A good weekend

Aside from the Packers' tough but not undeserved loss on Sunday, it was a good weekend. Lindsey was in town from Pittsburgh for a visit - the first time we'd seen each other in nearly a year and a half.

For a couple of people who became best friends in seventh grade and remained attached at the hip for years, that was an unprecedented length time between visits. I've been busy, to which the blog can attest, and she's been busy (doing things like attending med school and getting engaged.) Neither of us are big phone talkers these days, so although we still average a couple of emails every day, I couldn't help wondering if we'd remember how to actually, well, hang out together.

As it turned out, we did. Pretty effortlessly. I enjoyed showing off my new home and my town, we went shopping (trying not to freeze solid upon coming into contact with the outside air), watched some TV, and chatted for hours at a time. The next time we see each other will likely be the weekend of her big Indian wedding at the end of August, so it was good to get some quality stress-free time in now.

We also made soup for dinner on Saturday. Carrot and pear soup with basil chiffonade, to be precise. Other interesting ingredients included edamame and clementine juice. It was delicious, and I still have some left. Mmmmm. There's nothing like hot soup when it's below zero outside. God, I can't wait for spring.

Approved

Just before Christmas, I got some exciting news at work. My month abroad was officially approved (as you see above in a detail view of my official certificate.) Yes, ladies and gentlemen, come March I am bound for the land Down Under. Accompanying me for most of the odyssey will be Paul, and I'm not without hope that one or two other stragglers might be able to join in for part of the fun.

The flurry of planning a month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand - 25 days, to be exact - has just begun to die down. Paul and I have put in days upon days of research on flights, hotels, activities, and more. Although every second of our trip isn't planned out, I think we have a pretty good itinerary cooked up. In fact, we probably have enough ideas to happily occupy two or three months. I don't want to "spoil" our plans for you, because you can expect updates and photos along the way - but I can reveal that I personally booked nine separate flights for myself, so we'll be covering plenty of territory. On a not-unrelated note, we will also be spending a truly impressive amount of money ... but I figure that if ever there's a time to cut corners, this would not be that time.

Part of me still can't believe I'm really going to do this - and that it's happening so soon. I mean, two months from today, I will be - (checking calendar) - in Sydney. Hot damn. Unless something totally unforeseen happens to me, like being kidnapped by bandits.

(By the way, Part 2 of the Coblog is now up at Allison's site. Check it out!)

Tallies for 2007

And now for a tradition that is entering its second year. Here is the list of books I read in 2007, followed by some statistics:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists - various
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
For One More Day - Mitch Albom
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Cage of Stars - Jacquelyn Mitchard
Leaving Mother Lake - Yang Erche Namu & Christine Mathieu
Wisconsin 24/7 - Rick Smolan & David Elliot Cohen
Alternadad - Neal Pollack
Love is a Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield
1001 Ideas for Color and Paint - Emma Callery
Historic Homes of America - Ernest Wood
Bill Bryson's African Diary - Bill Bryson
Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom - David Wilkes
On The Wealth of Nations - PJ O'Rourke
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood - Ann Brashares
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Not a Genuine Black Man - Brian Copeland
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
The Children in Room E4 - Susan Eaton
IV - Chuck Klosterman
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime - Miles Harvey
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The Body Artist - Don DeLillo
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
One Sunday Morning - Amy Ephron
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
The Cabin Faced West - Jean Fritz
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War - Tony Horwitz
Disney's Winnie the Pooh: A Celebration of the Silly Old Bear - Christopher Finch
Poster Child: A Memoir - Emily Rapp
Da Vinci's Kitchen: A Secret History of Italian Cuisine - Dave DeWitt
Gravity's Arc: The Story of Gravity, from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond - David Darling
The Tiger in the Attic - Edith Milton
Becky's Christmas - Tasha Tudor
Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
The Curse of Ravenscourt: a Samantha Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
Shadows on Society Hill: an Addy Mystery - Evelyn Coleman
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation - David Kamp
Midnight in Lonesome Hollow: a Kit Mystery - Kathleen Ernst
Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story - Ann Kirschner
A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery - Alison Hart
Jesus Land - Julia Scheeres
Away - Amy Bloom
Peril at King's Creek: a Felicity Mystery - Elizabeth McDavid Jones
Tests of Time - William H. Gass
Silent to the Bone - E.L. Konigsburg
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
The True and Amazing Adventures of the Hunt Sisters - Elisabeth Robinson
Songs Without Words - Ann Packer
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food - Judith Jones
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
A Little House Christmas Treasury - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
Snowbound with Betsy - Carolyn Haywood
The Christmases We Used to Know - Reminisce Books
Betsy's Winterhouse - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy and Billy - Carolyn Haywood
Back to School with Betsy - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy's Little Star - Carolyn Haywood
My Year of Meats - Ruth L. Ozeki
The 1927 Sears & Roebuck Catalog
The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
Betsy and the Boys - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy and the Circus - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy's Busy Summer - Carolyn Haywood

