Talk To Me in September

My dad's infamous baseball quote is coming back to bite MY team this year! Yikes, the Sox might go down in flames. Every time some ignorant, casual, fair-weather fan would knock the Sox, my dad would respond "Talk to me in September." No baseball matters until then. Now I hope no one talks to me... about that at least. We are in the break between a double header and the Red Sox dropped the day game to the Orioles. The Baltimore Orioles. The team that is 29 games back, tied for the second worst record in the American League. This is after losing 3 of 4 to the RAYS. Because my parents now live in Florida, they like the Rays. And by association, and the fact that I have probably been to more Rays games than any other professional team, and the fact that the Rays are pretty spunky and defying odds to succeed this year, and the fact that the Dunkin Donuts in Sarasota gives my parents free donuts after a Ray's win, has made me a *kindof* Rays fan. But not when they are playing the Sox.

My man (who is FROM Baltimore) has promised to cheer for the Sox since winning the game matters to them. And to me.



Stepkids. They have an album coming out next week. Streaming at KCRW.
It's pretty funky. Hope you enjoy.

Since we might eat smart dogs tonight to get in the baseball mood, we'll postpone the fresh pesto and tomatoes from the garden-

OMB - I stopped writing to check the game and we are getting NATIONAL LEAGUE COVERAGE, WHAT??? I even tried to get it on my parents' slingbox. Boo. So no game. Pesto is back on. Oregon gardening has not been very kind to me, next year I need to plant Early Girls. But those sweet Toms are worth the wait.

Other produce. These blackberries that have taken over, with no assistance from me (actually in spite of resistance by me. They are thorny!)

Isn't he a beautiful animal? 

In his home habitat.

On vacation at Cannon Beach. Anywhere with his bed is home.

We went to Northern Coast of Oregon for our anniversary. My man got me a beautiful pair of sapphire earrings to match my wedding band. He did good. I got him a mandolin case. We had a wonderful time, but I honestly think Floyd might have enjoyed it even more than we did. 

The escape...

(note the feet aren't even touching the ground)

and the return. 

I also made a beach blanket from Soulemama's (no relation - actually we might be related. She has the same rare last name as I do and lives in Maine... I emailed her once to investigate but apparently she is too busy raising 4 (5?) kids and making her own everything to respond) book, The Handmade Home. I kind of hated to put it in the sandy sand. I wanted to make a little treasure that my man and I could look back, ok  I could look back, and say, I made this for our first anniversary trip to the beach. Here's to many, many more trips and beach blanket usage.

Of course, I complicated her design. Why would you buy bias tape when you can make your own? HAHA. I used all scraps for this project, other than the backing, which was a heavy synthetic quilt I got at Salvation Army. That yellow is from my Grammie's rad 60's pillowcase and the blue is from a sheet set from high school that lost the fitted sheet somehow. Pieces leftover on the trim from too many projects to name. It made me think back on all the baby showers I have been to and all my lovely ladies that hopefully still have some homemade goodness from me.

It was a good day. Good thing F.dog isn't a female (and human) or he might need a chin wax.

The next day we went to Astoria and saw all the Goonies related stuff we could handle. Pics to come? Interested? Wait I might as well while I'm at it, right?

 The unfortunately named Ecola Park held the key to the treasure map! That large one rock in the distance is Haystack rock, right near where we stayed in Cannon Beach.

 Indian Beach, surfing mecca and home to Point Break's Bondi Beach scene.
Can I just say that bragging about being at this venerated location opened some debate whether Point Break "sucked" or not. ARE you kidding? I really thought the person was kidding at first.

 The future is bright with road trippers like these. Wait - maybe they are from the future, almost 20,000 years in the future.

 Mikey's house.

Goondocks

 Fratelli's Jail.
(*Edited to fix - Thanks to a big Goonies fan!)

And Sloth. 

Can I just close by saying I did the worst thing this week? Even though I knew FULL WELL that Missoni had a line at Target coming out and I even KNEW the date so I could go the first day, I forgot. 

I was watching Project Runway on Thursday and saw the ad. I almost had a fit.

I knew it would all be gone - it had been on sale for three days already!!!

The next day I went to all my Targets of course starting with the ghetto one, hoping that people who live in Springfield couldn't possibly understand the signifigance of MISSONI BEING AT TARGET. 

But they did. The customer service woman told me there were almost riots in the store and the parking lot. In Eugene, Oregon. My man said, "Why are you freaking out about this Massorini brand? I have never heard you mention it before." oh beiber. That might be because I can't afford a $900 sweater. But I can afford a $40 MISSONI sweater from Target. Anyway, mine only had underwear left in two sizes too small and a size too big. I happily grabbed the big ones, and sadly, they work just fine.

