While We're Waiting Patiently

I can hear that Jeopardy music in the background--you know, the song they play while everyone's writing their answer. While
Mrs. Davis and Bill the Rocker rest up from their Brooklyn Escapade (that fantastic everybody-was-there concert in Brooklyn Saturday), I thought I would keep us occupied so that we don't become cranky with them and tell them to drink some coke and hurry up and tell us what happened. So, while we wait, let me tell you about some nifty blogs I've been watching. They have nothing to do with kids music, but they are cool (And hey, I'm the girl out here on the stage juggling while the real show sets up behind the curtain . . .)

First, go check out Puttermeister ("I write. I knit. I teach. I putter.")


My friend Amy writes all kinda crazy smart stuff about knitting . . and movies . . . and literature . . . . and moving her furniture around for the carpet cleaning guy. If you like pictures of creative process and the weird/true insights of a mega-brain mixed with coffee talk, take a blog stroll on over there.

If knitting's not your thing, but you like Egypt or travelling with small children [now THERE'S a transition], go see my friends' blog about their family trip.


Well, it's actually a geologic/historical sabbatical study mixed with kids climbing pharaoh statues. They're going all over the place--Egypt, Greece, Italy, England, France . . . WITH THEIR THREE CHILDREN (did I already mention that?) If you left your early history education with nothing more than the phrase THE CODE OF HAMMURABI like I did--or you want to see a family completely go for it with their life--check it out.

I'm here for you while you wait.

"What's with the perfunctory blog entries?"

Okay, now that hurts. It cuts to the quick. I won't lie.

"I posted that picture of those love boat people."

"Yeah, but you didn't say anything about it."

"Yeah, but it was funny--c'mon. It was GOPHER."

"Okay, Well, I mean . . .if it was supposed to be funny . . ."

So, she's right--my officemate, I mean. (She can't help it--she tells it like it is.) My posts have been lame lately, so I thought I'd just come right out and say it: Hi. My name is Ginger. And I'm a lame blogger (lately).

Thing thing is . . .we're selling our house (as part of an evil family plot of ours to live in more than 1000 square feet). And I've been working like a manic june cleaver freak for about two weeks. Here's my kitchen on 1950's steroids:



Here's my kitchen today:



We, um, found a buyer. Sure, it's good news because we wanted to sell our house--but the real news here is that I can put down the mop and get back to blogging.

Guy.

Today Is the Day I Wish I Lived in Brooklyn.

The coolest radio guy in independent kids music is organizing the coolest live show of independent kids artists. The show's gonna be in Brooklyn. And the list of artists is over-the-top wonderful. Really, everybody doing nifty independent kids music is going to be there. Click here to find out why you wish you lived in Brooklyn too.

I'm Just Saying.

Herman Ripp

Why would I lie about a name like that? He was my 6th grade teacher, and he used to sing.

I'm not talking about cool, early musical influence, or admitting to any sort of early musical dorkiness here. I'm just saying Mr. Herman Ripp, my 6th grade teacher who wore corduroys and had a mustache, used to sing. No guitar. No piano. No tiny little wooden recorder. Just hardbound song books and tunes like Streets of Laredo--sad cowboy songs where men died alone in the middle of the desert.

Here's a verse:

Then beat the drum slowly, play the fife lowly.
Play the death march as you carry me along.
Take me to the green valley, lay the sod o'er me,
I am a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong.

Good times. Mr. Ripp would stand in the front of our classroom and warble those songs like he was about to cry. Then we'd all put the books away and go back to math.

And I even thought to mention it because I was listen to REK's latest studio album,what i really mean, and one of the songs sounded a lot like those old cowboy songs.

And I remembered Mr. Ripp and was struck by how sometimes our early influences aren't so much inspirational as they are, well, influences.

Old Banana Freedom

Important Old Banana Update: I thought you would be so glad to hear that in an act of bold kindness to me, my husband ate a banana that was turning brown. I mean, there I was, asking myself the question "Will I REALLY be able to throw that away and not freeze it?" Everything in me was, well, clenched. And then there was the peel, emptied of my need to decide.

I'm watching the five that are currently yellowing in my kitchen and telling myself, "You can do it, Ginger. You know you can."

I put my dukes up to whatever god is in charge of banana bread-on-the-fly and threw out all the old bananas in my freezer. There were 24. I had 24 old bananas in my freezer. Because someday I might make banana bread.

It was like risking the wrath of some meaner, more survivalist-oriented version of the pillsbury dough boy.

And now I have no backup plan, no means of pulling off a homemade baked good on the spur of the moment. I am embracing the bakery. I am saying yes to the high skill level of others. I am eschewing homemade.