Total books read: 77

Nonfiction books: 32 (42%)
Fiction books: 45 (58%)

By female authors: 47 (61%)
By male authors: 27 (35%)
By both: 3 (4%)

Marketed for children/teens: 26 (34%)

Read previously: 16 (21%)

You should definitely read:
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. It was a book that made me miss my days of studying literature in a classroom setting, because upon finishing I itched to go back and take notes on themes and motifs and things. I started out unsure of how the threads in the story would tie together, but ended up impressed by the way they did.

You also should definitely read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, but I figure I might have been the last person who hadn't already read it.

You absolutely should not read:
On the off chance you checked out my list of books and thought, "Hey, I should read some of those American Girls mysteries!" ... really, not so much. I mean, they're fine if you're nine years old. If you're not, I'd only recommend them if you need some palate-cleansing fluffy reading material featuring characters you first met when you were nine years old. And even then, the Carolyn Haywood books are a much better use of your time.

Overall, my 2007 reading stats are quite similar to those from 2006. I need to bust out with some crazy trends in 2008! Or, you know, just keep reading what I clearly enjoy reading.

Because I like lists and stats, here are some more for 2007.

Total concerts attended: 46, counting each day of multi-day events (like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass) separately

Seen the most often: Wilco, Andrew Bird, Jon Brion

Performers seen for the first time (headlining): 5 (Scott Amendola Band, Badly Drawn Boy, Joseph Arthur, Arcade Fire, Crowded House)

Performers seen for the first time (support or festival): 15+ (Carrie Rodriguez, Ferraby Lionheart, Jon Rauhouse, My Brightest Diamond, Low, Chris Mills, Blue Mountain, Liam Finn, Richard Swift, Art Brut, Dr. Dog, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Kim and Kelley Deal, and many more)

Performers for whom I am a repeat customer: at least 20 (it gets hard to count with festivals)


Foreign countries visited: 1 (Mexico)
Foreign countries visited for the first time: 1 (Mexico)

States visited (for work, fun, or both): 17 (Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nevada)

States visited for the first time: 4 (New Mexico, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont)


Homes purchased: 1

I expect to surpass at least two of those totals in 2008. Though probably not "homes purchased."

Wit and wisdom from a 6-year-old

My six-year-old nephew is funny. A lot of kids are funny, but he's often funny intentionally, which is kind of impressive. He's very intelligent, but he can also be a little shit. I guess sometimes that combo goes hand-in-hand. Anyway, an actual conversation from over the holidays between my nephew and his mom:

Nephew: Mary Had a Little Lamb is a true story.
My Sister: Really.
N: It is.
S: Okaaay.
N: Because Mary was Jesus's mother...
S: Oh, so Jesus is the little lamb?
N: Yes!
S: Or are we all Jesus's little lambs? Did we follow him to school one day?
Me: And then everyone laughed at Jesus?
Nephew senses he is being lightly mocked, but takes it calmly enough.
N: It is true. It's in my CCD book.
S: Well, if it's in your CCD book, then it must be true.

Nephew recognizes and appreciates sarcasm, as befits anyone raised in my family. He smirks and does not reply.

-Later-

Nephew: We have taste buds for every single flavor there is.
My sister: No, we don't.
N: Yes we do!
S: No.
N: Yes we do!
S: Nater. We do not. That's not how it works.
N: Yes it is.
Pause.
N: It's in my CCD book.

Nephew and his mom both start to laugh.

Aaaaand scene.

Coblog!

Allison and I have been friends since we were six years old. I've kept a journal (with my mother as secretary in the early days) since I was three years old.


Shortly after my ninth birthday, Allison slept over. We decided it would be fun to write a "double entry" in my journal that night - here's the beginning of that first entry:

Allison slept over again around my twelfth birthday, and we wrote in the journal again:

From then on, we decided it would be an every-three-years tradition. Amazingly, we have sustained that tradition. We've missed a year here and there (I think this is technically four years since the last time we wrote) but we always manage to get back on track. So just before Christmas, we got together again and wrote in the journal. (The same journal. It's always that journal.) But in addition to that...

