Bev's Blender Brain Blog

Bev Fest!

I love my birthday. August 2nd. When I was little, I remember my dad saying I was born on "August the tooth."

My birthday being in the summer, we were often on vacation. Sometimes in Texas with family, sometimes water skiing at Lake Mojave. We usually stayed at the Motel 6 in Searchlight Nevada. I can still picture it.

One year, I had three birthday cakes at the lake. Everyone felt sorry for me being away from home on my birthday so they all brought cakes. That was a good year.

Over the years I've learned that you'll never get what you want if you don't ask for it. Or make it happen yourself. So this year for my birthday, I planned Bev Fest: a mini-music festival in our new back yard.

It was really pretty easy. a) ask musician friends to come play b) invite 200 people knowing that less than 100 will be able to come and c) get people to bring food. Okay, then there was the table rental, sound set up and a solid week of house and yard cleaning. But Greg did that part.

It was the best birthday ever... and promises to be an annual event. My friends Christel and Larissa have blogged about it.

If you could have any party you wanted for your birthday, what would it be like?

Its always the cabinet guy.

Living through a remodel should be on that list of top ten life stressors. Everyone laughed when we said it would only take six weeks. The kitchen was gutted on March 17. We're now in week 10 of plastic utensils, paper plates and LOTS of dust.

Don't get me wrong, there has been progress. This past weekend we actually got to cook in the kitchen. We made chicken and dumplings on our new gas stove, I baked an apricot pie our new oven and washed the pans in our new kitchen sink! This was a major thrill - somewhat on the scale of playing a brand new guitar. I'm serious.

However, that's about the extent of what we can do in our new kitchen. All of our dishes, pots and pans and food are still packed away in storage. This is because although the cabinets are installed, there are no drawers, no pull outs, no hardware and no doors. The cabinet subcontractor flaked, and is no longer even returning calls from our contractor.

So, today we are meeting with a new cabinet guy who, we are told, will finish the job.

Its always the cabinet guy.

Gypsy Soul House Concert

The weather turned quite warm here in Northern California last week. So, on Saturday night, we opened up the back wall of windows that we've just installed as part of our remodel, invited our music loving friends over and enjoyed a phenomenal Gypsy Soul House Concert.

We've typically set up the stage at the far wall, only now we have these wonderful full height glass doors that completely open up to the deck. So, we set up a bit differently this time, with Cilette & Roman on the side wall and the audience stretched across and on the sides. It actually works better because no one is more than three rows away from the performers. Our first two house concerts, with Eliza Gilkyson and Cosy Sheridan, were configured this way.

Michael Gaither (in the red shirt in the photo above) interviewed Cilette & Roman for his Songs and Stories Podcast back in Decmeber, be sure to check that out.

Gypsy Soul will be back through the Bay area later this month, so go see them on April 27 at the Little Fox Theatre if you missed them this time. This is truly gourmet music. Cilette's voice is gorgeous, and Roman provides the perfect palette for her to mix a luscious blend of colors.

My house looks like the inside of a blender.

Word on the street is that Jimmy the Greek gives 100 to 1 odds that our house will be cleaned up and ready for our house concert tomorrow night featuring David Rogers.

We knew when we set our Spring House Concert schedule that we might run into issues with our remodel. So here we are surrounded in debri, no wall on the back of our living room, and David is - at this very moment - driving down Interstate 5 from Ashland, Oregon.

The living room is a total mess, from having to pack up the kitchen last weekend (it was gutted on Monday, see photo album). But at least at 9 am this morning, we will had a back wall. See the three windows?

By noon, the windows - and the wall - were gone. This picture was taken from inside the house, looking out to the deck. These guys work fast.

This is the view from the back of our house, around noon today. How about an open air house concert? Lots of room to move around!

Actually, it will still look a little like this when we're done, except the stucco will be repaired. We're installing a wall of glass doors that will stack to the right, completely opening up the wall to the outside.

Any one want to place your bets on whether or not we'll get it cleaned up and ready by 7:30 Thursday night? Want to make a reservation for the house concert to see for yourself?

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Update! We made it! New doors installed, house cleaned up, no problem. Doors open in an hour!

(Click for a bigger picture)