All I Wanted Was a Good Song and a Fair Friend

Happy New Year Friends.
I really hope everyone had a wonderful celebration and end/beginning.
Here's what me and my man where up to

 

I can only say I love Portland. I love Hawthorne. And I love Langhorne. 

The show was exuberant. My man deemed it "one of" the best of the year for him. 

For your opinion...

While nosing around at the merch table in between the opener and the main act, I had the pleasure of literally bumping into my new, close friend Langhorne. What a nice and genuine guy. He says they'd like to come back to Eugene soon - I told him we'd promote it on the show, so guys, pressure's on.

It was a great show, but there is nothing like being dead sober on the (second?) biggest drinking holiday of the year. It's been more years than I care to declare in the name of self-incrimination that I haven't done some boozing myself on this eve. 

I have to say, I felt like maybe I am ready to do this parenting thing, because I started to feel very concerned about the well being of those drunken slobs around me. "How is she going to get home?" I kept asking my man. "Does he even know that girl?!" and the best was the girl who was literally HEADBANGING as well as the circular hair twirl during the first song. At a show for a band whose music can legitimately be defined as "folk." It was shocking to me that she maintained for at least 30 minutes after that which enabled her to throw multiple drinks into the crowd of people dancing. She was escorted out. I hope she got home ok.

I'm only being nice because no drinks got on me so it was kind of funny.

Here's what it looked like to everyone but me.
ps - thanks to momma bird for the replacement lens. Who knew how critical auto-focus is?


Speaking of being grownups now, we put up some lights on the house for the first time ever!

And when I say "we," I really mean "he."

All I could think about was Clark Griswald and the staples and the sleeves and the falls... (same method "we" used... is there a better way? Is it ok to base your knowledge of how to do stuff from Chevy Chase vacation movies? Anyway. )

What do you think? Did we go overboard?

I'm just kidding of course. But this is a real place here in Eug. 

(BTW that rhymes with Huge).

Ah, that's more like it. I can't tell you the joy those lights brought me. I am going seriously soft over here. I even listened to Christmas music. For the WHOLE month.

and, yeah. Phil Spector was always a freak. Why didn't we see it coming?

Aw. Xmas is fun. 

Even Fdog got a homemade gift.

In the spirit of working backwards, and not totally abandoning my month old promise for a thanksgiving post.

The dog likes to look his best for what he considers Dog Show Day (also known as Thanksgiving). 

I'll skip the obligatory tofurky pictures, but I WILL say that it was delicious. My parents even claim to have enjoyed it on Christmas Eve. Having it twice in a couple weeks was divine. I have another one in the fridge now!

That about wraps up the holidays, readers. Hope 2012 brings you everything your little heart desires. And, remember, be excellent to each other.

Stay tuned... I WILL be attempting a Best of 2011 music post. But it is so time consuming... give me a couple more days. And a couple more listens to Kaputt.

Love, pigeon xo

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. 

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....

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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. 

Half Awake, In a Fake Empire

The end is in sight. The summer paper that is somehow creepin into the winter. We will present our paper in about a week and a half, and, while slightly panicked, I am so happy that it will be over and we can all move on. Deception is out. Pricing nerd will be back in full force.

Also, almost over is my torturous soccer league. I thought I would love playing soccer. After all, I loved it my whole younger life, from kindergarten up through freshman year of college. Strictly for love of game, not the competition, as I never made the varsity and played on intramural (not university team) one year of college. I was the honorary captain of the VJ team, maybe because of seniority (literally, there weren't a lot of seniors on the jv) Actually, thinking about it now, I don't think that I made it through the whole college freshman season... Anyway, the point is that that ten years is a long time. Skills that were marginal at best get a mite rusty AFTER TEN YEARS.
To prepare for my first game, my man and I got a ball at Target and kicked it around the backyard. Of course, we wanted to go to the park, but, as I might have mentioned before, we have a beast of a dog who does not like to be left alone and does not play well at the park.

I know it's hard to believe, but trust me. 

So with the only other soccer practice area we could consider being the dog park, we settled for the backyard. Anyway, one errant kick headed straight for the satellite dish and I should have known soccer was not going to go well for me. $75 dollars and 5 days later our cable was restored and I was off to the first game. When the goalie asked me after 10 minutes if I had ever played soccer before, I realized:

1) I was not going to make any friends on the soccer team and

2) I suck worse than I had feared. 

The (sort of) good thing is that the rest of the team in general also kinda sucks. We do have some good players (My man: "You need to be more like Leslie") but we went six straight games without a goal. (My man: "I think your team's goal should be to score a goal." Meaning don't even think about winning). Another good thing is that once the other team is up ten goals you can get an extra player. That has happened to us. Several times. 

Oh yeah - it rains here too. Every Sunday. And we do not cancel games for that here in Eugene.

So anyway, tonight is my second to last game with the dear Soccer Otters. They are continuing to play an indoor league starting next week. I say they because I will not be there.

Related to soccer? Yes, but also everything else.

Some might say this advice is simplistic, but I think it's got to be the key to life, right? And, for real, I am not talking about soccer anymore. And, you know what? It's not simple. It's really complicated. And this advice is hard to follow. Inaction is easy. The key is forcing yourself to move when you need to IMO.