European Oils

A truly uninspired day going on here. No rain, but it's been alternating between sunny and cloudy. We've been kinda lazing around the house, doing laundry, clearing shows off the TiVo and reading.

Things are coming together for the Hilton Head trip. We're planning to leave after Deb's mom gets home from work, around midnight Friday. We can't check into our condo until Sunday, so the plan is to drive the approximately 13 hours to Charleston, where we're staying at a hotel Saturday night. Matt, Tricia and the boys are meeting us there. We should get there in the afternoon, so we can relax and hang by the pool and then go out to dinner. Then we hit the road by 10 Sunday and it should only take us an hour or two to get to HH. I'm bringing the clubs so Matt and I can hit the links once or twice while we're there.

Friday was a weird one. I had planned to run at lunch, but it got really dark and started pouring so I ended up just waiting a day to run and doing some leg machines at the gym for the first time in about five years. I kept the weights low, so I wasn't too sore the next day. Around 5, this isolated storm system whipped through a stretch of Beverly and Danvers that included our neighborhood. The storm ripped trees out of the ground, knocking down power lines and causing plenty of destruction in a short period of time. We lost power and Route 1A was blocked off by emergency crews so I had to take the long way around to get home. We ended up losing power for seven hours. Deb, her mom and the girls had gone to run some errands, so I grilled up some hot dogs and sausages for dinner.

I had to leave around 8 to meet OJ at the Paradise to catch the Destroyer show. It was a light crowd due to the lack of college students and the general obscurity of Destroyer, which is a one-man production by Dan Bejar, who also plays with the New Pornographers. We had a beer at the Dise Lounge bar and then caught the last five songs or so from Iran, a band that is probably most notable for including Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, but he was likely on tour with his main band. But these guys sounded good. We were hoping Bejar would bring a full band so we could hear the songs with full instrumentation, but he opted for the acoustic approach. Which was cool. He played about 70 minutes worth of songs from throughout his career, which has spanned 10 albums over the last 14 years. Very intimate show, with I'd say maybe 100 folks in attendance.

I hightailed it home and was pleased to see the streetlights on before I turned onto our street, and sure enough, the power was back. Yesterday morning, I went out for a run and had to turn around because my normal route was blocked off by work crews clearing the fallen trees and branches. There were tree service trucks all over town doing similar work. I got a 6-miler in before it got too hot. We then headed to Briggy's in Newtonville for the annual Webnoize BBQ. OJ, Amy and baby Chloe (who looks just like her dad, minus the beard) were there, as were Ric, Karen and Max, and Lee, Mary Helen and the boys. It was pretty damn hot, in the mid-80s, but Dave and Beth had a slip-and-slide and a kiddie pool set up, so the kids were able to stay cool. We were there until after 3 and then headed back to Beverly for a birthday party hosted by our friends the Ploszays. They rented a bouncy tent and there were a bunch of kids there, so the girls had a blast. We hung out there for several hours before finally heading home.

So after all that, we decided to keep it low-key today. Although Deb's already begun packing for the trip, so that when Friday rolls around, we'll be ready to go. As I noted previously, she's a good organizer.