Meeting Grace: The Blog

As I mentioned in my last post, my internet connection was sporadic over the weekend.  And then, on Monday night, it was all but impossible to get online at all.  After a fruitless call to Time Warner, we determined that we needed a new wireless router.

So Tuesday, after work, I went to Best Buy (ick) and purchased one, then brought it home and let it sit in the box for Han to deal with it the following day.

What was I to do?  No internet?  No ability to answer emails, track down venues, update calendars…this was foreign territory.  Han had a show to attend (Sara Watkins on the Hornblower ship for a radio thing), so DK & I made cheese enchiladas and watched “License to Wed” and then “Mamma Mia!” (still, the joy of that movie is awesome).  It was quite a pleasant evening.  Maybe I should do that more often, take one night off every week, no internet, no computer at all.  Wow, what a concept!

I did talk to my mom last night and learned that they were heading out to Utah the next day.  I had completely lost track of their schedule so I was glad she had called to let me know.  They’re probably in Beaver, Utah right now, or where do they stay these days?  Anyway, I’m sure Sandy is anxious to get her boy home and to hang with the parental units.

Back to the router, after a frustrating day on the phone with “support,” Han was able to get everything hooked up and all seems to be well in our interweb world.  The other troubling technological issue of late is that I seem to have misplaced my iPod.  Extremely sad.  I’m hoping it will just turn up one of these days, but it’s a slim hope.  I just have no idea where it is.  Sigh.

That’s all for now!  Until next…

Meanwhile, a week later…

This weekend, my internet has been acting quite temperamental.  Perhaps it’s the heat, because there’s a lot of it.

So, a quick rundown of the past week and the bits of joy I picked up along the way:

Monday: Drove up to Fallbrook for an appointment with a potential house concert host for the Acoustic Duo.  While it was hot, the drive was lovely and a nice variance to the routine.

Tuesday: the best part of the day was watching the All-Star game.  Now, I’m not keeping track or anything, but someone from the Padres has had a hand in each of the last 3 years of National League losses!  Oy!  That’s not good, but you can’t beat watching the game’s very best in a baseball-centric town like St Louis or even get a little choked up at the reception Pujols got from the hometown crowd, or marvel at how cool Obama was to throw out the first pitch.  Nice.

Wednesday: On Wednesdays, I take DK to church.  It lasts from 7-8:30 pm so I use that 90 minutes to just hang out on my own rather than driving back & forth to home.  I found this little random garden cafe, kind of just in this little courtyard between 2 office buildings.  They serve coffee & soda.  Last week, I went there and drank a Coke and read for a while.

Thursday: Han had a gig, but I chose to stay home because I had some work I needed to finish so the joy of that day was getting my work done.

Friday: Friday’s joy was an at-home date night with Han.  We grilled steaks and had some cocktails, lounged in the air-conditioned room and were just mellow.  Very nice.

Saturday: I was kind of worthless yesterday because of the multiple cocktails from the previous evening.  I didn’t do much but watch movies, some new (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Tropic Thunder), some well-known and quite familiar (Enchanted, 27 Dresses).  Our friend, Barbara, was over recording during the day and it’s always good to see her.  She’ll be off to Austin in a few short weeks.

Sunday: Today’s joy so far is just getting stuff done.  I went to the grocery store, planned the menu for the week, and I’m about to start some laundry and do dishes. Another friend of ours, Kristen, is also leaving town and her farewell party is this evening so we’ll stop by to give her our best and then plan to go see the new Harry Potter movie

And now here we are!  Hope you’re having a fine Sunday!

Sleeping in a bit…Denver omelettes with toast, hash browns and bacon…reading in a recliner…a cool shower…

That’s my Sunday so far and there’s not a thing wrong with it. I’ll be here with the family the rest of the afternoon, then I’ll be heading back down to San Diego in the evening.

Last night, we went to dinner at Panda Inn which was pretty good.  After that, we got home and took our requisite family photos in front of the house.  By the way, Sandy looks great.  Slim and smiley. I told everyone these would be my “before” pictures.  Now to create a program and stick with it.

