Weekend notes

I tend to leave my little blog corner a little dusty, and for that I apologize to the ones and ones of you that actually read this. There is a rather large blog post that is ongoing and will dwarf any of my other posts, but as it is ongoing, I will make a pitstop and describe my weekend and what I did.

When I came home Friday afternoon, Kel and I did some last minute house-tidying. This was our weekend of respite for two sets of two kids (we will refer to them as M(f), M(m), R and A, as per foster care decorum in concealing identities.) M(f) and M(m) were to arrive right around 5pm, but they had some home issues to resolve and they didn't find their way here until just about 6:45pm. We are quite friendly with their foster mom so we were told that they would be in trouble for a few things, and we followed through once they got there. We've had all four kids in the past so we know what mischief they can get into, but it helped that M&M would have an evening to themselves to get settled in. A & R were to arrive Saturday morning, and lucky Kel would get to supervise/police/referee their morning and afternoon monkeyshines, as I (irony alert) would attend a foster care workshop. (Our agency requires foster parents to procure 24 hours of workshop training -- Saturday would enable me to lob off a quarter of that in one fell swoop) Everyone was supposed to pass a dish around so Kel found a recipe and I did some late-night grocery shopping to get some ingredients, as well as returning some overdue library stuff. I picked the grocery closest to the library, which is not my favorite but it's lack of customers ensured my full slob dress attire (generic Madison t-shirt with flimsy Gears of War sweats) would be noticed by as few folks as possible.

As Saturday morn arrived, I beat everyone to the morning sun, and was able to get a load of dishes and laundry going before attending to kids waking up. M&M got up around 8ish, we talked for a little bit and then Kel came down as well. R&A came about a half hour late, which wouldn'tve been an issue had we not said M&M could eat when they arrived. So as all four kids got situated, we realized the number one requested breakfast option (toast) was scandalously low, and so off I can to the local gas station conveneince store. Grabbed the bread, went up to pay...and my debit card is not in the debit card slot. I have the cashier hold my purchase, I mentally re-trace my steps, and start rifling through the car in search of my card. I fail to find it, realize my wife's purse (and, by extension, debit card) is in the back seat, and jazz improv off of that to get my vittles. I get home, breakfast continues to be served, Kel goes through a list of house rules and responsibilities charts to keep the Four Horsekids at bay, and before I know it, I'm off to Milton and training.

The training was pretty low-key; it was me and one other older couple. The first half was a DVD on parental guidence of teens based on logic and love, which Cliff-Notes into letting your child have choices and have them learn from the mistakes they make along the way. Some of it made sense, some of it I questioned. Overall I'm noticing with these presentations the people doing them try too hard to be comedians, so it comes off like open mic night for doctors and pyschologists. After a lunch (spicy chili and the dessert Kel made for me) we went to the second half, which was an audio presentation on grief and coping by the same guy that was on the DVD. Having the voice with nothing to attach it to was a struggle, as the educator guy had a sing-songy, melliflous voice that caused more than a few eyelids to flutter. His main brunt of handlibng tough sitautions was to talk it through with the kids by asking the right questions and offering your own analysis of it as one of many tactics. Again, thumbs up on some, thumbs down on others, and the two minute examples of his plan "working" sounded unconvincing. We were able to wrap up a few minutes early, so I headed back to the car and searched a bit more for the debit card, which I eventually found in that half-inch of carpet floor between the passenger seat and passenger door.

Back home, Kel had a friend of hers over I hadn't yet met as well as her infant son. We chewed the fat for a bit, got dinner ready as by now it was almost 5pm, and brought the kids downstairs. The rest of the night the kids watched a Halloween movie on one of the Disney networks, played a Press Your Luck DVD game and then some full band Guitar Hero where I played roadie/band manager/instrument assigner. And then, after a few too many interband arguments/ego trips (which, considering their instrumental acumen was roughly The Shaggs Pop Warner level, was a bit funny) I played Yoko Ono and broke up the band with a quick flick of the power switch. It was almost time for them to head up to bed, anyway, but they managed to soothe over any hurt feelings. After going through their responsibilities charts and figuring out the perfect balance of in-room lights (for the boys, one night light; the huge lamp for the girls), I computed while they and Kel went off to dreamland.

When the alarm went off Sunday morning, I habitually did my snooze tap and turned to Kel's side of the bed, which was empty. I took this as an excuse to sleep in a little, and had it budgeted to be longer, but even the best of dreams will be interrupted by a black lab sitting on your head. (The dream as I remember it was quite a doozy; Kel and I had bought an old Prange Way department store as the rent was low --- $200/month -- and we actually lived in the department store, except people still tried to enter the store to shop and the dogs kept going out the automatic doors. So we took our complaints to the mayor, whose office told us to wait as he was "getting prepared" and as Kel and I waited in the lobby, we saw people frantically taping up sheets of paper to the mayor's door. Curious, I peeked through a corner of the window that had not been covered up and saw a bunch of people creating this paper mache fellow with bits of newspaper and rubber cement. That's when the alarm went off.)

