Winning?

This past Satruday, my lovely co-blogger, Jacquie, her man, Mr Can, and I went to a local radio station's "block party." Lucky for us the party was within walking distance of my house.

So after a pre-party cocktail, we walked ourselves down there. It was a really incredible October day, as they tend to be around these parts. There were two stages, so really no down time between bands, some food trucks, a bar, and a few local businesses marketing their wares.

Lucky for us, there were a couple of wheels to spin at these business tables. You know the kind, the spin-the-wheel-to-see-where-you-land-which-will-determine-what-specific-swag-you'll-walk-away-with wheel. The first one was, um, lame. They were offering ugly bumper stickers and the like, and when Jacquie suggested that she'd like to switch out her sub-par ugly bumper sticker swag, the snotty girls behind the table said it "wasn't allowed." Really? What, are your bosses videoing every spin of he wheel so as to make sure that people don't walk off with swag they didn't actually land on?! I mean, the horror! The nerve! Geez, Jacquie.

These girls were cute, and probably nice people, but unfortunately too young and stupid naive to realize their job was to promote the business, not police the wheel spins. We all walked away with nothing, and I now don't even remember the name of the business.

The second wheel we tried was much more fun. It was the Belly Up's (a local music venue) wheel, and they were giving away far better swag. Here's Jacquie's recent Facebook posting as proof:

I took a spin after her, and, baby, I was a winner too. My spin didn't quite land on "winner's choice," but it almost did, and I suggested we could pretend it did, so we did. (Apparently no big brother videoing going on at this table.) My "choice" turned out to be a choice of which two concert tickets to pick from a fat stack the guy behind the table pulled out.

After much deliberation and asking him a thousand questions about each band, I decided on a pair of tickets to see Vanessa Carlton. No, I'm not sure who she is either, but he suggested she was sort-of like Selena Ryder, who was on the day's lineup, and was really incredible. I thanked him profusely, put the tickets in my pocket, and proceeded to get drunk have a good time.

 The highlight of the day for me, was, not surprisingly, Michael Franti. He is such fun to see live. Totally high energy and animated. He is NOT afraid of the audience, and was out there with the people a few times, plus he had a whole crew up on stage with him by the end of the show.

We did not make it up on stage, but we did make contact with the big man (the guy is an incredible 6-foot-6 yogi god), which was, um, fun!

 And Jacquie and I did make it down to the stage to extend our up-close and personal time with Michael (and managing to piss off most of the security people while doing so).

I swear, you can see Jacqueline in this photo, look to the far right-hand side, third person in. Right?

And I do believe that is me, in the gray sweater and long hair in the left-ish corner:

Oh, and bigger and better, this one with my big, fat, clapping hands ;) (And Franti with a Surya mudra going on.)

Sadly, the concert ended, so we gathered our things, hit Stone Brewery to fuel up before the walk home, and eventually the night came to a close.

When I woke up, I grabbed my discarded jeans to pull out my lucky Belly Up tickets. What night were we doing to see Vanessa Carlton? Some night in mid-November was my recollection


Ha - this is what I found:

Doh! Winning?

The Leaves And The Stones

The leaves . . .

. . . oh, the leaves this year . . . 

And the stones . . .

. . . oh, those stones.

The leaves!

The stones!

The leaves......

Are you detecting a pattern?

Have you ever been in southeastern Connecticut in October?

Yeah, it's pretty great.

. . . well, if you're into stones . . .

. . . and leaves.

. . . and leaves-and-stones.

And, you know, all-around, overall beauty.

Because if you're looking for beauty, we got it right here . . .

. . . right here in the leaves and stones.

To You and Yours

It happens earlier every year, and it is impossible to avoid unless one makes a concerted effort to recluse oneself from public life in any form after mid-September. It lurks around corners and in back aisles, surreptitiously overtaking the pumpkin porn in what should be the back-to-school retail display. It’s easy enough to look away from that first glance, to dismiss the affront and stick to the clearance racks where you can maybe still find mismatched bathing suit parts and short sleeved shirts when it’s 80 degrees out in early October. We can run, we can hide, but only for so long before that inevitable day when someone breaks the seal and opens the floodgates by uttering the greeting that sets the world on tilt: “happy holidays!”

It happened to me over a week ago, seriously. Hand to God it was October 4^th. The hell?  

I try not to let my inborn anti commercialist tendencies damper my love of the holiday season, especially now that we’ve moved past the tedious stress of pretense and can use the lure of big gifts as bribes for good grades/behavior/hygiene like Jesus intended (just kidding mom!) (and Jesus). 

I was irritated, though, to be happy holidayed in the first week of October.  I tucked that irritation away in the deep, dark recesses of my addled brain while focusing on Other Things this month. And then on the very day that these Other Things came to a surreptitious climax, I found myself convalescing on the couch at 3pm with nothing to do but click through the channels.

Pieces of April  before Katie Holmes became creepy by association, (see also Go)

Quite possibly the best Thanksgiving movie ever made. If you have not seen this movie, do yourself and the universe and watch it immediately.

