soundboard de cheevo

This photo was taken on one of last afternoons I spent outside with Andi in her beloved back yard about a month ago. As weak as she became, there were a few times she mustered enough strength to get up and out to take care of bathroom business and to lie in the grass, absorbing the smells and sounds of outside for as many hours as we would allow her. Gathering the strength to get back inside was not her interest after an afternoon out. Who could blame her? When I look at these last pictures, I see her as being regal and wise, like she knew the answers to the big life questions. Recently I've gone back into the digital archives to look at Andi since August 2003. She was very well-documented and it gives me a lot of peace looking back at those years, knowing how happy she was. As sad as I am for myself, I am at peace with the amazing life this dog had and I feel absolutely certain that she knows how loved she was. In her lifetime, Andi survived cancer; was the star of many house par...

Tuesday, May 8 marked the last day on this plane for one of the most beloved creatures ever to come into my life. Andi was just shy of her tenth birthday and had sadly succumbed to heart failure, common among the big breeds like the Great Dane. I met her when I met Karen in October of 1999, when she was still a very playful and goofy two-year-old and she has been a staple in my life ever since. Her decline was hard to witness and her death was a relief in that her body was just worn out, but now its my heart and Karen's that have to heal. No matter how much I tried to prepare for the reality that Andi wouldn't likely live past 10, it still doesn't seem real that she's not here anymore. She was such a steady, positive force in my life. I hope I meet up with Andi again someday. She is truly one of my greatest loves, a friend that always knew how to cheer me up with her goofy humor and the games and rituals we used to share. Anderson Louise, as I renamed her, was always ha...

First off, I know it's illegal to post this cartoon without permission. I hope if I provide a link to Mike Luckovich's Web site at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and mention that he is my favorite editorial cartoonist in the world, that I will get off the hook. As the media feast began last week in Blacksburg , Va. I immediately thought of our troops in Iraq. For thirty-three soldiers to die in one day over there gets reported, but not like these homegrown tragedies involving loose cannons and their random deadly attacks on the innocent and unassuming. - The Today show, desperate for a ratings boost, broadcast their show from Blacksburg last week. Matt Lauer said on the Laura Ingraham radio show, in so many words, that the students at Virginia Tech didn't realize the gravity of the situation until he showed up. - Wow, what a bunch of dumb asses must go to one of Virginia's most prestigious schools. Matt Lauer was probably excited that the waning "Today...

This was not choreographed. Recent kitter photos are here. Yes, I've been completely reeled it.

Pictured: Above: Gus endures the hard life while I catch up on "The Office." Below: I have grown up with cats and have never seen one stretch its hind legs out while lying down (not to mention while crossing its front paws.) It's time for bed on a week night and as I'm closing the apartment down, I gently lift each kitten with his/her bed and place them on my bed. I don't do anything to entice them to get revved up, but no matter what, between 1:00-2:00 a.m. becomes the crack hour for Gus and Maddy Lou. They chase each other around like wild rabid beasts and last night I actually saw Maddy run so fast that she was able to briefly walk vertically on the wall. I thought Tony Hawk would be impressed, but not so much my downstairs neighbor who I just saw for the first time this week and didn't make eye contact with him. I know, living in a poorly insulated building built in the teens, that I can hear everything my upstairs neighbor does from pulling a chair out t...

On the evening a March 19 a high school fantasy was realized when I saw Robyn Hitchcock the Venus 3 at the Nick, with my #1 concert companion Roy Burns, who moved back to Birmingham from Boston last month. I haven't full explained or even fully realized how fantastic the world looks when one of your closest friends goes from living 1200 miles to less than a mile from your locale. So many our institutions have been reinstated like Friday night movie night and Sunday dinner which was a tradition started and shared with our mutual friend, now Roy's wife, Liane. The most important institutions is going to shows together and now that Birmingham has exploded with worthwhile live music of late (thanks to the booking powers that Bottletree , WorkPlay , Alabama Theater and sometimes The Nick) we have started catching up on seven years worth of missed opportunities. When I saw Robyn Hitchcock's name in the Birmingham Weekly I thought it had to be a misprint. He has always been a fa...

