Busy, full day here, so let’s get right to it, so I can get back to it. (Class prep, I tell you. I hope at least some of it is going well. It’s been going on since Saturday, so hopefully I’ve done well enough to fill an hour or so with good and useful information. But, hey, the class is this evening, so there at least won’t be much longer to have to worry about it.)
Back to the getting to it. Let us first perform the site’s most popular weekly feature, checking in on the kitties.
Phoebe has lately taken an interest in the dining room table. This comes as my lovely bride rotated the table 90-degrees last week. Presumably this new angle fits with her sense of feng shui.
I took the next photo on this very day. And the joke I delight in telling to The Yankee goes like this.
We have a house. And inside that house there are hardwood floors. On one of those floors is a high quality rug. On top of that rug is a still-new overstuffed sofa. On top of that sofa is a pillow. And top of that pillow is your cat.
Because, you see, the sofa isn’t comfortable enough.
Meanwhile, if you have a moment, could you stop by and plug this cat in?
He simply could not go any farther. You understand why, he was forced to travel up several stairs and across a few feet from his afternoon napping perch.
I like that photo because I managed to keep the two if-I-fits-I-sits boxes in the background. They should be coming back into their rotation any day now.
Saturday was beautiful and I took a break from class prep for a quick bike ride. The last time I did a random ride I turned right at a particular T-intersection. So, this time, I went to the same road and turned left. Soon after, I saw this sign, which was great and, presumably, accurate enough.
I love rides like this. On the last random ride, when I turned right at that T, it was purely a ride of discovery. All new roads, the first one, I specifically wanted to see where it went. And when it ended, I had to improvise. This time, I my route after that same intersection. This should make it easier, but it just makes it more difficult.
Here’s a post office I ran across. My hypothesis has long been that you can tell a lot about a town by their post office(s). And this one looks lovely, but it needs a coat of paint.
There are two — count ’em, one, two — parking spaces out front. And the office sits right there on Main Street, which is a collection of a handful of houses and a fire company.
I got turned around twice. And, of course, this matters because there’s now a route to follow. And all of the blue lines in life must be followed. Some of them should be, anyway. Elsewhere that evening, a college buddy of mine also uploaded a workout to Strava. He titled his “I’m convinced that the only reason why cyclists cover so much distance is because they always get lost. I tested this myself.”
I didn’t get lost. The first time, I just turned left when I should have stayed straight. The second time I took another turn too early, had to stop to consult my map, and then modified my route.
Does that sound like I was lost? Sure, I stopped to check the map. That’s not especially fun, but maybe I did it just to level out the great joy of a free ride with no purpose or schedule. Mostly, I was just trying to insure that I beat the sunset back.
On the parts of that route I’d been on before, the parts nearest the house, I set four new PRs on Strava. All of those PRs were on the segments near the end of the ride, which is encouraging.
Last night we went across the river to Wilmington. We saw Tig Notaro at The Grand Opera.
The Opera House has been home to some of the world’s most gifted artists for over 130 years. As historic as it is aesthetic, the 1,140 seat theater represents both the physical and symbolic heart of The Grand.
They have this beautiful ceiling, but nothing written about it on the site, so it can’t have a long lineage, surely.
Tig said no pictures, and I honored that request for once. But I did make this mock up of what it was like to finally see Tig on stage.
I discovered her on Netflix in the teens, in the long office overnights. I think this was the first work of hers I’d seen. She traveled the country and played people’s homes. Clearly, it was a docu-special designed for late night viewing.
And I was hooked straightaway. Her comedy is precious, her timing is perfect and, as time marches on, her story is impossible to ignore.
Anyway, last night, she opened with a version of this joke.
And she closed with a much longer, Tig-length version of this story, while sitting at a grand piano, and recreating the moment, just as she describes here, milking the premise for every giggle it is worth and then finding some more besides.
As she’s doing this, she reminds us all, that when she did this, Adele was in the room. The theater’s sound guy pipes in “Hello” and Tig noodles around on this beautiful piano and signs along. And she does not play the piano. And she can’t sing.
She can’t sing so badly that it’s difficult to imagine that anyone sings that poorly. Surely it is a put-on, but it was hilarious, and self-deprecating, and charming and awkward and yet never cringe. Just more perfect Tig Notaro. We were fortunate to get to see her show.
She’s recording a special in New York this fall. Maybe some of the material we saw last night will be in the program when it’s released. You’re gonna want that coconut water.