Then- 

Momma bird to the rescue! And she didn't even try to sell them like this mom!

I almost can't wait for it to rain! 

I can't believe I just wrote that. 

But come on. Look at these boots. 

They are Missoni. 

Don't Forget, Sometimes It Goes The Other Way Too.

Um, we just saw The Warriors (for the first time)...
"WE got the streets, suckers! Can you DIG IT?"

I mean, if that doesn't make you want to check it out, I can't do anything for you. But, chances are, you have already seen it, as I've been feeling like the only (two) who missed this gem.
Of course, I was very inspired by the dj/greek chorus. What a blast.
Also, we saw a great documentary last night called Dust & Illusions about the Burning Man Festival. Very enlightening. I have to admit, I did not know there was such a focus on group art creation, which makes it a little cooler, a little more interesting, and not at all any more likely for me to attend. I once had a very heated "discussion" with a friend of my man's who was raving about the 'social experiment' aspect and the bartering society. I did feel bad after I found out he was a local (semi) celebrity who was a big contributer to the committee at the local art museum that my man and I belonged to, but hey, it's a little silly, right? How do you get all that stuff that you 'barter' with at Burning Man? Don't you BUY it with MONEY before you get there? And, you leave no trace right? But where does the trash go when you leave? It's still trash! My CB text book even talks about Burning Man and how it is an anti-consumerist movement.... and we all know - I like to consume. Plus, I thought camping out at Sasquatch for 3 days was roughing it. But it was a neat film and lots of characters and some mind-blowing art (even in a sober movie theater experience that made us feel just a little squarer than usual).

Anyway, here's a new tune for you to listen to while you read along.


"Mach Bach" by Empress Hotel

I am kinda geeken out about cameras today... I have unearthed my lomo after a conversation about art with my man and realizing how long it's been since I have done something creative.

My man is in-deep drawing a comic book for a friend who is writing the story. Am I super jealous and wishing that I was writing the story? No, of course not, why do you ask?

My man has always been into comics, I so have I (to a lesser extent). I used to read all the Disney comics like Uncle Scrooge and all that. But now I have LOVE for Frank Miller and especially Charles Burns. Seriously, have you guys seen Charles Burn's work? We are watching an animated film tonight (?) that he contributed to. Gotta love Portland hipness. We were in the Historical Mississippi neighborhood, trying to buy a dunny (did not happen - man, that store is never open) and ended up at the comic book store (Bridge City, I believe) and then stopped for a coffee. The guy behind the counter saw our purchase and told us about the flick, and did mention three times that you could rent it from the library. Apparently renting movies from the library (can you do that?) is much hipper than, say, having Netflix?

So next week I should have some lomo pics to show off, depending...
Can I find a store to develop real film?
Also, does 120 film that expired 4 years ago still work?
Holga is all about "experimentation."

When I unloaded my beloved, normal Canon EOS camera, I found that I never posted my pics from February on. Valentine's was very nice this year.

We did *not* change our names to Matt and Anne. M & A have moved and this gift certificate has gotten passed around my man's place of work.
His friend asked the group one night: "Does anyone ever go to that art film theater by campus?"
Pigeon: "YES"
Him: "Do you want a gift certific-"
Pigeon: "YES"
We used it to go see my favorite movie of all time, True Romance, the midnight show. I know, it's just too good, right? The big screen?! Did I talk about this already? If I did, I am sorry, but it was really cool.

I made vegan chocolate covered strawberries and Thin Mints (yes, ripped off the Girl Scouts). They didn't turn out too photogenic, but they made up for it in delicious.

You can kinda see the dough in there, chillin.

You may be wondering, why so much time for cooking, cameras, movies, blogging and the like?

I am on spring break. So glad to finished with the quarter and on the (short) countdown to my comprehensive exams, which strike in June. After that, I will no longer be taking courses, only working on papers and my dissertation. 11 weeks away. So this break, I decided to stay in Oregon to get some work done. It's Thursday and no work has been done.

Here's where I was 1 year ago today. 

Driving up to Mt Hood for our weak annual (one) day of snowboarding. It rained the whole way up, but thankfully became snow and pretty near perfect snow by the time we hit the lodge. I felt lucky, especially when F said, "Didn't I tell you last time I skiied at Mt. Hood it was raining?"

Frank never lets me eat here. 

Doesn't it remind you of the Double R? Or is it the RR?

Now we are back and I wanted to give you some big news:

Ninkasi is making 6 packs.

Now I am just bragging. I got this sucka in my hot little hands.

Clear vinyl is not as cool to play as it looks.

Very difficult to see the tracks when you are trying to play something specific live on the radio in a dark studio. No one minds hearing the last 30 seconds of the previous song first, right?

