Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers

Last week, Feller and I went down to Santa Cruz for a Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers concert. I’ve written a bit before about how much I love seeing my favorites in concert, and this was no exception. RCPM is up there in my top three favorite bands, and I haven’t had a chance to see them perform in years. Roger Clyne consistently gives great, energetic performances, and I always leave the show feeling revved up and revitalized. Feller has started coming with me when there are shows I want to see, and it’s fun to share the music I love with him.

I haven’t listened to RCPM on a regular basis for a few years; I didn’t love two of their recent albums and haven’t even listened to their newest, but this concert took me right back to being 22 on a beach in Mexico hearing them live for the first time. My buddy and I drove down to Rocky Point on a whim, after seeing Cross Canadian Ragweed in Tucson, who announced they were playing in Mexico the following week. We didn’t have a hotel or plan, and we discovered that this concert was a huge fucking event. We found the one room still available around the corner from the concert venue and got down to partying.

CCR was great; they always, always were, which is why I was so heartbroken when they broke up. But RCPM? Oh, god, they were MAGICAL. I knew some of their music because I worked in a sports bar that had The Refreshments on the jukebox, but even the stuff I didn’t know felt familiar and wonderful. I am pretty sure there weren’t any fireworks that night, but that feeling you get when you see fireworks is so strong in my memories that I have to remind myself he was only singing, “The kids are lighting firecrackers/Boom, boom, boom” and that it wasn’t actually happening.

After that night, I was hooked. I saw RCPM anytime they played in Tucson and as many times in Phoenix as I could. I saw them in Rocky Point another three times, always as part of a fun road trip with the same buddy. They were the soundtrack to my life in the first few years after I graduated college; when I didn’t know what was going on or where my life was headed, I turned to Roger who just seemed to GET ME. And the concert last week just took me right back there, reminding me of all the fun I had while listening to this band.

I’m In Seattle!

First of all, National Readathon Day is on Saturday!! I’m over halfway to my goal, and I would LOVE your support! Because who doesn’t love books and literacy? Please make a donation over here. I’ll love you forever.

Feller and I are on the second leg of our Portland-Seattle-Portland vacation, and so far it’s been great. We spent the past few days hanging out in Beaverton, Oregon and not doing much. We discovered a Fred Meyer down the street from our hotel, which is sort of like an even BETTER version of Target, if you can believe it. Needless to say, we engaged in some light retail therapy and grocery shopping, since our room had a teeny tiny kitchen. We also discovered the 24 hour delights of WinCo, and their crazy huge bulk section. These two stores are certainly making a good case for Oregon being a pretty decent place to live.

On our first full day in the Portland area, we went to a Fred Meyers & picked up some important travel essentials. Namely, these bangles. #NAB #needabracelet #Portland #vacation

A photo posted by @amysaysread on Jan 15, 2015 at 3:15pm PST

I also discovered that I wasn’t quite as prepared for the amount of rain we were going to be doing with as I thought as I was. I brought my umbrella from home, but then I misplaced it somewhere between home and the hotel. Turns out, I had just put it in a different bag and forgot. But not before I bought a new one! And a raincoat! (My first raincoat ever. It’s like one more step to being a Real Adult.)

Actually Important Portland Purchases: rain gear. #vacation #Portland #raining

A photo posted by @amysaysread on Jan 18, 2015 at 2:21pm PST

Turns out the raincoat came in real handy when we hiked up Multnomah Falls. It wasn’t raining most of the day, but it started to as we came back down the mountain, and it was certainly nice to have the protection when we were walking by the falls.

That was the only Big Thing we’ve done since we arrived, but I think we both needed some time to relax and recharge and recover from Life. Life’s been exhausting recently, and we were ready for a break. We have, however, reached the point where we have to start making the most of our days and Doing Things. We were gonna try to go to Ecola State Park yesterday, but after the ass kicking the Falls gave us the day before, we decided to take it easy. (Also, we got up kind of late, surprising exactly no one who knows us.) So it was to Seattle we came, and we got here just in time for me to get in a nice run in the neighborhood around our hotel.

Guess where I got to run tonight #vacation #Seattle #SpaceNeedle #running #writeandrun31

A photo posted by @amysaysread on Jan 19, 2015 at 5:42pm PST

Not a bad way to greet a new city. Also, it seems the #writeandrun31 is turning me into one of those weirdos who looks forward to working out. Except for one Fuck It Day and a few days where I was sick, I’ve been sticking with my goals, even on days when I was really not feeling it or thinking that it’d be okay if I skipped. Like today. I was not going to go for a run, but we got checked into our hotel a couple blocks from the Space Needle right before sunset, and off I went.

