But What If He Has Got Slippery Hands?

I'm not sure what kind of music genre this song falls under. It's a little folk..a little Johnny Cash gospel...but from, like, when Johnny was a kid himself. There's something about the harmonica that I cannot deny. I will not deny. I must learn how to play one myself, in fact.

In the mean time, The Wood brothers don't have anything more official looking than these live performance videos on Youtube. This song was featured in the movie I watched the other night, The Greatest, that I talked about here. And yes, I still do wish I was this chick because things turned out great for her despite the fact that the love of her life is dead. The entire movie featured great songs, now that I think about it. Rent it if you're in the mood to cry. Same goes for this song. GEEZ IT'S BEEN A LONG DAY.

• Lovin' Arms by The Wood Brothers

More The Wood Brothers music on iLike

You Get A Kitten, And YOU Get a Kitten...EVERYBODY GETS A KIIIIIITTTTTEEEENNNNNN!

Remember when you were younger and all you wanted for your birthday was for someone to show up on your doorstep with a pet kitten?

Wish granted, Matt December.

This weekend, my friend Beth (whom you've heard so much about recently!) and I did a 5k with some coworkers of mine to benefit the Dillon Cope Foundation. Turns out the money actually goes to the Children's Hospital to benefit children with leukemia and they raised over $8,000 with this one walk alone. So, you know, we were feeling giving. And tired. And unshowered. As seen here:



After a grueling workout through the Amazon (well, Bloomer Park can FEEL like the Amazon), we had plans to take a kitten from my coworker, Crystal, who's cat had them eight weeks prior. Beth and myself were all "You know who needs a kitten? MATT. Matt needs a kitten."

And thus, we became the Oprah Winfrey's of gift giving.

A few hours later we were in the possession of one very sassy little boy kitten who doesn't like to be held. Seen here:



It might appear that we got the Bram Stoker of kittens, but I swear, he's nicer than he appears here.

In all honesty, buying someone a kitten without asking is irresponsible. It also can go wrong on more than one level. Like the way Matt mentioned at lunch after we had given it to him, "Man. I hope I'm not allergic to cats."

I thought that perhaps the best way to show you how much fun it can be doing something irrational and irresponsible was to tape it. Here you can enjoy us waiting impatiently because people who don't know to expect a kitten at their doorstep might leave haphazardly to go to the gym. Which makes giving you a gift difficult.



And here you can watch as he STILL DOESN'T KNOW and therefore, doesn't rush to answer his door when we realize he is not, in fact, at the gym at all. He's just ignoring us.



And last, but not least, the reason we're here. Little did we know that by the end of the day he'd be named Gene Wilder The Cat and head bumping Matt to show his affection.



Everybody needs a kitten. Ashley & Beth can make it happen.

A Great Loss

My mother washed my iPod.

She didn't mean to. I mean, really, it was my fault. I had it in the pocket of a sweatshirt and she had no idea it was in the laundry on my floor and bam. She pulled out a pair of headphones from the washer and the dreaded "Oh God...something more expensive is in here with these" feeling hit her stomach.

She's been trying to dry it out with a hair dryer for about two weeks now. I think we've finally pulled the proverbial plug on it's life.

You wouldn't think losing your first iPod to such an accident as this would be detrimental, but it is. It's like a piece of me is missing when I walk through the aisles of the grocery store, trying to avoid "helpful" staff. I can't fathom going to the gym alone anymore, or walking the dogs in the summer evenings. Listening to it illegally in the car is gone. And yesterday, when Beth and myself participated in the 5K, I wished more than anything I had it in my pocket, because this song has been begging for me to listen to it while I exercise. It's get me moving, like so many other weirdly great songs do.

So add it to your iPod for me. And protect that little guy...he's more valuable to you than you realize. It's VV Brown's "Shark In The Water" and I had to use a fan video because the company that owns her music video disabled embedding. Which is a shame, because she's a sassy strutter and I wish I could show her skills to you.

The song will have to do for now.

Best Friends Forever...Especially When I Need Fashion Advice

Today is one of my best friend's, Kelley's, birthday. She is 27. She's going to send me some sort of horrified message through email today about how I told the world her age, but I don't care. She's sassy and smart and beautiful and talented and the world should know that today is in recognition of her.

May 26th was my other best friend's, Beth's, birthday. She is 26. She is also sassy and smart and beautiful and talented. Recently, I've realized, I only associate with the fabulous. It makes every day run much more smoothly.

I just wanted to take a moment to say without them, who knows exactly who I would turn to at the end of everyday for whatever it is I may need.

Lord knows that Kelley has taken one too many "What kind of shoes do I buy with this??" phone calls at inappropriate times of the day. She knows how to bake and cook and drink all at the same time, which is quite a feat, let me tell you. She can take any task and make it look easy, like you're over thinking it when, really, she's just a genius and we're just all a bunch of dummies. She can find the humor amongst sadness. She can find beauty in destruction. She taught me how great wine and cheese together are. She taught me how to embrace myself.



Beth, on the other hand, can turn something funky and old into beautiful and new because she's just that creatively talented. She can paint and sing and dance, though she downplays her skills so much so that you would never know what lies beneath that serene face that listens quietly when you cry at Pei Wei over the mess that is your life. She can play sports like a dude. She can play video games like a dude. She can make calories disappear in the most fabulous tasting food. She can find hope in chaos. She can hear my thoughts. She taught me that wherever I might be, whatever I might be doing,I'm never alone.



