Tomorrow night, hitting the road again for another kick-ass show at Andy’s on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Unfortunately, our brilliant cellist Okorie will be down for the count since the chicken pox has made an unexpected visit at his house. Could be worse; at least there’s no buboes involved. It does prevent me from helping out my good friend Chris and his lovely (and ever increasingly pregnant) wife with some home renovation this weekend. Can’t truly say I redeemed myself with my painting visit a few weeks ago, since I got a grand total of a door and some trim done. (I’m a slow painter.)
Today I took the day off to run some errands, most notably putting my car in the shop for a 105 Kmile maintenance to the tune of about $1,400. (Note to self: using commas in high dollar amounts makes them seem even higher.) But at least it’s a Honda, so this means it’s on its way to getting “broken in.” This has proved to be an expensive year, between the car, the porch renovations, and some tree removal. At least I have some gigs and some articles (at least one more upcoming) for Red Hat Magazine to shore up the offshore Cayman accounts.
The best part of the day was morning, when I talked Eleya into (finally!) shopping for some shoes to go with her marvelous new CAbi clothes, and then when I got to pick up Evie at preschool. She was so surprised to see Daddy instead of Mommy outside the classroom! She ran out to give me a huge hug and a kiss and it was pretty much a banner moment in fatherhood, yes indeedy.
Eleya and I saw a few good movies recently on DVD. First, Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic (a.k.a. “Ray with white people”), which was fantastic, and last night we watched Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which was bracing and enraging. I doubt anyone could watch that movie without generating some contempt for the quick-buck huckster ethos that has become a cancer on capitalism.
I am resetting my body clock slightly tonight by staying up late — with the help of a handful of chocolate-covered espresso beans — so I’m going to go look through the DVD collection to see what strikes me as worth watching. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise; late to rise and late to bed makes a man ready to rock instead.