The Trials and Tribulations of a Music Lover's Car

It all began two weeks ago, on the night of the 14th. We'd been experiencing torrential rains, and as a result, my road was a bit, shall we say flooded? I was on my way home from my friend Margaret's house, where Desiree and I had goofed off for a few hours following the Vassalboro grange variety show, which Margaret had organized (gotta love the bits of rural flavor thrown into my rock 'n roll lifestyle, right?) and I didn't see the water in the road until I was passing through it with a mighty splash. My car made some very unhappy noises indeed as I pulled into my yard, but I ignored them, figuring it was just wet and understandably grumpy.

The next morning was a pancake breakfast in Augusta, where it had been rumored the Maine Christian Civic League would be trying to save the souls of the poor kids on the Cony High School Civil Rights Team, whom the fundraiser was to benefit. Des and I made the drive there with no consequence -- and very little heat, which I barely registered at that early hour -- and were pleased to see that there was no aggressive or offensive evangelism going on. If the CCL was there, they managed to keep a civil tongue in their heads and leave the children alone. The drive home was not so uneventful, however. Only a mile down the road I heard those angry sounds again, and realized my car was overheating. The coolant was empty. I filled the reservoir, turned the heater on full-blast, and made it home.

Over the course of the week, the car continued to piss coolant to the extent that I had to fill the reservoir each time I wanted to go in town. The mechanic said there was a leak -- a minor fix, but it would take four hours labor to get to it, fix it, and put the car back together. He scheduled the repair for Monday, with the knowledge that I was planning to attend concerts in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut over the course of the weekend, and told me to use Leak Stop in the meanwhile, and to continue to check my coolant.

There will be more on my weekend of musical bliss later, of course, but suffice to say that my car made it to NH and then CT Friday night, where it remained in my friend Kelly's driveway all day Saturday. On Sunday I checked the coolant, topped it up, and headed for the CT show on my own, as I had to be there earlier than Kelly did, and I planned to leave for home immediately following the show. This was not to be, however. Just as I prepared to get off the expressway, my car overheated. I let it cool down, and checked my coolant -- it was full, but my heat wasn't working, which indicated that the coolant wasn't circulating. Nine miles from the venue, the car overheated again. Still, the coolant was full. I continued the final nine miles a single mile at a time, and finally arrived at the venue 45 minutes later than I had been expected. As I parked out front, my car refused to move another inch.

My options seemed bleak. Get the car fixed locally, and hope it wasn't an overly expensive repair, or have it towed the -- count 'em -- three hundred miles from the street in front of Infinity Hall to my dooryard. As it turned out, in attendance at that show was a local mechanic, who happened to specialize in Subarus. At this point I would like to give a major shout-out to Bill from Jim's Garage in Canaan, CT, because he actually left the concert hall during the show to take a peek under the hood and reassure me that my engine didn't smell cooked.

The next day, the car was running well enough for me to drive it to Jim's Garage, and Bill fit me in between his regularly scheduled customers, replaced my thermostat and sent me on my way for under a hundred dollars. Today, my dad's mechanic checked my car out, and the leak is all but gone -- the repair appointment I missed while stranded in Connecticut is no longer necessary, and my car, which was believed to be a lost cause as I stood in front of Infinity Hall trying to get a tow at midnight on a Sunday, will live to see another Enter the Haggis road trip. In fact, I'm buying my tickets today. Syracuse and Troy NY, here I come.

It's all about meme, meme, meme!

I've been in a blogging dry spell lately, haven't I? Well, until very recently, at least. The other day, my sister-in-law Laura (it WILL happen, one day!) tagged me over at her blog, Wait, This Makes Me A Follower, Doesn't It?, and since then I've manage to blog twice, but not on the meme she tagged me in. So I thought that to stay in the SIL's good graces, I should probably take care of it now, before I start posting about my issues again. :)

I tend to ignore most memes that I'm tagged in, especially on Facebook where I get tagged twenty times in the same meme, get overwhelmed at the prospect of twenty people anxiously awaiting my answers, forget how to spell my name, and wind up gibbering softly to myself in a corner, so forgive me if I'm a little rusty at this. Also, I don't think I actually read 7 blogs regularly, let alone know the bloggers well enough to tag them, so I'm afraid the meme has come here to die.


Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Because I'm sure you're all waiting with bated breath, without further ado, 7 random and/or weird things about me (which actually somehow turned into 1 random thing and 6 introspective things about me):

1. I'm not quite a nevernude, but I am incredibly uncomfortable with my own body and therefore tend to avoid nudity. If I've ever been naked around you, or even half-naked (underwear but no pants, or bra but no shirt, etc.) I was either really drunk, or I really trust you*.

2. My knees are double-jointed, so they bend backwards a little bit. This is great for freaking people out, but not much else.

