rustypants speaks

“for what am i being punished?”

today, harper and i were given a planning day – subs were requested for our classes and we were jubilant over the prospect of catching up on paperwork and planning, not to mention being out of the room for the day.

but i’ve gotta tell ya: this is how i looked and felt at the end of the day. too many people bothering us, too many kids acting up, too many questions, too many new problems that had to be dealt with instead of planning or grading. i’d love to say that it was a great day but i’d be full of crap.

how long til christmas break??

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edit: to be fair, things did get accomplished today – it was good to have the day to get those things squared away, but the original intent was for planning and because of constant interruptions, that did not happen. i’m tired of spending so damn much time up at school never getting caught up. classroom 305: my room // my prison.

i confess that back in junior high

i owned pat benatar‘s get nervous album.

and loved shadows of the night.

this past saturday was our 17th anniversary and we decided to celebrate pensacola style.

we slept in that morning (always a good thing!) and lounged around a bit before taking off. we gathered the dog and his stuff up and took off in the car for the afternoon.

our first stop was J’s Pastry Shop on the east side of town (about a dozen blocks from my school). J’s has been rumored to have the best sweets and pastries in all of p-cola and lise and i have to concur: if you’re in the area and you neglect to stop in on this icon of our town and treat yourself to a sweet, well you’re just plain crazy, i reckon. a couple maple walnut pastry thingies kept us held over while we skipped lunch.

we then took a drive around this area as it’s near escambia bay. almost all of the waterfront is taken by houses but it’s a pretty drive and the houses are gorgeous. there’s a dog park on this bay as well but i didn’t understand at the time that it was several miles further south than where we were. oh, well – dolby didn’t complain when we took him to my school playground and ran him around with the frisbee and sticks.

he’s a good dog and we love having him around. he loves his frisbee (to death) and running around like a nut is a specialty of his.

we got him plumb wore out (like my southern-speak here?) and hung out together a bit longer before cruising around a bit more and heading home to drop him off.

then the real party could begin.

we gathered all our beach things and hit the road to p-cola beach. we’ve been sad lately because of the early sunsets that prevent us from visiting the beach as much during the week. being on central time here has messed with our internal clocks – the sun sets around 4:45 and lise works til 5:00, so we’re limited for the next few months in when we get to sit and watch the sun go down and the waves crashing.

but watch we did – and get in, too.

the locals are funny in the way that temperatures hit the low 70′s and everyone says, “oh, beach season is over. bummer.” and they abandon the gulf. me? i don’t get it. we hadn’t intended on getting into the water but the conditions were right, the shells were washing up and down the water and there just was no denying the inalienable right to strip down to one’s underpants and get into the surf in the name of a couple cool seashells. my apologies to anyone offended by my boxers.

oh, hell. deal with it.

well, the water was a bit cold and really, for all the shells floating around out there, not a WHOLE lot was caught. but we had a good time. it was overcast so our evening sunset was somewhat canceled, but it was replaced by a cooler sight: a great blue heron that has been following us around on the beach the last couple weeks.

it was back in maryland where we first fell in love with great blues. they were all over the place – they live mainly in wetland areas on the east coast and there was plenty of wetland in our location. pensacola is a semi-tropical region and has a good amount of wetland areas as well.

this heron has flown up within 10 yards of us several times in the last few weeks and it’s an awe inspiring thing to see. most herons we’ve ever even gotten within 20-30 yards of have flipped out and taken off. not this guy. the above picture was taken with him about 15 feet from where we were standing. he stood still long enough for me to take this shot and a couple blurry others, then walked off. we were also rewarded with a brief flash of color in the sky behind him before the sun disappeared for good. we spent a little time reflecting on all the things we’ve done over the last 17 years, watched the sky and the heron a bit more, then took off.

our last stop for the anniversary day was Landry’s Seafood House. we’re not rich folks and we don’t go out eating expensive chow very often, but for special occasions, you’ve got to splurge a bit. landry’s serves some delicious seafood with a very nice, attractive but informal atmosphere. service has been great each time we’ve gone and this night was no different. lise’s mahi-mahi was good and my broiled seafood platter was exceptional. topping it all off was a free piece of chocolate erection cake (ok, ok – it’s actually “chocolate eruption but we shared a huge laugh with the server when we went on lise’s birthday when she talked about another server who kept mispronouncing the name of the cake to customers – it’s stuck and we can’t stop laughing about it). this 7-layer chocolate beast came swimming in a delicious custard sauce that was out of this world.

decency laws and basic respect prevent me from posting pictures of what happened next when we got home, but you can imagine that after 17 years together, we’ve learned how to have a good time. it was a great day and it’s been a great 17 years.

can’t wait to see how the next 17 years unfold.

there are some albums i have on vinyl that have still not been released on CD and this both breaks my heart and makes me smile smugly.

i’ve been an on-again-off-again fan of chick corea since my high school years. corea is one of the most innovative jazz pianists out there – a chameleon of sorts who has changed his style often and leaves me breathless or scratching my head, depending on the album.

back in the early days of my jazz love affair (read: high school) i would frequent several used record shops in the cincinnati area (woodstock, moles, wizards, and ozarka’s all come to mind in the clifton area near UC) and look for new tunes every couple of weeks as the $$ allowed. i found corea’s Return to Forever / Romantic Warrior album on one of these trips and was amazed at the speed and precision that this jazz fusion group could execute. i had also been floored by corea’s crystal silence album with gary burton on vibes – there’s not a more relaxing jazz album i’ve ever heard than this one.
not long after this, i found the griffith park collection. it had many of the return to forever members on it (corea, lenny white, stanley clarke) along with freddie hubbard and joe henderson. reading the liner notes, i saw that this was a mostly unrehearsed album – charts were passed around and the songs were recorded in one take to preserve the spontaneity and improvisational nature of the music. i took this baby home and fired it up – whoa! it became one of my favorite jazz albums on the spot and has never fallen out of grace.

with the advent of cd’s, i have long hoped for this album to be released digitally but it hasn’t happened yet. i recorded it on my record player through my computer several years ago and recently came across the resulting cd as i was rooting through some boxes at the house – i wondered where it had gone and there was a noticeable hole in my ipod without this loaded. all the magic is still there. what a great ensemble of musicians! to hear this thing remixed and remastered for digital? that’d be some awesome stuff.
so, my wish list of LP’s yet to be released on CD:

• the griffith park collection (duh)
• time fades away by neil young (one of the few albums of his not on CD – thankfully i own this LP, too – it’s a classic if you like the off-kilter, depressed neil of the early 70′s. this sucker’s so huge that it’s got it’s own wikipedia page!)
• invitation to openness by les mccann
• live ’71 by buddy miles
• chick donald walter and woodrow by the woody herman big band

who do i have to sleep with to get these things released digitally??