An Evening with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

If you're unfamiliar with Gillian Welch, go back and listen to the soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou," and you'll hear her throughout that soundtrack. I have always been a fan of bluegrass but really never completely fell deeply in love with it until I heard Gillian's dark take on the genre.
I saw her and her longtime partner, David Rawlings, at The State Theater in Portland last night and enjoyed myself immensely. As always seems to happen when I go to events, there's a funny anecdote to tell, which I'll get to in a bit. The above song is one of my very favorites of hers and they did play it last night. Their version of "Long Black Veil" is my favorite, amongst many great versions of this classic song. I love Johnny's and Lefty's too but her haunting, dark voice always does it for me. I would also strongly urge you to listen to "Orphan Girl" as another example of their style, her voice and her dark, intimate lyrics; or "Sing that Rock N Roll" for an example of them at their Appalachian rockabilly best.

Yes, these are often passionate songs of religious devotion and I'm an atheist, always will be, but she touches me deeply nonetheless. I like gospel music also -- surprise, surprise.

The anecdote: I went alone, spent 30 bucks on a ticket that put me at the very back, dead center in this intimate little theater that is familiar to every small city in the country. My seat was the center one of five and when I sat down for the first time, I couldn't believe how little room there was between my seat and one in front of me. I'm not quite 5-10 and I had to have my legs in a V to keep from having my legs severely scrunched against the seatback. Well finally along comes the couple who'll be sitting to my left, a nice couple who drove down from St. John, NB, to see the show. We'll call them Nancy and Paul, short for Paul Bunyan. There was nothing short about this guy. He was 6-7 at least and the only way for him to get in his seat was to have his V so wide his knees were halfway into my spot. I sat for 3 or 4 songs with my left leg just below the knee resting on the top of the seatback in front (luckily the lady in that seat was leaning forward the whole time) and it quickly cut into my flesh. The theater was sold out, so Paul was unable to go lay down in the aisle. Finally after those first few songs I had the brilliant idea to sit on the top of my seat in its collapsed position. It was as uncomfortable as it sounds, with the seat front cutting into my buttocks but I can tell you it was enormously more comfortable than actually sitting in the seat. Paul did the same and was very thankful for my idea. After intermission we stood up behind our seats against the back wall.

The State Theater has been renovated since the last time I was there and it looks great. One thing you don't often get at a concert venue of this type and size is a full bar. So I had myself a little nip of Johnny Walker Black as I enjoyed the show.  Don't think about going out for a butt during intermission though...no re-entry.  Oh, and I had a couple of slices of pie before the show at Otto Pizza just a block away...quite yummy, though I did notice a tapas restaurant right across from the theater after I'd already eaten.  I would have loved to have tried that.

Ode to the Maine Italian Sandwich

Since it is universally accepted that the Maine Italian sandwich's origins are in Portland, ME and Giovanni Amato, I've included a link to Amato's website, which has a great picture of the sandwich (you can leave the olives off mine, thank you) on the front page and a link to the history of the sandwich.  So I won't bother to repeat it here; but it's called an Italian more because it was invented by an Italian than what's in it, which wouldn't necessarily strike you as Italian food.
My purpose here though is to baptize the uninitiated and to swap stories with the choir about our favorite version of the Italian and where we fondly remember getting the "best one around."  It is true that you'd be hard pressed to go anywhere in Maine and not be able to find a very good one on the menu of any "corner store," as we tend to refer to mom & pop and general stores here in Maine; but we all have our favorite place, usually one near where we grew up.  It is one of those things when we're away from Maine that make us think fondly and eagerly about returning.
A couple of childhood memories:  I can remember my Aunt Polly in the '60s making dozens of Italians that seemed like they were going to a store for sale.  I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old and that's my first memory of the Italian.  I will have to do some research and find out what that was all about.  The other memory is as an adolescent and teenager.  I used to bowl in youth leagues in Pittsfield at Frenchy's and then at Pittsfield Bowling Center after school, and whenever I had the money I'd be over at Richie's getting a bite to eat, quite often an Italian.  A couple of other places that may bring back memories is Sonny's and Whipper's in the Waterville Area.
Currently my favorite place is Franchetti's here in Livermore Falls (amazing how many places don't have websites!) -- it's actually just across the town line in Jay, and I have to say I've always been impressed with how fresh and abundant and tasty their food is, at the top of my list of great corner stores, right below The Maine Store in my hometown of Detroit.
Finally, for those who are unfamiliar, I'll tell you what ingredients you'll need to make an Italian of your own.  Having just made one a few days ago, I wish I'd taken a picture to include here but alas that sandwich is long gone.  You'll need a 12 inch soft sub roll sliced about 2/3 deep to stuff the ingredients in.  Layer generous helpings of sliced ham or salami (or both), then American cheese, chopped onions and bell peppers, tomato slices, dill pickles (optional Greek olives) and then drizzle some oil on top, add salt and pepper.  That's the traditional "recipe" but I'd love to hear about your favorite version.
Enjoy!  Anyone want to suggest a favorite beer to wash that down with?

