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Resolved

On January 20, 2012

I’ve been mulling over my 100 list for the past few weeks, thinking about what I want to try and tackle this year. My new year’s resolutions, sort of.

I consider all concert goals as open action items. As in, if the person or group goes on tour, I will make my schedule open and take immediate action to buy tickets! From the rest, I wanted to choose about 5 things I can focus on. Right now, here’s where I’m at:

Play an instrument. A year ago Wonder Boy gifted me a banjo. My plan was to sign up for lessons after some house renovations were done. Little did I know that the renovations that were scheduled to take 6 weeks would take about 9 months! For Christmas this year, Wonder Boy got me a banjo lesson. I have no excuses!
Learn to sew. I found a really cool online course set that teaches sewing and helps you make things that are actually really cool.
Learn to ride the city bus. I am embarrassed by the fact that I live within a mile of downtown and about three houses down from a bus stop but have no idea at all for how to use the bus system.
Make pasta from scratch. I have given this several tries and always failed, with the exception of making spaetzle, which is so easy it barely counts. I have all of the necessary tools. I can succeed at this.
Watch all of the movies in the AFI 100 Movies list. I’m a little intimidated by the amount of movies on this list I haven’t seen (84!), but I think it would be a good task. There are so many pop and cultural references I miss out on because I haven’t seen some of the films. The big dilemma here is that it would mean watching Star Wars. Do I have it in me?
Because watching 84 movies in a year is a little daunting and would, I think, have a direct correlation with the growth of my behind, I have a back up goal of Meditation. I could use a little zen in my life.

Things You Can Do In Thirty Days

By Kate

On September 2, 2011

In 100 List, family / friends

A while back I wrote about a Ted presentation I saw discussing how you could do something for 30 days and make or break a habit. I was intrigued. My unstated (except verbally to Wonder Boy) goal was to blog for 30 days straight. And I did it! Not only that, I blogged every day during the month of August (which means I blogged for 42 days straight, if you’re counting). Because I blogged each day in August, I get to cross “Update blog daily for at least a month stretch” off my 100 list.

I wasn’t the only one inspired by the 30 Days talk. Maggie Mason at MightyGirl had the inspired idea to do something fun for 30 days in a row. I think this is such a fun idea that I am going to steal it. So today launches day 1 of 30 days of fun.

For my first day, I enjoyed a drinks out with Pop and Wonder Boy. It was a fabulous end to a day that sort of did me in. I needed the fun!

This potato pancake was really Pop’s. I ordered a soft pretzel with a bucket of liquid cheese. When it came, I was too busy drinking the cheese to take pictures!

He didn’t like this when I pointed this out, but I’ve known Pop for 17 years now, which makes him one of my oldest friends. It’s so nice to hang out with someone who you’ve known for that long. I don’t know why, maybe because it’s familiar, but it was a wonderful way to spend an evening.

I Heart Neko … And How My Morning Jacket Made Me Deaf

By Kate

On August 18, 2011

In 100 List, family / friends, rock

Last night I attended the Neko Case concert and it was wonderful. Okay, so maybe it was the My Morning Jacket concert, with opening act Neko Case. I know where my allegiances are and why I attended the show and it had nothing to do with My Morning Jacket. A while back I saw the New Pornographers live and Neko was playing with them. I used the concert to be able to cross “See Neko Case” off of my 100 list but that was sort of a lie. The concert was okay but the sound was terrible and she was so quiet. It was not at all the Neko I wanted but I adore her so much that I gave myself the event.

Now my friend Ronald Reagan says that when I went to Morocco several years ago and gave myself the continent of Africa that it was a lie because I didn’t stay overnight in the country or continent. I think that’s absolutely absurd. Delicious and I experienced complete culture shock, a lot of which was due to the dramatic differences in sexual equality between there and here. While it was a short visit, it had a huge effect on me and I got more out of that day than I have from much longer trips to other places. (The argument is a moot point now that I’ve been to Ghana.) If Ronald Reagan had called me out on Neko being crossed off my list, that would have been a real discussion and I might have admitted being wrong. Which I don’t do often.

But people, last night I not only SAW Neko Case, I was like 12 feet away from her. And it was beautiful. She was beautiful. Her voice was beautiful. I wish my phone took better pictures so I could illustrate what I saw better but this will have to do.

