The Summer Obsession List

1. My iPod. It's not new, but it's new to me. I love it so much that I am damned close to having sex with it.

Things I am putting on my iPod today:

• Robert Earl Keen - Walking Distance, Gringo Honeymoon, No Kinda Dancer
• Macy Gray - The Trouble With Being Myself
• The Mavericks - Greatest Hits
• The Gourds - Shinebox
• XTC - Nonsuch
• Ken Nordine: Word Jazz
• The The - Dusk
• Parliament - Tear The Roof Off 1974-1980
• Brave Combo - The Hokey Pokey

and several compilations I probably picked up in the $3 bin at Ross:

• The Edge of Rock and Cutting Edge (yeah, in 1990!) with songs by Syd Straw, Mary's Danish, The Lemonheads, Michael Penn, The Sugarcubes, Jellyfish, and The Church, among others
• Rock On - with songs by Alice Cooper, Golden Earring, Heart, Cheap Trick, Meat Loaf, and...Foreigner!
• Let's Go Zydeco!

and only the very hippest for the kiddos:

• Joe McDermott - Great Big World and Everywhere You Go (note to folks with kids: Joe's song "Baby Kangaroo" will get your children out of WHATEVER horrible sullen fit-throwing mood they have worked themselves into. I promise.)
  
• The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs For Bumpy Wagon Rides
• They Might Be Giants: No!

My first foray into iTunes yesterday resulted in my purchasing the following (don't hate; it's summer music time, damn it!):

• The Dixie Chicks - Taking The Long Way
• Pink- "Stupid Girls" and "Get This Party Started"
• Gwen Stefani - "Hollaback Girl"
• Gnarls Barkley - "Gone Daddy Gone" and "Crazy"
  
• Kirsty MacColl - "In These Shoes"

2. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. This obsessively detailed exploration of the minutiae of three presidental assassinations (Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) manages to be extremely interesting, hysterically funny, touching, and enraging.

Who knew that Robert Todd Lincoln, Abe's son, was present at not only his father's death, but just happened to be standing around when Garfield and McKinley got shot, too? And that Charles Guiteau, who shot Garfield, was the product of an upstate New York sex cult run by the Oneidans, later to be the folks who brought you your china? Truly fascinating stuff.

Sarah is the daughter my mother wishes she had had. (And my mother LOVED this book, and wrote Sarah to volunteer to drive her around next time she wants to take a trip like this.)

3. This pasta salad:

• 16 oz cooked whole wheat pasta
• 1 cup toasted and chopped walnut pieces
• 1 cup crumbled Feta cheese
  
• 1 cup finely chopped red onion
• 3 cups chopped baby spinach leaves
• 1/2 cup Girard Champagne Vinaigrette (the one in the triangle bottle)
• salt and pepper

Mix. Toss. Yum. Eat constantly over the next several days. Put on three pounds. Don't care.

4. Shaun of the Dead. It's on like three times a day on HBO, and I watch it every time. Don't forget to kill Phillip!

5. Sienna Miller's shag. (No, not Jude Law; her haircut.)




6. Typing this blog at the expense of time with my children. Must...go...play...dolls!

You'll notice "cleaning the garage," "weight training," "drinking less," and "increasing fiber intake" are not on this list. Truly, I'm very into these things as well. Or, I will be soon. I swear.