Please tell my brother

And now, the twins. I am extremely pleased to report that both Noah and Logan (eating his brother at left) are at home. I met each of them over the weekend, and I can't wait to see them again outside the hospital - in Logan's case, outside of a very dim NICU where we weren't even allowed to hold him. (Blah blah not the mother or father blah blah blah.)

My other sister (mother of my other twin nephews) has sent a nightly batch of photos, some of which you see before you. At the risk of sounding like a bad aunt, I'll admit I had to call and verify which twin was which. But my hunches were correct! For reference purposes, I have determined that Noah has chubbier cheeks despite weighing less, and the bridge of his nose is flatter than Logan's. These are pictures of each when they came home from their respective hospitals. Logan is just chilling in his fly blue lion outfit, but look closely at Noah down below. He's pretending to be innocently asleep in his carrier, sure ... and then you realize he's flipping you off. That's my boy.

As long as I gaze on Union Park sunset

Sunday was Day 2 of Intonation Festival at Chicago's Union Park. I had one goal for the day - to see Jon Brion. It's so rare that he performs anywhere outside of L.A. anyway, let alone Chicago. But since his tendinitis, even his Largo appearances have dried up. This was definitely not to be missed.

I started the morning checking out Gina's new digs on the North side, and we really had the best of intentions to keep Heidi and Uyen company on their Jon vigil. But by 11:30 it was raining and our resolve failed. We instead lunched at the Golden Nugget, watched an Eddie Izzard DVD, and got to Intonation around 4:00 p.m. In time to catch the end of Annie's set, and (more importantly) dryness, spotty sunshine, and mellow temperatures. Perfect weather for air guitar, headbanging, and hair flinging during the Sword. For the guys around us, I mean.

By the time Jon came on, we had quite a solid presence up front. Even Sooz, balancing delicately on her crutches, was in the fray. Jon's set was obviously way shorter than his Largo nights (although he was the first non-headlining performer I saw to get called back for an encore) and he was mindful of that, keeping his customary long-burning song builds somewhat limited. Though he didn't show it while playing, it also seemed pretty clear that his wrist was bothering him. He brought along some piano assistance in Benmont Tench, who is on tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Even though Jon can't be that used to the outdoor festival crowd, he did a great job of combining his usual improvisation, witty comments, cover songs, and originals in the slightly more structured atmosphere.

Somewhere along the line there was a request for "Glenn" to come up. I thought, "Nah..." But sure enough, Glenn Kotche came up and slid behind the drum kit to help out on a few songs - including the encore of "Waterloo Sunset". The very first time I ever saw Jon at Largo, Benmont Tench and Glenn Kotche were among the surprise guests. So this was like very pleasant déjà vu. The interaction between the three guys onstage was great. Near the end of the main set Jon made Glenn play a crazy drum solo, which is something you don't get to see too often. And Jon even kicked his piano over at the end of a fabulous version of "I Believe She's Lying". Rock. And. Roll.

We stayed a little while after Jon's set, and listened to some Robert Pollard from the other stage. (In retrospect, telling Glenn that due to outdoor festival acoustics nobody would have been able to tell if he sucked anyway was probably not the most reassuring statement.) Then we went out for Thai food, and wound up at the Hideout on Sam's suggestion for the second half of Ed Burch and friends' performance of the Louvin Brothers' "Satan is Real". It was pretty awesome. After a brief foray down North Ave. I dropped Gina at her place and headed back home. And then the thunderstorms and pouring decided to arrive. Yay! Oh well. Still better than during the festival.

My pictures are taken from Chicagoist, by the way. Visit Chicagoist!

Good morning! Good morning!

This morning, I officially acquired two new small nephews. Logan was born at 7:24 a.m., 7 pounds and 2 ounces. Noah was born at 7:25 a.m., 6 pounds and 8 ounces. Pretty good sizes for twins born two weeks early. Logan is apparently having some minor respiratory issues, so they are going to transfer him to the neonatal unit in West Allis. I'm not sure if I'll get to see him or not this weekend - maybe I could stop there? I know it's supposedly nothing too serious, but I can't help being somewhat concerned. I myself was transferred to Milwaukee shortly after I was born, though, so I should know the drill by now. Maybe I can give Logan some pointers.

Scruised

I scruised my arm today. That's a combination of scratched and bruised. I almost went for "bratched", but I appreciate the auditory similarity of "scruised" to "screwed". Anyway, I was in the middle of a "shut the freezer door and whirl around at the same time" motion, and caught my upper arm on the top of the refrigerator door handle. If you're wondering how I injured my upper arm on a refrigerator door handle, the answer is: I'm short.

Here is the second poem from 1990's Poems for Everything, the stunning poetry debut by yours truly.

I Am The Sun

I am the sun sun sun
I stay in the sky sky sky
I give light light light
To the earth earth earth
That's how I like it like it like it

Yikes. It's even better with the visual representation though (I don't have a scanner, but do have a digital camera in my laptop - so you get the added bonus of me holding up the poem and staring creepily from behind it):



Someday I want to visit that curly continent below Africa. After I visit the land bridge from Africa to Canada, of course.