3. For someone who has in her life written a great deal of romance and erotica, I haven't the slightest clue when someone is interested in me. Whether it goes back to self-esteem issues and my body image problems as touched upon in item 1, or just plain social awkwardness, you would really be better off clubbing me over the head and dragging me back to your cave than trying to be subtle.

4. I am a terrible friend. I lose touch with people I really love, because I flake out and forget to maintain connections.

5. At my most depressed, I think of my obligation to my cats. I can't/won't kill myself, because I don't trust anyone else to take care of my babies for me. This sounds incredibly dark and melodramatic, and maybe it is, but I suppose a more cheerful way of looking at it is that when I adopt a new cat, it's like I'm saying to myself, "Gosh, I guess I will have to stick around for another fourteen to twenty years." (If we haven't met before, thanks for reading my blog, please don't mind my functional insanity.)

6. Sometimes I'm pretty sure that if a doctor came up to me and said, "We can cure your fibromyalgia!" I would (reluctantly) say no, because there are times in my life that my pain is the only reason I'm sure I'm not dreaming, or having a bad trip or something. My life is seriously weird.

7. For all my pessimism on the topic of love, I do believe in it, and I hope someday it finds me.



*Look forward to more on this subject in my next "Fia is a bundle of issues and neuroses!" blogflail.

Colonial Theater Restoration Project

When I was a kid, I had a lot of big dreams, like most kids do. One of them was seeing the old Colonial Theater in Augusta, Maine, which has stood in near-ruins for at least as long as I can remember, restored to its former glory. Most of my dreams are long forgotten, and some lay shattered under the heels of circumstance, but this one? This one is actually coming true.

Now, in my big dreams, I was rich (and possibly famous) and the project was privately funded by me. In reality, it is being restored by volunteers, and funded by donations.

The board of directors recently launched the official Colonial Theater fan page on Facebook, which currently is the best place for up-to-date status reports on the project's progress. I've shamelessly swiped a few photographs from the fan page, below, illustrating the Colonial as it appeared in 1938, and as it appears today.


As you can see, it's fallen into disrepair, as has been the case for much of Water Street, which I believe was once the center of Augusta's commerce. In recent years, the city of Augusta has striven to clean up its downtown; it's safe to say that the restoration of this once-beautiful building would go quite a ways toward improving the area's aesthetics, but it may also mean new jobs and more importantly, a new source of revenue and culture for an area that's been hard hit by recession and poverty.

It's not going to be a quick fix-up, nor a cheap one. There are many repairs in need of being done over the next several years, the most immediate of which involves aged masonry in the building's facade. Donations in the form of funds, materials and labor will absolutely be of the essence. For the time being, people who wish to make monetary donations toward the restoration of the Colonial Theater can send them to 139 Water Street, Augusta ME 04330. Checks can be made out to Colonial Theater. Online donations will be accepted at a later date.

If you live in the Augusta area, as many of my readers do, I urge you to lend a hand in whatever way you can. Take responsibility for making this community a better place to live, work and play.

The dark side of Etsy...

I am in love with Regretsy.com, which highlights some of the more ridiculous items available for purchase on Etsy.com, but today the site alerted me to something deeply, deeply disturbing. This entry is about a seller who is trying to hock squirrel blood, which is sort of funny and weird and just a little creepy. But when I went to look at the seller's other items, I was sickened, for lack of a word to better describe my revulsion.

Remember when killing pets and other small animals and taking trophies was a warning sign of sociopathy? Now it's arts and crafts. For profit. Ick.

A far more trivial complaint...

Bearing in mind that I've only tried maybe five or six of the existing Sing Star titles, and prior to this evening owned only three, I'm pretty sure that Sing Star: Queen is the worst Sing Star game ever made. I had such high hopes for an evening in my living room, belting out "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Somebody To Love" with my sister, but it was nothing short of an epic disappointment.

The microphones (which we already owned, and which still work perfectly fine with our other games) are so sensitive (and LOUD) at some points in any given song that you can't have them near each other or a controller without causing feedback, and you practically have to whisper in order to not to be picked up on your opponent's mic. At other points, you must nearly eat the mic to even register on the screen, let alone hear yourself. Sometimes, even that fails to work, or stops registering your voiceabruptly. For example, randomly, in the middle of a sustained note.

The track list is great, and the game itself is pretty enough to look at (unless you're put off by Freddie's chest hair) but playing it was considerably less enjoyable than going to the dentist. At least the dentist gives you Novocaine.

Every review I can find says that the game is identical to Sing Star: ABBA in every way except track list, but I was playing ABBA last night and it was just as fun as it's ever been. Did I manage to get a bum copy? Is there a reason Target had their entire stock of Sing Star: Queen on clearance? It's possible, I suppose. I'm just really glad I didn't pay full price.

