Wally and Lumpy

Jesus! The herd is growing out of control!

Last Saturday, after ordering a 90-inch long table for the back porch and after tacos at Taquería del Sol, we stopped to inspect a doggie day care place, thinking it might be good for Sweetpea to spend a day a week in the company of dogs. We never got inside, because Atlanta Pet Rescue is right next door. We'd agreed when Sebastian died that we'd love to get two cats someday -- someday -- but not until we'd slowed down on travel a bit. (Two so they could keep each other company.) Sweetpea is lonely, so, more recently, we'd been planning on getting a cat -- one cat -- to keep her company.

But I got the impulse to look at kittens. Must have been the margarita. I knew when we went in that we'd come out with two. Now we're knee-deep in cat litter, and President Obama doesn't have to worry about the economy, because our bailout plan for PetSmart has driven their stock price up significantly in the past few days.

Now the first task of the morning and the last of the evening are milking, gathering eggs, slopping, walking, loving, feeding, and cleaning up poop. I took Sweetpea out for a long walk this morning. As I collected her morning treasures in a plastic bag, I pointed out to her that I don't even take my wife out for a walk before my own breakfast...

I had a dream a few nights ago in which the western wall of our dining room was solid sheetrock, rather than windows, and there were two or three long, weeping stains on the wall, where water was somehow getting in and dripping down the wall. Night before last the dream came back, but the water was flooding out of long horizontal cracks, pulling chunks of sheetrock off and showing lathe underneath. In an instant the water went from covering a few square feet of the floor to running over it to a depth of a couple of inches. There was a Mexican workman in the other room, and I started yelling to him for help. I could hear him laughing as I kept yelling, "Do something! Do something! What should we do???" Through his laughter he said, "Turn the water off!" I had to think hard to remember that the key for turning off the master water valve at the street is propped up against the wall in the basement, in a designated and easy-to-find place.

Jesus! What are we doing???

The Marching Abominables

I started attending rehearsals of the Atlanta Seed and Feed Marching Abominable last fall. It's a serious but very funky marching band, and I figured they needed an accordion about as much as I needed them. 

At the break that first night, I was asked what I did the previous summer (a standard question), how I found out about the Abominables (another), and then told that I had to sing or play an Elvis song. While thinking about it, I told them that I'd not imagined what a delight it would be to be an accordionist in a marching band, because, like everyone else, I get sheet music with only single notes -- no multiples on the right hand, no chords for the left. It's almost easy! Then I played and began singing "Love Me Tender" and they all joined in singing.

The music is harder than I thought it would be. Never having played in a band, I initially had trouble keeping track of multi-measure silences, so I didn't know where to come in. Now I can calculate with the best of them, but I have trouble keeping track of where we are when I'm trying to play a tricky part -- one that's fast, syncopated, or with a swing tempo.

But I really enjoy it. I keep going back, week after week. I'm gradually catching on. I've almost memorized our (I started to say "their" but am determined to belong) signature song, "Sing, "Sing, Sing".

I played my first gig with them a couple of weeks ago -- the Atlanta Jugglers' Festival at the Yaarab Shriner's Temple, the back of which is right across the street from home. That's me in the back of the rest of the woodwinds, in the fedora Ian gave me. (I told them that the accordion is made of wood, so I must be a woodwind.) It was a hoot.

It was also the first time that I could hear myself play. The band is a true marching band, with plenty of brass and woodwinds and drums. We practice at the Little Five Points Community Center, in a room just like a high school band room. It's small and it's very noisy. I have to really pump it to hear myself. I started out with the flutes, in front of the trumpets, but moved across the room to get away from the strongest blats. One night, when I didn't have the music to something, I looked on to the music of the clarinetist next to me. I could occasionally hear faint sounds coming from my box, and they didn't sound entirely right. But it was only afterward that I learned how something with one sharp is actually in the key of F for a B-flat clarinet...

It was the same clarinetist who told me to stop worrying about whether or not I was playing the right note, or even in the right measure. "Just play whatever you want," he advised. I still don't know his name -- or hardly anyone else's, except Bruce and Charles (brooms), Bill Scott (trumpet -- and the only last name I know) and Tuba Diva (Souzaphone).

They're all very friendly. I told someone last Tuesday night that I wouldn't be joining them for the Mardi Gras performance tomorrow, and she was genuinely saddened.

