Oh dear...

GOD!!!

It seems that one of the things that happens when a girl is getting ready to move is that she loses her mind...

Last night, AFTER sushi with Thisbe, Lee Klein, Arda Collins, Ben Doyle, and Josh Kryah...

And AFTER a few rounds of drinks in the sun...

Lee wanted to catch the end of the Yankees game, so a few of us headed over to BW2...

Where I decided (WHY GOD WHY?) to take the "Wall of flame" challenge...

And I did it! I won my ugly Miller Light Tshirt, by consuming 18 Blazin' wings in 3 minutes at 55 seconds...

And now my picture is on the wall, complete with hot sauce stigmata running down my arms, tears in my eyes, and snot dripping from my nose...

So now, although I'll be gone, I won't be forgotten...

My mother would be so proud...

Riley Dog...

Is Back...

HERE it is... such a nice site to check in with each day...

Je suis tres fatigue'...

Mais... mais... mais...



So I'm totally zonked. I sleep and pack and call about utilities or insurence premiums...and bemoan the lack of real thought in my life right now. No writing. No reading. Not for another month anyway. Sigh.

But today I get to put the stupid tedium on the backburner because of a deadline, which seems a glorious thing today...

When the work I get to avoid is so much less interesting than the work to which the deadline refers...

So I'm zoning out and listening to "Les Sans Culottes" who are pretty dang good! They'll get a sweet little review for saving my sanity today!

We've opted...

For the no-U-haul plan...

You need any crap? We gots plenty! Let me know...

And if you're in NYC tonight, stop by the Lakeside Lounge and check out my hubby twang-n-banging in the City.

Ave B between 10 and 11! At nine pm.

Or the RODEO Bar tomorrow night.

For real!

Okay, here's the situation...

(My parents went away on a weeks vacation)



Should we pay a grand to rent a truck large enough to cart all our crap? Or should we sell all our crap to a thrigt store and move the bare minimum?

I don't think we own a grand-worth of junk!

Nice job...

Real classy...


It seems worth mention that I just got a piece of mail at work, from the ACLU.

Adressed to:

Jew-student
122 E. Market St.
Iowa City, IA 52245

Seriously, folks!

Sonya is coming!!!

On a roadtrip...


My friend Son will be joining me on my trek southward!

I wanted to flash...

Some tattoos...


Do you ever go into "Hot Topics?" It's that mall-store where they sell meta-wear, as well as cheap chinese-made leather pants and fake docs and nose rings...

But also fake nose rings...

When I was in high school I would have sneered at entering a corporate head shop/ clothing store... I would have called you a poser if you shopped there.

I was a pain in the ass...

But today, I bought a black and white headband there, a vinyl one, and thanked my lucky stars I'm ttoo old to care.

Almost.

Sabrina is doing good things...

Read about BEATRICE...



I think Sabrina is doing something that addresses my issues with the way people dismiss narrative. The prose of these poems is something I admire.... the logic and the myth in the voice.

I love the teller, who is more than a speaker somehow...

A terrible sandwich made of...

Wedding presents...

I spent last night with Sandra, Amit, Sarah, and a bottle of Mezcal (NO, I did NOT "eat the worm") that I was given as a wedding gift...

And then this morning I was woken up by the phone ringing. My Auntie Ann called. She wants me to pick out something really special for my wedding present. Which is so sweet. And I will

But rightnow I'm sitting at my desk, regretting the Mezcal AND answering the phone.

I wish I were asleep. Or sober.

Maturity...

And a plan...

After an online chat with Polli, I decided I needed a three year plan...

So how about this:

I work for Hillel in Atlanta, and save money for a year and a half...

Then I get pregnant and finish out my second year...

Then I find a winning lottery ticket and we move to Chattanooga, where we have a healthy baby and I write.

Chris opens a record store, with no fear of needing to actually turn a profit...

How's that?

REJECTED!!!

I'm shocked and horrified!!!



Recent email from THE NEW YORKER, rejecting my AUBERGINE poem...

We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us, in spite of its evident merit. Unfortunately, we are receiving so many submissions that it is impossible for us to reply more specifically. We thank you for the chance to consider your work.


Very sorry for the delay!

The Editors

Gratuitous picture...

For I fear the site has become too text-y...

First the honky...

Then the tonk...

So my hubby-dear is playing some shows for the next three weeks... and he might be coming through your town. Check out the tour schedule HERE!

Then go scream your head off. I'll buy a round!

