I went to the Tuesday night Jam tonight at Stars Gutiars.  I do this most Tuesdays.  I've started becoming a little more brave lately and actually singing some songs while playing.  I mean just me singing and playing for the rest of the group.  Scary.  But I've gotten some good feedback which I'm surprised by.  I noticed something else tonight.  Most of the time I'm picking up on the key and chords fairly quickly when someone else is playing. And I seem to do that better than some people I would have expected to do it quicker than me.  This is giving me confidence with my playing.  I have people at the Jam wanted to work up songs with me.  Wow!  So this is cool and I just wanted to say that.

 I did a favor for my friend Carol on Sunday.  It was a favor I was happy to do.  She was out of the state for a bit longer than she expected and one evening I took care of her horses for her.  It was really a nice time for me to go over to the barn during twilight, and see the horses come into the warmth of the barn.  I gave each of them some grain and a scratch on the nose, then forked some hay into each stall.  Yup, I had fun.

 To prove that I love all kinds of food (as if that isn't obvious already), let me tell you what I'm having for lunch today.  Little cocktails weenies in hot sauce.  Sometimes little cocktail weenies are the best food ever. 

 I am stuffed.  Full of French-type food.  Today was (is) Carol's birthday and she had us over for a meal.  Which she cooked, out of a French cookbook. I did not help.  Ok, well I contributed.  Dessert.  I made a cream cheese pound cake that had 6 eggs and 3 sticks of butter.  That sounds French right?  Ummm.......creammy......But Carol did way the most work.  I did sit at her kitchen counter and cheer her on while I drank wine.  That counts right?  
Yeah for birthdays!  

 I'm focusing this week on playing triads and chord inversions.  On the neck of the guitar, not my own neck.  It's a very cool way to take a boring chord, put a different root on it, take it up an octave and really make a song sound different.  You can play them with a straight strumming, or fingerpick them in a triplet pattern.  
I know, I should be working on other things like this genetics patient that I'm trying to figure out, or rewriting some policies for work, or even boring laundry.  
But I'm not!  Instead I'm going to bake a decandent sour cream pound cake from a paula deen recipe, and sit around and play with triads.  
So there.

 The last time I was in Las Vegas was over 20 years ago.  So I guess it's time for me to go again.  And it helps that it's all paid for!  Yup.  Paid for!  There is a big conference all about breast cancer, breast care, hereditary breast cancer, breast cancer treatment, etc, etc, etc, in March in Vegas.  So I get to go!  Six days of learning during the day and playing at night.  Ok, probably, in reality I'll be too tired most of the time to go anywhere, but I'm going to try to!  And the best part??????  My friend Sundee is going with me!  Ok, not for the whole time, but for 4 nights!  We're flying out on March 12th.  We're staying at the Planet Hollywood Casino and Resort.  It looks cool, but then most everything looks cool to me.  
Maybe I'll win some money!!!!
No strip clubs though.

 Winter is coming.  Soon.  Know how I can tell?  My acoustic guitars have started to buzz.  Yeah, you see when the humidity gets too low, the necks on the guitars get out of whack, and then the strings start to make that buzzy sound when you play which at first you think sounds kinda cool until you realize that it's because the wood is warping.  This is not good.  I try to keep them in a room with a humidifier running, but our water is well water which kills the humidifier, so we have to use distilled water, which runs out really fast.  It's bad.  And now I think I need to take at least my Martin in to see Tom at West Music to get things adjusted right.  Because buzz is bad. 
This week does not look to be particularly good.  Very busy.  And my office is getting moved at work and I hate to move.  Ok, I hate to actually pack, move.  But once I'm there, I'm ok.with the whole getting things settled.  But it'll still be busy.  And one of the things I have to do is try and write a letter that will convince an insurance company to pay for genetic testing for this guy who really needs it.  I hate insurance companies.  And I have to sound al professional and knowledgable in the letter.  i can't even spell knowledgeable.  I'm doomed.

