the stereotypical picture from st patrick's day... this is j's, not mine. i am a bad celt, though i did have a (free) shot of tullamore dew as my inebriation progressed.

the "erin go bragh-less" sign has been replaced, as of this afternoon.

i napped again today. it was quite nice; the deck door was open and i was surrounded by cats. i woke to the phone. it was my mother, whom i haven't spoken to since a foul interaction with my father in december. we talked for two hours. about everything. we both cried a bit. it was fucking wonderful. i have been carrying so much tension about my relationship with my parents- fuck, i have two parents, both alive and nearby and relatively healthy, and i am SQUANDERING MY CHANCES TO GET TO KNOW THEM BEFORE THEY DIE- there are decades of ugliness and bullshit, mainly with my father, and none of it fucking matters. it does not fucking matter one whit. i love my parents. they are good people, good humans, and i am so grateful to have the ability to communicate with them.
i had really, really missed my mom. she is a fucking nut. i am reminded of her in so many of my own unwitting mannerisms... we turn into our parents, whether we wish to or not. every time i hear "holiday" by the bee gees i think of my mother... the 'dee dee dee dee dee' part. i think of her laugh, her scurrilous faces, the way she always placed one foot on the vanity while she did her makeup. i got my habit of walking, eating, LIVING very quickly from her. the fact that everyone who's ever met my mother likes her -to some degree- says a lot about her. (the same cannot be said, i am sorry to admit, of my father.)
talking with her today made my fucking year.
i am lucky.
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my grandmother has been moved into yet another home- this one, thank god, has 24-hour care. my grandmother is completely senile now- she has a right to be; she's 93 years old. my parents now have her cat. her "very nice filipino nurses", as my mother referred to them, are taking her to church. my grandmother was always a hellbent agnostic- raised indifferently jewish, otherwise nondenominational. i prefer to think of it as "the profile and guilt with none of the bullshit." but according to my mother, she enjoys the church services. "it gets her out" my mother said. and i can see that. perhaps that is the true (only) value of organized religion... having a semblence of community? ...although, as my mother added, "she probably sleeps through it all anyway."
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DEVENDRA BANHART! scoff not! he played "lover", "shabop shalom", "carmensita", AND a fucking bombastic version of "seahorse", so i can die even happier.

every time i tried to use the security barrier-things as a tripod i got shooed away by security. hence, blurriness.

the entire band was fucking great. totally worth taking a night off of work for. i had that moment mid-show, leaning against the wall of the showbox, grinning... this is what i fucking live here for. i still feel the novelty. i love seeing the band that supplied the soundtrack to the last 4 years of my life. for example: my home-to-work commute is approximately two 'seahorse's long.
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i bought flower (and carrot!) seeds today. when it stops being ass-cold at night i'm gonna plant me some pretty.