It must be in my fate to be part of this. The morning of the Jugglers' gig, I met Marie and her Saturday morning run group at the Georgia Tech Starbuck's. When I walked in, they were playing "Sing, Sing, Sing" on the PA. It must be fate.

After rehearsals, a regular group repairs to Manuel's Tavern for beer and fellowship. I go about half the time, because I want to get to know some of them better. I'm hoping that I can find someone with whom to make music on a regular basis. Any kind of music, but preferably something where I can be heard. Or at least hear myself.

Weekend

Tangled Valentine's Day. I had no definite plans except to make some music and probably work on next week's classes while Marie was working on ceramics for her March show. But she called right after her Saturday morning walk group -- as I was finishing coffee and Thursday's NYT crossword -- to tell me that Eileen needed to take her car to the Gorilla, because she'd scratched it while scrubbing off bird poop with the plasticky side of a kitchen sponge. 

As part of my efforts at saving water because of our awful drought, I've not washed my car since a year ago October. It was pretty grodey and it would embarrass me to loan it to Eileen like that, so I took it to Cactus. I'd just gotten a cup of coffee in the waiting room when I heard a horn honking repeatedly and knew right away it was the car alarm on my Camry. (It had gone off a week ago, and I had to get the AAA guy to come and point out to me that it could be reset if only I used the primary key, instead of the valet key I usually use.)  Naturally I continued to use the valet key, so I had to wait for Marie to bring me the primary one yesterday...  The Cactus guys were completely unperturbed by the honking horn and the fact that they couldn't turn the steering wheel. They got it through the wash and pretty clean inside before Marie showed up.

I ran Eileen up to the Gorilla, then she and I decided to have lunch.  It was too early to go to Taqueria del Sol, so she first took me to the Savvy Snoot, a furniture consignment place off of Huff Road. I fell in love with one piece, a hutch made from reclaimed 2" barn pine, and the guy is supposed to call me with a quote for a 9 foot table of the same style. (We've decided to go with a big work/dining table for the new back room.)

Afternoon was choppy, too. Liz Mansour came by with the papers on Sweetpea for us to sign. I'd barely touched the accordion when Eileen called, ready to go pick up her car at the Gorilla.

Dinner with my true love at La Tavola, which Marie points out has kind of become our version of Bottega / Bottega Cafe here in Atlanta. Then reading and cognac by the fire before bed.

----

A work/play day today. I spent a big chunk of it on the back room, vacuuming, cleaning, putting down the new rug etc., while Marie worked in the basement. Then a long walk, the two of us and Sweetpea, to lunch outdoors at Metro Fresh and then through the park, where the dog handled herself pretty well. We're anxious to work with the trainer and get her ready to deal easily with other dogs.

I ran out to Decatur and picked up what I hope Marie will regard as a great lamp tomorrow, her birthday... Dinner with "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", which I enjoyed the second time every bit as much as the first.

Never did work on classes...

Sweetpea

Do I want a dog? Do WE want a dog?

Marie's been thinking we need a dog to increase home security. A big bark at strangers outside would be a deterrent to trouble, and Sweetpea has that, though she uses it rarely.

Jamie, a friend of Eileen's, rescues unowned dogs and places them in good homes. We'd visited her house and rejected Edgar, a very aggressive dog who is otherwise indifferent to humans. (Sweetpea has a small scar on her nose, a souvenir of the few days she boarded with Edgar.) So we were on Jamie's watch list...

Sweetpea adopted a homeless man who frequents the sidewalk in front of Jamie's office. He was asleep ("read 'passed out'," says Jamie) and woke with Sweetpea's head on his lap. Jamie worked to persuade him to give her up for adoption, while a social worker was simultaneously working on him to persuade him to go into rehab. When he finally agreed, Jamie took the dog to the vet, where they found her in good health (and spayed) except for a mild urinary tract infection. And they found a chip in her.

They phoned the number in Jonesville given in the chip, several times, without success. Then they sent a registered letter, which was never signed for. And so Sweetpea came for a visit...

She's very sweet, housebroken, very easy-going, doesn't chew anything, and she sleeps through the night!  Well, at least she goes to her bed voluntarily in the late evening, and she's still there, or on a chair, when we awake in the morning. It's been very cold. I gave her a good belly rub after my shower one morning, then offered to put her out into the back yard while I dressed. She looked skeptically at me and went back to bed. I told Marie that Sweetpea is definitely related to her...