 Wow.  A lot.  There are a lot of people in NYC.  Sort of overwhelming.  So I'm back from NYC.  Did I say yet that there are a lot of people there?  So a little bit at a time.  We found a great little dive bar (the best kind), that had live music every night.  My legs got really sore from walking so much.  I'm out of shape - big surprise!!!  But the music we saw was great.  Go to this website and look at the bar.  And then when you go to Greenwich Village, go there.    www.55bar.com

 It's snowing.  The end.

 Recently, like within the last couple of weeks, I think I might be trying to write music.  I mean, I keep coming up with some interesting chord progressions that I think sound cool, like they should be in a song.  No words.  Just music.  I need someone to collaborate with.  Like Colin!  He writes the best lyrics!  Or maybe Lori at Stars.  She's good too.  Any other takers?  Maybe one of you "wordy" people....like Tira???   Or Sundee??  No sappy crap though please.  Of course I'm pretty sure what I have so far sounds fairly stupid, but you have to start somewhere right?

 I'm thinking most of the people who read this (all three of you), probably know how much I hate to go clothes shopping for myself.  And also how much I'm not at all fond of wearing the color pink.  So imagine what fun I had today after work.........shopping for some item of clothing to wear, for myself, in pink.  Believe it or not I've managed to not wear anything pink the whole month of October.  This is a pretty big accomplishment considering my job requires me to talk, in public, about breast cancer.   And this is October (National Freakin' Breast Cancer Awareness Month).
But my luck has run out.  Tomorrow night I am one of the speakers at an event sponsored by the hospital.  It'll be fun actually.  About 100 people will be there and we'll be playing a sort of jeopardy game with prizes.  But the title of the program????  "14 Reasons to Wear Pink".  Sigh.  so you can see, I can't get out of it.  I have to wear pink.  so I am now the proud owner of a fuzzy pink warm up jacket/sweater thing.  And I'll wear it.  Once.  

 Our dog Sitka is not feeling very well this morning.  She's sort of acting like she feels vaguely nauseated and hung over.  There is a very good reason for her feeling like she does though.  Last night she fought with, killed, and then disemboweled a raccoon.  It's like freakin' Wild Kingdom around here.  The raccoon must not have been too bright since it presented itself in the dog yard.  I mean, how smart can this raccoon have been to deposit itself in a fenced in yard with two Siberian Huskies????  I think it probably rode the raccoon short bus.  So now today we (and by we, I mean Peter) are faced with getting rid of raccoon remains, and making sure Sitka doesn't get really sick!  

 I think today might be one of the last balmy days of the season.  By the looks of the ever-popular Weather Channel (may it's name be forever blessed), a cold front is supposed to come through tomorrow and kick some weather ass.  Temps will drop into the mid 30's at night and we'll have to turn the heat on.  I'm not looking forward to it.  Ok, it's true that I hate hot weather, but I'm not ready for winter.  The summer around here sucked in such a huge way that I feel we deserve a long, long beautiful fall.  I want to sit outside by the bonfire and drink hot chocolate.  I want to be able to play my guitar on the porch in the late afternoon.  I want to hang out in the morning and read the Times, which is what I just did, by the way.  I want to have time to help Carol can things, and take a drive down to Kalona and get some fresh cheese curds, and just sit outside and read.  Hum......if only I were independently wealthy!  

 This last Sunday night I was at The Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis.  If you haven't been there and ever have a chance to go........well........GO!  It is the coolest place, and you are right there close to the musicians.  I went with Vicki to see Ruthie Foster.  She was amazing.  So much energy, interaction with the audience, interaction with her band, and they all had so much fun performing.  She was an inspiration.  

Tonight I went to the Stars jam.  About halfway through it this guy Mark showed up.  He looked familiar, but I can't place him.  I'm thinking he's in a local bluegrass band???  But I'm not sure.  Anyway.  He played lots of really cool stuff in the Chet Atkins style.  I tried to keep up.  Couldn't.  That's the perspiration.

