The Day Before Spring Before The Weathermen Got It Right

Snow day! Tuesday and Nick and I have the day off from Wampsville and Nick's weekly probation visit. I deserve this day as last week I got summoned for Grand Jury Duty in none other than my favorite place...Wampsville. So I'll be making the Wampsville trek two times a week for the next few...well however long jury duty takes. Other than that, life is good! My summer music schedule is shaping up though I need to travel outside my comfort zone more and book further away. My patience was put to test the last two weeks with Bill's 95 year old father shuffling about the house. He's a sweet old fella with many stories I've now heard over again and again. He loves my cooking and his biggest thrill is Judge Judy and Jeopardy. I would run and hide at the sound of both coming on to the TV. Two weeks is a long time for house guests no matter who they are... Well maybe not Johnny Depp or Cat Steven's in his prime. I had my monthly gig at Georgetown last Friday that I may as well as have skipped as SU was playing Georgetown. I knew it was gonna be a slow night because of the game and after raising the back door of the Nitro and looking at my sound equipment I had neither the desire nor the energy to haul the heavy speaker or amp inside...so I played unplugged. The room isn't that big and I've always wondered if I could get away with good sound, unplugged. Well it wasn't bad but...it wasn't good either. I'd rather play plugged in as a little help of the push of the sound system can work wonders. I've been wanting to sell my system but just never got around to it. At last I stacked the system up neatly in the corner of my studio and took a shot of it and slapped it up on Facebook an had it sold in less than ten minutes to an old Sherburne Earlville classmate of mine who grew up just down the hill from me on RT 12. Jimmy Kolet went in on the price of 500 bucks with another old bud of mine Eric Porter. The system could not have gone to better musicians and friends. So! Now I've got the Bose system ordered! I've tracked it and it should be in tomorrow but with all the snow it may come later in the week. I can't wait to break in the Bose! It's gonna sound awesome but more importantly I'll be able to lift it without killing myself. In my boredom last night I decided to search for some color to help spring along as tomorrow is the first day of it. Some shots of some flowers that have graced my gardens.

The Countryside...95 all the way down to 9

It was a Brown boy weekend! It just amazes me to think of how many people have passed through my homes doors, slept in between these walls and then moved on again.If only the wall's could talk with the stories and conversations of the people who have been inside.

A Three Gigabyte Weekend

Oh this frustrating, forever undependable music scene. Feast or famine. Honestly, I wish I could wash from my hands the desire to play out, the need to haul music equipment, the thrill of the drive for however many miles to god only knows where, to play sometimes for people who sometimes don't give a rats ass about music. But I can't. Having played three gigs in a row last weekend I figured I played roughly 10 hours and drove for about 5 hours to make 450 dollars with another 50 in tips...isn't bad...especially for Central New York. It would of taken me double that in time bartending or waitressing, on my feet, shouldering heavy trays and dealing with screaming chefs to make the same amount of money...(In CNY mind you). I'd much rather sit and play. Last weekend I had totally appreciative listeners, clappers, whistlers and tippers. I love my music! Friday night was the Georgetown Inn...a very seasonal, hit or miss but local gig. I was ready to pack it up early when a table of snowmobilers, 9 in all filed in for a fish fry. They were very jovial content for being in Georgetown instead of the chaos of New Jersey. They loved my cover song choices and tipped awesomely! Saturday was a different night altogether. The Wigwam in Forestport, a tiny log cabin tavern with the butt end of a prop plain sticking out of it's roof. Snowmobile heaven with the best food! It was a little over and hour to get there in a sleety rain down pour. Long night. The locals enjoyed my music and described my sets as ...relaxing. I think they are more into karaoke type, loud rock stuff. Those days of course are long over for me. I don't think I'll be back there. My Sunday gig at the Hotel Solsville made up for the wiggies of wam ha ha. In Solsville, I know the locals and it's only a 20 minute ride from my house. They will be doing music on Sundays and I will be back there. When Monday finally rolled around I was all gigged out and I happily after I laughed...all the way to the bank.