(And if you make one of the New York shows, he might invite you to the game with him. He's a Yankees fan, but I love him anyway)

Breathless state...

Of just too much...

A crying jag is almost always better than a screaming match with your husband...

But hey, nobody says you can't have both...

It's true. I finally exploded with too much too much too much. Too many bankers and boxes and deadlines and the stress of leaving things behind, and the fear of a BIG mistake being made, and not enough money and not enough days and too many social obligations and too many phone calls and the dog. Walk the dog. Feed the cat. Walk the cat over and feed her to the dog.

And its awful getting rid of things. Throwing things away. So I flipped out on the basement stairs and now I feel better.

But oh.

And oh.

On your Mark...

Go!!!


It has just come to my attention that Sabrina Mark is not too far from Atlanta these days...

Sabrina!

Will you come to my tea party? Can we play?

And to all of you out there...

If I find a good venue for a reading series in Atlanta, will you make the trip, come and read???

Who will read if I start my series? And what should I call my hypothetical series?

The east-side all-star poetry jamboree?

Marketing strategies for complete beginners?

Readings Impress My Jackass Older Brother (RIMJOB)?

That last one was for Jimmy...

What would you call it?

Good golly...

What a whirlwind...


The trip was wonderful. The reading went well, and was super fun! Ethan and Dan were awesome... Dan has such a remarkable way of being hyseterically funny while he breaks your heart a little... and Ethan was doing some really cool formal column stuf I want to see on the page...

And folks seemed interested in Daphne and Jim. It was strange to have old parental-friend-types there for the reading, considering the material. But they all seemed supportive and excited about the project:

"It's like you were there!"

I was, of course.

And so good to hang out with all the wonderful everbodies who showed up. Diane and Paul and Nancy and Edward and Jeff and Julie and Peter and Dave and Liz and Susan and Jason and Allison! Thank you everyone for coming!

And to Shafer and Rachel for having me. And to all the strangers who said nice things.

Special THANK YOU to Shanna for the books, and for being such a fucking rockstar in general. Susan and I read and laughed at the Sirowitz poems all the way uptown!

After the initial wave of indulgence had passed...

Another wave arrived...


In the form of Josh Miller, who wandered into the E. Village ex-hookah bar where I was drinking Lebanese blanc de blanc...

And whisked me away, in his private car, to Marie's Crisis!

Have you been there?

When Irony waved his cold gloved velveted hands over the City, he somehow missed Marie's...

(maybe because it's in the basement?)

Marie's is where all the musical theater fanatics go... to sing the scotre to Jesus Christ Superstar... over and over...

And boy howdy, do they MEAN IT.

After that, we climbed back into the private car and Joe, our superfantastic driver, brought me back to the penthouse (yes, I know it's only one word!).

On the way he told me all about what Janet Jackson did in the backseat, and about how nice Usher is...

For REAL!

Two words...

Pent HOUSE!!!


When I sent out the "anyone got a place I can crash?" email,. I'd thought I'd end up on a futon in Washington Heights...

Never in a million jillion years did I think I'd land in a penthouse suite on West End Ave, with a rooftop garden, a view of the city, and a bottle of good wine at my fingertips...

So thank you thank you thank you to Bill, Emma, Tom, Molly, and Alice... for offering a poor poet this chance at something so wonderful...

I'll remember it for a loooooong time!

I'm reading on Sunday...

So come and see/hear...


This doesn't happen often, me reading... but I'll be in New York at 2:30 on Sunday, at the Four Faced Liar (165 W 4th) reading with Dan Nester and Ethan Paquin...

I'm trying to decide (tonight) whether I can read the Daphne and Jim poems if there are friends of "Daphne" and "Jim" present at the bar... which there might be...

It would be fun to get to give the "Choose your own" adventure a dry run, ask the listeners to choose the reading order... but I might chicken out...

In fact, my host for the weekend makes a brief appearance in daphne and Jim, on page 14...

Hmmm...

A day off...

Ahhhhhhh...

It turns out I still have three vacation days to burn, so I'm taking them now.

Which means I'm not showering. Instead I'm packing boxes in my jammies. While I watch the Maury Povich show and sip coffee. Why can't THIS be my job?

Rooting through my books and CDs. Trying to clean house and dust off everything before I shlep too much crap southward.

And the hipster used record store only took 6 of the 40 CDs I offered them.

Tell me, why wouldn't they buy Billy Bragg? Lauryn Hill? Lil Kim? Otis Redding? I feel so uncool, with 20 bucks in my hand and a full box of CDs , I retreated...