My Mistake

I thought I lived in a country that was based on the notion of separation of church and state, not one where religious doctrine could influence and even dictate civil law. I thought I lived in a liberal state which was accepting of its residents and their many walks of life, both chosen and innate. I thought I lived in a time where fear and hate would no longer triumph over love and basic human decency.

I thought that my civil rights and those of the people I love were safe.

My mistake. Guess I won't make that one again.

Question One passed yesterday, stripping Maine's homosexual residents of the right to marry that they have fought so long for and stripping me of what little faith I had left in this ridiculous backwoods excuse for a state. I am bitter. I am angry. I am embarrassed to be a Mainer. I am just barely fighting off hatred for those who let their own bigotry, ignorance and fear go into the voting booth with them yesterday, and especially for the religious organizations whose tax-free donations funded this campaign of hate.

This entire battle has reminded me very strongly of the following poem by Martin Niemöller, which I think we all probably read or heard in school, when learning about the Holocaust:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Being heterosexual or even not believing in the institution of marriage doesn't mean this decision doesn't affect you. Ask yourself, who will speak out for you when your rights are threatened in the same way that those of Maine's gay and lesbian community have been?

I have never been so thoroughly ashamed to be from Maine, but it's not me who ought to be ashamed. It's the 53% of the state who voted in favor of robbing their fellow human beings of their civil rights. To each and every one of them, I would like to say, "Fuck you."

Fia and the Quest for the Perfect Pumpkin Muffin

It began, as so many quests do, with an obsession. My unhealthy fixation on the pricy pumpkin muffins from Panera, whose taste and texture are unsurpassed but whose availability is unpredictable at best, had started years ago when I was a Panera employee and was occasionally able to score a freebie at the end of the night on the rare occasion that there were leftovers. It was this fixation that sparked a desire within me to find find the perfect pumpkin muffin recipe: something I could make at home that would be -- if not the ideal replacement for Panera's muffin, which I'm fairly certain contains just enough of both crack and magic to make it ever more addictive -- a decent substitute.

My search terms were fairly obvious, I'm sure. 'Panera pumpkin muffin recipe.' I didn't expect to hit the jackpot and find that some disenfranchised soul had stolen and shared the recipe, but I also knew I couldn't be the first to embark on just this kind of mission from their home kitchen, and I was right. I narrowed it down to four recipes, gathered the ingredients (mostly; this did involve several last-minute trips to the new local Hannaford, and then a frantic search for a substitute for buttermilk after that had closed) and settled in for an evening of baking.

The first recipe came from a blog called Muffin Top, and it was... disappointing. Bland and rather dry, I will admit that perhaps the muffin's lack of flavor is partially my fault -- it called for cinnamon sugar on the top, which I omitted accidentally in the insanity that can be caused by preparing and baking four different muffin recipes in one night. I may try it again, using a whole can of pumpkin as the blogger from Muffin Top accidentally did, and remembering to sprinkle the batter with cinnamon sugar before baking.

The second recipe was far and away the best, and I'll go into more detail on that further down. Saving the best for last, so to speak.

The third recipe, which came from A Veggie Venture, wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it really wasn't terrible. The texture was okay, the flavor was okay. Just nothing to write home to Mother about. It calls for either pecans or walnuts, and golden raisins, and if I was the kind of person who wanted those things in my pumpkin muffins, I would not have omitted them. I expect that they're much tastier to people who enjoy those things and so don't leave them out.

The final recipe, from Once Upon a Gourmet, calls for chocolate chips and includes a recipe for "streudel topping," which I mistakenly assumed was a malapropism because the photograph included on the page shows a muffin which appears to have struesel on top of it, as well as a little candy pumpkin. I omitted the chocolate chips, because I was looking for the best overall pumpkin taste, and soon discovered the error in my assumption. Once in the oven, the "streudel topping" quickly melted from a delightful mound of brown sugary, cinnamony goodness on top of the batter into a charred sugary mess on the bottom of my oven. I threw a cookie sheet under the muffin tin and ended up with floury caramel. The muffins themselves tasted quite good, but not better than the second recipe and certainly not good enough to deal with the molten mess again.

Now, let's return to our winner, #2.
This recipe and the above graphic came from the Cottage Industrialist. The recipe contains, as you can see, an entire can of pumpkin. The muffins have a delightful soft texture that isn't too sticky or too crumbly, and a rich pumpkin spice flavor. Overall, it was the closest to Panera's, and therefore the closest to what I was looking for. And, plus side, when I attempted to replicate it and double the recipe, but failed to double the flour, they still came out halfway-decent. Tasty, even; just moister, cake-y and a bit sticky. I like a recipe that I can flub up and still have the end product turn out edible and even pleasant.