For the first time, and probably for the last time, I accepted a book for review. In general, I’m not keen on the idea of ARCs and so forth, for the same reason I don’t do challenges. I simply don’t want someone telling me what to read. As soon as I promise to read something, it feels like a school assignment. No longer pleasure, but obligation.
Category Archives: Ann Arbor
Matrimony, by Joshua Henkin
Rock Band 101: update
Here in Ann Arbor we have a wonderful summer festival called Top of the Park. Every night for three weeks in a row (!) there is live music until it gets dark. Then they raise a big movie screen and show a movie like The Wizard of Oz. And it’s all completely free, and everyone comes down and mills around and runs into old friends and gets some food and enjoys the music. And tonight on the “Grassrootz Stage” guess who played their first gig? Rock Band 101!
A mommy moment
So, here in Ann Arbor Mich we have our very own Rock Band School. It’s run by this guy, whom I’ve known since he was a little kid running around with my best friend’s younger brother. Rock Band School is pretty neat. They offer private and group (i.e. rock band) lessons. They arrange gigs, they have workshops on how to promote your band, how to set up your stuff on the stage, how to feed the band for $10 (“nutrition for starving musicians”) and how to withstand what they euphemistically call “the pressures” of being a rock star. :)
In defense of Lauretta Codrington
This isn’t a current events blog — hell, this blog isn’t even current — but we had a current event here that I can’t let go by without a comment.
Lauretta Codrington hit the national news last week when she a) was one of two holdout jurors who voted not to convict a young man of murder, resulting in a mistrial, and b) went public with her reasons why. To say she’s been “criticized” for her decision, well, that’s putting it mildly. She even had to take down her website because some of her clients were getting hate mail.
I heart my vet
Earlier this year, our cat Peter was diagnosed with diabetes. Lethargic, thirsty, peeing everywhere — the diagnosis was a no-brainer. The treatment, however, was not. Remember Bill, the wonderful, hilarious vet who removed a growth off our dog’s leg and kept it in a jar? Well, we got to know Bill a whole lot better last spring, because Peter turned out to be insulin-resistant. We upped the dose, and upped the dose, and upped the dose… Eventually we switched to a different type of insulin (human insulin, believe it or not — we’ve always suspected that Peter thought he was one of us, and now we know for sure ;) ) and that finally did the trick. Upping the dose is nerve-wracking because too much insulin can lead to coma, brain damage and death. Whereas too little insulin merely leads to lethargy and thirst and peeing on the floor.
Trying to be virtuous
. . . but it ain’t easy.
In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and get some much-needed exercise at the same time, I’ve been trying to bike more and drive less. This summer I’ve been biking around town quite a bit, and learning a lot in the process.
The problem of goodness
I wouldn’t be surprised if half of Ann Arbor wrote blog posts this week with the same title. It’s that time of year again when our “community read” program is in full swing. This year the book is Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder. And last Thursday the whole town turned out in droves to hear Mr. Kidder give a lecture at the community college. Oh how I love Ann Arbor!