And also, how many Agatha Christie paperbacks are you allowed to own without being a dumb girl? 20? 30? How many copies of "Orient Express am I allowed? 2? 3?

I think we sold the house!

Jewishy Freakishy...

Madonna....

Inspired by her study of the kabbala, a form of Jewish mysticism, Madonna informed ABC News Cynthia McFadden on "20/20" that she now prefers to be called Esther.

Me and Leopold...

Irish Jews!!!



And Jewish Ires!!!

Happy Bloomsday, everyone.

Maybe it's time I read Ulysses...

Eh?

And it was...

Everywhere...



When the girl woke up she was hungry, so she went to the kitchen, which was as you'd expect it to be. Full of morning light. A stove. A humming fridge leaking lightly on the floor.

Like yours. Faintly yellowed. Buttered.

But there was nothing to eat, so the girl began rooting in the cupboards. She found a dented can of olives, a musty jar of jam, a box of Bisquick. Nothing.

Then she noticed another cupboard, a long flat one, hidden, running along the ceiling. It had a handle. It had a hinge.

The girl was intrigued, no longer hungry. She had to know what the cupboard held. She couldn't believe she'd never noticed the long flat door in the wall.

So she wrestled a chair over to the wall, and stood on it. But it shook and was too short anyway. She sighed and returned the chair.

So she pulled and tugged and pushed and heaved and she brought the dining table over. It was sturdy, tall enough. She clambered up.

She expected the door to stick, but it didn't. It swung easily, and when it did, loaves of bread poured out, tumbled out onto the girl and the table, covered the room. Fresh crusty loaves of bread in all shapes and sizes. And it was everywhere.

But now the girl wasn't hungry and the room was a mess.

A brief breath...

Because I remembered how for a minute.



I'm losing my mind. I changed mortgage lenders. The fax machine doesn't work. My email doesn't work. There are pincer bugs all over my house. My listing realtor says "I don't want to hurt your feelings but... I think we'll have an easier time selling this place once you're gone. I'm out of dog food and the car is out of gas and I'm broke and yesterday I took things to Goodwill, but they wouldn't take the 3 small oriental rugs full of cat pee, so I need to go to the dump and throw them out but I don't have time so now the back of the truck smells horribly of cat pee. Oh my.

There is no time and I'm not that good at being a grownup.

People call me and call me and they say, "Call me back!" but it's hard, you know?

So I'm taking a breath.

I had a salad for lunch.... with pine nuts and sunflower sprouts and purple cabbage and grape tomatoes and lentils and red peppers. It was so good. Also, I love my dog. Also, the day lilies are just starting to bloom in my yard. Also, everything will be okay.

Breathe deep.

Someone I don't know...

Just invested in me...


Someone just bought my "blogshares" and I wonder why, and how they discovered me...

How do people find out the keyword searches that resulted in new visitors to their sites?

I want to know. Shanna? Pretty please?

Dispelling some misconceptions...

About heaven and hell...



With regularity, I'm told (by Jews) that there is no Hell in Judaism.

But I find this confusing, as Judaism has certainly got some angels and devils... and there's the whole Kaddish thing...

So today, I asked my boss about heaven and hell. And while he couldn't answer all my questions (email from wise rabbi still pending, which should fill in the blanks)he was able to tell me some things:

1. Judaism does have a heaven, a hell, and a purgatory.

2. Most of us (maybe all of us) go to purgatory for up to a year, where we hang out until we've made up for the missed mitzvot.

3. Our immediate family members spend that year (11 months actually) reciting Kaddish for us, to help us get to heaven... in lieu of the missed mitzvot.

4. People of other faiths go to heaven and aren't responsible for mitzvot.

5. Heaven and hell aside, we're all required to perform mitzvot. Repairing the world isn't an option.

6. The world is not an entryway to heaven. It's as important as the afterlife.

7. The messiah won't mean the world is ending.


(More to come once I hear from the rabbi!)

Poetry talk...

At Georges...


Not really the first time someone has broached this, but now it's worrying my mind...

Last night, sitting with Sandra (Miller) and (Bisw)Amit Dwibedy, at Georges Buffet, with drinks and warm nuts (tee hee)...

A discussion arose, concering originality.

Amit and Sandra had both been reading a John Taggert essay (which I haven't read)... and in some (not so) roundabout way, the essay provoked a dialogue about this:

Let's say there's a spectrum. At one end is the attempt to write "new" work. This is our goal. But on our theoretical spectrum, we have to recognize that everything is written in reaction to (or in concert with) the tradition (whatever tradition you like).

