My dog is seriously something else. Every dog I've ever had (okay there were only 2 before this one) disliked the vets, tried to jump off the table, contorted and jumped and even tried to bite the people clipping their nails. Oreo required a couple of vet assistants to hold her down and among those couple HAD to be Betty. If Betty wasn't there to help, you could hang it up.
My dog is a pistol. In some ways he waaayy more of a pistol than Oreo ever thought of being. He competes with me for pack position all the time, he practically pulls me over when I'm walking him on the leash and he gets excited and he runs away if he's off the leash and doesn't like what I'm saying. When he goes to the vets, I have to drag him through the doorway (As with any new doorway), and THEN, he wags his tail when the assistants come in, lets the vet check his ears, tummy feet, etc. with little to no objection and behaves like an absolute angel except some slight hesitation when I hand the leash over to someone else. This last time he even let the vet assistant trim his nails while he was laying on the floor.
He never ceases to amaze me.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
"it's a pretty shoulder!"
Waaaaay back on april 20th, I went to workplay to see the lovely and talented Ms. Vienna Teng. For those of you who don't know her, she is a pianist, singer and songwriter who's music sounds like it is influenced by classical styles, tori amos, and sarah mclaughlan, among others. She considers herself to be "chamber folk" music.
I heard a song on of hers called "1 bedroom 1 bath" on XM Radio and thought it sounded like something I might like. So, I looked her up on Amazon and loved all the 30 second samples, but it never went further than that. Until... I saw in Black and White that she was going to be here at Workplay, which is one of my favorite venues because it's small and somewhat intimate, and if you get a good seat, you can sit literally 15 feet away from the musician. So, I was curious about going, but not convinced since I had only ever heard about 30 seconds of her songs. I asked around and someone pointed me to internet archive, which has lots of live performances from different artists. It took about 5 minutes for me to fall madly in love and I practically begged my husband to give me $15 and say it was okay for me to go despite that he was feeling under the weather that day.
It was an incredible show. I am so glad I went and I will totally go any time that little lady plays at Workplay.
So, that huge, long, rambling info was all to talk about something that happened during the show. Vienna's real piano was off to one side and tilted on an angle. She had an electric piano in the front of the stage as well. At one point in the middle of the show she came up to the electric piano and said, "I always try to do one or two songs up here on the electric because the people on the side are stuck looking at my shoulder all night..." and someone yelled out "It's a pretty shoulder!"
This makes me wonder what it would be like to be her. She is up on stage in front of lots of people who are watching everything about her. They notice her voice, her facial expressions, her technique on the piano, her clothes, whether or not her toenails are painted and make judgments on all of these things. I can promise you that at least one person made a judgment on whether or not she has a pretty shoulder, quite possibly before it was yelled out from the audience. That's a lot of pressure. If I constantly heard that I had "pretty shoulders", "nice toenails", "great hands", etc. it would do two things after I got over the initial warm fuzzies: 1. It would make me very paranoid knowing that everyone was constantly watching and judging every little aspect of me. 2. I would feel that it would be hard for me to judge the reality of any situation.
A person can't possibly always have pretty toenails, sexy shoulders, perfect pitch, great rhythm and be wonderfully cheery. Yet, there will always be someone around to tell Vienna, and other musicians (and actors and directors and...) that she has pretty shoulders and her voice never fails.
To further aggravate this situation, she also has critics. There are some people who will never like anything about her no matter what she does. Someone will always comment that her lyrics are trite, her style is old fashioned, she's a rip-off, she's an asshole because she dares touch the electric piano instead of only using the baby grand--you get the point.
...And we wonder why musicians go crazy at the end of their careers and write awful crap that they seem to think is brilliant and then start asking for camels at 3:30 am and just seem to live on another planet altogether.
Luckily, Vienna doesn't seem like she's started joining prince world yet, and she seems down to earth enough that maybe she can avoid it. I'll cross my fingers.
I heard a song on of hers called "1 bedroom 1 bath" on XM Radio and thought it sounded like something I might like. So, I looked her up on Amazon and loved all the 30 second samples, but it never went further than that. Until... I saw in Black and White that she was going to be here at Workplay, which is one of my favorite venues because it's small and somewhat intimate, and if you get a good seat, you can sit literally 15 feet away from the musician. So, I was curious about going, but not convinced since I had only ever heard about 30 seconds of her songs. I asked around and someone pointed me to internet archive, which has lots of live performances from different artists. It took about 5 minutes for me to fall madly in love and I practically begged my husband to give me $15 and say it was okay for me to go despite that he was feeling under the weather that day.
It was an incredible show. I am so glad I went and I will totally go any time that little lady plays at Workplay.
So, that huge, long, rambling info was all to talk about something that happened during the show. Vienna's real piano was off to one side and tilted on an angle. She had an electric piano in the front of the stage as well. At one point in the middle of the show she came up to the electric piano and said, "I always try to do one or two songs up here on the electric because the people on the side are stuck looking at my shoulder all night..." and someone yelled out "It's a pretty shoulder!"
This makes me wonder what it would be like to be her. She is up on stage in front of lots of people who are watching everything about her. They notice her voice, her facial expressions, her technique on the piano, her clothes, whether or not her toenails are painted and make judgments on all of these things. I can promise you that at least one person made a judgment on whether or not she has a pretty shoulder, quite possibly before it was yelled out from the audience. That's a lot of pressure. If I constantly heard that I had "pretty shoulders", "nice toenails", "great hands", etc. it would do two things after I got over the initial warm fuzzies: 1. It would make me very paranoid knowing that everyone was constantly watching and judging every little aspect of me. 2. I would feel that it would be hard for me to judge the reality of any situation.
