Medium Dawn Felagund of the Fountain

Bobby and I made the journey into DC yesterday to see Xavier Rudd at the 9:30 Club. If you don't know who Xavier Rudd is and like rock music with an international flair, then you should know who he is. I'll put two of my favorite songs below the cut. He is an Australian artist who plays a variety of instruments. He rocks the didgeridoo so hard that Bobby bought a beginner one and plays it in the backyard at night. Xavier's music chiefly centers on themes concerning environmentalism and the rights of Aboriginal people.

Bobby and I caught the Metro into town and had a delicious dinner at Rosa Mexicano before the show. The 9:30 Club will always be forever epic in my mind because, when my sister and I first became interested in rock music, it seemed that all the good bands played there. My sister even won tickets once in a radio-station giveaway to see the band Garbage, but my mom refused to drive anywhere more than about ten minutes from home, so we weren't allowed to go. I finally got to go for the first time a few years ago to see Scythian. It's a club. A pretty dark and slightly dingy one! But it's the 9:30 Club, that source of so much mystique and longing from my adolescence.

( The 9:30 Club and Xavier )

This week represents that last major hurdle before I start student teaching in February. I finish my classroom observations this week, and I finish my linguistics courses. Once those are done, I can send off the last of my internship application. And then ... well, there's still work, one graduate class, and the holidays, but the next few weeks seem blissfully devoid of significant obligation.

The holiday weekend went well. I have pictures from Thanksgiving but don't feel like getting up and getting the camera, uploading them, blah blah blah, so that will have to wait. Bobby brought home a cold from his school and was sick for most of the weekend. He passed it on to me on Saturday, but it was thankfully short-lived. We went to see a holiday show up in Lancaster with my parents on Saturday. They have the same luck with couple friends that Bobby and I do; the couple they used to do stuff with ended up getting divorced, so they asked Bobby and me this year instead. Of course, right in the middle of the show was when the worst of the cold descended on me like a ton of bricks. I still had a good time, however. My dad kept saying how weird it was to see me wearing heels. Our one dress-nice excursion last year was snowed out, so it had been over a year since anyone saw me in anything but my dumpy flats and long skirts.

This weekend will be busy as well. On Saturday, we're seeing Scythian down in DC, and on Sunday, we're going to cut down our Christmas tree. At this point, I'm shouldering forward and hoping to reach that point with at least a shred of sanity remaining!

Alex's days of hiking with us are apparently over. Bobby and I just spent the last ten minutes pulling about a dozen ticks off of his legs. We tried the new trail at Soldier's Delight the other day, and because Soldier's Delight is (unfortunately) not one of the best blazed trails in Maryland, ended up getting off the beaten path onto some sort of maintenance road through tall grass. Those of you living on the East Coast should now hear the ominous dun-dun-duuun music. Yep, we looked down and each had about twenty ticks crawling up our legs. We threw Alex into the tub when we got home with a half-bottle of flea and tick soap, but I've come to the conclusion that anything that claims to kill ticks is bull. Ticks are unkillable. They're like Morgoth. However, you can "thrust them through the Doors of Night" by flushing them down the toilet, which is my preferred modus operandi. The Ellicott City sewer system must be crawling with them by now.

So ... house. Well, Bobby and I went to look at houses on Thursday as planned, two in Westminster and one in Manchester.

( The Quest Continues )

Last night, Bobby and I went to see the Heaven and Hell tour at Merriweather: Machinehead, Megadeath, and Black Sabbath (with Dio). Heavy metal isn't my first choice in music, but Potter had written down the wrong date (or something) and couldn't go, and Bobby's other friends all had other plans, so he was stuck bringing his old lady. I like and can appreciate just about any form of music except for the no-talent three-chord rock that emo teeny-bop wannabes like to pass off as punk, so I wasn't averse to going. I can appreciate a good guitar solo like any ex-guitar player can. But it got cold in Maryland! WTF, May is half over! And as soon as Black Sabbath came on, it started to rain. I was wearing a hoodie and wrapped in two towels and was miserable on top of ... well, just being miserable lately. So it wasn't the best time I've had at a concert, which is a shame, because I think that given different weather and a different mood, I would have enjoyed it much more.

The other night, Bobby and I had a night of such profound failure that it wasn't even funny. Actually, it was. Well, after the fact, anyway.

( FAILURE!!! )

So, some of you might have heard, I saw U2 on Thursday....

( Ahhh...Multiple Eargasms.... )

If you have not already, please add your name to the list at The One Campaign to eliminate world poverty. It is a wonderful and simple gesture: It will literally take you ten seconds. (I just did mine.) The hope was to have one million signatures by years end. They have two million already.



But that is no reason to stop now :)