OK, so this might be the last of our late nights out in Boston to go to concerts for…well…a LOOOONGG time (like when our kid turns 18). But we thought we’d do it up right with Ladytron at Paradise Rock Club.

Opening for them was Datarock, which might just be the most genius “nerd rock” band since Devo. The group (from Bergen, Norway!) came on stage wearing matching red jogging suits and ray ban glasses.

They totally got the crowd involved, doing silly dances in unison (very Devo-esque!), and having people sing along and clap. They rocked the scene with cheesy casio keyboards and mini guitars. At one point, one even pulled out a saxophone and played it rather well. How can you not love a band who brings such cheesy fun, and who has song titles like “Molly Ringwald” and “Computer Camp Love”.
Apparently, they have been compared to DEVO so many times that even DEVO themselves remixed a song of theirs and have become fans of them!

myspace page for Datarock: http://www.myspace.com/datarock

They definitely got us pumped up for LADYTRON…

At this point, the not-so-good sound qualities of Paradise Rock Club started to show. Any time there are more than a few instruments playing at a time, its as if the speakers can’t handle it and the sound becomes drowned out.

That said, although we couldn’t hear very well, Ladytron put on a very good show. They played most of their songs off the new “Velocifero” album, and a few goodies from “Witching Hour”. They created a good atmosphere with flashing strobe lights that enhanced their badass/dramatic dancehall vibe. By the time they returned for an encore with “Destroy Everything You Touch”, the crowd went nuts!

We were protected by a guardian angel bodyguard, who, after finding out I was pregnant and didn’t want to get too overheated in the big crowd, found a spot for us to sit and enjoy the rest of the show in relative peace. When the show ended, he even snuck us into a “secret” exit so I wouldn’t have to push my way through the big crowd. It was so nice of him, we kinda felt like VIPS! (very important pregnant people). We even wrote to the club to thank him.

It was a Monday night and we got home at 1:30 (relatively early compared to some of our other Boston jaunts!), well worth it. But we know we can’t pull nights like this too much longer!

This weekend we’re going to New Jersey to spend forth of July with my sister and the kids. Should be fun we hope…more later!

Thanks to the wonderful generosity of my Aunt, we were able to stay in her cute little beach cottage in Dennisport for the weekend while we visited our friends who had twins.

My Aunt’s little cottage is the quintessential beach cottage-a little bungalow with bright yellow shutters within walking distance to a nice little private beach.
We enjoyed sitting on her porch and playing cards (I beat Chris at Rummy!) while listening to the sounds of summer and feeling the ocean breeze.
The Dennisport neighborhood was nice and quiet, and within walking distance to a few yummy places to eat; our two faves: Woolfies bakery (really good pies and bagels, it always smelled like cinnamon in there ), and the Sundae School, an old fashioned ice cream parlor which had excellent homemade ice cream (“the baby” wanted to eat there every day, and did (hehe!)). At least we walked off the calories!
Dennisport wasn’t too far from Hyannis, which tended to have a more “happening” nightlife and a few more restaurant selections. We drove there for dinner Friday night and had Paninis at a little Italian cafe.
On Saturday we drove to Sandwich to visit our friends Sally and Shaari. It was our first time seeing the twins-now 3 months old! Sally and Shaari are moving from Sandwich back to the Northampton area, so we went to help them out with packing if they needed it. It turns out they were farther along with packing then they thought they’d be, so we spent the morning and afternoon together and helped out a bit with the babies. They are very precious-a boy, Julien, and a girl, Charlotte. They don’t look very much alike but they were absolutely adorable and sweet! When I held Charlotte, the baby in my belly kicked her, as if to say “Hey, I wanna play with you!”.
We took some nice family photos of them at their local beach. They said they were going to miss the shoreline but were happy to be moving back to familiar territory.

Later that afternoon we stopped by the Edward Gorey museum in Yarmouth. Edward Gorey is well-known for his semi-macabre illustrations and tales (probably most popular of which would be “the Gashlycrumb Tinies”– (C is for Clara who wasted away …). The museum was really neat, and it was interesting to find out that he was a great animal humanitarian and was quite prolific in his illustrations for children’s and adult literature, television (the PBS backdrop for “Mystery” comes to mind), and even broadway (“Dracula”). The museum was inhabited by several rescued cats, one of which was larger than our fat kitty Cosmo (quite a rare thing!). He was a vast, old black and white kitty named “Ombledroom”, after a made-up character in Gorey’s Utter Zoo Alphabet. Here is the link to the Gorey house: http://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org/index.html

Sunday morning came too soon, and we waited until the evening to leave to a.) wait until the thunderstorms passed and b.) hopefully avoid excessive shoreline traffic. On the way home, we stopped by a children’s consignment shore in Hyannis that our friend Shaari had recommended we visit. We were so glad we did! Everything in the store was practically brand new because the owner would only accept items in mint condition. We were able to buy a baby Bjorn carrier, a brand new “boppy”, a nice diaper bag, and some cute baby toys (like a crinkly playmat), all for under the price of what one item would have cost at full price! This store was AWESOME! We would have bought more if our car wasn’t already stuffed from a trip to Ikea on the way down.

All in all it was a lovely weekend that passed by too quickly, but it was nice to rest by the shoreline and visit friends, and spend some alone time with Chris (not too many more months before that will end!).

In other news, as you will soon see from newly updated pics, my belly is getting HUGE and the baby is kicking me more and more each day, as if to say “Let’s get a move on!”. Sounds like I’ve got a little drill sargeant in there!

Thanks to a coworker of Chris’, we were offered last minute tickets to see author Augusten Burroughs do a live reading at Mount Holyoke college last night.

