Where is spring? My toes are cold. I can hear my flip-flops whimpering from behind the closet door.
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One Saturday in March
Morning at my favorite table at the Blue Note Grill talking to Bill.
No, I’m not here watching live music or drinking before noon, I say, because I can hear you wondering. Over the last two years, I’ve been hearing the speakers in my car snap-crackle-pop. Enough to drive a music lover bonkers. So I started a stash – $5 here, $10 there. Good thing too, because then the CD player started skipping. Uh-oh. Not good, and likely not cheap. $10 here, $20 there. Then I discovered Auto Acoustics lives right behind BNG. And who am I to ignore a sign when I see – or hear – one?
Speaker inauguration song: Midnight in Harlem (Tedeschi Trucks Band)
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One Saturday in April
Riding in a red truck with Keith. Looking at sofas at consignment stores since there is not a real furniture store between here and Raleigh.
Keith: You know you can buy sofas online, right?
Me: Are you crazy? I’m not buying a sofa online. <— I say to the guy I met online.
Keith: (silence for about 20 seconds too long)
Me: (silence followed by) wow … I’d get a man online, but not a sofa.
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One Friday in May
I’ve talked about interviewing Roger McGuinn so much, even I’m sick of hearing me go on and on about it. Just go read the interview, ya’ hear?
Here’s what ran in Chapel Hill Magazine’s The WEEKLY: http://www.chapelhillmagazine.com/blogs/chapel-hill-magazine-blog/byrd-call/
Here’s what ran in my head before an editor got to it:
https://sites.google.com/site/sizzle2simmer/chapel-hill-magazine-s-the-weekly-columns/04-25-13—roger-mcguinn
The show was amazing. I can’t remember the last time I had goosebumps at a music show. Oh, wait, it was Itzak Perlman and Pinkus Zukerman.
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Sofa Shopping Shuffle:
Down on Me (Janis Joplin)
Torn & Frayed (Stones)
Red House (Jimi Hendrix)
Please Call Home (Allman Bros.)
Pup would be a good place to start here. A friend who was watching me grieve for my beautiful Remy sent me a link on Petfinder. Even while protesting that I wasn’t ready for another dog, I was a goner before you could say “roll over,” and was driving the back roads to Monroe one beautiful October day. Max (a four-year-old mix of bearded collie and PBGV = Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen) was rescued and came to live in the little red house. He’s a nut ball and he makes me laugh every time I look at his furry face.
without a pit stop, or even a wall to stop the motion. When love is new everything in your field of (and peripheral) vision is stunningly clear. Sharp. Gleaming. And achingly fragile … like an expensive Riedel wine glass. You’ve never been surer about anything in your entire life. But when, and if, the shiny wears off and the cracks spider off into everywhere and nowhere, suddenly everything is muffled, dull, pillowed. And achingly fragile. When someone’s talking, you nod like you’re listening, but you’re not really. Suddenly you’re trying to walk through pudding or Jello® wearing 6” spike heels. Which in my case meant my flip-flops were skidding on every surface, every step I took. Downright treacherous, but that’s the thing about trying to make long distance love work. There’s all this empty space between in which to get trapped.
YR15! Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro – October, 2012. 
Music for cooking a pot of Irish Beef Stew:
I was a reluctant first timer in 2010 when Leon Russell was the Saturday night big name artist. Been there, done that with festivals. I like little intimate venues where it feels like I’m yay-far from the stage and feeling up-close-and-personal with who I’ve come to see. Yes, I’m one of those … I want to see the sweat on the brow and the crazy faces the guys in the band make. It turned out to feel like someone’s ginormous backyard party (albiet a really big, cool backyard that has a view of the Cape Fear), and we were not all that many lawn chairs away from stage left. But wait. Two days of nearly non-stop music? More stages? Smaller ones, scattered around the park … one for blues, one for jazz … one of which was so close to the Cape Fear River you could almost party on the boats gathered off-shore. Local food vendors were filling bowls and baskets with seafood chowder, fried shrimp, and other goodies that were right out of the sea only days ago.
But that’s not my final stop for the night … I’m strolling just down the street to Cat’s Cradle for a double dose of Megafaun as they kick off the evening for The Old Ceremony’s new CD release “Fairytales and Other Forms of Suicide” just out on the locally-owned Yep Rock Records label. I like everything about Django Haskins, The Old Ceremony’s founder, including his name. I hope he was named after jazz-guitarist Django Reinhardt.
If you still can’t quite quit the night, turn right out of the Cradle and hit Local 506 on West Franklin Street. There are enough musical styles in alt/indie band, Morgan’s End, that you’re bound to find some notes in there that appeal to you. The odd band out here is Hunter Valentine. They have absolutely nothing at all to do with the local music scene, but you may recognize their name if you watch The Real L Word on Showtime where the trio are cast members of the current bi-coastal series that follows a group of lesbians through the daily drama of their own lives in both LA and Brooklyn.
Thursday there was something in the air. And it was not good. By Friday in the mid-90 degree heat, it was something altogether worse. Even Remy wouldn’t go gently into that good yard. I had to push him down the steps. Friday evening my neighbor, Katie, knocked on my door. We discussed the smell and the fact that her other-side neighbors giant 16-lb cat was AWOL. Uh-oh. We walked the two yards, hers and mine, sniffing … me trying to stifle my serious gag-reflex … trying to locate the dead thing. It was worse in my yard. Worser still on my back porch and I’m suddenly sure the dead thing is under my back porch. It had gotten dark enough that neither of us were going to go down on hands and knees with a flashlight to peek under the porch. After all, I’m the one who scoffs at characters in horror movies who go down in the basement without turning on the light asking “is anyone there?” We leave it that in the morning I’ll call our favorite man in the neighborhood. The one who comes to the rescue of us suddenly-helpless girls and seemingly loves every minute of being our savior. Back in the house, I lit candles and let loose an over-kill of room spray, but the dead thing was stronger than anything in a bottle or a jar. I fall asleep humming Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “That Smell.”
Saturday. Mid-morning. The savior arrives waving a short-handled rake. All he needs is a white horse. Only the knee-pads jerk me back from all but hanging a glowing salvation-like halo over his head. Yeah, I know, I’m a sucker for a ruggedly handsome savior. The search begins. The dead thing is not under my porch. It is not under my shed. It is not in Katie’s backyard. The savior walks the easement behind and suddenly sends up an “I got it.” Our first question … “is it the cat?” No, it’s a small deer. By this time, Shayna and Chad, my other-side neighbors have gathered with us at the fence where we toss around ideas of what to do with what’s left of the carcass. Black plastic bag at the curb knowing there’s no trash collection until Tuesday because of the holiday weekend. Sprinkling baking soda over to kill the smell. Collectively we all voted for ashes to ashes, dust to dust … let nature take its course.
We got cowbell!
When was the last time you tested tambourines? Once the 2 row, 2 metal (brass and stainless steel) version hit my hands, it was all over. Dual sounds … dry & bright … with more sustain. I like staying power 
The 2nd Falling
The 1st Falling
