocalypse, ya'll!

Hurricane-tracking weather reports flash across the television and radio almost constantly in Boston. Coastal towns throughout Maryland, New Jersey, and New York are undergoing forced evacuation. Even New York City is pondering evacuation. New York City?! Now that's dramatic. People in my own town are boarding up their windows, dry-docking their boats, and stocking up on firewood.

Now, usually I respond to natural disaster warnings with sentiments ranging on the scale somewhere between meh and sighhhh. In the summer, we can also factor in the the weather is totally ruining my beach day. GOD, Irene. I only have so many beach days left! However, let's not forget that this happened last year too. New England was in a panic over Hurricane Earl, myself included. Granted, the majority of the region was worried about damage to home and property, and I was frantically checking the weekend forecast to see if my weekend plans of beaching were about to be ruined. Let us not forget that I spent the entire week in a feverish panic and then enjoyed myself a gorgeous weekend sipping Coronas on the beach. So this year, I'm not gonna let it get to me. I'm just going to sit back, relax, and let it all wash over us. If it rains, it rains. If that rain just so happens to be accompanied by 100 mph gusts of wind, well isn't that just swell. I'll probably be holed up in a bar somewhere with the rest of the town drunk before 2 p.m. And if it doesn't? Well then I will be where I always am on the weekends with my butt firmly planted in the sand. Also drunk before 2 p.m. So I can't really lose this weekend.

It's not predicted we'll be dealing with anything "catastrophic" but it does look like shit's about to get EXTREME.

Well guess what, Irene? You want to talk about extreme? LAST weekend, my entire weekend revolved around a bottle of Patron, a sandy bathing suit, and a throwback basketball jersey with "CHICK'S BITCH" scrawled across the front. You wanna play intense? BEAT THAT, IRENE.

We have a guest staying with us this weekend though, so in a slightly-above-lazy attempt at being a good host, I have prepared a list of potential natural disaster survival essentials:

1. Beer

2. Marshmallows

3.

That's all I came up with and I'm pretty sure we're out of marshmallows, so COME ON, IRENE!

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Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

via this isn't happiness.

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Updated: Wednesday's Song of the Week. On Tuesday. WTF, man?

Updated: Mother-FLIPPER I just spent the ENTIRE morning thinking it was Wednesday and it's only Tuesday. Talk about a slap in the face with a cold, wet rag. I mean, Christ, I know I'm not good at keeping track of my days of the week, but ouch, man. Ouch. Motherflippin' Tuesday.

There are so many things I love about this song. It's like an onion. You peel away one layer and there is an entirely new and equally intriguing song there underneath, but somehow it all flows together as a single musical breath. Like one season bleeding into another. And this week, it very much feels like summer is bleeding into fall. I have to bring a sweatshirt to the beach for the late afternoon. I pull a sweater over my head to walk the dog after dinner. The evening breeze that blows through my bedroom window gives me the chills as I pull the sheet over my freckled shoulders. This song is all of that and more. It is beautiful. With slight whiffs of Rufus Wainright and Jeff Buckley, while still remaining very Andrew Bird.

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It was a dark and stormy night ...

A full eight days after vacation has ended, I finally feel recovered. Not that vacation wasn't relaxing. It was the most relaxed I've been in ... well, since last vacation. But it just so happened that the weekend that transitioned me from Vacation to Real World was a DOOZIE. What with the VGF invasion and the road trip and the My Morning Jacket-ness.

B and I plunged ourselves right into the workweek on Monday morning. After a long day with reality, we decided to turn in early and try to catch up on some of the sleep we'd lost over the weekend. It had been pouring rain all day and the evening turned into one of those lazy summer nights that just begged to be put to bed. Around 10, B let the dog out one more time while I turned off the lights. Suddenly B came bursting back into the house, rain water dripping from his hair.

"HOLY SHIT THE DOG CAUGHT SOMETHING."

"WHAT?"

"HE CAUGHT A RABBIT. OR ... I DUNNO. SOMETHING ... SOMETHING ALIVE."

"IS IT STILL ALIVE?"