Tuesday, March 20 marked birthday 35 for me. I guess I'm supposed to feel weird about being closer to 40 than 30, but I don't. Age isn't a number I can do anything about so I don't think about it a lot. I know people in their 60s who act like they're 25 and I know people in their 30s who act elderly. It's all the attitude and outlook I say. Other important 1972 dates January 5 -- NASA announces the development of the space shuttle February 16 -- Wilt Chamberlain scores 30,000th NBA point March 8 -- First flight of the Goodyear blimp March 16 -- John Lennon and Yoko Ono are served with deportation papers April 3 -- The first ever Mobile phone call is placed (it must have been the same size as a stereo receiver from the same era) November 14 -- The Dow Jones Industrial average closes above 1000 for the first time. And some more important yearly facts: * Eleven Israel Athletes were murdered by Arab Gunman at Munich Olympics (a fantastic documentary was relea...

Maddy Lou and Gus loved spending the weekend with their Aunt Clare in Norcross, Ga.; everything but the beagles who they are still a bit unsure about. During the day while the dogs were in the yard, the kittens ran up and down the carpeted stairs non-stop and loved exploring every nook and crany of the spacious house. They have learned to treat it like a second home as I have. Their favorite pasttime, as these photos illustrate, is staring out or sleeping in the second story window sill in the guest bedroom. They have been able to see birds at eye level and look down at beagles and neighbors speaking a foreign language -- two sources of non-stop entertainment. In interesting feline developments, Gus has gained almost a pound in the three weeks since I've had him and he has started cleaning Maddy (she has cleaned him since about day two.) They eat like ravenous bear cubs and love their toy mice covered in fake fur. Gus's are also changing from little kitten button eyes to real ...

Clare and I drove to Macon, Ga. Friday night, March 9, the legendary Loretta Lynn. She played at the Macon City Auditorium to an enthused crowd of about 500. I was impressed, but not surprised to see everyone from spiky -haired college kids to women well into their seventies into the crowd. Loretta is still feisty although limited physically by a shoulder injury that left her seated for much of the show. The highlights were her classics like "Fist City,""One's on the Way,""Don't Come Home a Drinkin ,""You're Looking at Country,""Honky Tonk Girl," and of course her signature "Coal Miner's Daughter." Lynn's granddaughter Taylor helped her " MeeMaw " out by an energetic rendition of "Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown" off the stellar 2004 album "Van Lear Rose." Lynn and her back-up singers performed a chill bump inspiring A Capella version of "How Great Thou Art" that beautifully...

Not having cable has it's advantages. I do miss Bravo and the Food Network as well as "The Daily Show" and "Best Week Ever," but those joyous nuggets are few and far between. The cable industry is an evil unregulated monopoly and since I can't afford it, it makes me feel better to just state that fact to help back myself up. To ease the pain of the four decent channels I get with the trusy rabbit ears, I have joined Netflix and couldn't be happier with finally catching up with movies I missed, from recent releases to not-so recent releases that have been on my 'to do' for quite a while. I will rate them best to worst and encourage my reading audience to watch some of these if they haven't already. (WARNING -- potential spoilers throughout!) 1.) The Squid and the Whale (2005) -- This is the best movie I have seen in a year's time, maybe more. It is the autobiographical story of director Noah Baumbach as a child in New York during his par...

Maddy Lou and Gus have been with me for two weeks now. I feel like I have had them for months. They are such a bonded pair that usually it seems like I'm odd woman out, but that's okay. The kittens do everything together. They turn into freakazoid cats at about 2:00 a.m. most nights. They sleep at the same time and usually in the same bed (made for one cat). They eat at the same time (from the same bowl), drink water at the same time and sometimes use the litter box one right after another. Maddy goes back and forth between acting like Gus's littermate or acting like his mother. She cleans him and gets very anxious if he is separated from her and can hear him meow and can't find him. She's a good big sister and I am lucky, satisfied and grateful to have an apartment that now feels like a home thanks to these two. More recent photos of the kitters are here.