Happy Birthday, my best friends. Thank you for all you do.


And please forgive me for the horrible pictures I just posted of you on the internet.

Good Things For Good Causes

Tomorrow, my coworkers, myself and my good friend Beth are teaming up at 9am to participate in the 5K for the Dillon Cope Foundation in Rochester Hills. All proceeds will benefit students at the University of Michigan or something in memory of one of their students. I wish I had more details other than that, but really, it will involve bagels, coffee and running shortly thereafter. Do you need to know much more?

And if that's not enough to tempt you, I'm not sure what is.

Pictures and stories of how Ashley fell down only forty steps into the race and had to be carted off on a gurney soon to follow.

Hopefully. Everyone loves a good "Remember that time you almost died exercising?" story. Almost as much as a "Remember that time you almost died DRINKING?" story.

"You're Gonna Need A Bigger Frame"

I don't need to remind any of you that I'm a Master these days. Completing something as fantastically wonderful as your Masters program gets you all kinds of cool perks. Your family lets you have the remote control more often because you can make executive decisions. You get better at playing Jeopardy when it comes on. The cat respects your personal space more at bedtime. Someone starts doing your laundry for you.

JUST KIDDING. None of that crap happens. And isn't it sad that I can acknowledge that happiness would come to me in leaps and bounds if only I could play more competently when Jeopardy came on or if someone would clean my underwear on a regular basis?

I didn't, however, get to go to my graduation ceremony last month when I received the title of MASTER. It's in Philadelphia and my family was busy and I had to work and trips to Philly don't just fly by the seat of your pants. Thus, I had to contact the school to have them mail my diploma to me. And Scott, in a moment of consideration and kindness, bought me a frame so that when it arrived I could hang it proudly on my wall and people could start to bow to it when they came for tea or to pay me their taxes. You know, the norm.

However, during one of my many crazy Spanish lessons my mother texted me several times with cryptic messages like:

"Where are you? Komos estas!?"

"You got something in the mail."

"What did you order online?"

"KOMO. ESTAS."

"I think it's your degree. You're...gonna need a bigger frame."

"Pick up Spaghetti on the way home. Pretend I said that in Spanish."

and so on and so forth. You can see my frustration at times towards whoever taught my mother to text.

Thanks for that, kind stranger. Truly. THANKS.

So I head home and pick up Spaghetti (in Spanish) and walk through the door and there she stands, smile on her face with what can only be described as the largest degree man kind has ever seen. Seriously, I don't think it's necessary, SJU. I appreciate the excitement and yes, now my mother who can't read close up anymore can actually tell what it says, except it's also IN LATIN.

THE WHOLE THING.




And you might think that the picture is a weird angle. I'm just holding it away from my body. It can't POSSIBLY be as large as her torso.

And that's where you would be wrong. Again. Don't worry about it. Before I became a master, I used to be wrong all the time.

Who Is In CHARGE?

I really need to turn off the Breaking News by CNN on my Twitter because every hour on the hour it informs me how many have died during the flooding or how many people are missing in Kenya after an explosion. Just today alone a plane has crashed, people are FLEEING Uzbekistan and Spirit Airlines had a strike. Today. You want to know what I did today? I ate a bagel sandwich, went to Meijer and applied for a job in Paw Paw. What is happening?! Who is in charge here?

It got me to thinking about Mother Earth. Partly because I recently watched the documentary Babies and they feature the song "The Earth Is Our Mother" and I was all "oh for pete's sake you bunch of hippies, the earth is not my MOTHER. The earth is like, a close friend. Someone I hang out with occasionally. She certainly isn't ODE WORTHY" which is actually kind of sad and sheltered of me. Just think. If we had been born even one hundred and fifty years earlier, a large portion of our lives would involve being outside, tending and killing animals, cutting down trees and trying to figure out how to make running water a feasible option. That's right. NO RUNNING WATER. That means pooping outside.

Pooping outside?! Are you kidding me? The biggest question I have today is how to get my laptop cord to stop unplugging itself randomly so I don't lose power while I'm in the middle of a rant. Think about how awful it is whenever you lose power on a grander scale! No running water? They might as well inject us all with Ebola and wish us adieu. That's exactly what losing electricity is like. Contracting Ebola.

So what does pooping outside, losing power and Uzbekistan have to do with an explosion in Kenya and poor Mother Earth?

I'm not good enough to her. I don't appreciate her enough. And this year she is definitely trying to tell us something, and that something is that she is PISSED. Epically, tragically, "you crashed the family car while I was out of town and you didn't even have your license" kind of angry that only a true mother can possess. Think about it. The natural disasters are abundant. Nashville and Little Rock are drowning. Haiti and Chile are shaken to destruction. Iceland has exploded. Sink holes are showing up in California and Guam.

The earth IS our mother, in a really bizarre way. And perhaps you forgot to get her a card on Mother's Day or didn't take the trash out or maybe even something really, really bad like forgetting to put gas in the tank after you borrowed her car. Whatever it is, you need to jump on it. We all do. I don't know if this means we need to plant more trees or buy cork shoes or what. But start thinking and think hard. Perhaps we can put our heads together long enough to stop a spill or prevent the next tsunami. For everyday something hasn't shown up on my door with 'destruction' spelled out on it's forehead is one more day that I'm just lucky. Because it could get here any minute now. And I'm nowhere near ready.

But then again, I'll bet Arkansas wasn't either. And they're only 764 miles away. I got lucky by 700 miles.

And so did you.