Once in a While You Get Shown the Light in the Strangest of Places if You Look at it Right

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Man, I have had a few shitty days lately. Lately I feel like I am always a hairsbreadth away from a meltdown. Since mr b lost his job, he’s been working for himself, which mean I never know when and if we’re going to have money coming and how much. This stresses me out. God bless you folks who freelance because I would need to be either institutionalized or incarcerated after a while. Anyway, that bit of stress seems to drain my reserves of sanity, leaving me precious little for the unexpected. And lately, between our crazy schedules, work being insanely busy, the girl and her cheerleading tryouts (she made it), feeling disconnected from a couple people I used to be close to, my mother turning up her Evil-Ray-O-Tron to the Extra Super High setting, and a bunch of other random crap, I have been pretty close to losing it. Monday was the start – work getting out of hand, people being assholes. Then yesterday rolled around, and more of the same and I lost it. I spent a good portion of the day in tears. Not for any reason, and yet for every reason. I closed my office door and kept to myself as best I could.

But then last night, we went to Heinz hall to see the boy perform with his jazz ensemble. First there was a symphony performance and though I have never been much of a symphony-lover, as I sat there listening to the music, with no one throwing work and deadlines at me, no one bossing me into getting them ice cream, no barking assholes, or ringing phones, or critical mothers, or anything other than the music and I suddenly felt better. Not a lot better, but enough to sit back and enjoy and not feel like I was falling apart. By the time the jazz performance started, I decided that today, despite having the same problem I had yesterday and the day before and the day before that, I was going to focus on things that make me happy. And I am doing just that. Here are some of them:

Jerry Garcia & John Kahn: When I Paint my Masterpiece (my actual favorite performance of this would be at The Ritz on 01/27/86, but I can’t find it so this is close enough)




Cousins:



Golden Chocolate Oreos (the cookies formerly known as Uh-Oh Oreos). You can keep your regular Oreos. But these I can NOT resist:



How ridiculously much he loves these sunglasses:




One of my new favorite blogs: Hyperbole and a Half. I dare you not to laugh like a mental patient over this. I DARE YOU!


My baby playing at Heinz Hall:





Our new favorite family hobby: geocaching. We’ve gone several times now and it’s a LOT of fun. Despite the time we parked in the wrong place and had to climb a big, giant, dangerous, man-eating mountain (OK, not quite, but still – it was HARD), and the time the girl fell in a creek, and the horrible jagger (you burgh people know what I’m talking about, right?) scars on my legs, and the giant thorns that embedded themselves in my face, and that thing that was most likely a jagger, but may have been a creature that I think made a burrow in my arm and raised a family there and is eating me alive as I speak, and the fact that people leave sucky bullshit trades in the caches which pisses off the six year old looking for treasure, we actually love really love it!





This jackass:



One of my favorite Grateful Dead shows ever (and definitely my favorite versions of my favorite song – can you guess which one it is?): Beacon Theater, 01/27/1986

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1 Cold Rain And Snow
2 Mama Tried
3 Banter
4 Row Jimmy
5 Cassidy
6 Brown Eyed Women
7 Big River
8 Might As Well
9 Lazy Lightnin'
10 Supplication
11 Tennessee Jed
12 Playin' In The Band
13 The Wheel
14 Samson and Delilah
15 High Time
16 The Music Never Stopped
17 Crazy Fingers
18 Drums > Dancin' in the Streets
19 Cosmic Charlie
20 Help On the Way
21 Slipknot!
22 Franklin's Tower
23 Around and Around
24 U.S. Blues