Audio Treat

Yay! I have a husband at home again for a few days! I was happy to show off my super technological skills with the iPod. Interesting fact - there are now 662 songs on the thing, but, when it plays random selections, about every 3rd song is by Johnny Cash, Elvis, or the Million Dollar Quartet. It seems that our our music library is begging for a little diversification!

On that note, I'm going to pause and recommend the Million Dollar Quartet album for a refreshing musical experience. It was an impromptu 1956 recording of a jam session involving Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins (although it seems that none of the songs featuring Johnny Cash made the CD, but perhaps he's still in the background, and he was there long enough for the photo session). The chit chat and interaction of the musicians between songs is so interesting and brings new life to some old favorites. My favorite track is "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", but there are many gems among the 40 (or so) tracks on the album! I've found that it's a great sound track for washing dishes!

A visitor among us!

This week we had, for the first time since I've lived here, a visitor from Canada who came - not to attend a wedding - just to hang out! It seems that we girls had developed a regular habit of throwing weddings. Now that maddness is over and Cousin Jon, with a break in the cousin wedding schedule, braved the desert in July and headed down to spend a week with us! We've enjoyed it! There has been much playing of video games, a little poker, sleeping in and lounging about, as well as some great conversations, catching up, and consumption of such fine-dining delicasies as tamales and kabobs!

Here are we are:

Out for dinner: Jon, Nate, Jo, Bon, Amy, Beck

Before the kabob carnage: Dinner at Jo & Nate's

Lance and Jon enjoy a deep discussion about retro video games

The rest of us smile and nod

Jo and Phoebe demonstrate the power of treats

Their happy poker faces before my begginer's luck kicked in

Then, tonight, I dragged everyone out to the dust, weeds, and mosquitoes of our acreage and future homesite - a little off the beaten path, but the tamales and Coronas were tasty! It was nice to watch the day fade away and imagine what it will look like from our backporch! It can't happen soon enough!

Our very informal picnic-in-the-pasture

Tomorrow some of the crew heads up for some camping/hiking in beautiful Stanley, then Jon heads out for the next stop on his roundabout road trip. We've loved visiting with him and wish him safe travels and happy trails! But now we are spoiled and will want to have company more often!

eureka!

There are now songs on the iPod, and no calls to big sis were required to accomplish this. Wow! Where has apple been all my life? There was very nearly no thought required!

Here is the problem - tomorrow I will buy accessories. And, I suspect, this will only be the first of many trips to do so. Shocking? No. Potential for monetary hemoraging? Great. Huge. But I will feel very urban and mildly hip until something new comes out.

The iTunes gift card is still locked in a drawer.

But one thing is true - this is a much higher level of technological sophistication than the last electronic
device I purchased....

And so it begins...

Here I am, blogging. I think I was feeling a little left out having to comment anonymously on other blogs. No more being a spectator! I'm as wary of this as I am of the new iPod that I bought this weekend and have only looked at. There is nothing particularly sinister about either the blog or the iPod, it just feels like crossing over a bridge that will inevitably blow up behind me. Kind of like once-upon-a-time when I got my first cell phone - even then it was a bit crushing to know that, try as I might, I would not ever revert to the pre-cell phone me. I suspect the same is true of iPods and blogging.