Drip

Last night, we had a ferocious rain. My lovely landlord is particularly proud of the new roof he had put on the building where I rent my apartment. This man is so good and kind. It broke my heart to have to call him this morning to tell him that water leaked into my bathroom through the skylight and damaged (well, released onto the floor, really) some of the plaster on the ceiling. Oh, rain. Why you gotta be like that?

And here, faster than you can be a smart alec and say, "BUT, SARAH, I THOUGHT YOU *WANTED* WATER IN YOUR BATHROOM," are this morning's playlists:

Log for first part of May 17th, 2007 show

Log for second part of May 17th, 2007 show

It had just begun to rain as I was nearing home yesterday evening. When I was about six blocks from my place, the rain began simply HOLLERING at the ground. I saw a couple on a far corner get literally hammered with water as they scrambled toward a nearby building. I was lucky enough to be in my car, but felt the sting during my short sprint from car to apartment.


With all of that said, please enjoy this video of the drum battle between Buddy Rich and Animal. Bad pun, indeed.





Please Note:

Next week, all of WVUD's shows will be on the old schedule. That means that Java Time will again go from 6am to 9am. That's three full hours of glorious music, folks!

Box Thursday!

It's Box Thursday! It's the day when my buddy Ryan comes over to take away four million of the boxes I've emptied. I'm nowhere near unpacked, but I have many, many empty boxes piled in the hallway. I'll write more later when I can think of something other than boxes! And Thursdays!


Here are two weeks' worth of playlists. They have nothing to do with boxes and everything to do with Thursdays:

Log for first part of May 3rd, 2007 show

Log for second part of May 3rd, 2007 show

and

Log for first part of May 10th, 2007 show

Log for second part of May 10th, 2007 show

Enjoy trying to read my handwriting on the May 10th logs. The only pen I found in the station was so enormous that it was like trying to write with a pen made from a beer can.

How Can She be So Skinny and Live So Phat?

It's gorgeous, right? I know, it really is. I'm delighted with this place and have the guilty, wonderful, nervous feeling that I've really stumbled onto a FIND. I feel LUCKY. It's making me nervous in that "dog-anxiously- hunkering-over-meat
-found-in-garbage" kind of way.

Despite my acknowledged glee, I can't deny that I'm deep in the middle of a boxed scavenger hunt. Each day, I go on a mission to find one particular item. Boxes get opened and rifled through, and out of guilt and nothing else, I place maybe three items in a cabinet or a drawer somewhere, telling myself that I'm really making some progress on this unpacking thing.

I know it takes more than three days to unpack after a move and I'm not one of those insane people who has everything JUST SO immediately. Unpacking takes two months (at least) for a one bedroom apartment. If I lived in a house and had roommates, a husband, or children, I'd up that to eight months (at least). I know that most 4-person families who move from one house to another end up with never-unpacked boxes in the basement until well after the children have graduated and moved into their own apartments or homes. Then, the children become seasoned adults with their own never-unpacked boxes and go through their childhood homestead boxes when it's time to think about moving the parents to a one bedroom apartment where they don't have to worry about climbing stairs. Such is the cycle of life/boxes. This reads like a metaphor for "personal baggage," but is, in fact, not. I'm really just talking about how people are slow to unpack.

Segues are for jerks! In a radical shift of subject, I present, The YouTube Video That my Friend Liz Cannot Stop Watching. This video has been around for a good while, but it has staying power. I revisit it every few months. It really is just like a mini-mall. Hey, hey.


And here, faster than you can say "Montgomery" in three syllables, are my playlists from the last two shows:

Log for first part of April 19th, 2007 show
(It was Radiothon! Thanks for your pledges!)

Log for second part of April 19th, 2007 show
(You gave us money! Thanks for supporting WVUD.)

and

Log for first part of April 26th, 2007 show

Log for second part of April 26th, 2007 show



P.S. Auditions are rough.

Déjà Vu

It's funny, I remember being here before. The movers come tomorrow to haul my prodigious amount of stuff over to my new apartment. Remember my fabulous loft bed that Maurice put together for me? Well, I've taken it apart with a fancy power drill and a socket set I bought at Home Depot. I'm so proud of this socket set. Proud enough to mention it to you folks.

Annnnyway. There is one, tiny screw left in this loft bed, holding the headboard to the main piece. The head of said screw is all stripped out so I can't drill it out. This remarkably tenacious screw is making my life very difficult. I suspect I will triumph, regardless.

Good news coming: Talking to my new landlords is like holding a sleeping puppy. But only because I feel so soothed and content. For heaven's sake, they fed me cheesecake and tea when I went to sign the lease. CHEESECAKE AND TEA, PEOPLE.

You know what word is funny? Zamboni.
God, I'm sleepy.

Smurfin Not Rehearsin

My apartment will soon look like this. I can't wait. Tired of hearing about how I'm moving to a fabulous new apartment yet? GOOD. I'm not done. Not by a longshot.

Now, I hate to promote the wasting of company time, but this site has some funny stuff on it. I'm not even all that into cats. Unless they're talkin' jive and causin' trouble.

