Sunday, January 11, 2009


Another weekend draws to a close. Willow has been having a hard time with transitions ever since I moved out, and this weekend was no exception. She gets moody and weepy from time to time, and I have been trying to avoid these episodes by keeping her busy.

This weekend, thanks to a friend who sent me a free family pass, I took her to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, where we marveled at the view of the bay, pretended to be astronauts in the planetarium, interacted with animals in the biology lab, and tried to stem an avalanche of internal organs from an old life-sized model of a human torso. Willow had fun, which made me have fun - I love seeing her smile and get excited about new things.

Afterwards, we went and spent some time with Uncle Greg, first at Dark Carnival, home of good books and strange (but equally good) toys, and then at KALX, where Greg DJs on at least 12 different shows (at least it seems that way). Willow got to hang out in the studio (see evidence above) for an hour or so before we decided to hit the road.

On the way home, illuminated by an amazingly large (biggest of the year, sez the news) full moon, we listened to Greg on the radio. The signal decayed as we hurtled southward, and bursts of static and sudden intrusions of other radio stations soon made it hard to hear Greg. The last song played, before the static finally ruled the day, was Conspiracy of Beards' choral take on Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" (at least I think it was Conspiracy of Beards - you never know, there may be another men's chorus exclusively singing Leonard Cohen songs). At any rate, it was a surreal way to experience one of my favorite Cohen songs - a full chorus belting it out, competing with static, freeway noise, and other nearby stations, and eventually losing the battle.

Meanwhile, Willow, unimpressed by such things, had fallen asleep.

I turned to the Stanford radio station, where coincidentally enough, my friend Justin was in the middle of his heavy metal show. I turned down the volume so as not to wake Willow.

Currently listening to: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band "God Bless Our Dead Marines" live 2008.11.01 @ Cinema Passos Manuel

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