Grandfather's Day

Today is Father's Day. I didn't see my dad, but I will see him next weekend. Meanwhile, I thought I'd write about another dad. My mom's father, who died fifteen years ago. I was only eleven when he passed away, but I used to go to his house every day before and after elementary school. That was also the cool place for my friends and me to have slumber parties during the summer. Nana always slept in her chair in the den anyway, but Grandpa would take the couch when we slept over, leaving us the master bedroom and the bed therein.

I'm a lot like him. I didn't understand that as much at the time, but I see it more and more as the years go by. He wasn't a talkative man, but he was hilarious and sarcastic if you knew him. He loved thought problems. He loved typing and photography, and tried to keep up with the latest technology in both. I remember being vastly impressed when I saw the special "cursive" disc for his new typewriter. He loved music, and taught himself to play the guitar and piano. He was a master woodworker and metal worker. He built me a set of shelves for my "clubhouse" (a.k.a. the garage), a doll bed and a doll chest, all the shelves in our kitchen, TV trays we still use, windchimes, wooden initials for my window (he let me draw them myself, actually), a workbench, many chess sets, and a telescope through which we used to look at the moon. Although he only had a couple years of high school himself, he used to tutor kids in calculus. He taught me enough math to be years ahead of my grade in school - and it was fun.

Grandpa kept careful and extensive records, something I'm also a touch obsessive about. I recently found a datebook from 1983 that belonged to him (yes, Basement o' Wonders) and it's full of entries such as "Renewed license for passport. $7.00. Money order No. 43858" and "Got a $22.88 refund on my Wis. income tax for 1982" and "Made appointment with Granger Mot. to have car fixed (rough idle) Thur. May 5 8:00 A.M." All written in his neat, straight, blocky printing and cursive. Within the datebook, though, I found something else. Three small sheets of scrap paper - paper he used to cut up himself and store in a particular slot I can still envision in his basement shelves. On one sheet he neatly wrote out his signature seven times. On the others, he wrote the following:

I'll set here and practice my penmanship for a little while because I need the practice. It seems to me I never write anything anymore, I always type instead. So from now on I'm going to write a couple of paragraphs every day and see if that improves my writing. Today is Friday May 31, 1991. I'll be able to cash my pension check tomorrow because it will be the first of the month. June. We'll get our Social Security check the third. That will be Monday. I think I'll quit now and do something else.

I'll set here for a little while and practice my penmanship. When I was younger I used to be able to write with a firm steady hand, but now when I'm old my hand is unsteady and my writing is very shaky, and I can hardly read my own writing, but if I do this every day it keeps my hand more steady and it's more like it used to be. Today is Tuesday May 28, 1991. I'm going to be 75 years old this coming November if I live that long. I think I have practiced enough now so I'm going to quit and do something else.

As it happened, he didn't live that long. He died on September 23, 1991. His birthday fell the day after mine in November. If I had been a boy, my name was to be Robert, after him.

These momentos make me miss him something fierce. I don't think about him all the time, of course, but when I do it always takes me by surprise. I wish I hadn't been so young when he died. I wish I hadn't taken so much of his kindness and generosity for granted. I wish I'd been able to have a conversation with him, even just one, as an adult. I wish my mom still had her dad in her life.

Well! I'm sure that brought cheer to everyone! At any rate, I hope today was a very fine one for all the dads out there. And all those who have dads, too.


Meta-Father's Day - my grandpa in the arms of his grandpa, Nels.

Arg

I worked forever today, and will probably also work forever tomorrow and Friday. I feel a headache coming on. The good news is that I'm now sprawled on a comfy hotel room bed across from the Mississippi River, in St. Paul, (even though my room is on the third floor and overlooks a roof) and I get to hang out with my Twin Cities posse while I'm in town. Last night I had sushi with Michelle and then proceeded to back to the hotel to scarf down slices of pie procured earlier at Norske Nook. Lindsey joined in the pie-scarfing fun. Tonight, I think, Greek food. And later, maybe a trip to a storage locker!

Mid-June

How did it get to be the middle of June already? I think I say that every year. But damn.

Anyway, awesome weekend. Great weather, fun, etc. I've come to the conclusion that staying in the same place all the time would slowly drive me nuts. Going somewhere for the weekend, or just a couple of days here and there ... whether it's Chicago, Ktown, somewhere more scenic ... it's something I love to do. I almost feel like it's something I need to do. This week I'll be in the Twin Cities on business, and that makes me happy, too. Changes of scenery, different people. If all of my friends and family lived in one city, I wonder what I would do. Well, that'll never happen.

I'd like to share with you a lovely poem from a fourth grade poetry collection of mine unearthed recently. The volume is entitled "Poems for Everything" and even has a table of contents. It's also illustrated, which means that really, I should have scanned the pages. But here is the first poem:

WHAT IS PURPLE?