I have escaped to the Twin Cities.  I've been here for the last two days and I've decided I'm not coming home.  Ok, not really....but I've had a whole lot of fun so far and I'm not done yet.  I've been hanging out with my sister-in-laws, Sue and Tira, niece Maja, my kids Colin, Cassie, Ben and Bill.  We've eaten some great food, shopped, (yes, at the stupid Mall of America), took some really nice long walks, hung out at various people's apartments, played with kitties, drank tasty beer, and I'm not done yet.  Today we're making breakfast at Sue's.  Pancakes, bacon and eggs, etc.  Yum...then Maja goes back to college, Tira flies home to California, boys go back to work, and I go to my friend Vicki's for another night!  And we're going to the Dakota Jazz Club to see Ruthie Foster.  Oh yeah, a real club where you dress up and everything!  Ruthie Foster is this woman from Austin who sings the blues and plays resonator guitar.  I'm just a little bit excited to see her!!!!!!!!!!  But hen I will be heading home tomorrow, and back to work, blah.

 Here's the thing.  I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning tomorrow.  About 8 hours from now.  I have to get up that early because I have to be somewhere at 6:15 and it'll take that long for me to look awake.  And it will be very important that I look awake, because the place I have to be is a TV station where I'm going to be interviewed, live, on the morning news about breast cancer.  To say that I am not a morning person is an understatement!  I'm the person who worked the night shift for more than 15 years and liked it.  I'm not perky in the morning.  Actually, I'm never perky.  But especially not at 6:30 in front of a TV camera.  Please everybody send me good thoughts so that I don't screw it up too bad.  

 I'm slowly working my way through the entire 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. And not for the first time either.  Laugh if you want to, it's one of the best TV series ever.  Joss Wedon is a fucking superhero.  I'm definately a Spike fan, not an Angel fan.  And Riley is just laughable.  Anyone want to vote for their most favorite episode?  Who's nerdy enough to vote with me???? I think it's a tie between the one where everybody sings and the one where Joyce dies.  
A complete change of subject.....take a look at this.  Some of the best acoustic music around.  

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX1seShMVos

 I have so much fun when I play guitar.  I love it.  I'm forever grateful to Colin for leaving his old guitar at home when he went off to college with his new guitar.  But I get so excited to learn new things that I have a real problem focusing on one thing for very long.  Like I want to really learn how to play slide, but then I get caught up in working on electric blues leads, then I'll hear something like old Delta blues and off I'll go to learn fingerpicking blues.  Then I think about wanting to play with Mike and Rob and I"ll get worried about learning to play the songs they do.  And on, and on....sometimes I think if I could just concentrate on ONE THING I just might become pretty good at it.  But then I think, oh what the hell!  All of this is too fun not to try it all!  What I really would like is to not have to work so much so I could spend even more time on guitar.  Anyone got any ideas on how to help me focus?  

 I'm hoping to include in this post a photograph of me, Sundee and Carol.  It was taken on our back kitchen patio on a really hot day this last summer.  We look kinda hot (and not in a good way!), but we were having a good time.  The three of us got to know each other better this summer.  Partly because we spent some time working on deconstructing Carol's flood house.  And partly because we've just spent more time together.  Sometimes I think we have sort of a weird idea of when each other need a night out.  Like tonight.  I emailed/called them this morning to see if we wanted to meet after work for margaritas and both of them were already having bad days, so yeah, we needed to go out.  We met at Carlos O'Kelly's and had some margs and talked. Topics?  Work, Walmart, school, economy, dogs, kids, weekend plans, money.  And oh yeah.  Guys.  In general, we're in favor of them.

How did I spend my day? Tending a fire. It was kinda therapeutic. I went back and forth between three things. 1. sitting in front of the fire and working on slide guitar. (I'm finally getting a clue on how to play that, and it sounds so cool) 2. sitting in front of the fire playing Splash Back on the laptop.(this is a totally mindless addicting game) and 3.standing in front of the fire staring at it. It was a pretty good day.