BaRou is the New Bklyn

An unexpected fortnight in Brooklyn

On the elephant dump in the room.

Only my friends will know what I'm referencing here. I consider myself too young to not blog, but too old to overshare. Let's just say regarding the Urgent Business I had to rush to NYC to address in mid-July: it was shitty, and people can be awful, but it brought me to NYC two weeks earlier than orginally planned, which turned out to be GREAT!

And now, some treasured NYC moments.

A birthday party! Supercute cupcakes and what was left behind.

To paraphrase the birthday girl's reaction to the above cupcake arrangement, "I can't imagine who at this party, 90% of which is gay men, would be thinking of anuses."

European Vacation: Rome

I feared that Rome might be a little too fast-paced to enjoy: too much too do, too many other people trying to do it at the same time and doing it while zipping along on scooters in every direction. While that was more or less true, you just have to know what to focus on and what to filter out. We focused on eating, and filling the recovery spans between meals with sightseeing.

We rolled into town in the evening, and were finally greeted by summer weather. Aside from the slightly down-at-the-heels area around the train station, I was delighted to discover the city still looked exactly how it had in the classic movies, and just how it must have looked for centuries.

Friday: OMG LOST Finale! (No spoilers)

Just have to say: OMG LOST. Please don't put any spoilers in the comments, my lovely commenters. I just had to vent some of the pent-up suspense and anxiety and emotions from the finale. OK, done.

I've been working overtime this week so when I go away I won't feel guilty (ha ha ha, as if) or at least not have to stop at Internet cafes to work. My faithful companion Coopy's been working hard, too, as you can see here. I hope he enjoyed that Playgirl he's resting on.



(I pledge that when I'm off on adventures there will be less pictures of pets and creatures that have invaded the house, as has been the theme of late. )

Friday rocking link love

  I see this guy around so much lately that he's now named Co-Worker BJ Blue Jay.

And now without further ado, in case Typepad loses the intro section of my newer posts again, on to the Friday linky bonanza.

The BaRou Experiment

Morning all--Typepad is starting a new interface with a percentage of their users and seems to have lost the intro front-page parts of my past few posts since the new interface began. Guess what, Typepad, PROBLEM.
Lemme try to reconstruct that intro quickly. Grumble.

This first week of relative isolation has been another busy one full of lessons, challenges, and surprises.

For one, I wandered into the living room the other night and rested my chin on the sill of a high open window. That cat has an odd gait, I thought. It was a raccoon. Oh, the suburbanity! I haven't seen one of those since Jersey. I watched him make his silent rounds from yard to yard.

I  was not expecting nature to be so in my face (and in my house) when I moved down here. So far Little Pink has been the unwitting host to a lizard, colossal flying cockroaches, dragonflies, fleas, spiders, uh...various colors and textures of mold I've never seen before. I wouldn't be surprised to find an alligator squatting in the tub one day. Maybe that's what was pounding on my door the other night.

Anyway here's the latest indoor visitor.

Weekend, part two: we're really not in Brooklyn anymore, Cooper

On Sunday, the f and I went on some errands that took us near the new hunting/outdoors superstore Cabela's. So we decided to have another cultural experience. Starting in the parking lot, Cabela's did not disappoint.

She sells sanctuary

This is the time of year that back in New York I'd start to feel trapped by bricks and concrete. I'd wish for a country-house retreat, fantasize about having my own yard, and plan my first camping trip of the season. As spring became summer, I'd grow even more anxious to get back to nature.

And now here in BaRou, where it's already been spring for two months, I finally have a yard. My first impression of our lush, semi-tropically appointed back yard last year was sanctuary, and during this past sad weekend, that observation rang true. It helped to be out there with the dog in my own parcel of green and flowered space. (That's one reason I'm so jazzed about my fiance's future profession of landscape architecture; humans bound by concrete, without enough green space, are probably more prone to aggression. Just look at New Yorkers. Another reason I'm jazzed about it is that his chosen profession is not "musician." Don't get me started--am I right, ladies?!)

The Jersey Top Three

Last week in Jerse during week one of this semi-working vacay, I returned to the thrift-store scene of the disturbing '80s pantyhose package crime (the evidence was still there) and I found three more treasures, none of which I purchased. It did make me consider the viability of selling vintage goods for a living, so that buying something amazing like item number one would be defensible:

Without a doubt, this shellacked prize was won at the boardwalk.

Radio Radio

Last night I joined the hostesses of the grrrly rock show Valley Girl Intelligentsia on KLSU to talk about all my wacky career happenings and play some music. Back when I was on WSOU, a friend and I wanted to start a similar show called Girl Germs since it was prime riot grrrl era and at the time the station seriously only had like three women in their entire music collection, but we never did, so bravo to these ladies.

I mentioned a few times that I felt like an old lady because I was struck by how much had changed since I've been on college radio, back in the 90s. Now you can just burn every song you want to play on your show onto a CD. Why, in my day we had record libraries where the DJs would get into written comment fights on the comment labels on the records and CDs (they were like precursors to blogs) and we played PSAs on these things called carts that looked just like 8-tracks, and we had tricks for playing damaged vinyl, and our old sound board looked like it should be on a rocket ship in a sci-fi movie from the '30s, and it had huge dials called potentiometers or "pots." And we didn't have no "Internets." We had a big old desktop computer with the AP news on it.

I had to admit, though, it was really convenient to be able to find a song on the Internet last night, burn it onto a CD, then play it the same night. So that was fun, and the ladies invited me to come back again.

In other radio nerd news, WFMU is holding their annual pledge drive marathon all this week and next. As my friend Tom Scharpling said about the station in the recent article about the fund drive in the New York Times, “This is the kind of place that shouldn’t exist but somehow does.” This one drive is how they make their entire operating budget for the year, and this unfortunately is one of those years where they need help more than ever. Tom raised $40,000 in one three-hour show Tuesday night (!!!) but they can use any help they can get, so if you have ever listened online or on terrestrial radio, you can pledge any amount by clicking the WFMU banner on the left side of this page under all my links. 

Friday Roundup, Clam Chowdaaaa Edition

First I have to explain today's title. When TV's Rob Morrow of Northern Exposure hosted SNL years ago, he was in this sketch where he kept having the right thing to say, but he'd be a minute behind the conversation. So his friends would talk about, say, clam chowder, then they'd move onto another topic, then Rob Morrow would go, "'Clam chowdaaaa,' that's how they are in New England with the 'clam chowdaaa'..." and his friends would be like, "Huh? What are you talking about?"

You know, like you guys reading this right now. Anyway here's some stuff that's not right on time, but hopefully isn't too far off.