So in order to write "new" work, in order to avoid "stealing" you have to be an infant alone on a dessert island, who somehow learns to (not only forage for food, but also to) read and write without ever actually reading anything. Then one day, you write a poem. Voila! You're not "stealing". You are, without debt to Pound or Shakespeare or Stevens or the Bible or Britney Spears or whatev, an "original" poet.

At the other end of the spectrum, we place the work that recognizes the fact that one can't write "new" work and one can't "write" new work... we place the poets who "find" poetry in the extreme. Because of course, every word you know... you learned somewhere. Every sentence you construct owes a debt to something.

Now, this is all theoretical of course. Bullshit really. Because short of copyright law, you can do whatever you want... and most poets don't even care about copyright law.

But I'm interested in the discussion because of the whole, "introducing a poem" thing.

"I'm about to read a poem and you should know a fw things. Lines in each stanza were taken from a commercial for froot loops, but the words were rearranged, so you may not recognize them. The structure is a sprung sonnet form. My mother's name is Rose, and I was born in France, so the French words in the poem are a natural language for me, and not exotica. In addition, you should know that the poem was written after reading an Edgar Allen Poe story. Also, I'm Jewish. Here we go. It begins with a quote from Thomas Jefferson and it's called, "After reading Berryman."

What!? Who gives a shit?

Can't we all accept that in theory, we're always stealing from somewhere, from someone? Can't we go ahead and ignore that once we've said it...

And in practical terms, can't we just say that if 5 people in a room of twenty will recognize a "found" line, then you might want to indicate the "finding" in your title, or on an acknowledgements page.... but that otherwise, you can leave it alone! Otherwise we'll all end up with pages of footnotes.

And while that's an interesting idea as a creative project, think of the trees!

Let's say you write a four word poem.

Goodnight.
Will.
Forgive me.

Then you have to title the poem with an explanation? "I first came accross the word 'Goodnight' in a book called 'Goodnight Moon.' I've taken liberties with the word, as the original text used 'goodnight' as a second-person address, and I've turned it into a noun/subject. "Will" is a little trick I learned from Dr. seuss in his seminal work, 'Green Eggs and Ham...." Etc. Etc. blah Blah Blah.

Do people really worry about these things? Honestly, I want to know!

Are these interesting issues, because of what thoughts stem from the dialogue (As was the case last night)?

Or are you really worried about "stealing" language from other poets...

Tell me...

"My timeframe is a little...

Ambitious"...

Or so says my father anyway. He thinks it's too much to try and get out of this house and buy another, and move cities, and start new jobs... between now and July 19.

Especially since I'm off to New York to read next weekend for Frequency, and Chris will be on tour with Kelly Pardekooper ( http://www.kellyp.net/ )for the three weeks between now and then.

That's what my dad says.

What do I say? I say I'm really tired. And cranky. But I think we can swing it.

I hope we can.

In other news, I'm not doing much thinking. Read Cahiers de Corey today and felt stupid. Felt too hot and tired to read anything that makes use of more than one brain cell. So I'm reading a John Le Carre mystery instead. Are you smirking?

You can smirk if you need too. It's okay.

And in still other news, I'll be done with my thank you notes tonight!!! Just so long as nobody sends any more gifts...

God bless...

The net...

Thanks to Scott, I just found some POETS IN ATLANTA!

Yip

Poem...

Now children...

Methusaleeh is only old and all
That goes with it—face like a spider
Web and hands like claws.

Jezebel is only showing her hip, always
Licking her mouth raw. Red. Hot for you.
Her thighs are always sweating.

And Icarus with his wings out,
His hands still covered in wax.
Only ever flying too close.

Loooooong trip...

And it's nice to be home...

Though home won't be "home" much longer.

It was a hard week in many ways. Hard to adjust to a new place, especially knowing I HAVE to like it or I'm in for a world of hurt. Hard to be tired from a day of training, and THEN go look at houses.... either rundown cottages we'll never fit into, or renovated yuppie-places we can't afford.

But in the end, it was a very good excursion.

I'm not sure Atlanta is the place for us to make our lives permanently. It's awfully big and sprawly. But it'll be so good for us for at least a few years. New places. Challenges. Opportunities.

But when we drove away, through the mountains and into Chattanooga, I felt a little homesick for both Iowa and Tennessee. And I thought, "Maybe we'll make our fortunes or find our limits, and settle back down when we're done."

Chattanooga is so lovely!

I have a new house!!!

It looks like THIS:

My "first time"...

