I say music, you say ____?

For those of you who don't know how important music is to me, consider this: I drove to Nashville today for a little shopping, and the highlight of my trip was listening to my iPod for three hours on the way home.

Most everyone I know has a song attached to them in my mind -- a song they like, an inside joke, something we share. Stargazergirl is Queen's "We Are the Champions." Grrface is Jill Sobule's "Mexican Wrestler." Cheddar FonDrew is The Who's "Real Good Looking Boy," though a close second is the sultry rendition of "Happy, Happy Birthday, Katie (Though I Can't Quite Call You Baby)" that he left on my voicemail on my birthday. Matt of Matt Wins Again is Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," which, again, was sung to me via voicemail.

... I really like it when people sing songs on my voicemail. I grin for, like, days. Yes, that's a blatant attempt to get more people to call and sing to me. <3

Anyway, surely I'm not the only person who does the song-association bit, which begs the question: What song do you associate with me? For those I didn't list above, my answer is yours for the swapping.

Meltdown

You know that Hershey's USB drive I posted about a couple of weeks ago? It just broke. All the files are gone and the drive is unreadable. It was the second time I used it.

I knew I should've gone with the Mr. Goodbar drive. Peanuts are very reliable.

Standard warning: Do not try this at home

I'm helping my mother go through the Crawford family trunk, and this was among some newspaper clippings from the late 1800s and early 1900s. For those who can't see the image, it reads:

Breaks a Cold in a Day
And Cures Any Cough That is Curable. Noted Physician's Formula.
Get from any druggist "Two ounces of Glycerine and half an ounce of Concentrated Pine compound. Mix these with half a pint of good whisky. Take one to two teaspoonfuls after each meal and at bedtime. Smaller doses to children according to age." Any one can prepare this at home. This is the best formula known to science. There are many cheaper preparations of large quantity, but it don't pay to experiment with a bad cold. Be sure to get only the genuine (Globe) Concentrated Pine. Each half ounce bottle comes in a sealed tin screw-top case. If the druggist does not have in stock he will get it quickly from his wholesale house.

Yep, sounds like a plan. Mix up some glycerine, Pine-Sol and Gentleman Jack, then drink it. Then, if you're all about questioning the physics of spontaneous combustion, have a smoke afterward.

The vaca from my vaca

I've started planning my holiday vacation six-plus months in advance. This isn't anything unusual for me; I'm the kind of person who lives for vacations and starts the 100- (or 120- or 150-) day countdown as soon as a date is set.

"A vaca from your permanent vaca?" a friend asked me last night. Yes. It'll be a little harder on the pocketbook now that we're living on one salary -- and that might mean a shorter trip -- but traveling now is as important as it was when I was working full-time: It gets me out of a rut. And it gives me something about which to be excited. Something to check off on a calendar every day. A goal. ... And a reason to put aside some cash every month, which is something we need to get into a habit of doing -- one salary or not.

This year, it's holiday break at Disney World, squeezed into one of their "value" (slow and cheap) periods a couple of weeks before Christmas. We've even toyed with the idea of driving back down and spending Christmas Day there. (Shh, don't break it to the family just yet.)

Though the dates and length of stay are still up in the air, we're definitely going. I know because I've bought the guidebook and that's how all our vacations start. With any trip, Paul and I can talk and dream about where and when we're going to go, but it's just talk until I buy the guidebook. That's when we pick a date, choose a hotel, scout out restaurants and attractions ... and so on.

So, yes, a vaca from my permanent vaca. Happy holidays to us.

On Regina Spektor

Any Regina Spektor fans out there? I'm a little late to the game, having only "discovered" her by way of her Way to Normal duet with Ben Folds, "You Don't Know Me."(That video is directed by Tim and Eric. Expect T&E-style visual candy.)

I now have two Spektor albums – Soviet Kitsch and Begin to Hope – and plan to get her newest, Far, when it comes out June 23. The entire album now is available for streaming from NPR's site.

This is the first single:


I'm a sucker for great pianists – raise your hand if you didn't know I have an untreatable Ben Folds obsession – and Spektor delivers crisp vocals over strong piano melodies to create little bits of stick-in-your-head-worthy tastiness. (That's a term you'll only see in a Kate-written music review.)

Here's something I don't say lightly, because Tori Amos is one of the muses who got me through college, but Regina Spektor reminds me of Tori before Tori did the split personality thing – not once, but twice – and started writing songs about which nobody cares. Yeah, I went there.