Anyways, we’ve got a lot of stuff we want to do and see in the next couple of days. We’re only in Seattle until sometime on the 22nd, and there’s a lot to do! I, in particular, want to see the library.

So How’s Married Life Treating You?

This is a question I get A LOT, and while I don’t really know what sort of answer people expect (“pretty shitty, actually”?), I am thrilled to be able to answer honestly that it’s AMAZING and I HIGHLY recommend it.

Nothing has really changed in any sort of substantial way between Feller and I, but there’s something just … GREAT about knowing that this is it. We’re stuck with each. We’re both fully committed to the long haul. I mean, we both were before we got married, but now, it’s OFFICIAL. And it’s so cool. And weird. And wonderful.

I was asked this question three times today, and I got to tell people about how we had just been talking the night before about how happy we were to be together. How wonderful our relationship is and how glad we are to have found each other.

Our marriage is still new enough that we get congratulated at other people’s birthday parties, and, if given the opportunity, we will both happily talk about the wedding and being married and other gacky love stuff. It’s pretty great.

Two Years Going Strong

Almost a month ago, Feller and I celebrated the second anniversary of our first date. We took the convertible to Santa Cruz for a lovely dinner out, some wine tasting and general exploring.

We had gone wine tasting in Santa Cruz the weekend before, and found Wine Tasting Wonderland. We did six tastings all without getting in our car, and while Feller doesn’t love California wines (and I must agree; South African wines are yummier), we had a great time and bought some delicious wines that are a little bit classier than the Two Buck Chuck we normally drink.

For our anniversary, we did a couple other tastings, trying to find wines we hadn’t tried before and picked up a couple more bottles. That’s how we roll.

We also visited the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, which was just SO COOL. They have one of six complete blue whale skeletons in the world, a research lab that has dolphins you can watch play, some aquariums with awesome sea life, including a shy octopus and shark egg cases, and an awesome touch pool where we got to PET A SHARK. A REAL LIVE SHARK. It was sleeping and not very large, but still, I TOUCHED A DANG SHARK. It was weird! And cool! And I did ask if it would suddenly wake up and eat me (apparently not).

We tried really hard to find the Natural Bridges, but that didn’t work out, and that’s okay. Next time. Maybe we’ll get a map. But the weather was beautiful, perfect for having the top down, and I got to have a couple days away from regular life with my favorite person.

Engaged!

In case you didn’t already know, Feller and I have decided to enter into Marital Bliss together. You know … eventually. Neither of us are in any big hurry to get it done, and while I also don’t think there’s much reason for a long engagement, Feller wants to wait until I’m done with my degree. So we’re looking at getting hitched about a year – a year and a half from now. And before I get any unwanted advice or any feelings are hurt about anything having anything to do with a wedding, we’re probably just going to run and away and not tell anyone until after it’s over. We just have too many people in too many hemispheres of the globe to tell anyone, “Hey bitches, this is where we’re getting married, you better shell out or miss out.” It’s just easier this way. Plus, we’d rather save the money that we’d spend on a wedding for a several kickass parties where ever our loved ones are or to move or to have an awesome vacation together. Neither of us care about that one day.

Feller asked me about rings in September/October, so I’ve known this was coming for some time. Unfortunately, we had some complications with the ring that caused him to put it off (apparently, you CANNOT send diamonds from South Africa to the US. You just can’t). Just when we had decided to look into other ring options and get engaged when we go to Hawaii in May, another ring complication arose, which meant that we will end up with a beautiful, amazing, meaningful ring that I will love forever … that wouldn’t be ready until several months after our Hawaii vacation, if then. Because shipping diamonds overseas is HARD, y’all (seriously, if any of y’all know how to get diamonds from the UK to California, we’d SUPER DUPER appreciate it if you’d let us know).

Anyways, Feller and I got home from a bar a couple Fridays ago, started talking about the ring and bemoaning how long this getting engaged thing is taking. Next thing I know, Feller is down on one knee in our bedroom, surrounded by all our dirty laundry and asking me to marry him. SERIOUSLY. Seriously spontaneously asking me to marry him, no planning, no ring, no nothing, and it was AMAZING. Beautiful. And as romantic as I could have possibly hoped for.

And while we wait for our diamonds, he bought me an amazingly beautiful $25 CZ ring off Amazon. I love it so much, and I can bang it around all I want at work without worrying about hurting it. Because it was TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.