As an "editor"...



Hey! I've just become an editor over at Killing the Buddha!!! A huge honor, working for my favorite site and my favorite people, who also happen to be the people who describe religion in a voice that speaks to me...

This was my first real editing job, and I'm so proud!!!

"When I was your age..."

A little personal essay online...



The word "memoir" makes me itchy, like the kind of itchy that you get when you think of bugs...

But that's what this is... a little memoir... online now.

Hot and fresh at Words On Walls...

Read my little story about when Kristen and I went to the E.R!

Some bugs bite!!!

Dispatch from HOTlanta...

And Chattanooga too...


Having a loverly time in the southlands.... but going CRAZY because the hotel biz center won't let me check my email... C A N ' T F U N C T I O N ! ! !

Pretty pathetic, eh?

But I think we've found the (next) house of our dreams.... a sweet stucco 3 bedroom in East Atlanta... with a HUGE yard and a BBQ pit in the back yard, painted HOT pink! (Which was definitely NOT in the MLS description, but we love it!!)

Had dinner last night with my realtor and her husband, who happens to be the drummer for the Georgia Sattelites (You remember..."Don't give me no lines and keep your hands to yourself") Chris got to talk gear with Todd (the husband) and we all drank pink shots sent over by the bar manager. It was VERY fun, and a most wonderful WELCOME from the south... If we buy the stucco house, they'll be our neighbors too...

Now I'm just waiting to train.,

Oh! And we spent a nice night in Chattanooga. I walked over to the Pickle Barrel to get take out and ran into old friends... spent an hour at the bar catching up.... and the next morning we went to the Mudpie for coffee and walked N. Chatt. Then we had lunch at Lupis, which I've been wanting ince I left Tennessee 6 years ago. Yum!

I still think I'd move back there if I were ever in a position to "work from home" or independently wealthy. It's truly the most beautiful little city in the 48 contiguous (in these little blue eyes) and I was so happy that Chris loved it too!!!

Running away...

Tomorrow...


We'll be gone, down souf, for a few days. Looking to buy a house there...

While I'm gone, consider buying mine?

I am super-dooooper...

Honored....


I've been asked to be a part of the Boston Poetry Massacre, which is about the coolest thing I've ever heard of...

God bless bloggers!

Reviewing books...

Is a weird business...



Just got a book in the mail yesterday from BUST, called "The Circus in Winter."

It's a strange thing, reviewing... especially when nobody wants your book. You have to work hard not to review with a bitter taste in your mouth...

And then too, if you review for the same magazine monthly, you have to work hard to keep the books discreet and distinct in your head...

The inclination to want to seem evenhanded and clever is a nasty inclination.

Like, I start to think... "Well, last month I gave a really glowing review of X, so this month I should be more critical of Y."

But that would be really shitty to Y.

So I have to sit myself down and say to myself, "Self-- this book deserves a fresh and unadulterated reading. Take a shower and start over again!"

The present state...

Of the presents...

We went to the mall yesterday, to return all of our presents... all of them except the one YOU sent, which we LOVED!!!

Why do so many people give large breakable gifts? What's with that?

Hey!!!

When did this happen???



Via Shanna, I just discovered a new literary magazine, REDIVIDER! It looks pretty good. Weird that I hadn't heard about it...

Weirder still, I'm in it...

Can't figger it out. Huh?

Just like Papa...

And Rimbaud too...



Stacy gave me ABSINTHE for my wedding gift... so last night, Susan and I got all dressed up in nightgowns and shawls and headscarfs and chinese slippers, and we pretended we were in gay Paris! It was so fun! We poured the absinthe into the cups, and then dripped the water through the special spoon and the sugar cube.

But really we just felt fuzzy and sleepy.

So then we drank some champagne too! Ooh la la!

It's finally time...

To talk about anti-Semitism...



I don't want to believe it's happening. At Hillel conferences, everyone wants to talk about the way it's happening, how it's happening, the terrible truth of what's happening... and I've held out, argued...

Because I'm a progressive lefty-gal and I don't want to believe this about my community. But I have to admit, it's happening. The left is teetering on the edge of something very ugly. The progressive world I love is walking a fine line.

Let's consider what's going on in the region:

Ariel Sharon is a bad man?

Okay, I can dig on that.

Israel is committing attrocities?

Sure, yeah, they kill civilians and that sucks.

Settlements are nasty and illegal?

Yes, I'll buy in...

Israel doesn't deserve to exist?

Whoa! Nope. Hold on. I can't go there with you.