"I DUNNO. I DUNNO. GIVE ME THE FLASH LIGHT."

And B ran back out into the rain. I stood by the door and called for Rooney. Almost immediately, the dog came bounding across the lawn towards the back door. I opened the screen door and called him again soothingly. Such a good dog for coming when called. What a good boy. Come on here. And that's when B screamed.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. SHUT THE DOOR SHUT THE DOOR DON'T LET HIM IN." B started running towards me.

"WHAT? WHY?"

"SKUUUUUUUUUUUUNK."

As soon as the word came out of B's mouth, Rooney reached me at the door, frothing at the mouth. And then it hit me like a wall. The stench. HOLY SHIT, ya'll. Have you ever smelled a skunk? And not the skunk smell that you drive through after someone hit a skunk on the road. The kind of skunk smell that brings tears to your eyes and lingers in the back of your throat for the entire night. The kind that you can only get when you or your idiot dog has been skunked.

I pulled the door shut, but not soon enough because the entire kitchen filled with the stench. "HOLY HELL IT'S AWFUL."

"YEAH IT'S AWFUL, IT'S A SKUNK."

"But what do we do? OH GOD tomato juice? Does that work? We don't even have tomato juice! What do we dooooo?"

I pulled out my phone and Googled dog deskunking methods as I drove to CVS. I had correctly assumed that anything I needed would be there and wasted no time in volunteering to drive.Gah knows I wasn't planning on waiting outside in the rain with a skunked dog while B went to the store. A text from Mojo came in. "Can't talk. Rooney skunked. Gaaaah."

When I got back I snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and scrubbed Rooney down with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dishwasher soap. The rain was still pouring down. B struggled to hold on to the dog and balance an umbrella over us as I rubbed Rooney with old rags. Every time Rooney would pull to escape us, the umbrella would tip and a cascade of cold water would pour down my back.

"Oh my gah, Rooney, no, sit. Jesus, water down my back! Maybe just put the umbrella down?"

"But I'm trying to keep us dry."

"B, we're already wet. We all smell like skunk. I'm covered in hydrogen peroxide. I appreciate the effort but if you pour water down my back one more goddamned time ..."

"... Okay maybe I'll just put the umbrella down."

Two hydrogen peroxide scrub downs later, we pulled Rooney into the tub to soap him up with dog shampoo in a hopes to mask the remaining smell, of which there was a shit ton.

"I think it's working."

"It's totally not working."

And then there was the trouble of where Rooney would sleep. In case you've never met Rooney, he's kind of a bitch. He has personality ten-fold and when he doesn't get what he wants, he howls. Normally, Rooney sleeps at the bottom of our bed (I CAN HEAR YOU ROLLING YOUR EYES FROM HERE, KATYA). But there was no way we were going to bring skunk dog to bed. First, B tried to set up a pile of dirty towels in the bathroom.

"What are we going to do?" I asked B. "Just leave him here? All night? Look at him, he's miserable. Oh My gah he's so saaaaad."

Sad Rooney.

So we moved the pile of towels to the far corner of our bedroom. To our surprise, Rooney settled on the towels pretty quickly. Freshly showered and completely exhausted, B and I fell into bed. But as soon as the lights went out, it started. First it was faint. A small whine. Then it grew louder and more consistent. Then the whine became a howl. Rooney got up and moved to B's side. When B rolled over, Rooney moved to my side of the bed. He stood up on his hind legs and put his disgustingly smelly face next to my pillow and let out a long, slow howl.

I jumped out of bed and pulled Rooney back to the towels.

"Lie down. STAY ... STAY."

I turned the lights out and got back in bed. I shut my eyes, and then he was back next to my face, whining. I rolled over into the center of the bed and pulled my pillow on top of my head.

"GO TO SLEEP. LIE DOWN. NO. BAD."

An hour later, neither B nor I had slept a wink.

"JESUS CHRIST THAT'S IT." I shot out of bed, gathered the towels in my arms and threw them on the bed. Immediately, Rooney jumped up and settled onto the towels. "Fuck it, I'll wash everything tomorrow."