A person can't possibly always have pretty toenails, sexy shoulders, perfect pitch, great rhythm and be wonderfully cheery. Yet, there will always be someone around to tell Vienna, and other musicians (and actors and directors and...) that she has pretty shoulders and her voice never fails.
To further aggravate this situation, she also has critics. There are some people who will never like anything about her no matter what she does. Someone will always comment that her lyrics are trite, her style is old fashioned, she's a rip-off, she's an asshole because she dares touch the electric piano instead of only using the baby grand--you get the point.
...And we wonder why musicians go crazy at the end of their careers and write awful crap that they seem to think is brilliant and then start asking for camels at 3:30 am and just seem to live on another planet altogether.
Luckily, Vienna doesn't seem like she's started joining prince world yet, and she seems down to earth enough that maybe she can avoid it. I'll cross my fingers.
Monday, April 16, 2007
quick update
I now work at a daycare center in the afternoons here in Birmingham. So far it seems like a really nice place. I don't like going there because A. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in daycare and B. I told them I did. I hate lying to people, but in a larger city where there's lots of job competition, I kind of feel like I have to lie and say that their thing is the thing I want to do for the rest of my life in order to be able to get a paycheck. Because, seriously, would you hire someone who said "yeah, I have a degree in something else which I would rather be doing, but I'm desperate for a paycheck, so I thought I'd apply here."? Of course, I'm never quite that blunt about it, and I've actually gotten good at disguising the desperation, but still, no one wants to hire someone who they know will eventually leave when they have numerous other qualified people who say they want to stay forever.
Anyways, what else is going on... umm not much, we got another guitar controller for guitar hero and played together this weekend and it was a blast. I made home made cereal this past week and it actually turned out good. The recipe needs a little tweaking and I need to figure out how to make the production process less arduous, but I definitely think it'll be worth the effort once I get it down.
Oh, I guess easter has come and gone since the last time I posted. We had Whitey's mom and my parents down and we cooked a big Easter dinner. I made a whole roast chicken with Caribbean spices and rum, banana bread muffins with dried pineapples and rum, fruit skewers with rum and macaroni and cheese. Whitey made a tasty pot roast in the crock pot, white bread and stove top. Our parents brought vegetables and dessert and we all ate ourselves into a coma. It was a blast.
I guess that's all that's happened.
Thanks for listening to my rambling.
Anyways, what else is going on... umm not much, we got another guitar controller for guitar hero and played together this weekend and it was a blast. I made home made cereal this past week and it actually turned out good. The recipe needs a little tweaking and I need to figure out how to make the production process less arduous, but I definitely think it'll be worth the effort once I get it down.
Oh, I guess easter has come and gone since the last time I posted. We had Whitey's mom and my parents down and we cooked a big Easter dinner. I made a whole roast chicken with Caribbean spices and rum, banana bread muffins with dried pineapples and rum, fruit skewers with rum and macaroni and cheese. Whitey made a tasty pot roast in the crock pot, white bread and stove top. Our parents brought vegetables and dessert and we all ate ourselves into a coma. It was a blast.
I guess that's all that's happened.
Thanks for listening to my rambling.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
You gotta go see this!
Grindhouse is the shit!
This is the best movie I have seen in a long time and that's saying a lot because we just watched Clerks II, which was pretty fucking fabulous (although, he should have left most of the deleted scenes in in my opinion, but I digress), and most of the stuff I watch is pretty good. I will try not to give away too much, but yes, a girl with a machine gun for a leg is as sexy as you think it is, as is rose McGowan's naked ass. The action is awesome, the stunt work is amazing and I left the theater with adrenaline shakes. For those of you not understanding what I mean, adrenaline shakes, are what happen to me (And other people) when I ride tower of terror or almost get in a car wreck or something else comparably exciting-- my body and especially my legs shake and I'm restless. This doesn't generally happen unless I'm doing something, like performing in a show, or in something, like in the roller coaster when it loops upside down. Watching the roller coaster might make me nervous, but I don't get the shakes from it. This movie gave me the shakes. It was that good. As a matter of fact if any of our friends want to go see it again, both my husband and I are up for going again. Really. It won't bother us. I PROMISE!!!!!
This is the best movie I have seen in a long time and that's saying a lot because we just watched Clerks II, which was pretty fucking fabulous (although, he should have left most of the deleted scenes in in my opinion, but I digress), and most of the stuff I watch is pretty good. I will try not to give away too much, but yes, a girl with a machine gun for a leg is as sexy as you think it is, as is rose McGowan's naked ass. The action is awesome, the stunt work is amazing and I left the theater with adrenaline shakes. For those of you not understanding what I mean, adrenaline shakes, are what happen to me (And other people) when I ride tower of terror or almost get in a car wreck or something else comparably exciting-- my body and especially my legs shake and I'm restless. This doesn't generally happen unless I'm doing something, like performing in a show, or in something, like in the roller coaster when it loops upside down. Watching the roller coaster might make me nervous, but I don't get the shakes from it. This movie gave me the shakes. It was that good. As a matter of fact if any of our friends want to go see it again, both my husband and I are up for going again. Really. It won't bother us. I PROMISE!!!!!
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