I don’t think this picture makes it look like I was as close to the stage as I was, but you’ll just have to trust me on that.

Some entertaining points about Neko’s set:

Her band is completely random! She has people that belong in blues bands, hipster indie rock bands, surf bands, hard rock bands and maybe performing show tunes.
The person who belonged performing show tunes sounded fabulous with Neko when they sang so I cannot critique her talent. But she was a little like the daughter of Liza Minnelli and it was very distracting.
I’ve always heard that Neko is prone to freaking out on stage and being a little … unique. For someone who can open her mount and let a huge singing voice escape, her talking voice was little more than a whisper. So she would say a few barely intelligible things and Liza Minnelli would say them to the audience. It was so weird!

The reason Wonder Boy and I were able to get so close is because we had pit tickets. It’s pretty awesome because it pretty much gives you access to the whole venue.

I was grateful for that because when My Morning Jacket came on stage, I was completely surprised. Two years ago I saw Monsters of Folk perform in Louisville and I sort of assumed, that since My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James was in that super group, that the music would be similar. Wrong.

Today I went online and purchased some earplugs because if I ever see another show like last night’s without earplugs, I will be deaf. I might be deaf now. Did you say something? Holy moly was the music loud. We moved back to towards the rear of the venue but it only made things a little better. I tried to video some of the show to show how loud it was, and how dizzying the lights were. The sound is pretty awful on this video but it illustrates my point well.

My Morning Jacket was good. Very good. But I was so relieved when Wonder Boy said he was ready to go. By the end of the show, I just hurt.

The sound on this video of Neko Case from last night is better. Because I didn’t take it.

Photography

By Kate

On July 6, 2011

In 100 List, classes, photography

I am loving my photography classes and very proud that my 100 List helped motivate me to take them. Each session we focus on something new and I always learn some new fact or skill. Last class we focused on metering. The teacher said this is a powerful tool. I think I need to play with it some more because in my hands it was a useless tool.

This week we learned about depth of field. I loved this because it’s something I play with anyway. I love taking pictures as up close as I can get. My zoom lens helps sometimes but mainly I just get all up some peoples’ and animals’ business. That’s what makes flowers so easy. They just sit there cooperatively.

I also continued my ironic streak of bug photos but it’s not quite as good as the others. The point of focus is about ½ and inch to the right of the critter. But now, thanks to my class, I can articulate what could be improved on the image.

My teacher would say that this spider photo is très boring because I have him centered. I get his point (now, thanks to the classes) but still like the picture.

Me and Bugs

By Kate

On June 23, 2011

In 100 List, photography

In my basement there are shelves full of paint, stain, tools and scrap building material. There is also one whole shelf dedicated to killing bugs. We recently experienced our annual tiny ant infestation and Wonder Boy headed downstairs to see if we had anything to kill them off. He came back upstairs and just looked at me. “Why do we have so many bottles of spray to kill flying bugs?” I explained that in my opinion flying bugs are the absolute worst so if a poison will kill a flying bug, certainly it will kill a stupid crawling bug. I don’t think my answer satisfied him. One bottle dedicated to killing flying bugs? Sure. But 5?

I have always hated bugs. I freak out about them like a … bad girl stereotype. I scream. I jump and run away. When I was younger and putting dishes into the dishwasher, I saw an ant on my leg and jumped onto the open door of the dishwasher. Obviously it broke. Obviously it was hard to explain to my parents why an ant caused such destruction. Another time I was moving the lawn and got distracted by a spider, probably a daddy-longlegs , and ran the mower over a rock. That led to a broken lawn mower. Again, my parents were not impressed with the bug cause.

It’s all pretty ironic then that in my photography classes, which I am taking to accomplish things on my 100 list, my favorite pictures keep being of bugs. I’ve been inspired by some photos my friend took. (There are no bug pictures on his blog yet, but trust me, he’s taken awesome ones.)

In class on Tuesday I asked the teacher to critique some of my photos, which he’ll do for everyone. I’ve found this to be incredibly helpful. Also, I miss the days of school when you got immediate feedback on things you did. I like to be graded for the quality of my work… I got really positive feedback on the photos I shared (below) but I got fabulous kudos for my bug picture. And I am proud to report that after taking the picture I did not scream, run or kill the bug.