SPRING CLEANING
I’ve been doing some preliminary spring cleaning lately. I have yet to get out into the yard due to the lack of nice days. The only truly nice day in recent memory was Easter Sunday, and that required us to take the bikes out for a ride and then sit in our chairs in the back yard while enjoying the first fire of the year. I’ve never been so happy to have a face full of smoke and ash raining down on me as I drew sketches of Freja pouting.

She hates fire. It seems like a good instinct for an animal to have – self-preservation and all – but it’s annoying the way she moves about the yard, making a show of not going near the fire but being within eyesight as she curls into a Pout Ball.

Spring cleaning… I went through all my socks and decided that I am simply not the kind of  person who wears mid-length sock. They have to be low-rise for exercise and knee-high for daily wear. I don’t want a sock that pouches somewhere around my ankle. It’s good to have this cleared up.
I have also officially recognized the need to wash all of our windows this year. Confession: we’ve lived in our house for 4 or 5 years now and have not washed a window. I suddenly feel horrible writing that out.

Another item on the to-do list: Read a backlog of New Yorkers. They pile up. There is a stack waiting for me on our coffee table. At one point I went through them and marked, with pieces of Post-Its, the articles I intend to read. That was as far as I got. There are a few things I always feel weird about throwing away or recycling:

1. Unread magazines – all that knowledge! stuff! things to know about!
2. Toothbrushes – there’s something off-putting about running the brush around in your mouth, making sure it never touches anything icky for as long as it’s in use, and then one day just tossing it into the garbage with used Kleenex and God-knows-what-else.
3.Clothing -  I usually donate all my old clothing but a few pieces are stained or horrendous in some way and I toss them but  feel guilty – like I should go throw them in the garbage can once it’s dark out, under cover of  night.

Finally, we need to do something with our back steps. They look like they should be attached to a decrepit halfway house and there should be an old metal coffee can filled with sand and cigarette butts sitting on them along with three tired-looking folks generating more butts. I can hardly stand to look at those steps any longer.

Yesterday I decided that we need a of meditation seat in our backyard. I experienced one at the Franconia Sculpture Park last summer – a wooden seat you could climbed a small hill to get to which then featured a comfy cushion to sit on. There was a computer element to the sculpture but we wouldn’t need that. I think it would be pleasant to go out in the morning, climb up to the seat with a thermos or mug of tea and watch the sun rise.

I’ll keep you posted.

Watching: With the bad weather stretch, we caught up on some movies: Restrepo, The Fighter and There Will Be Blood. Movies like The Fighter inspire me to want to get into shape. This is because they always feature a “Getting in Top Shape” montage in which one of the characters runs, lifts weights, jumps rope and does complicated push-ups. The most I will actually do is run. But the movie does have a kick-ass soundtrack… which you can’t buy. The soundtrack that’s for sale features none of the rock songs from the movie, just movie soundtrack music. I’m not the only one who was disappointed to find this out – a guy named Craig Sweitzer was kind enough to put the list of songs in the comments section on the iTunes store. Thanks, Craig!

How You Like Me Now? – The Heavy
Sweet Dreams – Keith St. John
Saints – The Breeders
So Into You – Atlanta Rhythm Section
Sara Smile – Hall and Oates
Here I Go Again – White Snake
Dance Hall Days – Wang Chung
Send Me Your Love – Jaymee Carpenter
I Started A Joke – The Bee Gees
Good Times Bad Times – Led Zeppelin
Voices Carry – ‘Til Tuesday
Strip My Mind – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rock ‘N Roll Stew – Traffic
Back In The Saddle  – Aerosmith
The Warrior’s Code – Dropkick Murphys
Siesta – Mariachi La Estrella
Can’t You Hear Me Knocking – Rolling Stones
Paint The Town Red – The Mahones
Glory and Consequence – Ben Harper
Can’t Hide Your Love Forever – Mariner
Solid Gold – Keith Mansfield
Down and Dirty – Michael Mulholland
La Maleta En El Camino – Antoine Duhamel
Jasmine Girl – Sinn Sisamouth and Pan Ron
Stakeout – Matt Koskenmakei and David John Vanacore

Reading: Just finished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This is the first in a trilogy that has a lot of people excited and the first movie adaptation is underway… Someone help. I don’t get it. My sister lent me the book because she loved it… but this kind of thing always leaves me cold. I am an oddity – I haven’t read any Harry Potter, I hated that vampire trilogy Twilight (I actually forgot the name of it and had to look it up just now).

Also, Keith has a new webcomic adventure going: English Majeure. It’s comics about books!

Making: About to start constructing a leather wallet for Keith out of a thrifted leather skirt. I knew those things were good for something.

Anticipating: Big sales in the Twin Cities this week/weekend if you love vintage, antiques, resale, etc. Starting tonight and going through the weekend is the Greed Gone Wild & Paris Flea Market sale in St. Louis Park. Another vendor who is part of this sale is Zinnia Folk Arts, a great retailer of Mexican arts and crafts – ceramics, Day of the Dead stuff, masks, textiles, etc. I love Zinnia! More details on sales here. And on Saturday and Sunday there’s the Mighty Swell vintage clothing sale – stuff for gals and guys – in what will become their new, permanent storefront in Minneapolis.