Purple is the color of grapes on a vine
Purple is kings and queens looking divine

Purple is shirts, pants, socks and shoes
Purple is violets in morning dews.

Purple is the color of leaves on a hike
Purple is glue that teachers don't like

Purple's the color I like most of all
Purple's the color that never will fall.

I think rhyming "vine" with "divine" is kind of cheating. And where the hell was I hiking?

What I learn from magazines

Tonight was a night of reading. Awhile ago I mentioned all the free magazines I get nowadays, the only viable payout for a paltry amount of expiring Midwest miles. I've found them more of a curse than a blessing overall, especially given their propensity to arrive all together in the mail. "Here we all are, stuffed in your mailbox! You'll never have the time or desire to read us all, but we don't mind! Would you care for 100 free music downloads? What about some perfume?"

Still, though, I am doggedly determined to read each magazine I receive. I had about five strays left over from May, and I finally buckled down and read them tonight. Eh. It really wasn't worth it. I did read (in Spin) that one out of two people have an STD by the age of 25. I'm sorry, but that's a statistic I have a hard time believing. For a bunch of reasons. Half of everyone my age has had an STD? So what about people at 30? 40? Can we hit 100% at some point?

Also, I learned from Blender that The White Stripes, Wilco, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, and Death Cab for Cutie - combined - have not sold as many albums as Nickelback. Damn. Oh, and Mariah Carey currently has 17 number one singles to her name, and probably will end up meeting or overtaking Elvis and the Beatles, who are at 20.

Finally, I'm feeling a little ... odd. If I have Peppin sickness, I will not be pleased.

Twilight zone

I booked my flight to Halifax today and secured my vacation time. Hooray for the Maritimes! However, I'm beginning to think fate may have played a part in all this. First of all, as I was finalizing flight plans, I realized this all seemed just a little bit ... familiar. And delving back into the blog archives, I found this. A little weird, huh? Especially considering that half the flights I had to choose from stopped over in Montreal. (The one I actually booked doesn't, but shhhh.) Also, guess when I'm leaving for the trip? July 11th, 2006. Now look at the date on that entry. Yeah, that's right. July 11th, 2005. Coincidence? I THINK SO. But you never know. Pay attention to your dreams, ladies and gentlemen, because they may turn out to be premonitions that come true exactly one year later. With the exception of some small details.

Those last two sentences should have been a Ben Franklin aphorism. I'm going to start working on Poor Brianne's Almanack.

Planning

The Atlantic Canada adventure looks to be a go, although I haven't done any of that stuff like purchasing plane tickets, booking hotels, securing time off, etc. Details. Actually what's currently making me hesitate are the abominable airfares. I'm looking at about $560 for the flights alone. Yikes. I still really want to go, but it almost seems like they shouldn't be allowed to charge that much. There are some other places I'd like to go in the not-too-distant future, including L.A., Virginia (if Michelle takes a volunteer job there), and maybe NYC. We'll see.

I saw the Court and Spark and Autumn Defense on Friday night. That was fun. The Harmony Grill has delicious clam chowder.

All this potential spending of money has made me reexamine my desire to spend more each month on rent. Because, see, I like going places and buying stuff too.

And the best news is that I bought freezy pops, and they are currently freezing.

I'd like to leave you with a picture of a welwitschia mirabilis, a plant I'd forgotten I ever knew about. Until I saw it mentioned in The Island of the Colorblind and realized I used to pass a labeled drawing of one in the botany/biology building on campus every single day on my way to class junior year. It was opposite a staircase. In the photo below, it may or may not be eating that man.

Freezy Pops (Hey ho, let's go!)

It is June! And to celebrate the coming of hot weather, I decided to use my lunch hour to pen an ode to that summertime staple, the freezy pop. With apologies the the Ramones, to be sung to the tune of Blitzkreig Bop. Please imagine the guitar parts in all the appropriate places:

FREEZY POPS

Hey ho, let’s go! Hey ho, let’s go!
Hey ho, let’s go! Hey ho, let’s go!

The perfect way to unwind
My favorite is the pink kind
The kids are ready to dine
On freezy pops

They all come linked together
So cut them if you’re clever
They’re perfect for the weather
Cold freezy pops

Hey ho, lets go
See ‘em in the box now
How they’ll taste, I don’t know
They’re all stacked up and ready to go

You squeeze ‘em through the plastic
And then you take a big lick
They melt away so damn quick
The freezy pops

The juice left when the pop’s done
You suck it out of each one
They’re best out in the hot sun
Sweet freezy pops

Hey ho, lets go
See ‘em in the box now
How they’ll taste, I don’t know
They’re all stacked up and ready to go

Now your pop is all gone
The plastic tube will live on
Don’t leave it on the front lawn
No freezy pops

If you want another
Just go and ask your mother
More flavors to discover
Yay freezy pops!

Hey ho, lets go! Hey ho, lets go!
Hey ho, lets go! Hey ho, lets go!

Damn. Now I want a freezy pop.