and I'll still write your name in the sand...

Last Saturday I went to an amazing bluegrass festival, remarkably close to my house. There were old time bands from Virginia, Cajun bands from Louisiana, and my favourite: David Peterson and 1946, from Nashville. They played with a guy named David Talbott, who apparently usually plays banjo for Dolly Parton, and blew my banjo-lovin' mind. Hot damn.

My other favourite moment from the festival was climbing a tree that a couple of old musicians were playing under, and listening in the ahade for a bit.


In related news, I have been given a tenor banjo by my friend Adam. It's 4 string, so that's violin/mandolin tuning, and not excellent bluegrass banjo, but hey. It's a start! Here's Harold, my new bed, and my new banjo.

I'll light the fire, if you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today...

A quick tour:
This is my house.


This is my yard.


Not shown is the big wooden living room (read: rehearsal space) and my new pretty bed and all sorts of ways it is very slowly but surely becoming a home. This is the print hanging in the living room (shamefully the only art I have up yet):

And lastly, this is my beautiful guard spider Boris.


Visitors are very welcome. New Mexico is lovely and fun and wild and lonesome.

Sweet sweet Santa Fe

And again the wind rose up and the thunder struck and the rain leaned out across the canyon. It drove into the open end of the porch like shot and glanced off her bare legs. At the source of the rain the deep black bank of the sky swelled and rolled, moving slowly southward under the rock rims of the canyon walls. And in the cold and denser dark, with the sound and sight of fury all around, Angela stood transfixed in the open door and breathed deep into her lungs the purest electric scent of the air. She closed her eyes, and the clear aftervision of the rain...

Luna

Once, Luna was my kitten. My beastie.She is still ferocious like no tommorow, and will not hesitate to claw your face to wake you up, or do weird things like bite your toenails. Her name, Luna, comes from Spanish for moon, referring to the tiny white sliver above her ear, in contrast with her black fur. Or so you think. Really, it's short for Lunatic.

At this point in time, she is the size of a very, very large zucchini.
That is all.

Swarthmore, revisited

On my last day in Philadelphia, Kate came with me to revisit the campus. We got a nice locally-grown food picnic and went out to the much beloved adarondak chairs on Parrish Beach, and looked out onto the completely scorched lawn and, my favourite, the belltower. Later we went over to ML (our dorm of 3 years) and startled a number of current students who wondered what these strangers were doing, gasping at run-down things and gaping at improvements, climbing out windows and sitting on the roof... Weirdly, I ran into Julie from Mixed Company, in the room next to my freshman double. She was doing well, and had a rubber duck wristband to give me in memory of our mixed company days. It was sweet and sad and bizarre. I wouldn't want to go back, but I have so much affection for Swarthmore. It was lovely to revisit it with Kate. If you'd told me the last time we were on that roof that the next time she'd be married and I'd just be back from France, I would never have believed you. Well, maybe the france part.

Philadelphia Freedom, 1 of 2

My last week in Philly was crazily eventful, and in the chaos of moving back to Santa Fe on Sunday I can't find all the right cords and cables and things to get pictures from once Kate was back. It was a wonderful week, though. Highlights included:

A pub quiz with a belligerant drunk Irishman Quizmaster and a pretty tough team of Good Looking Bastards (US Edition) Adam and Cameron did College Bowl back in the day, so their trivia was pretty incredible. The bar was chaos and the poor quizmaster had no mic, leading him to get rowdier, drunker, angrier, and sounding more and more like Forrest Gump as the night went on. Gave me Auld Alliance nostalgia, but was a great night out.

Fruit Picking and Emu/goat petting with Brody and Megan! We picked blueberries, blackberries, peaches, and rasberries. The blueberries, though prickly, were just gorgeous. Another highlight was definitely the hayride. I agree with Megan that the hayride could have been much longer and we would have stayed very happy.

Next: Night on the town with Joanna, featuring ice cream at an old-fashioned ice-cream place! Joanna and I have been leading fascinatingly parallel lives for the last, mm, lots of years? Lately she's been into the Buy Fresh Buy Local campaign which is striking my fancy so I'll be off to the farmer's market Saturday. She also shares my taste in Snape and general other men. She understood that I would find the employees of this ice cream soda shop incredibly attractive in their bowties and suspenders. I miss her already.


I miss Philadelphia already.

Gogol Bordello!

There aren't really words for this show, except that it was a bouncy, sweaty, salty, sticky mess of fun and great great music and the best fiddler ever and all in all, one of the best live shows I've seen. I'm wearing purple, are you?