May 31, 2008

9:15 p.m.

And won't Carol look like the queen she IS in this gorgeous, sparkly diadem I will be giving her at our DUAL 50th BIRTHDAY BASH AND BACCHANAL in exactly two weeks? I'm sure she hasn't got a clue. Even though I gave sister Rose one for HER birthday a few months ago, and everyone knows I've been the envy of parties ever since Hiss gave me mine when I turned 47. One cannot expect a tiara. One can only hope.

********

In my role as Cinderella (ha ha, I typed "Conderella" -- "Hey, c'mover here, I'll give ya five bucks if you clean the house for me...") I hied me over to Rose and Marc's today and did, finally, clean their house. They were busy getting the outside in order for Sunday's concert and party; Rose was scrubbing the lawn furniture that had wintered outside, and Marc cleared some kind of space in the garage for us to set up. I forgot to look at it and see if it's big enough, but we'll deal with that tomorrow.

I'm excited, finally. It's been hard to get through one day at a time this week, having so much on the agenda and not being able to see past the weekend. But after Monday I have NO WORK between then and the retreat -- recording sessions, a few appointments of various sorts, but no gigs -- and man, will I breathe a sigh of relief. Well, I still do have to get my website up -- I found that different versions of Front Page don't always talk to each other and the site I've built on my Dell doesn't exactly work on the Windows side of the Mac with a different FP version -- are you still following me? -- but at least I'll be able to concentrate on it again, figure out how to get it up to the GoDaddy site and see what it actually looks like online. I don't know what to think about the brochures -- I guess designing them will take a day, and I'll try to do a photo or two at the band's house next week -- and I suppose I'll have to charge the printing. I need 1000 to start. I can't imagine how much that's even going to cost. 600 will be stuffed into the magazine in August; the rest I'll try to distribute here and there. Cool to think about.

********

Rose has one of those long, fluffy dusting wands that you can just take outside and shake out every so often. Linus the Orange Cat loves it. He loves attacking it, but even more he loves to have it whirled all over him like he's at the car wash. He lies on his back, legs akimbo, looking all squinty-eyed and limp. Not the most hygienic thing, I suppose, for cleaning the house, and also for a cat with asthma; but you know, we compromise for our pleasure.

They all got back from Williamsburg yesterday -- Rose, Marc and Pearl -- and she brought me the coolest little giftie, which simply consisted of all the miniature hotel amenities she could snag. Shampoo, soap, conditioner, etc. I have a HUGE basket of these things from my travels and I love them. I figure when I'm 60 or so, I can just stop buying personal care products and start using these up. Either that or start housing touring musicians.

********

Must practice a little for tomorrow, and come up with a set list. The air has been cool and sweet tonight; a few thunderstorms, which are supposed to clear up overnight.