The past weekend and several days on either side of it have been kind of a roller coaster…

First of all, the big birthday party for my lovely spouse went off amazingly well, both in terms of remembering how to host events, as well as “beta testing” the new house space as a music venue. Our friends The Salacious Crumbles played a couple of excellent sets on Saturday for a crowd of friends and chosen family, and I played a few tunes as well (and had both the eldest child and Madison and Leigh of the Crumbles sing along – as you see in the photo above). It was a lot of fun for everyone, the food from Curry in a Hurry and Minglewood Bake Shop went over swimmingly, and it turns out this house is absolutely excellent for entertaining.

We’re going to do it again before you know it; stay tuned.

As for the low, Lukin, one of our elder cats, who’s been having some health issues for the past year or so, passed quietly in his sleep on his favorite chair overnight on Sunday. He was a great addition to the family, full of personality in spite of his deafness and health issues. We kind of knew it was coming, as he slowed down tremendously over the last week or two, and mostly stopped eating, but never lost the friendly and outgoing attitude, making sure to walk (slowly) into the library on Saturday evening to accept proper tribute and devotion from all the folks visiting his house. We’re gonna miss him.

Y’all can see how it’s been. I’m hoping for some sort of settled-down quiet and normal this week, though work’s been kind of twitchy about providing that. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes. I’ve also been trying to make February Album Writing Month happen, though it’s been tough so far; I’ve got three sets up lyrics written, as this post goes live, which is on pace to finish on schedule, but I’ll be honest, it’s been a struggle. maybe I’ll write a song about that? who knows. But, again, we’ll see how it goes.

Hang in there, folks.