blogs: brigidkaelin's blog 

About 10 days ago, someone ran into Friend-with-a-truck's truck, rendering it undrivable. Heretofore he will be known as Friend-without-a-Truck, or perhaps Friend-with-a-Ridiculous-Rental-Car. (For the Mojo-readers who are new to my blog, you should know I give monikers to all my friends ... originally to protect their identities from a few crazies, but now mostly just because it's fun. Friend-with-a-Truck is a long-time cast member here.) I've never been one to care much about cars. I've got an unhealthy obsession with Volvos, perhaps, but really I don't care about colors or ugly wings or engine size. My car is really a rather unattractive, rusted, tiny Volkswagen, but fortunately, I don't have to look at it while I'm driving. And it works, except for all those times it breaks. Luckily, I don't drive often, I guess. Anyway, yesterday, Friend-without-a-Truck pulled up in this rental car the insurance company provided, and I just started laughing. It's one of those Old-Timey looking cars, sort of like the PT Cruiser, but it's the Chevy version. Don't get me wrong, folks, I actually like those cars. They remind me of flappers and Duke Ellington and Al Capone. They remind me of good music. But this one is comic book red, and I scoured SteinMart this morning looking for a bright yellow trenchcoat so he could complete the Dick Tracy look. I've already got a violin case he can borrow. Anyway, we're trading it back in soon for another one. I was actually kind of looking forward to cruising down the highway listening to big band music and evading the police. But there is a mysterious migraine-inducing odor within, as if someone smoked inside, and the rental car place tried to cover it up with weird chemical spray. It's not the kind of car you can spend 16 hours straight in, and we're headed to Texas for some family stuff, as well as music business stuff at SXSW. Too bad. I have a flapper dress in the same cherry red. It would have been perfect. Whatever color it is, I hope it's big enough to transport my keyboard to tonight's show at the Monkey Wrench. I don't think my little VW is up for the task today... See you this evening at the Monkey Wrench's 5-Year Anniversary party? I'm playing a set at 9:00. Good times!

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Last year it seemed like I had a new, crazy story every day for this blog. Now, well, it occurs to me that maybe you have to go have a crazy active social life in order to collect stories. I haven't gone out much at all in the past several months. It's been cold, and as I learned last year, those cocktails add up. It doesn't take too many credit card statements before you start screaming, "I spent HOW much at the Monkey Wrench last month???" And then comes the spending moratorium. I have learned a few things from my social hibernation, however. The main one, however, is that I desperately want a dishwasher. I lived my entire life without a dishwasher. (Well, that's excepting the 2-3 years I was a live-in nanny in New York, and the family I lived with had one. But like any self-respecting New Yorker, I never cooked, so the fancy Bosch dishwasher was mostly for show.) My parents STILL don't have one, and my house doesn't either. It's never bothered me before. I mean, I don't mind doing the dishes. It's not like I ever had very many of them. Well, now, I can't STAND it. I can count on one hand the number of times I've eaten out this year -- a travesty, I know -- and that means several dishes for every meal. I've baked my own bread, crackers, and tortillas all year long, and I've even been regularly using the food processor. Did you know that the food processor ALONE fills up the kitchen sink???? I've had it. Forget saving up for a new record, I'm saving for a dishwasher. I'm sorry, blog readers. Can you believe that my crazy story for the day is a diatribe about wanting a household product? I promise 2010 will be more exciting than this ... next month, I'll come to you live from Atlanta, Birmingham, and the Derby Festival ... and in May, I'll be blogging live from Europe ... and in June, more adventures await. Is it wrong that what I'm looking forward to most about my upcoming tours is eating in restaurants? And not doing dishes?