Finally, we fell asleep. A few hours later I woke up.

That smell. Jesus, it seemed to be getting stronger. Was that possible? Nope, Rooney had just gotten closer. He had left the foot of the bed and wedged himself between my body and B's body. His head, which had been hit with the greatest concentration of skunk, was against my stomach.

"Oh, GAH BLEGH EW. Get down, get down, get down."

The rest of the night was a sequence of me shoving Rooney down to the foot of the bed, only to wake up an hour or so later with Rooney's body tightly wedged between B and I. It took me days to get the smell out of my head. Everywhere I turned, I felt like I was being followed by eau de skunk. I sniffed everything suspiciously. Pillows, couches, rugs. Everything was under scrutiny. Everything that could fit in the washing machine took a spin. Anything else -- the clothes we were wearing when we bathed him, his collar, his leash -- I threw in the trash.

It's been a full week since The Incident, and Rooney still stinks. B took Rooney to PetCo as soon as they opened on Tuesday morning and put him through a three-hour de-skunking process. THREE. HOURS. His howls could be heard throughout the entire store. NOTHING will rid him of this stench. I assume the only thing to do now is to wait it out. Just waiting. And remembering not to get too close to his face when we pet him. Blegh.

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Wednesday's Song of the Week

Woah. What a whirlwind. That was the best vacation I've had in a long time. I mean, there's no such thing as a bad vacation. Or even a mediocre vacation. Frankly, if I'm at the Jersey Shore, it's hard for life to get much better. But this year was just phenomenal. The weather could not have been more perfect. The ocean felt like warm bath water compared to the chilly Massachusetts waters and the waves were enormous.

I pulled into Ocean City on Thursday night just in time for a big family dinner. By Friday afternoon, the house was teeming with uncles, cousins, parents and other miscelanious family members. There was so much beaching and drinking and eating and dancing and games and just plain ol' family fun. My mom and I racked up a record amount of beach time. It's probably debatable whether or not I can be considered Caucasian right now. I'm just THAT tan. It was just ... sigh ... it was just so great.

After eight full days of bliss, we packed up our cars, said our goodbyes and went on our teary ways.

But wait, there's more.

B and I drove straight from Ocean City to L.B.I. to meet up with 18 (!) of my closest friends for a VGF beach day and evening soiree. Good gah it's good to be with those people. Truly, good gah. And you know what happens when I get together with those people.

The next morning, B and I dragged ourselves to the car, stocked up on Wawa so I could get my fix of Philadelphia-area fixins, and made the long drive back to Boston.

But wait there's more.

Still unshowered, slightly groggy, and stiff from an eight-hour car ride, B and I drove straight into the city for the My Morning Jacket concert. And holy shit, ya'll. I mean, HOLY SHIT. I don't even know what else to say besides holy shit. They could have played until dawn and we would have not been satisfied. This was one of the best live performances I have ever seen in my life. IN. MY. LIFE. There were multiple instances when I thought B was so overcome with My Morning Jacket joy that he was going to have a seizure.

This was actually the second time we've seen My Morning Jacket, but the first was at Bonnaroo in the pouring rain and I may or may not have been ... how do you say ... overcome. In other words, I was very interested in those neon people dancing next to me. And then I wanted a corndog and then I wanted some shoes and then I wanted world peace and then I wanted my mother. So yeah. This time was better. This time B and I enjoyed a few tall boy PBRs and a warm breeze off the bay and it was marvelous. MARVELOUS.

So marvelous that I have had a heck of a time deciding which amazing song to choose for today. I had my own personal joy seizure during "Holding on to Black Metal" because how can you not? I mean, uuugggghhhhhhh so good. Ugh ugh ugh. Have my babies, Jim James. But since I already chose that as a Song of the Week this summer (and if you haven't heard it yet, go listen to it one million and three times and then come talk to me), I'll go with this little gem because THIS is the kind of mood I've been in since last week:

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Ah, Einstein

via Cats on the Internet

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You've got to be kind

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Wednesday's Song of the Week

Bon Iver fills me with so many emotions I don't even know where to begin.

