E's B-day and A's Shower.

It's E's B-day and A's Shower.

The dog and I are groovin to:
Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys. Melodic and stable as one would expect from Ben and the boys.
Joan Armatrading - Live at Royal Albert. I’ve seen Joan four times and this is not the usual set list, but how many times can she play Willow? Nicely done.
Treme – Soundtrack. Music from the HBO series created by the producers of The Wire. The show features post-Katrina New Orleans and the stories of those who made it through and those who returned. The music helps tell the story.
Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin. Once again Raphael hits it out of the park with a truly retro, Motown sound that is sure to get the stodgiest curmudgeons tapping their toes.
Jason Isbell - Here We Rest. Former Drive By Trucker put together a solid collection of Folky/Country/Rock tunes.

I'm enjoying the 3rd season of True Blood (although too scary for the dog). Not as good as season one, but better than season two.
We recently saw the first talking version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931, Paramount, Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins). Best Actor Oscar for March. Extremely racing and artsy for 1931! And we learned that there are 54 film versions of that story including a musical from 2001 with Mr. Cheeseburger/Baywatch, David Hasselhoff.

I'm a little over one third of the way through Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller. An English born, Rhodesian raised journalist living in Montana returns to Zambia to travel to Mozambique with a born-again, soldier-turned-banana-farmer so he can face his demons. It’s non-fiction, you can't make that shit up. It's very good so far.

We spent last weekend in Vancouver, BC celebrating another year of patience, tolerance and understanding by my wonderful partner. The dog wasn’t able to come. She had a lot on her agenda. That city has miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of dedicated bike lanes and trails. The entire waterfront is a wide bike/walk/jog/rollerblade path.
We watched cricket on the green, but understood very little, and lawn bowling. They asked us to join the club. There was an ancient woman who couldn't bend over the pick up the balls (she used a stainless steel, cane-like hook), but man could she bowl. However, no roller derby or people balancing rocks on the beach this year.
Vancouver was bubbling over with Canucks fans full of Stanley Cup fervor, or is it fervour? Once the game started the typically polite and reserved Canadians were beginning to mimic their more obnoxious, sports-fan, cousins to the south. And the game was on everywhere we turned. Granville was shut down for blocks with thousands in the streets watching on giant TVs. We saw an altercation between two guys. After watching them posture and maneuver for position, I couldn’t help but think that even the fights are more polite in Canada. I was in Barcelona in 1982 for the opening ceremonies of World Cup Soccer. That was wild, but it pales in comparison to watching hockey with a bunch of liquored up Canadians, eh.

A question my partner and I have been pondering and sharing with others, “Who, in your community, inspires you?” This led to a discussion of criteria for inspirational efforts. We talked about some level of sacrifice being present and that a person’s act/s led to some action by you. So, “Who, in your community, inspires you?”

Recent solar flare activity has increased the dog's suspicion of the squirrels in our back yard. She’s on high alert as there’s no telling what new nadirs of sordidness squirrels will seek when the sun’s acting up.