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	Black Gladiator   wed mar 10 2010 at 10:22 am         ·  I share a house with my sister and we have no dishwasher. Her current boyfriend does our dishes. We like different sports teams but he's a keeper if you ask me.
	Steve Coomes   wed mar 10 2010 at 5:50 pm         ·  Oh, the line about self-respecting New Yorkers not cooking ... a gem! I never had one growing up, and didn't get one until I had my second apartment, and we didn't cook enough to justify it. Now I have a home, a past life as a chef and a wife and son who like my cooking. And what do I hate more than anything? Washing dishes. I"m a clean cook and there's still too many of them that don't fit into the dishwasher.
	Karma13   thu mar 11 2010 at 9:57 am         ·  I love it..great blog...lol..I can relate.
	Beverly Bartlett   thu mar 11 2010 at 10:46 am         ·  Sadly, I have a dishwasher and my kitchen still looks like this. (Well, not the big slab of meat or the Sponge Bob cup.) ;-)

There's this street in Louisville, Hillcrest Ave, where everyone is obsessed with Halloween decorations. They go nuts, and build haunted houses and haunted yards and giant spiders with giant spider webs. They construct entire graveyards and animatronic ghosts. It happens to be a busy street anyway, so if you forget it's Halloween season and turn down Hillcrest, you're stuck in traffic while all the other cars cruise slowly down the street, gaping at the yard decorations. Anyway, it's kind of ridiculous, but fun. I used to wonder why other blocks haven't risen to the challenge and created their own haunted streests. But there's no point in challenging the Hillcrest residents to a contest. I've heard they even sell their Halloween decorations along with the houses, mostly, I imagine, because no one wants to move all that crap. So rather than a competition, I was thinking that other blocks in Louisville should take on other holidays. Like maybe my street can get REALLY into St. Patrick's Day. We can get animatronic leprechauns and huge statues of St. Patrick and Irish flags and harps everywhere and blast U2 or deedly-dee-tunes from our homes. Maybe another street can just make Valentine's Day belong to them, and own it. Or Bastille Day. Or Texas Independence Day (which I forgot to celebrate last week, sorry!). Or Secretary's Day or Veteran's Day or President's Day. Ooooh, I would LOVE to be assigned President's Day. Imagine it ... replicas of Lincoln's bible and life-size statues of James K. Polk, who is clearly the hottest President of yore. I think I'll write my Metro Council Representative and see what kind of funding there is for giant shamrocks or Gettysburg reenactments.

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	Abby Miller H.   mon mar 08 2010 at 12:03 pm         ·  My mom grew up on Hillcrest and I do the all the decorations are neat...but boy you have to know what you're getting yourself into if you move there right? I mean, imagine if you moved onto the street and didn't decorate. yikes there'd be mutiny! The problem with decorating for other holidays is the lack of decor out there with which to decorate. you just don't find a lot of things out there to jazz up your yard with for Vday or St. Patrick's day. Unless maybe i'm not seeing them out there!
	brigid kaelin   mon mar 08 2010 at 2:05 pm         ·  You are so right ... I see an open market. Maybe I should work up a proposal to Hallmark and see what they think about inflatable leprechauns, hee hee.
	Abby Miller H.   mon mar 08 2010 at 2:12 pm         ·  lol....hey, if you design it, i'll buy it!! i think it'd be cute. and i'm an irish girl, so it's like a law right? sorry about my first sentence...rough Monday... i meant to say that i do "think" all the decorations are neat. sigh. have i mentioned it's SUCH a monday?
	Beverly Bartlett   mon mar 08 2010 at 4:03 pm         ·  If someone has not yet invented an inflatable leprechaun, then I may have lost a little bit of faith in capitalism.