I felt like I had something else I wanted to write about, but maybe I should end here. On the bragging note. Did I mention only 200 of these beauts pressed?

See you next time. 

The Rest of Our Lives Will Be Just Like Christmas

Merry, Merry my friends.

Obligatory music video to follow. You guys all know that I l.o.v.e. Frightened Rabbit. What a special treat, I might even say a Christmas miracle, that he has this tune. We did a White Christmas themed radio show last night. Yep, we did our show on Christmas. It was really fun actually. Last year, we went skiing on Christmas. This year, KWVA. Next week, first show of 2011, I will be flying solo, as DJPJ will be setting up for the second annual New Year's Day Funk n' Balls performance. I'm pretty sure the radio show'll be themeless. So anyway, because just about everyone I know had a white christmas (some first the first times in their lives. Come on you weather controlling aliens, I know my Montanans and New England folks will make me jealous, but Tennessee, really?) I thought we could give ourselves one. Musically, anyway.

Frightened Rabbit - Best Christmas Song Of All Time

I hope all your Christmasses were as lovely as mine. I had the best of both worlds because I was lucky enough to go see momma, papa and brother bird and still get home in time for the actual day with my man.
Check out what I got for Christmas...... drumroll... bbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmm....

...


....


.....


......

Look how fast my hands are moving... you can't even see the sticks!

Just call me Pigeon White. Maybe one day I'll be good enough to play with a pseudo-brother-guitar-god, creating one of the best rock combos of all time because I can play just as well as some sixth grader practicing in his garage. Just kidding, Meg, I think you're great. Really. And, while you're listening to me, how about getting over that stage fright and getting back on the road?
How does someone get stage fright AFTER years of touring? I'm just sayin...

AND I'M JUST KIDDING about getting the drums. I don't get to keep them, but I did get to play them. These drums are on loan from Brad. The aforementioned FnBs have been practicing here and leaving their equipment much to my, and my dog's, delight. Actually, I am not sure if Floyd is delighted or absolutely terrified... you be the judge.

Goes berserk to the beat of the drum

Back to the reality. As you may know, Florida is a great place for birdwatching. And, as you may also know, my relationship with birds is a complicated one. But I partook in: 

Some owl stalking, although we were careful to not molest the birds in any way, in accordance with the posted warnings. 

Well, that's my mom, but I was there too. 

It was a two hour drive to see this guy. Each way.

Totally worth it. I am being serious. 

Plus, the route guidance took us through a Wal-Mart parking lot to get there. It doesn't get much better than that.

In bigger bird news, we went to Jungle Gardens.

Birds Galore.

I saw some flamingos.

I fed a flamingo. 

OH EM GEE.

Scared for my life at this point. 

As you can see, I was not able to look directly at the bird while feeding.

Photo credit: Mom (good job getting the shot while convulsing with laughter)

I actually was *ok* until a big duck snuck up behind me and pecked my leg. That was the end of that. In other animal encounter news, my parents' "foster dog" Ernesto bit me. I honestly don't think I have ever been bitten by a dog before. Ernie is a fiery one. I can't say I was too sad to see him go back to his original foster person due to repeated bitings. My parents are getting a new one in a couple weeks, Atari. I named it. 

Just to finish up with the animal adventure section of this post, I met my brother's pride and joy, Winston Thelonious Monk.

This is a real cat.

And this is after I cleaned the eyes. And check out my ring! Instant classic. 

Photo credit: Brother (again, good job getting the shot while convulsing with laughter)

This is what xmas trees look like down on the gulf coast. Beautiful. 

We went to several movies, tis the season (for Oscars, hello). 

The Tourist: Great, fun little movie. Can you go wrong with Johnny Depp? No, you can't. Especially in cute cotton pjs. 

The Social Network: I felt really excited to see this one, because I have been reading about Zuckerberg for years in Fast Co. and Business Week and such. Great movie, great dialog... I liked it a lot, but what are all these people saying it was the best movie of the year? 

The Fighter: Great, intense movie. Can you go wrong with Marky Mark Wahlberg? Can you go wrong with Christian Bale? No, of course not. And, being born and partially raised in New England, I kind of don't believe that Bale isn't really from Lowell. My dad grew up in the next town over (from Lowell) and he was buying it too. If Bale doesn't get the Oscar, I'll eat my mittens. It was like Intervention, but even more real. And the mom deserves one, too. There are some early Oscar predictions, as you can imagine, I get into that kind of thing. This year will be the first one in a while that I have seen a lot of what I am sure will be contenders. My man and I are going to see Black Swan tonight, so I'm covering all the bases. 