Who knows what will happen to me at Christmastime (which is in like 11 months). I don't know what will happen. This is a crazy I-don't-have-any-way-to-make-banana-bread sort of a ride. Hold on tight--no! Don't hold on tight. Let go. Put your hands in the air. Feel that feeling like you might fall off.

Yes.
I have no bananas.

But what if you need to make banana bread, Ginger? What will you DO?

I don't know. I really, honestly, don't know. I'm shaking my head as I write this. I just don't know.

But when I peer into my freezer and see the vacated place that those bananas held, I have a feeling that seems like . . . freedom.

A Really Nice Big Brother

Okay--so there's the issue of Nate's niceness to his mother for dressing up in this MACARONI & CHEESE costume in the first place. (Check.) Then, there's the issue of his extra niceness, for holding up one of our postcards (his sister Coral really loves our CD). (Check.) Then, there's the grand finale of high school guy niceness that he didn't lose his, well, macaroni, when his mother emailed me this picture. (Check. Check.)

We think Nate is great.

Have a Super New Year

From our family to yours.

My Christmas Present to You: THRIFTING 101

I love to thrift shop. I do it for all my friends. I take my kids and they do it for all their friends. I don't know your size, though.

So, I am offering THRIFTING 101--all kinda wise thoughts about how to get the most out of a thrift store.

Merry Christmas. May you enjoy thrifting forevermore now.

Love,

--ginger.

THRIFTING 101

BIG PICTURE THRIFTING TRUTHS:

Keep your standards high: say no to rips, tears and stains. The feeling that you can get anything “out” with Tide is just a feeling. If the stain is a crunchy one that is clearly just the lunch of the person who donated it, that’s one thing. The rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t wear it just as it is, don’t buy it. (You won’t hem it, sew it, take it up, tuck it, or anything else. Sorry, but I know you, and you won’t.) The exception to this rule: if something’s missing a button but has an extra one attached, I will get it.

. . . but not too high: it’s easy to be slurped up into the frenzy of “OhmygoshIjustgotthatfor65cents!!!!” Don’t lose sight of the obvious. For example, when you find a beautifully-intact cashmere sweater for $7.00 that fits you just right, throw off the feeling that it’s just TOO MUCH money. Buy it.

Pay attention to how it fits: the torture of thrifting is that it is possible—and a regular occurrence—to find something that you love that just doesn’t fit you right (too tight in the boobs, too loose in the boobs …whatever). The upside of thrifting is the treasure hunting and the comically low prices; the downside is that when you find something, it won’t be available in 7 handy sizes. Don’t buy something (even if it’s cute and cheap) if it doesn’t fit well. You’ll just put it back into thrift-store-circulation when you get it home if it doesn’t fit well. And remember: $1.98 is cheap only if you actually buy something you like. Otherwise, it’s just like hucking $1.98 out the window: you COULD have purchased a double tall latte with that cash.

Become an owner of fabric softner: okay, there’s the smell. Let’s not pretend. There’s the smell. Right now, as I write, I’ve just thrown away (and then fished out of the trash) my favorite black vinyl jacket. It stinks. It’s cute, but it’s got a significant must that I can’t seem to shake with laundry products. I’m in the process of experimenting with various smell-good softeners. More on this as the research lays itself out.

Or become a wearer-of-perfume: this is really information for thrifting 201 because probably your naturally aromatic personal smell trumps thrift-store-must with just a few items hanging in your closet and on your back, but once you begin to integrate additional pieces and branch out into coats, you run the risk of having the must overwhelm your personal essence. I believe that this could be fought off with the right purchased scent. I haven’t, of course, done this yet. But it seems like it would work.

SPOTS IN A THRIFT STORE NOT TO MISS:

Shirts are an easy beginning (especially at the places that sort by color). Housewares: always a sure thing for a cheap cocktail glass or a plastic plate with a picture of the little mermaid. If you’re a basket-lover, get ready to die and go to heaven. Don’t miss: men’s belts (I hover there, waiting to find a western jobby to attach to a buckle I like that’s currently attached to a belt that I don’t); tablecloths and napkins; all the weirdly smushed together accessory bins (who doesn’t need snow gloves for 25 cents?).

SPOTS IN A THRIFT STORE TO PLAN ON SKIPPING:

Any category of clothing that would cover a “trouble” spot (for me, that’s my, well, behiiiiiiiiiind, so I skip “pants”); socks; shoes (though I do watch for cowboy boots, which somehow seem different and less able to deliver an old foot fungus than your basic old shoe); women’s belts (almost always made of plastic); all the chotchky—c’mon, do you really NEED that porcelain donkey?