Almost 30 years after I first said I wanted to, we went to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy live in concert. It was billed as a “Christmas Concert” but it was definitely NOT just Christmas music. I am still riding high on this.
Final stage prep for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. A technician was doing… something… with the bass.
BBVD does a great job of recreating the look and sound of swing and big-band jazz. They played a mix of Christmas, old standards, and original music. I really dug their cover of Minnie the Moocher, IMHO it’s as good as Cab Colloway’s.
Things I learned today:
They been playing together, with the original line-up, for 31 years and they still look like they’re having fun.
They’re only slightly older than me.
That the Lexington, MA area crowd clearly didn’t know what kind of band they were buying tickets to see and were disappointingly low-energy.
A little bit on that last point: the band was superb and carried some real energy. Their showmanship was on point! I’m sad that the crowd was overall on the geriatric side and people were polite but not really feeling it. I think they were expecting a slow Christmas show, and this was definitely not that.
Megh and I decided that we’re going to take swing lessons and catch next year’s concert. We want to get up in the aisle and start dancing to fight back against the old fogies. The band deserves it!
If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.
Busy people don’t have time to care about other shit. As important as it may be to protect your country from apathy, from corruption, from fascism, it’s not something that’s directly in front of you so it’s not something you have time to worry about.
The propaganda about working hard (to keep single people busy), about getting married and having kids, about having a good work ethic, against work-life balance, all designed to keep you as busy as possible. Companies abuse childless people because “oh, well he has kids so he has to leave early… we need this done today”.
The government keeps you busy with paying taxes, renewing drivers licenses, passports, license plates, car inspections, code violations that you have to get fixed, tiny minimum wages that force you to take 2-3 jobs.
People with spare time have time to look at what’s going on around them… they have time to organize and fight for what they want. They have time to start their own businesses instead of being wage slaves for the rich. They have time to fight big issues when they come up. This is undesirable behavior. A big uprising, which is probably coming anyway, is the last thing the elite want.
So they keep you busy, and in control. They look at history and see all of the times when this failed but they think “Yeah, but people in the past were stupid… we can make it work this time”. And they push more and more and more, until everyone gets pushed too far. But first comes being busy.
After living here for twelve years and mostly limiting ourselves to making repairs, we’ve finally introduced some real improvements to make the house ours.
It’s been over a year in the making, and over a decade of informal planning.
We started out wanting a front porch. We were spoiled by our old home, which had a deep porch spanning the width of the structure. We missed it the first time we had to unlock the new house in the rain. We really missed it when we had use the the storm door to push fresh snow out of the way before we could even start shoveling.
The final straw, spurring us into action, was the chimney.
Our house came with a fireplace and chimney on the outside wall facing the driveway.
What seemed to be a charming accoutrement quickly became a white elephant. Fireplaces are always difficult to place furniture around, and this one was inconveniently located. By making a wall without windows, the room containing it was very dark, even on the brightest days.
We never used it. It sucked more heat out of the room than it generated and made the house smokey, and even when not in use it conducted heat to the outside. Minor leaks over the years had rusted the fascia.
The chimney wasn’t in great shape when we moved in, and suffered ongoing neglect. It was becoming a real problem but I didn’t want to spend money on something we didn’t even use. When chunks of brick started landing in the driveway, we knew it was time to do something.
Meghan came up with the final piece. Our tiny front yard has always been a hassle to care for. Too small to use, hard to mow, and packed with mulch over a foot deep by previous owners. The plot was dominated by two gigantic bushes that were rather healthy but not our style. Meghan realized that hardscaping could be equally beautiful and certainly more useful. We extended the water-permeable masonry across the driveway to catch some of the water, dirt, and sand that tends to accumulate at the far end.
After a couple of false starts, thinking a contractor could handle all aspects, we hired an architect to come up with a real plan. As an aside, I’ll recommend always getting an architect now. Planning, estimating, and permitting took a lot longer than we had hoped but we found somegreatpeople to work with.
Come see the results. Click the pictures to see larger versions.
Looking across the driveway to see all the improvements together (plus my car for scale). Along the front of the house you can see the grime left by the bushes.Looking across the driveway “skirt”Looking down the driveway towards the front door. The project finished a couple of days after Halloween and on a breezy day leaves accumulate faster than you can clear them.We replaced the front door. We really liked the 3/4 view door of our old house, and it looks great here, too. The window to the left sits where the chimney used to rise up the side of the house. We’ve kept our milk delivery box from our old house. Yes, we used to have home delivery and yes, it’s as cool as it sounds.
This Halloween is special because a major home-improvement project, which has been more than a year in the making, is almost complete. It will probably be done tomorrow, but it’s close enough to done that we could host trick-or-treaters!
There are two parts:
the new front porch that replaces simple concrete steps
hardscaping the front yard with pavers
We decided to have a little fun this year as well, by letting Consuela out for for a breath of fresh air.
Our new front porch, and the hard-scaping project that is almost complete
The remaining part of the project involves some stone cutting to define the path leading up to the stairs, and adding some curbing along the far side of the driveway.
Consuela greets all who dare approach her
Above Consuela’s head is a lamp with a deep red bulb. We were going for a spooky look and I think we achieved it. Our younger trick-or-treaters declined the delicious full-sized candy bars. She really creeped them out!
It didn’t help that Beta child hung out on the other side of the window with a small “screamer” that she would set off whenever an older child approached Consuela’s dais.
It doesn’t matter if you believe in souls or not. If Consuela wants yours she will have it.
Megh and I enjoyed a collective life goal tonight: seeing the Aurora Borealis with our own eyes. I’ve wanted to see this for nearly my entire life, ever since I saw the movie Antarctica.
Megh, Beta, and I found a dark spot near Rockport, arrived as dusk approached, and waited for the fireworks. Nature did not disappoint.
It started before the sky was completely dark, and initially appeared to be a whitish haze across the northern part of the sky. We started to despair that high clouds were going to interfere, until we realized… the show had actually started.
I really like this one because the Big Dipper constellation is visible behind the aurora.The camera’s “night sight” mode not only brought out the colors, but also enabled us to see the reflection off the water.You can really see the classic undulations and spiresThe colors were so strong in this shot, the camera didn’t really add much to this photo. I really enjoy the strong break between color and night sky.The aurora climbed the northern sky until it was overhead, which is when I caught this photo.
These photos are color-accurate, but a little brighter than what we actually saw.
Just a couple of happy gerbils in their little hut.
They’re just a couple of dudes that like to snuggle
They generally head below to the main part of the enclosure to nap, but this time they decided to stay up above, and have a siesta together in the remains of their “house”.
Their eyes may be open, but they were definitely in low power mode.
Beta child had just cleaned their enclosure an hour before. It’s amazing how fast they can litter up the place. It must be tiring.
“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
