What's that? I can't hear you!

I've gone temporarily deaf.

On Sunday we went to see "Slumdog Millionaire," which we quite enjoyed. We got home in time to see it win pretty much every Oscar.

I split the weekdays between convalescing with my about-to-be-a cold, and cooking more delicious food. Sweet red pepper soup with risotto dumplings! Olive lentil casserole! Quinoa, broccoli and cheese casserole! Barley chickpea pilaf! Mmm.

On Thursday I discovered that one of my favorite bands, Don Caballero, would be playing on Friday! What, what, what?! I would have bought a ticket even if I was bleeding out my eyes! Fortunately, the threatening cold did not fully materialize, so I was free to enjoy the show.

I could not convince my country music lovin' cousin to accompany me to the math/prog rock show, so I went alone. The place was a sausagefest-- a fresh sausagefest, it being a seventeen and up show. I kinda figured this band would draw more dudes than chicks, but dang! I managed to befriend a woman who I think may have been the only other woman who was there sans man. I believe the two of us were in the top five percent, age-wise, and sadly, she didn't make it past the third band to the real treat, Don Cab. The first band, White Devil, was tight three-piece prog rock with no vocals. The boys were quite skilled, and I enjoyed the set. The second band, Cougars, was... well... let's just say I composed the better parts of this blog entry in my head while they played. Like half of the audience went out for a smoke during their set. The very theatrical lead made a joke about it, and they handled it well. I felt a little bad for them, but not a lot bad, because they weren't that good. The third band, a five-man group out of Canada named DD/MM/YYYY (pronounced Day Month Year) friggin rocked my socks off. They were ridiculously talented and interesting, and the kids SWITCHED INSTRUMENTS several times during the set. Who does that?! At all times, they had a guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, and a front man who kinda switched off between singing, extra percussion, some keyboards, and a horn of some sort. Good times! But then... Then...

Don Cab. Kicked it hard. So awesome. The prima donna drummer is the only original member, and he knows he is the show. He wore a stripy shirt and red gym shorts, while the two other dudes wore all black and were a bit self-effacing. I felt a bit sad for them, but not too sad, since they are touring musicians who are probably making a living off of their music, so they're basically living the dream. I tried to pay attention to the guys in black, but it was next to impossible to take my eyes off of the drummer. He seemed like he might have OCD or Asperger Syndrome. You can't be normal and drum like that.

Many of the younger, skinny jeans wearing hipster kids left after DD/MM/YYYY, so the Don Cab crowd was a bit older and less interested in how pretty and trendy everyone thought they were. Someone yelled out a song request, and Don Cab said that this wasn't a democracy, and if we had paid to come in, we should just trust them. Heh.

Fortunately the show was just a single train ride away from my cousin's place. A really long train ride, but no transfers or anything, so it was all brainless. I heart the train. That is one thing Seattle is lacking. I mean, we're working on it, but...

Derby Mayhem!

For V-Day, my cousin and I were joined by a friend of hers for a chick flick ("He's Not That Into You"-- I was not that into it...) and more "Shekels and Swords." On Sunday I went to church with my cousin (well don't look so surprised, I'm capable of behaving for an hour at a time!) and then we shopped and chilled and what not.

The weekdays were a blur of five-bean chili, banana chocolate chip muffins, curried sweet potato soup, our grandma's baked beans, oatmeal peanut butter cookies, and of course, the new workout video we picked up at Target on Sunday. It is the Dancing With the Stars Latin Cardio Workout. I approve. The difficulty of the steps occupies your mind and distracts you from the sweating and burning.

On Friday night we went to see the Windy City Rollers. One of the matches was almost painful to watch, because the winning team quadrupled the losing team's score. They had really good Jammers. As it wasn't too exciting, and the Budweiser was $6.50, and there were only a few injuries, we used this time to come up with our rollernames: Andi Capper and Cher the Pain. (My cousin also suggested Turner Over, which is an extremely close second.) The other match up was much more exciting, with the teams rolling close for the entire bout. They took the lead from each other every few minutes, and had the best ending ever: during the last few minutes the song "Final Countdown" started playing, and the lagging team scored a series of dramatic points to finish as winners. It was a really fantastic finale.

Shekels and Soup

After a couple of sunny days off in Huntsville, we got back in the truck and headed north just as the weather in the eastern part of the country began to turn. We drove through some on again, off again rain that somehow managed to pour buckets every time I stepped out of the truck. Seriously, as soon as I had to pee, and had an opportunity to do so, the heavens opened, and I was soaked within seconds. Then it would literally stop raining right after I returned to the truck.

We were lucky enough to get an opportunity to stay at the Whitehaven rest stop near Paducah, KY. It is an old house that was preserved and converted into a really neat rest stop. Apparently they give free tours in the afternoon, but we couldn't stick around for that long. I couldn't even get a decent picture, first because of darkness, and then because of rain. Maybe next time...

It's interesting to see how connected the weather is out here, how the larger systems move through such large areas. When it was thirteen degrees in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, it was extra cold in the south. When it started to warm up in Florida and Alabama, it also got really nice in DC and Chicago. When it cooled down and got rainy, it happened all over. I suppose I pay more attention to the weather now than I did before, but I never really felt connected to the rest of the country in this way when living in Seattle. So much of our weather moves in from the water, and systems are blocked or changed by the mountains. It's tempting to extrapolate this disconnectedness to other areas of life.

When we got near Chicago, my dad dropped me off at a train station, and I rode a commuter train into the city, where my cousin picked me up. Before long, we fell back into our breadwinner/housewife routine, and I spent much of Friday cooking lentil soup and baking banana crumb muffins. Yum. We also played a game straight out of her childhood, a Christian children's game called "Shekels & Sword Game." One part of the game involves choosing a character from the bible, and there are fun little things that each character has to do. We discovered that the male characters are more likely to get financial rewards for their tasks than the female characters. Hmm. So if any of you ever run across this game, and decide to play it, it's best to be a male character. If you really must be a female, choose Martha.

More notes on the trucking life

You know how fires are like camping tv? Watching people park is truck stop tv. Of course, if that gets old, you can always head inside to the bar attached to the chain restaurant attached to the truck stop, and take in the cover band.

After dropping off our load in Connecticut, we headed to New York to pick up some PVC pipe bound for West Virginia. Then we went to Ohio to get a couple of trucks headed for Florida. Southern Florida. Just outside Miami. Just when I thought I might lose a coupla toes to frostbite, and my single pair of long johns had become too funky to wear, we got a reprieve! I also got my first truck stop shower while in Ohio, which, after five days, was most definitely overdue.

Dad has mentioned a few times how difficult it is to get a load out of Florida, so I crossed my fingers and hoped we would get stuck there over the weekend. Sadly, we immediately got another load, headed for Illinois (brr!), so we had to turn around and head right back out. At least I got to take off my gloves and coat for one day. We will get a chance to return to Huntsville on the way back, and I'm as yet undecided about my future plans.

Trucking is an ugly way to see the country. It's all billboards and concrete and truck stops. The rest stops are generally the nicest places I see. Thursday morning we stopped at a sunny Georgia rest stop, and I heard birds talking in the trees. I don't think I've heard any nature sounds since boarding the truck.