Later, Sandy & I went to the store for a 6-pack of Coronitas, then I tackled the garage.  I went through some boxes of old clothes (my old tennis uniforms!), but also found some old pictures from when I was 4-H, plus a bunch of my old concert shirts.  One is of The Cure, I’ll see if DK might want to wear it.  Then I shuffled back & forth between Sandy & Dad chatting on the back porch, to talking with Mom in her room.  It was a pleasant evening.  T was happily playing on his DS.

Got a text from Han before I went to bed saying the Acoustic Duo gig that night had gone well, which I was glad to hear.  That’s all for now…until next time, consider everything I’ve written about in this post to be my daily joy.

I’m behind!

I didn’t post on Thursday because almost as soon as I got home from work, Han & I were out the door to run a couple errands before heading down to the new Java Joe’s.   Earlier in the year, Joe was planning to open up a new spot, but now he is co-opting (so to speak) with an existing place and booking music and running the place 4 nights a week (Thursday thru Sunday).  Han is scheduled to play there every Thursday in August with John, an old friend of ours.  The 2 of them used to play together back in the days of the first Java Joe’s in Poway.

It was cool to hear them play together again.  Han on his drum and John singing and playing guitar.  Han’s talent on the drum is truly remarkable.  The crowd was light but enthusiastic.  Hopefully, as word gets out, it will take on a new life.

Yesterday, I missed posting because I had a busy day at work, then after work, I drove up to LA to my folks’ house as my sister and her son are in town to visit.  Sandy will leave on Monday so I’m spending the weekend up here.  When I arrived last night, we hung around the dining room table and chatte for a while, then watched some TV.  I went to bed around 11 pm.  I was tired!

This morning, after eating a gigantic croissant, Sandy & I went to the movie.  We saw “The Proposal.”  It was better than I thought it would be. I forget how much of a sucker I am for those rom-coms, but they always get to me.  After the movie, we met my mom, dad & T at Puffy Taco, a place that’s been featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.”  I had the taco plate (2 puffies, rice & beans).  I selected carne asada to fill my ‘puffies.’  We brought it back home and it was quite tasty.  Tonight, we’ll be going to Panda Inn (Panda Express’s parent).  This visit seems to have quite the gastronomic flair to it, eh?

To catch up on the joy-seeking:

Thursday’s joy: being back in the familiar atmosphere of Java Joe’s and thinking about all the memories I have of each of its incarnations

Friday’s joy: eating In ‘n’ Out Burger and hanging out with the family and the summer night air of this high school town of mine

Saturday’s joy: so far…hanging out with my slim sister and more just overall family time

Too bad I wasn’t writing this at 4:56, then it would be 4:56, 7/8/09.  Or maybe waited 10 more minutes and it would be 7/8/09, 10:11.  That one’s cooler.

Anyway…one last comment about MJ, now that my mom, my dad, my sister and my aunt have all posted.  I was glad (from the parts I saw and what Han described) that it seemed, as much as it could, like a family funeral, with a mostly dignified respect that everyone deserves.   Of course, hearing his daughter speak was powerful and I definitely feel for the kids.   I have the same kind of feeling I had after Kurt Cobain died.  His daughter was only 2 years old.  She’s 17 now and I have a feeling we’ll be hearing about her more as she gets older.  I think the same will be true of Michael’s kids.  May they retain a  groundedness that they seem to have already (somehow!).

Beyond that, I don’t have much to say really.  More and more I’m striving to find a measure of joy in each day.  My sister has a simple one line note on her blog called “Today’s Joy.”  I like that idea.  Perhaps I will try to emulate it.  Perhaps if I am aware that I should notice where the joy is in my daily hours, it will become easier to only see that.

Today’s joy: Han making chocolate chip waffles for dinner (and noting that he knows they’ll probably never be as good as my dad’s).

“Pacing the Cage came pretty quick, unlike some of these other ones that, where ideas sat around for a long time. I had remarked to the person that I was with at the time, um, not in reference to being ‘with’ her but with reference [laughs] to my life in general that I felt like I was pacing the cage. I was just, I mean there was a lot about the way I was living at the time that just wasn’t working and I was really feeling that and that’s pretty much the song. You know, I don’t think those feelings were unique to me, or unique to that time and place, they’re, they’re feelings that everybody, I think, well as its says in the song: sooner or later it’s going to get ya. Um, hopefully not for long and not often, you know but….”

