Drive Time

Well kids after a stormy night with no electricity, we're going to hit the road to the beach. Traveling with a toddler is tough so Sophie...well Sophie has a motion sickness issue. She can make it about 20 miles before she loses her lunch. But we're armed with a preschool prescription for nausea and a Kindle full of Bubble Guppies so look out Nags Head, the Sughrues are on our way!




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Little Girls with Light Up Shoes

Kali, our super sweet nanny, bought Sophie a pair of light up jelly sandals for Easter. They are pink with purple butterflies attached. And the kid is CRAZY for them. She loves shoes in general really. At my grandmother's funeral, she actually chased a couple of little girls down just so she could grab their feet and get a closer look at their shoes.

My grandmother Ruby loved fancy shoes too. I always said she never met an animal print or bedazzled flat that didn't come home with her. So this is for Ruby and for Sophie, who inherited her great grandmother's love of fancy fancy FANCY shoes!



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Buttermaker!

The more I interact with teens and tweens, the more I realize I'm the music equivalent of some character Walter Matthau would play in a movie. You know "Hey kid, stay outta my yard!" while wearing bermuda shorts and a dirty fishing hat.

When I hear 13 year old girls talking about 'punk' and 'goth', it is all I can do not to scream "But they're doing it WRONG!" And just when I start feeling especially judgey, I wonder what the parents of my college friends must have thought of me in my birkenstocks, broomstick skirts and Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit T-shirts.

Whatever, they are still doing it wrong.



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Summer of '69

This is absolutely, positively 100% true...

I know the guy who yelled "Play Summer of '69" when Ryan Adams was playing the Ryman Auditorium in 2002. For the record, he knows the difference between Ryan Adams and Bryan Adams. He just thought it would be HILARIOUS to request that song during Ryan Adams acoustic set. Ryan Adams was not amused...not even slightly amused. I bet Bryan Adams loves that story.



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You Ol' Boogie Fool

My college roommate Gerald is honest to Pete the funniest person I have ever met. I can't tell you exactly how many times he made me laugh until I cried, snorted, spit a drink out of my nose or peed a little. I can tell you it happened pretty much daily. Your funniest joke or coolest story would get a "ah sookie sookie now" and when we were in the car together he usually told at least one pedestrian to step out and meet Jesus.

Gerald could out Aretha Aretha in Karaoke. I'm pretty sure there is a 'studio production' video out there somewhere with him singing Funky Cold Medina on spring break in one of those "record your own video" booths. And he would break into Niki Hoeky with a really nice Soul Train line dance on command.

I miss him almost every day and haven't seen him in almost 20 years. But whenever I'm driving along and someone looks like they are going to just keep on walking through the crosswalk even though the sign is clearly flashing "Don't Walk", I politely invite them to step out and meet Jesus.



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