Devendra...

Devendra Barnhart drives a bandwagon that I have not been inclined to jump upon as yet. The look is great, the vibe is groovy, but there has always been something missing, like...listenable songs.

Anyways, I finally heard a good one this weekend, and I have to admit that if he could just pull this off more often, I would be more willing to jump on what seems to be a pretty fun bandwagon!

Hurricane Harbor!!!

Finn & I went to Hurricane Harbor last week!! This place was super fun and the water wasn't too gross! Very few pictures since water parks and cameras don't mix, but we had a great time - especially floating down the Lazy River!

Four!!!

Judee Sill

When Judee Sill was an up and coming folk singer in the late 60’s, she was considered so promising that her album was the first release on David Geffen’s fledgling record label. Unfortunately, she was a little too quirky for a roster that included The Eagles and Jackson Browne and her first album, produced by Graham Nash, sank.



Her career never recovered and her situation was not helped by a drug addiction that was so serious that she turned to prostitution and robbing liquor stores. She was dead from an overdose at the age of 35, and most of her contemporaries had assumed that she had died years earlier.



Although her music was never super popular, it has had a resurgence of late, and was a really interesting part of this summer. Hope you like it – and please excuse the nudity - for some reason, this is the only YouTube version of this great song.

Borges!!!

Happy 111th birthday to Jorge Luis Borges!!! Howard Bloom called his writing "infinitely suggestive", and his many short stories are filled with Twilight-Zonish ideas and an incredibly dry, literary sense of humor.

As one of the prime inventors of post-modernism, Borges always gives the feeling that he has trouble taking his writing too seriously, but of course this is only because he took a great deal of care with all that he wrote.

As Borges said of one of his characters, "He believed that 'great literature' is the commonest thing in the world, and that there was hardly a conversation in the street that did not attain those 'heights'."

Who but a literary great would have written this?

Annie!!!

Happy Birthday to my lovely sister Annie!!! We had a great, if very short, trip to San Diego this weekend where we got to spend some time with our family, have a nice birthday dinner, and visit the San Diego Zoo!!!

Here are some pictures of us on the tram, which is probably the best way to see the most of this enormous place!!








This zoo is soooooo amazing, and anyone who hasn't been there should make the time if they're in the area! We saw some incredible animal things, including an elephant getting a pedicure (no picture of course), and some beautiful big cats, like this snow leopard that had the most amazing eyes - Jamie said that they reminded him of Naomi Campbell's!!

We also go to take the skyway over the park, which gives a great bird's eye view of everything! If you look closely, you can see Finn, Mom, and Petur behind us.

Jack was amazed, and I think the look on his face says it all!!

We got a great view of the bell tower of the Museum of Man, which was used as part of Xanadu in Citizen Kane. Thanks to Mom & Petur for a great trip, and happy birthday again to Annie!!!

Swing!!!

Thanks for the swing Thor!!!

SF!!!

I had a crazy whirlwind trip to the Bay Area this weekend to go see Furthur. Unfortunately it was a little too crazy for effective picture taking, but here's one of Dan & Tim Owen - our host - in a tree. The show was great, even though we ended up listening from outside next to a lake. Just a little weirdness before getting back to work!

Goodbye old friend

Goodbye Sweet Baxter. You've been a good cat for the past 15 years and will be very missed. We will always remember you sitting up like a dog to beg for lovies, tempting people with your belly of doom, gallumping across our giant lawn in Portland while the birds playing in the sprinkler just looked at you, waiting for the sprinkler to turn the other way, the time you proudly brought us the mouse you'd caught...that had been dead so long he was petrified, watching you play with your best friend Romeo - the Pit Bull. Mostly I remember carrying you home from my Mom's house while you sat in my lap purring contentedly the whole way. You had the biggest head and paws I'd ever seen on a kitten and you made the best kittie biscuits in the whole world. I hope that you and Romeo are off romping together somewhere in the big park in the sky.

Farm Fest!!!

Well, another great Farm Fest has come and gone! We kind of think these pictures pretty much speak for themselves, but we wanted to say a few words. First of all...a big thank you to our friends Matt, Elena, Clara, Dylan and Bob for hosting us twice at their lovely home in Oakland!!

If you can't tell from this picture, they have a beautiful panoramic view of the bay. They also were amazingly tolerant of two little cooped up boys running wild in their home for a while.

Ashland! We got to see a great play & have a wonderful, if belated, anniversary dinner!! We also finally got to see Pee-pa Mike and Grandma Molly! Jack was a little disgruntled this day, but he perked up a lot once we got to the farm!

Apparently, we did a lot of swinging on this trip.

See?

This was at a great breakfast place called Morning Glory : )

Saturday Market!

Mike and Molly's beautiful new guest house. The composting toilet was the source of great amusement on the trip, but I have to say, it seems quite efficient.

The morning after farmfest. Jack had his first hangover - of the sugar variety - and decided to sleep all day. Before he went back to bed, he heaved several big long sighs at the breakfast table and then said, "Momma...I don't know about s'mores. No more s'mores for me."

Finn had fun playing with Patrick, though. Both the boys joined the song circle for a while the night before. As usual, we got almost no pictures of the actual song circle because everyone was too busy enjoying themselves (or watching kids!)

A good Mike making pancakes picture - yum!!

One of the best parts of Farm Fest this year was that Mike's sister Katie and his brother Jeff were able to come up with their families. It was so nice to see everyone together for a couple of days. We don't get to see them as often as we would like!

Even more swinging!



Another great thing about Farm Fest this year is that Josh and Adrienne and Lorelei were able to come up with us! We didn't manage to get a single cute picture of Lorelei where she wasn't blurry. The kids were pretty much in motion the whole time and our camera stinks, but the boys had a lot of fun with her!

I'm not sure this is a favorite memory exactly, but it definitely was a memorable Farm Fest moment. One morning the kids were out playing with M & M's labrador Charlie when Finn and Lorelei came running into the house to inform us that there was a new dog in the yard with Charlie. They said that its name was "Rabbies."

We looked out and saw a pit bull scampering around Jack who had his bun-buns held high over his head while he yelled, "No Rabbies! No!" "Rabbies" turned out to be a very nice pit bull from a neighbor's farm who's name is really "Maggie". She does have a reassuring tag on her collar, though, kindly explaining that she has had her rabies shots.

Another favorite memory was Molly pushing the boys down the rapids at the end of the swimming hole on this little raft! They were so cute and enthusiastic about it and Molly was a very good sport - she sent them off several times!

A happy family : )

This, however, may be my favorite Farm Fest picture ever. Big thanks to Peepaw Mike & Molly and love to everyone who was there with us and to everyone who wasn't able to make it. See you next year!!