Poetry & Records

After my latest training run yesterday (5.7 miles - this time around the neighborhood instead of on the track), in which I was amazed that I could manage this distance outdoors, I decided to clean up and treat myself to a poetry competition. :)

It was the fifth annual Poetry Slam for Ramsey County (which includes St. Paul) and happened to be held at a library not too far away. I had some time before Mass, so.. what the heck?

Who knew that I'd actually... win? :D

I chose to read a geriatric takeoff (which I've posted here before) on a Dr. Suess book which I used to read to J1 & J2 when they were little.

It was a landslide! They had a panel of three judges that gave Olympic-style scores, and I averaged 9.0 across the board to take 1st. Okay, so the prize was just a Barnes & Noble gift card and a spiral bound notebook, but still...

As the linked post above discussed, J1 took on the task of illustrating it, and it's only 2 pages away from being all done. Based on the success of it today, I think this Summer it will be off to the printer for a limited run for friends and family. :)

After collecting my winnings and posing for the obligatory picture, I dashed off to the Electric Fetus for "Record Store Day", a celebration (and promotion) of local independent record stores.

The goodie bag you got with purchase was stuffed full of demos and samplers, the bargains were good, the Sony people were there with fresh pizza and giveaways, plus I won a door prize. Cool. And a halfway decent modern jazz band (The Bad Plus) was playing:





(by the way, I chatted with the guy in the T-shirt above; turns out he's an organ donor in a program for victims of testicular cancer. I'm just kidding, but it was the first thing that came to me when I saw it...)

Then when I got home from Mass, I grilled a couple of pork chops and whipped up a little sauce for them (the first time I have ever improvised a sauce without a recipe) which turned out great, thanks to Penzey's Bavarian Blend spices, Trader Joe's frozen basil cubes, a knob of butter, some frozen shallot pieces and a bit of flour. Fun!

Not to mention it was a beautiful Spring day and the daffodils outside my office window are lush and bright. mmmm...

Doesn't get much better than this.

Clean living, I guess. ;)