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I might be young and a fool ...

source: this isn't happiness. Tweet

This is why you can't have nice things

Sigh ...

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At least you know we'll never be boring

Mojo (9:39 AM)

katsy batsy, your boyfriend has us on "limited profile" on facebook. please advise.

CMO (9:43 AM)

mojo - did you notice katsy batsy keeps us on limited profile!!!!!

Bridget (9:44 AM)

KATYA, YOU BITCH.

Katya (10:18 AM)

... having you guys as facebook friends is a liability.

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Shark Week

If I've learned one thing in life ...



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Wednesday's Song(s) of the Week: the Best of Newport Folk Fest

Sunday, July 31, 2011. God, it was awesome.











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Guess who's going to the shore this week! Do da! Do da!

I've been signing a song all week and it goes a little something like this: "Guess who's going to the shore this week! I am, I am!" to the tune of "Camptown Races." I sing it in the car, in the shower, on the toilet, and while walking around the house in my underwear eating jumbo marshmallows from the bag.

I'm pretty excited. On Thursday afternoon I'm hopping in my little Honda Civic and high-tailing it for super exotic, uber exclusive Ocean City, New Jersey where my family has been eagerly awaiting my arrival since last Saturday. And then it's nothing but nine straight days surf, sand, Corona Lights on the porch, and good ol' fashioned family fun in my favorite place in the world.

So yeah, I've been in a GREAT mood this week and I think people are getting suspicious.


I'm coming off a great weekend of beach time and friends and good food and lawn games and fire pits and live music at the Newport Folk Fest. And then BLAM-O as soon as I get my bearings again it's shore time, baby!

And if you couldn't tell, I'm totally phoning this post in today. I might as well be drunk right now. I might be, in fact. I don't have anything even slightly intelligent or snarky or entertaining to contribute to the greater internet community right now. I just want go down the shore, as we Philadelphians say. No, first I want to eat this bag of almonds and spend half my day looking up funny gifs on the internet and THEN I want to go to down the shore. Okay, no, just playin' I just want to go to down the shore. I can eat the almonds on the way.

And anyway, writing blerg posts right now is just obnoxious because my home internet is currently about as slow as AOL dial-up in 1999, which is about as annoying as when your unborn baby friended me on Facebook. In other words, if I don't get instant access to absolutely everything I want, I just want to throw my machine against a wall and go back to writing "letters" with "pens." And also drive over to your house, knock on your door, and punch you in the vagina because you are too stupid to use that thing if you are writing on people's walls as your yet-to-be birthed offspring. IDIOTS.

Speaking of pens, I had a friend become a bit disgruntled when she couldn't find a pencil in my house to do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle this weekend. Pencils? We don't keep pencils in our house. We don't make mistakes. You need a pencil for the Sunday crossword? What are you dumb or something? Just kidding. I only keeps pens in the house because you can't use a pencil to draw penises on your husband's face when he's sleeping.

Speaking of drawing on bodies, this weekend at the Folk Fest I saw two very young children (or what I refer to as "Festival Babies") walking around with their parents' cell phone number Sharpied across their backs. GENIUS. Now I'm certainly not encouraging you to scrawl your contact information across your Festival Babies and set them loose into a crowd of hippies, but that was a DAMN good idea, just in case they ever got accidentally separated. Like if dad stopped to buy a lemonade or maybe a new bowl from the guy selling pot paraphernalia out of a briefcase and for the three seconds that he had to let go of his kid's hand to pull out his wallet his kid wanders off as kids are wont to do. No worries, it'll probably only take a minute or two for some other concert goer to see said Festival Baby alone, pull out a cell phone and call up dad to be all "hey, found your Festival Baby." Anyway, it's certainly way more humane than keeping your kid on a leash.

Speaking of blog posts that have no structure and make no sense, I swear I'm not really drunk right now, I'm just hungry which usually has the same effect on my body. I get a bit punchy, sometimes I'm giggly, sometimes I'm rageful, usually my thoughts don't make sense, and almost all the time I end up on my back on the kitchen floor in my underwear eating burnt popcorn.

AND FIN.

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