And here, with more biff than you can bonk,
are two weeks' worth of playlists:

Log for first part of April 5th, 2007 show

Log for second part of April 5th, 2007 show

and

Log for first part of April 12th, 2007 show

Log for second part of April 12th, 2007 show

Good Things Come to Those Who Complain Incessantly for an Entire Year

Holy heck, people. I have a new apartment. I am crazily excited. Last night, I was so giddy that I couldn't get to sleep until nearly 2am. I know that seems extreme, or, at the very least, painfully childlike, but you have to understand how sad and grumpy I've become in my current home. The shocking contrast of feeling so elated kept me wide awake.


I'd like to write at length about the process of finding this new place and all of the strange and fortuitous things that led me to it, but I'm too excited right now.

Let the packing begin!

Que Sera, Sarah

I think I have found the perfect new apartment for myself. It's bigger than what I currently live in, it has a washer and dryer in it, it's in a quiet area, and it whispered my name when I saw it. Oh my heavens, I want this apartment. I'm waiting for the landlord to talk to me about the cost, as it's slightly more than I can afford. He might actually come down a bit in price, though, as honestly, I am a really good tenant. [Note: Pictured apartment is no where near what I live in now or will ever live in. I just like this new place so much that it might as well be a penthouse apartment in Manhattan.]

Sure, contrary to what a good tenant might do, I'll whine at you and call you several times in the mornings, using a tearful voice, if you're my *current* landlord. That happens, however, only if I'm forced to take showers in a GARBAGE CAN. Which, currently, I am. The water pressure in my apartment sometimes just disappears. It could happen every day for several days or not at all for a full week. I never know.

Here's what happens: I've noticed that, if I am in the shower at 7:15am, the water pressure abruptly drops. It gets so low that the water can no longer make it up the wall to the shower head and, instead, defaults to trickling out of the bathtub faucet. Trickle is a good word for it. Another way to describe the strength of this water pressure would be to ask you to imagine the effect of feeding a toddler nothing but talcum powder and saltines for, say, three weeks. After said three weeks, ask the toddler to urinate on you. Can he do it? Is there any liquid coming out? No? Such is my shower at 7:15am on many days.

I'm a reasonable gal, so I've changed my shower time to 6:30am. Some days, it happens then, too. When I had bronchitis last week, I took a shower at 3pm. It happened then. Sometimes, the water disappears and trickles weakly out of the tub faucet for only 5 minutes, then comes back to its usual, adequate-ish stream. Other times, the water simply stays gone for an hour.

My solution: I keep a 13-gallon Rubbermaid garbage can in my bathtub. First thing in the morning, I fill it with warm/hot water. When I take my shower, if the water disappears, I simply scoop water out of the garbage can with an empty cottage cheese container and wash/rinse myself that way. I told my mother that I've had to do this several times recently and she remarked that that was how they bathed when she and her family briefly lived in Burma. In 1950. BURMA IN 1950. Call me crazy, but when my current landlord told me he was going to raise the rent $40/month, I thought it best to begin looking.


EAT UP, KIDS.
THAT LADY'S HAIR AIN'T GONNA WASH ITSELF.




So, dear listeners, I'm now hoping hoping hoping that I get this new apartment. I'm trying to be very "whatever happens, happens" and "if it's meant to be your apartment, you'll get it" about the whole thing, but, I must admit that I am VERY excited.

Oh boy! I'll be on the air tomorrow. The bronchitis is just about over and I look forward to doing my show. Talk to you then.

P.S. My current landlords aren't bad folks. Sure, the place was filthy when I moved in, but they made solid efforts to fix that when I complained and they've even sent a plumber out a few times to check on the water situation. It seems that my shower just loses priority if anyone else in the building is using water. Who is to blame? No one. Or maybe this guy. Whatevs.

Panda

Oh, children, I do apologize. I am not doing a show this week. Instead, this Thursday morning, you'll hear Gary, who has graciously offered to fill in for me while I pack and panic. He normally does the Roots show on Mondays, from 8:30am to 11am, but is invaluable to the station in several ways beyond that. He is also a master of puns. I know not what he'll play for you, but he is kindly and you'll find him pleasant. As long as he doesn't play that Crispin Glover album all the way through.

I'm not sure if Gary will play my sort of poppish rockish music or if he will go more Rootsie. If he tries for my genre, I hope he plays Grand National, a spiffy band from London. I'm hooked on their song "Drink to Moving On". I had this perfect "they sound like blah but with a bit of blah" kind of description of them that I've forgotten. If I remember it, I'll post it here. Suffice to say, they're polished sounding, almost cold, but still entertaining. Maybe they remind me a little bit of Phoenix mixed with some Erlend Øye. It's not difficult to think of these two musical entities being related to one another, as their sounds can be similar. Erlend Øye even remixed a Phoenix song called "If I Ever Feel Better" (Listen to the original here on Phoenix's MySpace page)on his 2004 album, DJ Kicks.

I hope you enjoy your Thursday, folks. I'll continue to clean out my apartment. I'll be on the air next week.

In my show's stead, please enjoy this picture of a panda eating bamboo near his hammock. He's in Atlanta, Georgia.





Sometimes*, I watch the panda cams. There are four pretty good ones in the U.S.

National Zoo in Washington D.C., Camera 1
National Zoo in Washington D.C., Camera 2
Panda Cam at the San Diego Zoo (California)
Panda Cam at the Atlanta Zoo (Georgia)

*way more than sometimes