I got to thinking about holiday movies, which are my favorite. FAVORITE! There are so many great ones, even more shitty ones, and no end to the joy that I can find when flipping through the ol’ cable machine.

Faves? Oh, I gots faves.  But I can’t remember them unless they’re on the teevee, ya know? I mean you’ve got your classics that shock no one:  It’s a Wonderful Life,  A Christmas Story, The Grinch, etc. And you’ve got your new classics that are equally universal, like Love, Actually and Elf. But I love the seemingly lesser known flicks that maybe don’t make top billing, like Home for the Holidays , The Preacher’s Wife, Edward Scissorhands, While You Were Sleeping, and The Family Stone. Honorable New Year’s Eve mention has to go to The Holiday, Rent, and of course When Harry Met Sally.

Ah, the movies. I love me some movies. What are your faves?

And may I please be the first (if you’re lucky) to wish you and yours...

(I’m sorry, I’m totally going to do it. Close the window if you can’t handle the truth)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Yes, honey, clowns ARE scary

Is it just me, or is there something really creepy about this photo?

Young Old Friends

You know that magical feeling you get when you get together with really old, I mean really young, I mean really old young friends?

It's pretty great.

Denise and I met in 1st grade. We were six. That's 44 years ago, peeps.

Barbara came into the picture years later. When we were like 10. We've been friends a mere 40 years with her.

Newbie.

The three of us -- and our darlin' Mistah -- had one of those days that can only be described one way.

Magical.

And don't even think it ended there, right there on our front porch.

Oh no. The three of us started talking about going to Ocean Beach, because Denise hadn't swum in, like, a couple of hours, so we bellowed, in harmony, "Schleckah! Take us to the Beach!"

And so he did.

And then we got to watch Denise do her Denise Thing.

Some people swim with the fishies. Denise swims with the Ledgie.

 Why yes! There were whitecaps in the Long Island Sound that day.

But did that stop our intrepid hero?

No. No, it did not.

Denise joined the Mary Ellen . . .

. . . and headed towards Plum Island . . .

. . . while Barbara and I worried on shore.

Barbara and I were determined not to lose sight of her, but well, a cup blew away, a phone rang, distractions abounded, and although we could not see Denise anymore, we were sure she was fine.

Absolutely fine.

Oh wait, there she is. See her out there??

 Way out by Plum Island? Let's zoom in . . .

. . . there she is!

Denise finally turned around not because she was tired but because she knew we were worried.

We weren't really, but we kind of were.

And we were so happy to see her swim in to shore.

The water, apparently, was warm, but the air was cold.

And the moment we had our girl back with us, on land, we were overjoyed.

Because we were all back together again, just as we should be . . .

. . . me and my young old friends.

back in time tuesday: secret beach

Sorry, did I already use that title cheat for a throwback Thursday repeat last week? It's okay, you forgive me. There's so much great stuff tucked away in this old blog, and we can't have me feeling blue about opting to avoid rather than dissect the stuff on my mind. Can we? CAN WE? No. We Can Not.

Here's an oldie, and if I may be so bold as to suggest, also a goodie:  

Monday, October 12, 2009

secret beach

My Sunday got off to a rocky start because a certain fool child of mine foiled the plans I had for a really good lunch. I won't bore you with all of the gory details, but suffice it to say that items complimentary to a certain bowl of leftie chili were purchased during a hungry, post-gym grocery run, yet what did I find upon my return? Someone had helped himself to the chili, which is annoying but forgiveable... but then he didn't eat it, and instead of putting it back in the fridge for me or any other person on this earth to enjoy, he put it in the sink where it was promptly filled with water. I nearly killed him. And then I yelled at him for telling me that he'd used up all the halloween blood and we needed to buy more. I angrily told him that he was a very wasteful person and suggested that he steer clear of me for a while. At least until I found something acceptable to eat.

Later, the kids cautiously approached me and asked if we could go to the beach. I assumed that this was a peace offering, because my kids know that nothing soothes a savage mommy like sand between her toes by the big, blue sea. Then they reminded me that last weekend I had promised that the very next time we went to the beach, we would set out to find the secret beach.

I might be mean when they eat my chili, but I'm usually good for a promise. So we parked at the beach in the usual spot, but instead of ambling down toward the sand and surf before us, we headed south in search of the secret beach that my boy had visited one day when he was at the beach with friends.

We started off toward the pier


and then continued right past that bad boy, pausing to look back at our regular stomping grounds


Secret? Yes. Secluded? Not so much. This area of the cliffs was crawling with peeps, perhaps due to the conspicuous absence of booze prohibiting life guards. And me without my cooler.

.

While we traversed the moon-like, criminally damaged cliffs, my boy eagerly described the passageways we would soon encounter. I was dubious.

.

But then we arrived here...

and emerged here:

The Secret Beach!

Always strategizing, these two

.

What a great spot. So what if it is just as easily reached by street and staircase ... our route was so much more adventurous! The kids swam and jumped and scrambled and gave me heart attacks and then went back and jumped some more. It was a really special, unexpected afternoon.

We celebrated our triumphant return with fish tacos, fries, and a screwdriver.

Chili? What chili?