May 4, 2008

I guess most of you know we buried our pet guinea pig, Marley, last weekend. And although most people don’t consider guinea pigs something that one would become attached to (and that would definitely be a wrong assumption) - I miss the shit out of him! My daily ritual of getting up in the morning and/or coming home at night to be greeted by him happily assuming the position (standing at attention by his food bowl) and awaiting a treat has been marred by the vacant spot previously occupied by his cage.

I said I wasn’t going to get any more because it hurts so much when they die, so I gave away the cage and all accessories.

Well today, with willpower being tested, I spent $125 on a new cage, accessories, and 2 6-week old babies (girls) - cousins no less. Now, I just need names. I’m taking suggestions. Here’s the girls (click for full-size images):

I’m thinking maybe Phoebe Queen Sheba for this one?

Or Bambi?

They’re both exceptionally mellow and tame. And lovable - will crawl up and sit nestled in the crook of your arm. They were hand raised and not skittish.

So now Nick has dubbed me the ‘guinea pig lady’ - likened to the bird lady, or cat lady.

I don’t think so. Not even close!

In other weekend events, Nick went to Bamboozle over at Giants Stadium. Bamboozle is a 2-day music festival that features about 200+ different bands on 8 different stages. Nick and his friends got to meet several of the bands, and even hung out backstage. There was the usual crowd surfing, the unusual “wall of death” (which Nick didn’t participate in), and lots of pictures and stories. I think Nick’s gonna blog about it later this week so I’ll save the details for him.

I took full advantage of the quiet house and luxuriated - didn’t even get out of bed all day! Except for ‘call of nature’ visits. And food and drink.

I finally got around to setting up the new iPhone - deciding from the 6000+ songs I have which ones I wanted on my phone/iPod. And, satisfying the anal-retentive tendencies, had to make sure I had all the cover art for all 600+ songs I ended up with. Didn’t realize what a chore that’d be. If iTunes didn’t have it, I scoured the web for the original album covers. Hey, I don’t do shoddy work, y’all!

What better way to waste a full day! I wouldn’t consider it a waste cause I rediscovered a whole catalog of great songs I’d forgotten about. Examples:

• Mike & the Mechanics Silent Running
• Gregg Allman’s live acoustic version of Come and Go Blues

• Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence
• Tommy James’ Crystal Blue Persuasion
• Jefferson Airplane’s Embroynic Journey - to quote Nick - some ‘mad’ guitar work! Take a listen:

And can’t forget about the great PhotoShop podcasts I discovered! Now that I’m a master digital darkroomer (previously I was just a semi-master), you’ll notice the ever-so-slight (or not so slight) improvements in the images. Maybe not.

How was your weekend?

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