Anyway, I had a great time with the fam in Florida. Of course, I didn't get too much work done.

 

This is the textbook I'll be teaching this quarter. I brought it all the way to FL.

What you can't see is that I am on page 3 or something like that.

Back in waterworld:

Xmas Eve

Xmas AM

It's a good thing Floyd doesn't believe in Santa anymore, because how could we explain how he got a gift even though he has been bad all year?

I ordered my man the Keith Richards book for Christmas, delivered free with the wonderful student Prime account, and I told him to just put the Amazon package under the tree. But I forgot that I ordered something for myself as well. You can just imagine the excitement when he opened this:

Even better: what you can't tell is that it's 1270 pages. 

And for me.... I got totally spoiled, as usual. One of my favorites:

Is this gift as good as a drum set? I think, yes. 

Video Killed the Radio Star

So, for those readers who were worried, the BETTER THAN SLEEP show will go on. Apparently, the dog-in-the-studio incident was forgiven. We had a great show last night with a Ghost theme. We did turn on automation at midnight last night, so again, at risk. Let's hope we are rewarded for our initiative and decision to not wake the programming director rather than punished for the crime of automating without explicit authorization...

Photo by Momma Bird

In other radio news, we are soon getting a secondhand "Powerbook" to record our shows so they soon will be podcasted here on this site. That's exciting for us, because sometimes 10pm-midnight is too late, even for our pacific time zone friends, nevermind those mountainers and eastern folks. Apparently a powerbook is not a macbook? I don't care - it's donated to this 'good cause.'

We went to an Em's game last night. PK Park is quite a step up from Osprey Staduim in Missoula (sorry!). It was fun, but we had to leave early because of aforementioned radio show. It was 1-1 when we left... never even checked who won, but I love a good baseball game. A bit of a pitching duel. Thirsty Thursday is the night to go too, who can imagine two IPAs for $5 (total) AT A BASEBALL GAME?! That would cost you $23.98 at least at Fenway and that's for Coors Light! Unfortunately, the food at the Em's wasn't as kind to us vegans as the beer options, and we had stadium popcorn for dinner. No wonder that aftershow martini was so delicious. My man ate his olives first and said "What? I'm hungry!" Also, not surprising was the only food we located that was open after the midnight close of the show was called MUNCHEESE. Let's just say it does not cater to vegans.

No wonder intervals felt so great this morning at 8am... only popcorn and martinis as running fuel. Not recommended.

So, things are brewing around here. Lots of creative activity. My man and I are working on a fun semi-collaborative project for the Emerson in Bozeman, Montana called the art project which is our postcard representation(s) of what home means to us.  I'll post a picture before we mail it off. It seems that the other collaboration we were working on (The Elk Whisperer graphic novel) is on hiatus.

There are less pictures on the blog this week because we had moved to moving pictures. Broke out our video camera to participate in this awesome project:

They even use Vampire Weekend in the promos!

 So on the assigned day, July 24th, 2010, we spent the morning finding all the camera accessories and figuring out how to work the damn thing. But then we did go to a going away party, so even though it did not seem out of the ordinary, we did meet some interesting new folks and had a blast. I hope the people who select the bits for inclusion in the movie were looking for people sitting around talking about Salute Your Shorts, Thespian club, getting asked out by carnies, the disappointment that was The Watchmen movie, and salad eating contests, because I really, really want to go to Sundance. You can find all our submissions on youtube under my username soulepigeon. We ended up submitting about 80 minutes. You're welcome, Ridley.

Also, there is a Etsy site in the works for my man's artwork and custom orders. Stay tuned.

Recent commission: Crush 2010 

My other part time job is waiting for packages to arrive, mostly wedding related. 

I recently discovered this lovely site, and no, I do not get paid for this shout out, but I sure wish I did get paid... in shoes! 

I apparently ordered the color MUS(tard) instead of MUSH(room). 

I can't imagine how I made that mistake. Up next - Will I become crazy and decide that mustard goes with champagne?  Regardless, the shoes are gorgeous. The "back up" teal pair I bought are amazing as well. 

Waiting for a cake topper from this talented individual. Which animals do you think we picked? I won't tell here, but I will tell you that I was disappointed that the obvious choice (bird heads) was so ugly not cute. 

Meeting with an electrician in a few minutes to check our wiring and remove the mysterious wires that dangle about eye level in our backyard. Maybe if he can't remove them we could just dangle some white lights from them for the wedding? Instant romance! 

Garden is ready to enter its second phase... Just about everything besides tomatoes and cucs needs to be pulled out. Am I the only idiot who can't grow zucchini? Hot weather planting sounds like a bad idea? I garden on hope alone, no knowledge or skill, so we'll see what happens.