Disappointed

It turns out that Linford's father recently passed away and so their concert has been postponed until June. June! That's very far away. I'm bummed out, but what can you do. I hope Linford is doing okay. Apparently, it was sudden.

And since I'm talking about death, there was a period of time a couple weeks ago where I just felt surrounded by mortality. There were several health issues going on around me - a coworker died in a car accident, a co worker's mother had to have emergency brain surgery, my uncle's health had taken another bad turn, an ex-coworker's premature infant didn't make it. And it all happened at the same time and gave me cause to think... Do I really realize that every.single.day is a gift? How much do I take my health for granted? Can you really live as if every day may be your last? Because nobody knows what tomorrow brings. All of our plans, even the little ones, are a bit of arrogance. I need to be grateful. I need to make the moments count. That message is an old one. And easily forgotten. Every breath is a gift.

Can it be?

Spring? Is today truly the first day of spring? It is mostly cloudy and 37 degrees. Today doesn't feel much like spring. But this past Monday, I really came down with a bad case of spring fever. While it wasn't very warm, it was bright and sunny and I had noticed some little green things shooting out of the leaf matted beds, so I got out the old rake and this is what I found:

Ahhh. It is almost over! I'm one of those people who get a touch of seasonal depression. My moods lift drastically once spring is in the air, and let me tell you, these little green shoots really got me going. I love to watch plants grow. I come from a family of green thumbs, but so far, mine is only a tinge green. I'm working on it. I've had gardens for the past three years with some success (I seem to grow thriving green, jalapeno and habenaro peppers but suck at tomatoes.) and we have berry plants on our property that I've learned to trim and coax to produce more fruit. But I haven't really tried to do much with flowers. All the landscaping at our house is courtesy of my dad. It's actually an interesting story. My dad and aunt grew up in a house that actually in the same area as where we all still live. We lived there for a while when I was a kid. Somehow or another, my dad has managed to move around ivy, myrtle, daffadils, tiger lilies, hostas, and various other plants to different houses as we've all moved so that everyone has plants that originated from that first house. It's really kind of crazy that now at least 5 houses have been landscaped for the plants that he originally transplanted from his childhood home.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I am really excited for spring and for some rays of beautiful sunlight! Happy Easter!

Stoked

You may recall from a couple of my initial posts that M. and I (we are sure to soon indoctrinate N.) are huge fans of Over the Rhine. We are so stoked that we are going to get to see them live in Pittsburgh in three weeks. I don't think we've seen them live since December '05 in Columbus. Between a baby and them not coming to PA, we just haven't had the opportunity. I'm very curious to see which songs from the new CD - Trumpet Child, they perform live. Like greg said, it is a sexy little album and I often still see Karin as somewhat of a shy performer. I think she's much less shy then she used to be, but I have a hard time seeing her sing, "red wine on my lips, I got this black silk slip on my hips" to anyone but Linford. We shall see. Perhaps they'll just sing the more polical songs from that album. Has anyone else seen them since Trumpet Child came out? They actually coming sooner, but they're opening for Ani DeFranco. I wouldn't mind seeing her too, but those tickets are much more expensive and I'm not that familiar with Ani's stuff to make it worth it. I'm one of those people that like to know all or most of an artists material before going to a show. I don't obnoxiously sing along the whole time, but I do want to know the songs and what the lyrics are. I'm really big into lyrics. Often more than the music. To me, a song might be really cool musically, but if the lyrics are weird or don't make sense, it will often ruin the song for me.
A bit of a tanget. Anyway, I'll be sure to write a review of the show and let you all know how it was... in the mean time, if anyone's seen them recently, let me know what you thought.