Drip, Drip, Drip, Goes the Water

That’s a Chumbawamba song, from the Tubthumper album.

Anyway, during my first hour of measuring, my fancy pluviometer measured about 20 mm of rain.  That included at least two waves of rain bands.

The second hour saw both a lull in the rain and an increase in winds, and I measured only about 3 mm of rain.  The blusterier it gets, the less accurate my delicate fluviograph.  

Hours three and four, trace.  Maybe one mm.  Maybe.

Hey look! Watermelon!

This beauty was 36.5 pounds and grew at the family compound in Central Texas.  Lovely.  

More Funny

Hayes Carll.  Good singer/songwriter.  Don’t miss “Down the Road” and “I Got a Gig.”

Seriously, the first person I know who can memorize the lyrics to “Down the Road” gets chocolate chip cookies.*  

*Unless you live very far from me, like in another country or something,  and I’m not allowed to mail you chocolate chip cookies because they might be considered suspicious under some kind of terrorist, security, import, export plan.  In that case, I’ll just say “good fer you.”  

Blogzac 1

Note:  Eglentyne is on vacation in New Mexico right now, but decided in a fit of vacation-preparation procrastination to schedule blogs to be posted in her absence in an effort to prove that she could blog more often while away from the computer than she does when at home. This week’s posts are the equivalent of elevator music.  Blog + muzac = blogzac.  

After a new-music hiatus during the early years of my children’s lives, I have now returned to the land of exploring new music.  In the years since my departure from music consumption, the industry, the method, and the content has changed dramatically.  Which is sort of weird.  I didn’t realize how completely I had checked out of popular culture until I checked back in.  

My favorite song this week:  

“Charity” by Gnarls Barkley.  In fact, I just love the entire Odd Couple album.  I defy you to Not move a little when you hear it.  

And I know this one isn’t entirely new, but I love “I Wish I Was a Punkrocker” by Sandi Thom.  The combination of thumpy, jangly, melodic and nostalgic feels good.  

In fact there are a lot of amazing female voices out there now (Ileana, Sara Bareilles, Sandi Thom, Brandi Carlile, Ileana, Amy Winehouse [emphysema notwithstanding], Ileana).*  And I really like all those Emo boys.  I have faith that if I were a teenager now, that’s the music I’d be immersed in.  Plus Modest Mouse.  

*Full disclosure:  Ileana and I went to Cleveland Middle School together about 800 years ago.  Help make her famous.  Give her and her beautiful voice and words a little love.  While in Albuquerque, we will meet up for the first time since I had only one child.  I’m looking forward to it.  :)

I have nothing good to say, so I'm saying it*

*From a song-in-progress by Brother-in-law (songwriter/guitar player)

The house is quiet just now.  After a chaotic weekend involving hot dogs, water balloons, watermelon and a wading pool filled with children under 9, only Sonar X3 and I remain.  Partner is at work.  The other two Sonars  abandoned us to spend a week being spoiled by Grandma and Granddad.  Sonar X3 could have gone too, but was daunted by the idea of getting in a car with his sibs and driving away to leave us here alone for a week.  Perhaps he thought I wouldn’t know what to do without him?  

With only one child in the house, I find that there is a lot more time in my day.  It is unnecessary to do a load of wash every day.  And there are half as many dishes.  Ditto half as much crap strewn on the floor.

So I’m working on Ravenclaw-ish socks for Sonar X5, and also started a lace scarf just for the heck of it.  I finished reading The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris (her sequel to Chocolat).  Seriously, if you haven’t read any of her books, go find one.  Her development of character is great, and she is a master at pacing a book so that I am slowly pulled along, with the tension and the emotion increasing incrementally until she just blows me away in the last quarter of each book.  I find myself dabbling with her books for the first half, just reading a bit here and there, savoring her attention to the details of smell and taste.  But by the time I get to that last quarter, I can hardly put them down wanting to know how this complicated tangle of humanity works itself out.  Good stuff.  Really good stuff.  

Next on the stack is The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison, and then Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin.  

This weekend we will retrieve the Sonars.  Partner has one more week of work before his six week vacation.  Just today we contrived a plot to visit family in New Mexico the last week of June.  Gas prices, hash smices.  If we can drive the whole fourteen hours in one day, we won’t have to dish out for hotels.  That’s right.  I said fourteen hours of driving with the three Sonars in a car that is equipped with neither personal DVD players nor video gaming of any kind.  

I’ll try to remember to pack the sedatives.  For me.