This morning, I accompanied my best friend to the unemployment office. You know me ... always up for an adventure. It's weird to think, but now half of my musician friends had to go and get jobs, and half of my full-time career friends are now unemployed. My morning walking partners have shifted from classical guitar players to former non-profit workers. This morning I dutifully arose at 6-something, drove to a faraway land in Louisville that reminded me of Amarillo, Texas, with its wide lanes and strip malls, and waited in line (in the north, you wait ON-line, but here we wait IN-line) outside until the doors opened just before 7:30. I kept hoping that the 50+ (heavy on the plus) people in front of us were also just one person plus a friend, meaning that maybe there were really only 25+ people in the actual line ... but no, we waited a full two hours before getting to speak with someone. I could write a hundred pages based on this morning's adventure, but I promise I won't. I find it absurd that this can't all be done online (not the northern version of "in"-line, but the actual Interweb and stuff). I understand that you can request checks online, but you must show up in person for your reviews, which involves simply filling out a form and handing to a person who says "Thanks! See you in six weeks," that could easily also be put online. But then I suppose there are plenty of governmental forms that could be easily put online and aren't... I am thankful that I'm not unemployed and that I don't have to stand in that line again. Although, for the record, my being self-employed only guarantees that I'll never be eligible for unemployment benefits, despite all those years having worked a "real job" and paying into the system. Add me to the list of "under"-employed folks, I guess, and I'll keep searching for paying gigs (please, no more "no pay but great exposure" shows!). Maybe I could play accordion each morning for the depressed folks at the Unemployment Office. It would either alleviate some depression and make people smile momentarily, or it might run some folks off the deep end. This morning, I was proud of myself for being cognizant enough NOT to attract the crazies. (Generally, they swarm to me like bees to my zinnia garden.) The crazy one was right in front of me, too, so I consider this a grand feat. The poor guy three people in front me had to listen to her diatribe about "aliens among us," the end of the world, and the "things you wouldn't believe I've seen." She sounded perfectly sane -- don't they all -- and you wouldn't have noticed the odd nature of their conversation unless you were eavesdropping. Well, eavesdropping was impossible to avoid in a line of such close quarters, and the novel I'd brought with me was losing the fight for my attention. The crazy lady started talking of all the crucifixes and garlic she kept hidden at various places in her home, as if such items of lore would protect her from the aliens. "Something's coming, I tell you. Something. I know. I've seen it.." The poor kid caught listening to her sermon couldn't escape, stuck in that unemployment line for two hours sneaking furtive glances to me and my friend, who smiled sympathetically, then turned our backs to the crazy and our noses to our novels, all the while speaking nonsensical "German" to each other because we didn't want Crazy to think she could engage us as well. It's really quite amazing how much you can actually communicate to someone when you're speaking gibberish. Every so often, when it looked like she was trying to catch my attention, my friend would pull me by the coat collar toward him and mumble, "She's looking at you. Turn away." I just replied, "Volkswagen sprachen, ja?" I don't like this whole Depression thing. It's sad, and I'm sorry that 10% of the country has to deal with that. I know everyone there this morning would rather be working that in that horrid line. Except maybe that crazy lady, who I'm not even convinced had a reason to be there. I think maybe she just liked the audience. Self-employment may not qualify me for unemployment checks, but at least I work from home, I guess, where the only crazy person is me. I don't have a crucifix, but I have plenty of garlic.

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	GtownGuy   mon mar 01 2010 at 11:31 am         ·  Brigid, your description of the out-of-touch woman in front of you immediately made me wonder if she is that woman who just threw her hat into the local mayoral race... Also, just to be sure, you do know that it is the employer, not the employee, who pays into the unemployment funds on behalf of the employee. Good to know the insurance is there; but, without it, the employer could theoretically RAISE the pay rate for his employee - which may be why the self-employed are exempt from paying Unemployment Insurance, kind of assuming they are socking more of their own income away.
	9003tri   mon mar 01 2010 at 2:39 pm         ·  10% ??????? and, there were wepons of wmp's in iraq. 10% is just the number drawing unemployment. anyone that has drawn out their unemployment are not counted. as, poeple who are self employed and out of work. are not cunted. neither are people who work for cash. the actual number is most likely closer to 15%. and, kentucky's members in the senate could care less about the people they are supposed to be representing. your reps love to vote us into huge debt with usless wars. and, the bail outs to wall street. but, help the average guy?? hell no. you folks in kentucky elected them. i have no one to blame but the voters of kentucky for that.
	brigid kaelin   mon mar 01 2010 at 4:45 pm         ·  You're right on, GtownGuy. 9003tri, I totally agree that the number is much higher, especially since I am one of the self-employed folks, and plenty of my friends who are also self-employed are unemployed for sure -- and not being counted among the 10%. No need to get so accusatory though ... not all of us voted for those guys.
	Sherry Deatrick   mon mar 01 2010 at 7:20 pm         ·  I've spent many hours at the UI office. Those folks do a great job of dealing with angry, frustrated claimants. The reason, I think,, they require you to come down there every 6 weeks (in extensions it is every 12 weeks) is to ensure that you are still alive. Otherwise, a relative or friend could keep on filing for benefit checks, even though it would be considered fraud. Reporting in once every 6 or 12 weeks is a small price to pay to get those checks. What else are ya gonna do with your time? They are doing the best they can to process the huge number of people they deal with. They treat everyone fairly and with respect, from what I've seen. My hat is off to the DES.