Memorial Day

First off, let me ask all who read this to join in the National Moment of Remembrance today at 3PM, to honor in particular those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect this country and our freedom.  Go to http://www.remember.gov/ to learn more.
Secondly, for those on Facebook, the White House has a great application where you can honor a random fallen soldier.  I've been updating mine about every hour to honor another.  Go to my profile to find the app.
You all know me to be not much of a "flag waver."  I prefer to show my patriotism and respect in my own way, which tends to be with 100 percent sincerity and in my own words, as opposed to doing what others have made and decided is the right way to show patriotism.  On this Memorial Day though please take some time to think about what sacrifices have been made, what it's meant to the families of those who made that sacrifice and what it's meant to our country.  Also, try to take time to personally thank anyone you know who has served because without them as well this country would not be as free as it is and the ultimate sacrifice could have easily been theirs to bare.
Memorial Day is also a day to remember loved ones who are no longer with us.  I tend to do this myself by remembering all the good times shared with them, what wonderful people they were and how much they meant to my life.  I won't list all those I miss but will say a special remembrance to my daughter Jennifer Lee, who I never had the opportunity to get to know.  Miss you, sweetheart.  So while we remember and honor those who've served and those we've lost, let's cherish the time spent with them but also take advantage of the time we still have with those who are still with us.  So how about just letting them know in some personal way that you're glad they're in your life.
(cross posted at Inside Zebster)

Just like doing mountain climbers

You saw me whine the other day on Facebook after a lawmowing session, so I thought I'd share a couple of pics of the backyard.  What's not included is the yard next door that I also mowed that day and that's why it was a two-beer Briggs & Stratton workout.

What you're looking at:  The front of the house (not shown) is on street level, which is the same level as this first picture looking down into the backyard, which was taken from the deck that connects our front porch to the carriage barn. 

There's a set of steps from that deck down to the upper backyard (immediately behind the barn) and that is level with the floor of the basement.  Then down the hill to another level and small yard, then yet again down another level to the lowest part of the yard, which is where these 2 pics looking up toward the house are taken from.   What's also not shown in these 2 looking up the hill is the long sloping lawn running from the bottom all the way to the street level to the left of the house.

The 4th picture is a close-up of a Japanese type of willow tree that's the centerpiece of one of the gardens holding the hill up.  Unfortunately the big wildflower hill garden and the crabapple tree were not in bloom when I took these last week.
There's no way you could mow that with a riding mower, which is why the beer frig is in the basement near the backyard.  It has lots of character and I do like mowing but it's one helluva workout each week.

The (mis)Adventures of Todd

Intro:

Hopefully you're well acquainted with our little friend because knowing him adds so much to the stories. If not, suffice to say the moniker I've given him of "criminally cute" very much applies. Great dog...couldn't ask for a better temperament or obedience.

It does also add to the stories if you know I didn't want this dog. When we got him over three years ago, I didn't want a dog at all but certainly not a small dog. I'm glad I was wrong.

I'm not as graceful as I look:

We have our little morning routine -- I get up and make a cup of coffee; he comes running downstairs and waits for me to take him out to do his business. One morning a couple of weeks ago I was up around 6:00 and I was trying to be quiet so that he wouldn't come down (it's not so much the coming down; it's the going back up afterwards and waking Shel). He must have been asleep until just before I turned the knob to the basement door because, as I turned the knob, I heard him jump off the bed upstairs and come running -- faster than usual. I heard his nails on the hallway hardwood as he was navigating the 90 degree turn out of the bedroom to the staircase and it was shortly after that I heard a horrible sound. Somehow in his haste not to miss me going out he lost control quite near the top of the stairs and crashed all the way down. It was a sickening sound. By the time I realized what had happened and started toward the bottom of the stairs, he was halfway to me in the kitchen, walking almost sideways and then falling over and struggling back up.

Well, if you've ever been around an animal that's had a head injury like I have, you wouldn't have liked what you saw. I won't describe it in any detail but I was scared and worried as he progressively got worse for a minute or two. Not wanting to wake Shel yet and still unsure how bad he was, and knowing he'd have to relieve himself, I thought it best to carry him down the basement steps and outside. By the time I got him down there and set him down outside he'd improved greatly and continued to improve as he wobbled down the hill in the backyard, did his business and then trotted back up looking for his treat.

