Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

I’m in Bloomington with some of my favorite people ever. We’re cooking a massive Indian meal right now. The smell is unbelievably amazing! Yum!!

THE MENU:
Brinjal Bharta (Eggplant Pate)
Punjabi Chicken Curry
Moongsprout Salad
Aloo Paratha (Potato Flatbread)
Apple Raita (Yogurt Dip)
Jeera (Cumin) Rice
Rasgullas (Indian Cheese Dumplings in Sugar Syrup)

So yesterday, I called to schedule my state licensure exam. Apparently, I had 4 months to schedule, and because I had on my national exam blinders, I forgot about the deadline. I’m really glad I learned this on the phone before receiving the letter in the mail yesterday. I’ve been waiting for the pass/fail test results from the national exam, and when I saw that letter in my box, I got really anxious. I opened and saw the word “failure”. Eep! Had a mini-panic, then realized that this was what the woman on the phone had explained – that failure to take the state exam in time results in a failure. There aren’t too many repercussions of this “failure”, only that I have to take and pass the exam within four months… Yeah, that was the plan anyway.

My state exam is now scheduled for October 9th. I’ve heard it’s pretty straightforward. The contents are all printable on about 40 sheets of paper – nothing like the reams of information included on the national exam. Soon, I will be licensed. Oh yes, I shall be licensed.

I’ve avoided blogging too much, since on Monday through Friday, I’m trying to remain focused on professional tasks. I’ve also started setting an alarm to make sure I get up at a reasonable time. Without structure, my sleep and rising times have moved later and later. The side benefit of this new plan is that I’ve bought a new alarm clock, which I keep set to WCPE. My friend Tara is a DJ there during the night shift (“Sleepers Awake”). Despite an extensive classical musical education, my listening time has primarily been devoted to non-classical music. It’s nice to revisit this music once again. The side benefit is that my cats have started sleeping near the radio when it’s on. They apparently like classical music.

I’ve seen some wonderful gigs recently. I’ve written about Andrew Bird before (The review was actually picked up on Scenestars, too). I won’t review him again here, but I will say that this was probably the best of the times I have seen him. He is talented, visionary, unique, quirky, incisive, and seeing him was an utter delight for me. I’ve never been a huge Elvis Costello fan, but seeing him with the symphony with friends on a nice night was a treat. We hit up Whole Foods and brought rosemary bread, Boursin cheese, organic grapes, spinach dip, etc. Part of the time was spent on the lawn, and part was spent in the first few rows taking some excellent pictures.

This Saturday was The Old Ceremony at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, and again, I’m limiting the length of this post since I need to be doing so many other things, but it was a wonderful show. The OTT review I wrote after the first time I saw them still applies, although I will add that I’d forgotten how much better they are live. I love their CD Our One Mistake (available on their web site) and listen to it in the car all the time (have since that first show), but I love that live, the cello and violin are turned up quite a bit more in the mix. This was the first time I’d seen them on their home turf, and the crowd was definitely appreciative. I’m very happy with my pictures from the night, and some of Brian’s pretty much blew my mind.

There’s a little bit of video from the gig. This is their fun encore song, with their string players rocking out on tambourine and cowbell, and who knows what the keyboard player was doing back there. I couldn’t really see, since I was dancing my ass off. Because I was dancing (i.e. moving around) so much, I passed my camera to Shannon to videotape the song. She misunderstood and thought I wanted her to videotape me dancing. So yeah, listen to the fun song and watch me dance around like a fool. 😀

The Old Ceremony Performing “Dumbed Down” at Cat’s Cradle, 9/20/2007 from abbyladybug on Vimeo.

Be sure to pay attention at around 2:35 when Django throws in a riff from Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. Come ON! How much do I love that?! Oh, I love it a lot!

Well, I knew that I liked it, but I just worked out that it made Explore on Flickr. Maybe there IS something to Explore!

My friend Dottie recently moved to San Francisco and is living off of her savings until she finds a job. Unfortunately, due to identity theft, her finances have been wiped out.

She’s one of the best photographers on Flickr (IMHO), and in order to raise money while she attempts to deal with getting a job and maybe her money back, too, she’s selling some of her wonderful prints.

You can also request prints of her other Flickr pictures NOT in that gallery. She won’t sell any of the pictures in the 365 set or pictures of friends, but anything else, she’s willing to consider. She’s really good, and I’m not just saying that because she’s in a bit of a fix. Anyone on Flickr knows about her and her talent.

Help a girl out!

Here’s a performance they did last weekend at the Cranford music festival in New Jersey.

Come see them headline the Cradle on Saturday. If you haven’t heard them before, please read the review I wrote after seeing them the first time and check out their MySpace page to hear some tracks.

If you aren’t convinced, please enjoy the following ACTUAL IM CONVERSATION I had with my friend Sooz in Boston last night (I sent her Talk Straight last week):