An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

 If you want to be noticed onstage, play guitar. You can do windmills, make love to your axe, and generally engage in all manner of attention-grabbing histrionics. But, if you want to wall yourself off against contact with people* during a pandemic, keyboards are your instrument. As I have done at every gig at FCD, I have barricaded myself into the corner with the keyboard as my rampart. This turned out to be a good idea, as it turned out to be a pretty big party. Normally a big, boisterous crowd is a good thing, and certainly to be expected on a Halloween Saturday night, but in COVID times, the sea of people standing too close to each other, not all wearing masks creeped me out. But other than the superspreader aspect (at least Mark Meadows didn't show), the evening was a blast. We were once again joined by Ron Holloway , who was clearly slumming. Excellent singer Amy Wilson also joined us, giving us two backup singers, which was the perfect feel for our first set, which was all ...

With the realization that the pandemic will continue through the winter, pretty much everyone is doing some preparatory "nesting", getting ready to spend the cold season at home. There's been a run on patio heaters and fire pits as folks look to extend the cozy backyard season into the colder months. I bought a small tabletop patio heater, which works nicely for a couple of people around a table, say eating a meal together. I didn't get the big eight foot tall kind because, quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered dealing with such a huge thing and the associated tanks of propane (which, it turns out, are in more plentiful supply than the 1 lb. tanks that power my little heater). I also own a metal firepit, but it's a little decrepit and besides, fire pits are nice, but a backyard fire is smoky and everyone winds up on shpilkes constantly getting up and moving positions around the fire like weathervanes to stay out of the smoke as the plume shifts.  I also happen...

 Lately, I've been playing with a Grateful Dead themed band called Great Northern Out of DC (for the uninitiated, the name is a reference to a Dead lyric). I never thought that 41 years after I saw my first Dead show and 25 years after Jerry Garcia died that I would be back playing this music. But there's still a community of people very supportive of this music, and it's fun to be a part of it. I subbed with this band after their previous keyboard player left and <arrogance> needless to say</arrogance> they asked me to join the band as their new keyboard player - and I said yes.  I've done a few shows with them, and we've got one more on the books before the weather turns too cold to play outdoors (we're not comfortable playing indoor gigs due to the pandemic). The State Theatre in Falls Church was particularly fun - it was a very pleasant autumn evening, and the venue is top-notch. They provide PA and also do this very cool thing with projections o...

 This post will be updated as my coffeeneuring continues ...  So, a local cycling blogger hosts an annual challenge  called "coffeeneuring". It's not an extreme challenge, like riding a century or running a marathon. Rather, it's a lighthearted way to get people out on their bikes and, in better times, socializing. The basic notion (cribbed from the event web site) is: over the course of 7’ish weeks, ride your bike to 7 different places, at least 2 miles round trip each time, drink 7 cups of coffee (or similar), and take 7 pictures (or other documentation) as proof of your coffeeneuring. Most importantly, there are trinkets! People who complete the challenge can get a patch! There was also a chance to order socks, but I didn't notice it until two weeks after the deadline had passed. Here are my coffeeneuring rides: Week 1: 10/10 - 10/16 Ride #1: Date: 10/13/20 Destination: Tysons Corner Walmart , in an attempt to buy 1 lb. gas cylinders for my tabletop patio heate...

Day 1: Monday 10/5 There's a point in my extended kayak expeditions when everyone starts to smell bad. There's no way around smelling bad - too few clothes, too little opportunity for personal hygiene. I mean really bad. Like, anyone who has ridden the New York subway knows that as a train pulls into a station it delivers ahead of itself a cloud of dirty air redolent of urine, garbage and the body odor of millions of subway riders. Now, imagine you're on a New York subway platform holding a block of blue cheese and just as an approaching train delivers its stench cloud you take of whiff of the cheese to determine whether it's gone bad (which it has). It's that kind of bad. The thing is, all of us on the trip know we're going to wind up smelling bad. We all know we're going to keep seeing each other in the same clothes which grow grungier day by day, and those who are cursed with having hair are going to look a little more matted with each passing day. But we...

  Day 6 - Tues 9/15 We were breaking camp and heading back to Willow Bay and had agreed to get on the water “butts in boats (BIB)” by 8:30, even though we knew that would mean an early and chilly start after a cold night. Knowing that it takes time to break camp and pack up, I woke up a little before 6 AM and well before sunrise started packing things in my tent by lantern light: sleeping bag, camping cot, etc. Once I heard Rob moving around I got out of my tent to find it was quite crisp - maybe not the mid-30’s the forecast had called for, but cold enough that I had to keep pausing to warm my hands up while I worked. I packed and ate breakfast at the same time, taking a break from shoving stuff into dry bags every once in a while to grab handfuls of granola and dried blueberries and sip coffee. Time was growing short to hit the 8:30 deadline and so I loaded everything into the kayak in a rushed, somewhat haphazard fashion. Even though I had used up four days worth of food, hu...