Today Andrea Bridges would have been 35. She is 19 days older than me and I think she always used to feel just a bit superior to me because of that. I remember the the year we turned 16 very well because she was lucky enough to have gotten an Audi Coupe for her birthday. With red leather seats and a tape player, it was a lot of car and a lot of speed for a teenager. We spent many nights together driving around Auburn, listening to music full blast and getting her older sister to buy us beer. There was one night when we were out with a car full of friends and Andrea got the Coupe, renamed the Satellite, past 100 m.p.h. on Shug Jordan Drive. Andrea loved that car and since I didn't have one and would never have anything half as nice as that Audi, I loved it too. It was bad ass freedom. The car lasted until our first year of college at Montevallo then met a mysterious fate. It was followed by an equally excellent vintage Jeep Grand Wagoneer that took us on many road trips up to the...

The Audi Coupe looked exactly like this, probably a 1984 model. The Jeep Wagoneer looked exactly like this, probably a 1988 model.

Monday was Presidents' Day, a typically uneventful holiday in my 30-some-odd years, but this one was different. I woke up at the unusually early hour of 8:00 a.m. (I work at night so I sleep late), called Shelby County Humane Society to inquire about a boy kitten I had seen on their Web site the previous day. His pound name was Ren and he was all ears (literally). Reminding me of a young Miles, the orange tabby who I no longer live with, I instantly knew he was the one. My sister graciously agreed to drive down to Columbiana with me, a 30-minute trek down treacherous Highway 280. When we got down there, Ren was brought out and was even smaller than I had imagined. When I asked about a gray tabby boy kitten, there wasn't one at the pound at that time, but one of the attendants came out with a beautiful seven-month-old girl named Bertha. The minute I saw her I wanted her -- her green eyes and beautiful markings were irresistable. An hour later I was home with two kittens who had ...

I don't know where all the hilarious video is coming from, but I can't resist reposting it. This was a laugh out loud moment from this past week's episode of "The Soup" on E! Entertainment Television. For those of you who haven't seen the preview, this is a reinterpretation of the trailer for the horror movie, "The Messengers." Posting videos isn't my new uncreative way to stay on top of my blog. These gems have just been too good to pass up.

American Idol has proved that folks in Alabama know how to get down (uh, yeah!). This is an actual commercial from a Montgomery, Alabama furniture store originally named Montgomery Flea Market. It has been on the Ellen show and has broadcast on WSFA according my sources by home. Growing up in Auburn, this station was our nearest NBC affiliate. When I was in high school there was a commercial starring a special needs super hero named Super Burrhead. His catch phrase was "Good credik, bad credik, no credik at all!" and he became a cult hero of sorts at AHS. I Googled him, but he has faded away into obscurity and has probably retired his superman tights by now.

This hilarious little homemade gem mixes the brilliance of low budget, but appreciatable early 1980s videos with Kids In the Hall-style humor. Everytime I see it I laugh to tears. (****WARNING*****Be prepared for some profanity those of you that are bothered by such.)

While randomly scrolling around the Web site of a local entertainment magazine a couple of weeks ago, I thought I was briefly hallucinating to see Yo La Tengo's name. I thought for a second, it must be a misprint. Surely they weren't playing in Birmingham. They've never played in Birmingham. Seven years ago best friend Roy and and I drove to Atlanta to see them at the Tabernacle and the show was sold out. Later that night a crazy dog belonging to my sister's then roommate tried to attach Roy, tearing a hole in his shirt. My sister lived in the hood at the time. It wasn't a very good night. The show was crowded, frustratingly so with two bartenders to work a crowd of at least 200. The opening act wasn't worth mentioning and I don't even care how un-arty and out-of-touch it is to say you don't give a shit about free-form jazz. It sucked, made my ears hurt and eyes want to bleed because of the mind reverberations caused by their clarinet craziness. Yo La T...

Saturday, January 13 provided an opportunity to shake off the winter cobwebs and experience another imbodiment of The Birmingham Sound at Bottletree. Roscoe Robinson, Roszetta Johnson, Leon McMillan and others provided us a fine night of soul and the audience, while smaller than the first show, was plenty enthused (as Sara Leah Miller shows in the bottom picture.) More pictures are here.

The landlord says it was built in the 19 teens. It's definitely the nicest one-bedroom apartment I have seen in Birmingham and it will be nicer when I get some critters. The quietness is deafening at the moment.