It's pretty obvious he had a mild concussion but it took a couple of agonizing minutes to know that's all it was. It's amazing he didn't break anything. Once that night he did something that made me think he was sore but that's it. This is a dog that almost never barks. Once in a while he'll get himself worked up over something and hyperventilate for a bit. He did that night and let out a little yip, which told me his ribs were probably sore. Other than that, he's as good as ever.

I like Vaseline:

Last Friday night Shel and I are in the living room, and we noticed that Todd wasn't with us, which is unusual...he likes people, A LOT. But he'll do that on occasion. If he's tired, he'll go upstairs to bed or if all his toys are upstairs, he'll go up on the bed and chew on them. Very rarely though is he doing something he shouldn't. Shel went upstairs for something and then I heard her talking to Todd in this very disappointed and surprised tone. So I went up to see what was going on. He had gotten into her overnight bag and found a little plastic travel jar of Vaseline, gotten the cover off and ate its contents. Shel said it had been pretty much full.

Well, what do you do if your dog has eaten a couple ounces of Vaseline? Wait (and forget), which is why the story gets funnier.

Interlude to the story is that Shel's not the disciplinarian and, despite the fact I take care of him, I'm chopped liver if he'd have to choose between us. So later that night after Shel went to bed, I was surprised to notice him lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. I thought he'd gone up with her. I asked him why he wasn't with momma and he just had this sad look on his face. I carried him up and put him on the bed between us, and he inches over to Shel with his ears down as permissive as you could ever be, waiting for affirmation that she wasn't still mad at him. It was just hysterical to see after such a mild scolding but "she's all that" to that dog.

So the next day we have to go to Lexie and Natalie's first birthday party, and we thought it'd just be too crowded to take him with us. Shel had left a couple hours before I did to help set up the party. Just before I'm about to leave and put him in his crate, I sent him down the hill in the backyard hoping he had some business to do (of course forgetting what he'd eaten the night before). You don't want the details but suffice to say I looked down to see if he was done and there were two large brown puddles in the snow and his whole skirt was covered.

So here I am: All dressed to go to my grand daughters' birthday party and I have a dog whose whole backside is covered in muck. I'd need a shower myself after dealing with him. I figured: Since the crate's in the basement and he's likely not done, put him in there like is and deal with it when I get back.

Of course I got home before Shel (whose dog is this again?) and had to go deal with what I expected to be a huge mess. Well, he had made any more mess at all. Apparently he'd gotten it all out in one big shot. (sorry) But his backside was still a mess from before. So I send him out to run in the snow and make sure he didn't have to potty, then carried him up to the kitchen and put him in the sink to rinse him off with the hose. Hot water spraying on his butt only helped soften things up but he was far from clean. If you know yours truly, you know nothing really grosses me out and I have my grandfather's pragmatism. What do you do if you have a long-haired dog whose ass hair is full of shit? (Actually, my grandfather would've left him outside) Why, run the water through it with one hand and massage the shitty fur with the other, right? It's at this point that the reality of what he ate truly sinks in. It's like running your hands through an oil slick...no amount of plain water and massaging is going to do the trick. So there I am with this dog in the kitchen sink shampooing his ass.

Side note that's only occurring to me now: What if we hadn't made the decision to leave him and what if he hadn't done what he did WHEN he did but I took him with me IN MY CAR instead.

Great dog, couldn't ask for better but he has his moments.

Chicken salad club sandwich

I'm not sure what possessed me to try this, especially since I'm picky about what I put tomatoes on; but I'm so glad I did. Maybe I didn't invent this but I've never heard of it before.

I stripped a leftover whole chicken and then into the food processor I added some scallions (the ingredient most responsible for the awesome outcome), a little bit of celery, fresh garlic and mayo; then threw that on a whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomato and bacon, of course.

Just had some more of the chicken salad for lunch but this time just the chicken salad on the roll with a bunch of potato chips on top. Don't tell me I'm the only one who puts his chips right on the sandwich, especially tuna fish.

(Just felt like throwing something on this blog, and this was too big to be a Facebook status update)

A Fine Example

You've heard me rant before about the nature of the average human being, how selfish and arrogant and frankly idiotic most are. This entry will not be another of those but a tribute to the kind of person who seems to have gone extinct.
My grandfather passed away yesterday morning after a few years of ailing health. He was a man of few words, yet you always knew where he stood. There was no fudging the line between right and wrong with him. He believed what he believed without hesitation and his actions always comported with those beliefs.
He was a child of the Depression, one of The Greatest Generation; people who knew hard work and hardship, yet were always there to lend a helping hand or give a piece of important advice, WHEN ASKED. He was never one to meddle in your business but you always knew the answer to a dilemma by watching the way he lived his life.
No truer proof of the quality of people exists than the quality of their children. My grandparents raised some of the most genuine, kind and hard working people you'll meet...learned, charitable and respectful to all, just like they were.
My grandfather was like a second father to me, except he was always there when you needed him; a counterbalancing force to the man who was my biological father. If you needed some cash, he'd put you to work; if you needed some advice, pull out the cribbage board and have a chat. He never uttered many words but said much.
I could go on and on and on with specific examples of my fondest memories -- from working cutting wood with him, to playing on a softball team together when I was a teen and he was 60, to the way he looked through you peering over his glasses with that "no bullshit" way of his -- but the point of this post is merely to attempt to articulate what an important person he was to me and how he'll truly be missed as an example of the way people should be.