B: Hey! So I'm sitting at my computer right now and sitting next to me is ... Allison!

A: Hey! This is Allison!

B: Wow, so we had this great idea (actually, Allison had it, and I enthusiastically agreed) to do a blog together. We both blog now, and we have this tradition where every three years (ish) we get together at Christmas time and write in my old journal. Originally it was at my birthday, but then once we didn't live in the same city anymore that became somewhat problematic.

A: We usually write about the what's been going on in our lives, and gloss over the greatest hits of the last three years of pop culture. We figure that stuff will be really boring to read though, so instead we're going to write about... um, Brianne?

B: Yeah. Exactly. Unlike our usually brilliant and witty posts, I guess when you get two great minds together in the same room, at the same KEYBOARD, the ... world ... just can't ... deal with - okay, so here's the thing. We have like seven minutes to do this, and we're under pressure, and we have no topic in mind. Yes!

A: I'm going to randomly mash some keys together, and whatever word they sort of form will be our topic. Ready?

B: Oh, I am so ready.

A: ktjhy.

B: Awesome. SO our topic this evening is Kathy. I have an aunt named Kathy. I'll see her tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, at the annual family get-together. She likes sweaters and online dating. We also knew a girl named Kathy in high school. I did, at least. I think she's engaged now. Maybe married? She's my Friendster friend, and I haven't really been active on Friendster in at least a year or two.

A: I'm on facebook, but I have a few facebook friends who I haven't actually "talked" to. I also get scared when people write on my super wall. And when they ask me to do quizzes and likeness tests. I don't know any Kathys. I've known some Cathys, and my cousin Kara had a nightshirt in the '80s that had the cartoon Cathy on it. I think she was holing a beifcase and talking about men. The pajama Cathy that is, not my cousin Kara.

B: Holing a beifcase sounds dirty! I never knew Cathy was that kind of cartoon. This HAS been informative! Okay, new word! 5 minutes! Ready? I'll just say you are. weionu

A: Wino. Allriiiight! A homeless man asked me to watch his bike while I was waiting outside a liquor store this past summer. That made me feel good.

B: Why were you waiting outside a liquor store? I'll let you answer that, but first I'll say that oddly enough, my associations for "wino" are strangely wholesome. It makes me think of Otis the town drunk from the Andy Griffith Show. He'd get drunk and then come to the jail and lock himself in a cell until he sobered up. Awww. Otis.

A: Wow, I didn't realize the Andy Griffith Show took on such hard-hitting issues. And I was outside the liquor store because Oliver was inside buying wine. Fine wine. Because we are classy people. Even though I was loitering outside a liquor store. New word: poifj

B: The word is poif. Too bad poif is not a word. So let's make up meanings. I think it's a really expensive variety of poodle.

A: I think it's a hairstyle for sed poodle. You know, instead of a coif.

B: I like it! And now, sadly, I think our time is up.

A: No! Our readers crave more!

B: Maybe we could do a second part to this!

A: I enthusiastically agree!

B: Great. Stay tuned for Part 2 ... brought to you on Allison's blog.

***

We haven't finished Part 2. But I'm sure it'll be quality stuff.

Edit: Part 2 now available here.

I feel fine

Happy New Year! I spent Monday night with Jon Brion and friends (mine and his) at the Harris Theater in Chicago. The show was fun, although the lines at the open bar were such that some of us only managed to get through for drinks once. Apparently other people in the crowd were more successful, judging from the general drunken chatter and embarrassing behavior from many of those around us. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the show. Jon was engaging, and requested multiple crowd singalongs. We were happy to give it our best - "Bohemian Rhapsody" was belted out with gusto, but I think we were most successful with the closer of "God Only Knows." Britt Daniel showing up to play a few songs at the start of the evening was a very nice surprise - unexpected because Spoon was headlining a New Years show of their own at Metro. The Autumn Defense was also on board to play a short opening set, and John and Pat played with Jon on a few songs - including "I Feel Fine" with Britt and a drummer Jon had just met. My favorite portion of the night came later on, when Jon, the Autumn Defense, and yet another drummer from the crowd settled in to play "Cortez the Killer" and a Springsteen song of Jon's devising, both based on crowd requests. We were also treated to some of Jon's own material, of course. Add in festivities at Hotel SnS beforehand (good job stirring the risotto, Paul) and some snow angels afterward, and it was a worthy start to 2008.