A few weeks ago, in a bar, a nice, progressive, educated, older man asked me what I do for a living.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked.

"I'm a director for Hillel." I replied.

"And what does that mean?" he inquired.

"Well," I said, "basically, I make sure that the Jewish students on campus have a place to go. I help provide a community, activities. I'm like a big Jewish sister. It's nice!"

"Hmmm," he said, shaking his head. "I just don't know how to feel about the Jews right now. You know, with Israel and all. Sorry."

To which I wanted to respond. "Yeah, I understand... I don't know how to feel about white older men right now, with the entire history of the western world and all."

You'll shake your head as you read this... you'll say, "Hey, that's just one stupid asshole in a bar.

But stupid assholes tend to come in waves. They tend to make each other feel okay about their own asshole-ness. And so their voices get louder and louder. And then the non-assholes feel weirder and weirder speaking up and saying, "WOW! You're a total asshole. Shut the fuck up!"

Truly, I'm having a lot of these conversations lately. A lot of them.

There are so many ways to be Jewish, and so many ways to be Israeli. It's a country like any other country, a beautiful troubled place. And the people who live there are doing all sorts of things... demostrating, forming new political parties, setting up aid centers for Palestinians.

When I lived in Haifa I worked for a women's center with Jews, Arab Israelis, Druze, and Palestinians.

Israelis are on your side, whichever side you're on...

You can hate the Likud party, Sharon, the settlements, the wall. You can dislike the idea of forced military service. You can feel uncomfortable with the word "Zionism."

But unless you plan to judge every American, or English speaker, or white person, or man... unless you decide to hate the people of California or South Dakota or New York based on American policies.... then it seems unfair to hate Israel... or Jews because of what has happened in Israel over this last wave of the intifada.

It seems unfair to expect that all Israelis should give up their right to exist because their leadership is shitty.

What neighborhood do you live in?

Jimmy is staring a superteam...

& I want to be in it...



Actually I specifically want to be Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch.

So I wrote a poem. Here:

The Avengers
for Jimmy

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s
strength and what’s just magic.
Like, when a person who can fly
sails over a skyscraper—that’s amazing.
But when a person who can’t fly
sails over the same building, catches
the person who can fly with a net, a rope,
or something— that’s like, WOW!

I mean, it takes a strong person to bound
off with a net or a lasso in hot pursuit.
And the weird of it! Can you imagine
climbing into a cape or a pair of long
underwear, and pulling on a mask
or a hood if you hadn’t been bitten
by a giant radioactive spider or born
on another planet? If you were a man?

Like, think of Batman— he was just
a regular guy, right? Not at all magic.
Just a regular guy who got super strong
when something sad happened to him
I can relate to that. So then he put
on a dark mask and went sailing off
to find magic criminals, skyscrapers
to fly over even though he couldn’t fly.

I think that’s pretty great. You can take
some shit and turn it to steel or muscle.
Alchemy, bionic rebirth, dark tunnels,
alleys to hide in. Sleek superfast cars
with neat gadgets and flame throwers.
If you can’t make the world perfect,
you can at least make things interesting.
And yeah, you can do a little justice.

Details...

Details...



Well, there was meat and booze and kids and cellos and presents and fresh mozzarella and strawberries and melons and tiramisu and flowers everywhere. And rain and a tornado, and the out o towners feared a Wizard of OZ situation...

But most of all it was lovely.

Thisbe won the fancy-dress contest, in a sequined tube top and a floor length lavender tutu with lucite shoes. Bo and Pieta won the snazziest couple award, all black and white and retro. Maria played twister in her gown, with the little kiddles. I danced in the grass with Maizie, who turns out to be a hell of a balletomane for a 4 year old. Drew and Terri rocked everyone's world, as did Patrick Brickel (and Chris) in a command performence. As did Dave Olson and Atom Robinson.

In Iowa, good music is hard to avoid.

I saw friends from college I hadn't seen in six years, and friends from high school I hadn't seen in ten. My grandparets and Chris' too, and all the parents and sibs. Poppy told us more about Okinawa and I got tipsy.

At the end of the night Chris took a van of folks to Gabe's to surf-rock to the Bent Scepters and Henry and Emma did too many shots.

Then yesterday after cleaning, we recovered. Chris, Susan, Emma, Drew, Terri, and I had a slumber party in the basement. We watched Southpark and ate pizza until we all fell asleep on the floor.

And Dave the dog wore a tie, but got it dirty. Also he ate a LOT of steak.

Pictures to come.