Augusten is best known for writing “Running With Scissors”, and Chris and I are both fans of his funny/dark/sad memoirs and short stories, as a matter of fact we have his whole collection.

Augusten was originally from the Northampton area, and he seemed happy to be back on familiar turf (it’s funny to be reading a well-known author and have him mention several familiar things about the Hadley area in his novels). He was very congenial and got everyone laughing, even though his subject matter was macabre.

His latest book is called ” A Wolf at the Table”, and its his darkest of memoirs, about his relationship with his father. He read a few excerpts from it and answered readers questions. One of the best responses he had was to a woman who said she identified with a lot of the tragic events in his stories (molestation, being pushed around from foster home to foster home, being abandoned by parents, etc…) and wanted to know what is the best way to write a memoir of her own, and she also wanted to know if writing about it helped him to “heal”.

He told her that he thinks the term “healing” is a bunch of psychobabble. That people never completely “heal” from things, and to try to seek absolute healing after terrible tragedies is futile. There are certain things, he said, that you will never fully heal from. The loss will feel like a huge hole in your chest at first, and you will wonder how you can possibly go on. You’ll have to rely on others to ground you at first. But then an amazing thing happens. The hole doesn’t dissapear, but you begin to develop a “musculature of the soul” around the empty spaces, and you are able to carry on with your life. He said, “I am so full of holes that I’m basically a piece of swiss cheese that can stand upright and shop. But I’m happy, because I’ve stopped trying to be “complete”, and “whole again”. I’ve simply learned how to live with the emptiness.”
His answer about where to begin writing was to start at the middle, and tell the absolute truth, as dirty and terrible as it seems. He said the best memoirs are those that are deeply honest. An embellished one doesn’t sound nearly as good as one that’s honest, even if it’s about something trite.

All in all, the talk was very inspiring and reminded me of the memoir class I was taking last year at GCC. I haven’t been writing in a while and I really need that in my life. So hopefully I can get back to the pen and notebook, no holds barred!

Went to my cousin Joey and Kristen wedding this last weekend. What was really nice about it is I got to see several cousins that I hadn’t seen in a LONG time. Kinda strange how that happens in families.  It is one of those things that when you are with the people you havn’t seen in a while you realize just how much you miss them all. So it was great I got to see my cousin Tabatha, Trisha, June and Joey and his new wife Kristen along with their respected significant others. It was a nice wedding and was really great catching up with all of them, that is what I really remember about it. My cousin Tabatha is due a few weeks earlier then Kathy so it was cute seeing them next to each other. One thing that irks me about some Family holding some sort of grudge or whatever is the communication. I wish I knew my cousin June lives in Orlando. Me and Kathy go to WDW once in a while and we could have visited. I know one thing for sure we will definitly be seeing her next time we are down. Me, Kathy, Jen and company are going to make sure we see them all soon which will be great. We spent many hours when we where young with them so it is nice to reconnect.

Well, folks, we had the “official” ultrasound yesterday and we’re happy to report everything looks A-OK. I was so nervous I hardly slept the night before, and I drank enough water to drown the titanic for the ultrasound.

The ob-gyn said-(and she said this literally too, which was funny)–that “it looks like you’re going to have a hamburger”. I know there can always be errors on these things, but Chris was jumping for joy and squeezed the living daylights out of my hand!

The ob-gyn said our little baby was “very photogenic” and she was able to get a lot of good pics (which we’ll be posting up). It was so cute, she even yawned and stretched her little arms out at one point…
She was twisted up in some funky pretzel positions and moved around A LOT…which is funny because I still don’t feel too much kicking on the inside yet.

We are so relieved that the baby looks healthy. Seeing her on the big screen made it all the more real, that this kid is coming into OUR life. Pretty damn awesome. Chris is over the moon with happiness.
A daughter…somebody please pray for me!!! 🙂

This is a very last post about the Ministry concert we saw in Montreal a few weeks ago. I have been listening to Ministry since I was in High School and when I heard they where on a farewell tour I just had to go. In recent years, front man Al Jourgensen has had some very political songs and even more of late. So we went to see them at the Metrolpolis at Montreal.

The Venue itself was great. There was a general “moshin” section and a smaller balcony section. The great thing is that after the moshin section each section rose up a foot or two letting anywhere in the place have a great view. The sound system was also top notch.

Opening for Ministry was hemlock. I was very impressed by this band. They just got a record deal after 12 years and where very excited about it. Being the first opener is tough but they managed well and where humble about it, and really had an energetic set. Not the typically music I like since it was a cross between speed metal and death metal but the fact they where talking to the audience a lot made it great.

2nd opener was Meshuggah and I was not impressed. Though they had much more songs to play the lead singer just stood in one spot the entire set. He also did not say much, call it strike 2. I am sure they are good on a CD or such but their live show, at least this time was not that good.

Ministry came on and it was just an amazing show. I don’t even know where to start but to say the band was great and Al was more then amazing. They had a multi-media screen in back of Al and they played some images to go along with the video. That made some of the political songs even more powerful. The sound was great and the band was one of the tightest we have seen. They played a lot of good songs but several older songs where not played in the first set. After what was a long time they where done and I was amazed at how quickly the time went. Luckily they came back for another set and played several of their classic songs. What was amazing is they played a LOOONG encore which was rare. They even had the guy from fear factory at one point since and no less than 6 guitarist on stage made it a night to remember.
In all I was sad it was the last time I would see Ministry but reminded me why they have been able to be around for 20+ years and still sell out venues. They just are amazing live and seem to get better and stay current to their audience.