- Bruce Cockburn – from “Songwriting (part 2)” workshop, Conference ‘98 Festival of Faith and Writing, Lab Theatre, Calvin College. 4 April 1998.

Pacing the Cage

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I’ve proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip’s worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It’s as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you’ll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage

I find the frenzy over Michael Jackson’s memorial service completely ridiculous. It’s true that nearly everyone in my generation owned a copy of “Thriller” (though I prefer “Off the Wall”), saw “The Wiz” multiple times, and marveled when he unleashed the moonwalk. I remember wanting to go see the “Victory” tour for maybe a minute in the mid-eighties. But my MJ fandom stops there.

Yes, artistically, he was a trailblazer in many ways. But it is stunning to me how completely amnesiac people are to the more recent MJ doings. Nothing musically that was worth any significance. The marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. Dangling his son over a hotel balcony. And oh, hey, remember the molestation trial? Not to mention the previous ‘incident’ that ended up with him paying the family $25 million to not talk about it? Remember the alcohol in soda cans allegations? You know OJ Simpson was acquitted too but everyone still thinks/believes he killed Nicole. I have to say that I feel the same about MJ. I don’t think he was all there and don’t understand why his death, as premature as it may be, should instigate this kind of deifying media attention.

I know the argument is that what he did artistically should supercede the other stuff.  There’s a lot of things being said like, “Well, aside from all that other stuff, how ’bout that music?”  I find it hard to separate them.  MJ certainly didn’t.  Most of his life was lived in the public eye, by his own design, even if he didn’t admit it.  And much of it was at time (early nineties) when we (the world in general) didn’t seem as celebrity-obsessed, glued to TMZ, as we are now.  He still made the news (eg. marriage to Lisa Marie, marriage to Rowe, birth of his kids, dangling Blanket, the “Living with MJ” documentary.)

I know this may sound harsh but I just am not feeling the MJ love. Tomorrow in Los Angeles, they expect a million people to descend on the Staples center. That’s insane. To me, he was a troubled man with severe health and mental issues. May he rest in peace, and may Los Angeles survive the onslaught.

Hi folks…well I already missed a day but I hope you’ll forgive me.  There’s not much to report.  Serena won the women’s final against Venus, and they went on to win the women’s doubles titles, too.  Most impressive.  Tomorrow morning, it’s Roddick against Federer.  I hope it’s a good match regardless of the outcome.

We’re having some friends over today to celebrate the holiday. Grilling, drinks, the usual.  We’ve been in housecleaning mode so that’s always a good thing.  Back to usual Sunday stuff tomorrow (laundry, groceries etc).  Kind of boring, but sometimes things are just ordinary.

Have a great holiday!

I love tennis! I just finished watching Serena’s semi-final match and getting ready to watch Venus take on Safina (why she’s ranked # 1 I’ll never understand). I’m rooting for Venus to take it all the way again this year. Hooray for DVR!! Not sure who I like in the men’s matches. I’m kind of indifferent but I just love to watch whoever’s playing.

So happy for the 3-day weekend. Tomorrow we’ll be cleaning up the house and just taking care of some errands. Then on the 4th we’re having some folks over since we’ll have a good look at a lot of the fireworks (though they’re not my cup of tea) from our perch here above Mission Bay.

Enjoy your holiday!

Goodness, how did this happen?  July already?!?!?

I must point out my new blog header.  Doesn’t my mom do great work?  I love it!

I won’t go into all the details that made up June, but I will say that we successfully released the Rock Band’s CD on June 21st.  Both my parents wrote about it, so you can see the details on their blogs if you’re so inclined.  In brief, the show went very well and I was pleased with the results.  The show itself kicked all kinds of ass and I know that Han had a great time playing.

Since then, I’ve been trying to relax.  Trying to figure out how time just moves on whether you want it to or not.

Oh, I will mention one other June thing.  The San Diego Junior Theater play that DK is in opened on June 26.  It’s Mulan Jr, and it’s just awesome.  I am always so impressed with their productions.  The play runs until July 12.

It is my humble intent to write at least a little–dare I say it?–every day.  Stated with the purest intention in my heart.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post about my day with Snickers the dog.