duck-shaped pain

I went down to where my mom lives and spent the day with her and her new buddies. It was interesting, to say the least. I didn't really feel like I fit in at first, but after a few bottles of America's Great Social Lubricant, I felt right at home....

I brought my own beer (the only beer otherwise available was Budweiser), and I ended up explaining what hefeweisen was about nine different times. As the night progressed, I got less and less technical and settled on the answer, "It's like drinking a loaf of bread." Not surprisingly, no one took me up on my offer to try some. Oh well - more for me.

We were up on a hill, so we could see the fireworks put on by three different towns -- Montrose, Olathe and Ridgway. They were all going at once in different directions, so that was pretty neat.

I managed to get an evil sunburn on the drive down, just by having the sunroof on my car open. I always drive with it open, and I have never been burned this way before. But now I look much too lobster-esque for comfort.

I went into one-song-over-and-over mode on both the drive there and the drive back. Sometimes, I'll be listening to my CDs when driving and I find one song that fits my mood and the drive so well that I listen to it over and over again for hours (needless to say, I only do this when I'm alone). On the drive down, I listened to "Sugar Kane" by Sonic Youth (I hadn't heard it for a long time, and had forgotten how completely stellar it is...) and on the way back, "Deeper Into Movies" by Yo La Tengo (my favorite song of theirs).

One of my failings, I guess, as a fan of music is that I generally don't like female vocalists. I can't really pinpoint why, exactly, but it's true. This is not a hard and fast rule, thought -- most of my favorite YLT songs, such as the one above, are sung by Georgia Hubley.