All the kids were scheduled to be gone by 9am: R & A's ride came almost right on schedule and M&M left about 35 minutes later. (They forgot their school folders, which had projects they were to do that day.) I picked up here and there, pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things had gone and how much of the day I had to loaf around. Then, Kel decided to go see her sister in Sauk City, leaving me to myself for the rest of the day.

It's amazing how much little I did. I watched the Pack game, which was probably one of the most underwhelming 26-0 victories an NFL team can have. (The New England Patroits in the 3pm slot took it upon themselves to deliver the Week 1 Tecmo Bowl stomping we should have delivered.) The Ravens came **this** close to ending the Vikings' perfect season, which I didn't mind much as it keeps the hope alive that the Pack can hang their first L on them in Lambeau. I did a little computing, way too much Bejeweled, made a half-hearted stab at re-organizing my CDs, which are mostly corralled in cardboard boxes at the moment, and watched Amazing Race which was fun, despite my favorite team being booted the week previous. (And which I would have missed had it not been for me coming down to check on it -- CBS having a football doubleheader almost always wreaks havoc on the primetime schedule, and so my 7pm show did not start until 8:15pm!)

So another five days of work loom in the morning. Plus, Kel's grandma has been in the hospital, and she is having some procedure done Monday, and having loved ones around at times like those always helps. So I end this at the stroke of midnight, which will guarantee me yawns for most of the morn.

Adam Has a Posse...

...well, OK, gathering a posse. *sigh* OK, to be more honest, a group.

As a megasuperhumongous music fan, I'm always looking for other people who are into music. One of the best places that I know of is last.fm. I have pimped it many a time, and will continue to do so. What last.fm does is keep track of the music you listen to on your iTunes through an app called AudioScrobbler. The device "scrobbles" the tracks you listen, whether on shuffle, playlists, albums, etc. and sends that info to last.fm which tallies the artists you're listening to. From that data, last.fm suggests other artists you may also like and also finds people that share your musical taste. (It also opens up a Pandora's Box of metadata stat geekery that you could break down like fantasy football addicts, but that's another post.) From last.fm I have met people literally around the world who also display their musical tastes for all to see, both as individual friends and as groups of various musical ideologies. One I happily discovered was called the Weekly Album Appreciation Club in which we dissect a new and different work each week or so. From this group, I've gotten into stuff by The Walkmen and The Wipers and other bands that don't begin with "W." At some point late this summer, I thought, this group is neat, but what if we did it face to face in person?

And so in late August/early September I sent a Craigslist post to the Janesville and Madison boards putting out feelers for a CD of the Month club. A few people responded, this led to that, and so tomorrow we're having our first meeting. We as yet do not have a name, but I have quiet confidence that will come in time. The debut meeting I'm planning as an informal meet and greet just to kind of see how people got to be into music, what they're into, etc. Our first CD of the month (which we will discuss at our second meeting proper) will be Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. I have no overriding reason for including it beyond it being very close to my person as I was thinking of candidates. (It's not even mine: I'm borrowing it from a friend.)

I'm kind of excited to see where the group goes from here. I've put off putting flyers in record stores/concert halls/coffeehouses because I want to more sure I have a good foundation to start from and I want people, at least in the start who are **honestly** into broadening their musical horizons and who aren't afraid to have a honest discussion about music. Obviously this idea is an offshoot of Books of the Month club or film discussion groups, but why isn't there a musical equivalent to this? Music is as important to the arts as books or film, so why should they not be as available as a subject? Maybe I'm the only one who gets that passionate about music and the meetings will turn into me lecturing the empty seats next to me. But I am hoping there are open-minded, music freaks like me who are excited and motivated to find new stuff for their ear-holes. If there is, then a posse I shall truly have. I'll keep you posted, maybe.

It's actually going to be a Sunday afternoon full of music for moi, as I have the meeting at 3pm and then at 8pm I'll be heading to the Majestic to watch Liam Finn + Eliza-Jane. Liam is the son of Crowded House figurehead Neil Finn (and by extension, the nephew of Tim Finn, who founded Split Enz and works with his brother here and there.) Eliza-Jane is a childhood friend of Liam's who's toured with him off and on for a few years. They have a joint EP called Champagne in Seashells and both are prominently featured in the recent 7 Worlds Collide project that also features all the Finns listed above, Radiohead, Johnny Marr, Wilco, KT Tunstall and many others. (Liam, in fact is playing this gig as a one-off, as he is actually opening up for Wilco in much larger venues throughout the Fall.) So it should be a fun gig, which would make it 2 great gigs in two weeks, as I saw Carbon Leaf, Toby Lightman and Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers two Sundays ago. And then Monday, some football game is on. Can't remember who's playing.