Hopefully soon I'll have a piece on BoSox Tavern about him as a Red Sox fan.

My latest project

Some background: A month or so ago I scheduled a routine physical because I wanted to talk to the doc about what could be done to help me quit smoking. I've never come close to quitting before. I've recently developed a minor smoker's cough, something I never had before unless I had a cold. I'm tired much more than I should be, I think. The fact that it would save me at $150 a month is a factor, especially with now another car payment. But mostly it's my age...mortality takes on a very different meaning now, I guess.
So I talked to the doc on Friday. Of course she thinks it's a great idea. She scheduled me for a chest X-ray, which I took this morning, just to take a look. The biggest thing is that she gave me a prescription for a new quit smoking drug called Chantix. It's supposed to work different than the others in the past in that it doesn't contain nicotine. "When you smoke, the nicotine you inhale binds to receptors in the brain. This releases a chemical called dopamine, which gives a feeling of pleasure but only for a short time, and the body wants to repeat this feeling of pleasure. Based on researach, it is believed the Chantix works by activating these receptors to a lesser degree and blocking nicotine from attaching to them..."
So it's a pill with escalating dosages. You start taking it the first week and you can still smoke. You're supposed to pick a quit date and start taking the pills 7 days before that to build up before you actually quit. So I'm picking it up tonight, start taking the pills tomorrow morning. So the quit date will be like next Tuesday.
This will give me another week, on top of all the mental preparation I've already done, to be in the right frame of mind to do this. Almost 30 years of a habit is a long time but I think I'm finally ready. I'm going to start scaling back to get in the habit of starting to quit and keep going over all the reasons why I need to and want to.
But I'm also bringing you all into this as well. You can be my support group.

Pounding the pavement

There are certainly aspects of this job that I don't like, don't look forward to; but it's a game and you have to approach it that way. All in all things are going well. When I put my game face on and approach each customer with the right attitude, I generally come away with a positive attitude.

I spent much of the last two weeks working out of a hotel room in Portland, just coming home on Wednesday nights to bowl. I also worked a "booth" in Bangor on that middle Sunday. So until this past weekend I haven't been home much to speak of.

It's been an interesting process to go through classroom training in an old TWC area while doing job shadowing with reps in old Adelphia territory, since that's where I live and will be my area. So it's been like working for two companies at the same time. Starting this week I'll be working up here in the Augusta area while still trying to reel in some folks I've had contact with in Portland for the last two weeks. The philosophies, the products, the systems and environment are very different between the two areas still, even though it's all TWC now and has been since August. At least I'm not in the category of folks who've been doing things successfully for several years one way and are now having to change.

I'll try to update more often that I have of late, and I intend on writing a little piece anyway about my early Christmas present.

Long time, no write

Sorry it's been so long but the new job has taken up most of my time and especially my brain. I've been commuting to Portland for most of the last several weeks for training, and will be down there for the next 2 weeks on the street. Things are going well and I'm confident this will be a great opportunity. I'll try to let you know how it goes.

On the Nascar front I'd like to congratulate Jimmy Johnson and the 48 team on winning the championship. They were the best team and deserved to win, and they did so in spite of a Chase format that will some day make a champion out of a team that was 10th best for most of the season.
I did finally win the fantasy season game on our message board, something I've been trying to do for at least 10 years...miracles do occur.
I'm optimistic about the progress of Petty Enterprises and think next year could see them improve even more, to the point where a win would be a distinct possibility. It was also great to have a Nascar season where one of my favorites won several races. That hasn't happened since Richard Petty in the '70's. So congrats on a great year for Kasey Kahne. I think they're a definite Cup contender for next year. That would certainly warm the heart of this Mopar fan.

Finally, I'd like to do a quick blog intro and let you know that several of us from the Under da Porch message board have started a Nascar blog, which you can find here. I'll mention more about it after we've had a chance to build it up some, but please stop by and wish us well and give us any input you'd like.

Have a great Thanksgiving. And last but certainly not least, today is Munchkin's 16th birthday. Happy Birthday, sweetie! (Wow, I can't believe the youngest is now 16 or that I've been through this 6 times!)