Feb-you-dreary

Winter is getting long. The woodshed out back is four rows down and with one and a half rows of wood left. Even the cats are blue, sitting in whatever window they can find, starring bleakly out at the once magical white snow, now mud caked and broken twig racked from the seven ancient maples that are slowly breaking down, day by day, wind by wind in front of my house. My cats every now and then, let out a quiet, half meow whimper in a dream of green and spring and sun on the porch. Like me, as I walk the perfectly straight edged, snow blower blown path to dump the compost bucket down by the garden and my eyes are diverted to the color of my red and yellow kayaks hanging on the side of the shed almost covered by snow...snow they wish was water, I sigh and think, these kayaks shouldn't be hanging upside down in the middle of winter. They should be housed some where warm and dry, buffed up and shiny. Housed in a lush green house full of exotic plants, organic herbs and vegetables all full of color around a steaming pool and growing right smack dab in the middle of winter! Just another thing to put on the wish list. February is a great month to paint interior walls, check, record, half check, just couldn't bond with the creativity this year tho I did finally come face to face with Osceola the berry and herb toting woman who lived at the base of Rexford Falls back in the Sherburne heyday.I got her song researched and written with a demo recorded. To get a flu shot, check, to realize that my husband is turning 70 and how am I gonna deal with that...likely give him a dinner party...Oh very well...Check, And to realize that all doctors aren't as evil as I've been making them out to be the last twenty years of my life...double check. I fasted 12 hours and had nine vials of blood drawn for allergy testing. I told to blood drawing girl to write a script for high cholesterol if she would as I'm sure my genes have allowed it. It's Valentines day tomorrow. I have a gig at the Brackel in the yonder hills of McDonough NY. I also have a few more gig's coming up, one being in a cozy log cabin tavern with the butt of an airplane sticking out of its roof called the Wigwam...and another at the Hotel Solsville. The Bipolor Hotel has been dead where I'm last on the list to be called in being the part timer that I am. I'm not holding my breath for further employment there as something smells pretty fishy in the crazy-just-like-the-music-biz business. There's a lot of young girls hustling the floors each week when I pop in to find my name not on the work schedule. I guess 52 may be the new cut off. I will not miss dressing like mafia man. Lately I've noticed a lot of musicians playing for exposure and as another fellow working musician mentioned on facebook, playing for exposure just doesn't pay Target, Mobile or mortgages. I think it may be time, again, to become the kept house wife and be happy throwing dinner parties and record the occasional song that comes my way. And digging in the dirt around the spot where that green house is gonna go. Yep. I guess you could say February has worked it magic. But, I got some rooms painted!

Yellow Jacket Hive

So, my mother hasn't been the only one busy at her place of residence. So were her uninvited guests. The Bees! While having dinner with my brother last week, she asked him to check out a crack in the sheet rock she had noticed in the ceiling of her laundry room. After poking around, the cracks turned out to be a few small holes where my brother peered in and saw a hornets nest. Today, Bill and Ford had to cut back the whole sheet rock wall to get at this yellow jacket hive that had been built. The bee's had come in a small opening on the front of the house. Thankfully, because it's winter, the hive was empty except for a few dead bee's scattered here and there. The yellow jacket hotel we thus named it had 11 floors and in spite of the creepy fact, having a hive in your house and merely inches away from Mom's head where she would stand to do her laundry. The work these bee's did on this hotel hive is actually quite beautiful and intricate. Still...another reminder that I'm allergic and need to get my epipen renewed!

Holding Down The Country Side

I had a foggy ride down route 20 yesterday hooking Bill up with his rental car at the Albany airport. It's a little after 7 am this morning and I imagine they are just getting on the road now for that long trek to Cocoa Beach. Not for me this year thank you! I'm all Florida'd out. Nick and I are here holding down the fort. There's a January thaw going on giving me a break from tending to the fire...which I totally don't mind as I haven't worked since before Christmas with the Colgate students being away and all. January is when I started back up at the infamous Bipolar Hotel aka The Colgate Inn. Now I know, having worked there a year through, that next year I'm out of here with the town being so dead in January. Something to look forward to. I'm thinking Colorado, Arizona the mid west. Sitting here this morning and I just got a text from Aurora who just boarded her plane for Hickory, North Carolina in her traveling promoting Chobani. Every one is going some where! I'm going to the grocery store, the wood shed maybe to moms to do some rug hooking and into my studio. Got some tracks to record. It's a music week. I have three gigs to prepare for. Local gigs I don't have to go far for. This year I hope to get a little further out...write more, shoot more, kayak more and have more outside bondings with mother nature and camp more. With the dark troubled times of 2012 fading in the rear view mirror...I'm road tripping and heading into a year of more...Look out. But first I think I'll drag the Christmas tree down to the firs pit.

2013 Bring it on!

2012 can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned. I made it through and it wasn't cheap. Having a kid in jail with jail being big business and all really put a damper on my cash flow. Fifty dollars a week for commissary. Money spent on New York Times and magazines and the envelopes to mail them and postage...Not to mention the lawyer and gas for the forty minute drive to Wampsville and back. Nick is home. He payed his due and is all the better for it. I honestly think jail was the best thing for him. Bill and I drove through a white out arriving shortly after midnight on December 24th and broke him out. What a Christmas...what an exhausting Christmas. The days were spent in an all out cook-a-thon! The ten year kitchen wafting with smells from Thanksgiving to Mexican to Italian. So one day at a time here with the kid home. He looks great and is positive and hopeful for the future. 2012, I hated you but you made me strong and you didn't defeat me...you beat me up pretty good but you didn't win. 2013, I look forward to you and am eager to accept what may come. And I'm so thankful for all I have.