Some Musical Inspiration from a Lamentably non-Musical Jalina

It's so strange that all of my songs and photographs can fit inside a slim few inches of metal (there in the middle, in the blue case). I love iPods, MySpace, blogs, Wikipedia, and navigational systems just as much as I love gardening, getting hopelessly and serendipitously lost on road trips, making earth-friendly cleaning products, and reading mythology with my kids. What can I say? I'm a 21st century mama.

Tonight I updated my iPod with lots of great songs: a jazzy old Nina Simone song "Feeling Good," "Dissolved Girl" by Massive Attack, and "To Build a Home" by The Cinematic Orchestra featuring Patrick Watson. I'm so in love with this song:



Also... "Beyond" by Bluba Lu, and "My Moon, My Man" by Feist. Lovely music...

I just checked out Bluba Lu on MySpace, and coincidentally their top friends are Cinematic Orchestra, Portishead, and Brian Eno. I totally love that scene. Here's a great video from Bluba Lu (though I prefer their music with Androniia Popova):



Here's a video of them creating the song "To Love You," featuring Androniia Popova's enchanting vocals. This is one of my favorite songs, right up there with practically every song by Portishead. It's beautiful:

TO LOVE YOU at STUDIO ONE


And of course I also downloaded lots of free Radio Lingua German podcasts. I listen to these on the Autobahn all of the time. Haben Sie ein Doppelzimmer? Kann ich mein Gepack hier lassen bitte? That was this week's lesson about staying in a hotel. I highly recommend these 3-minute "quickie" podcasts. They're easy fare for a drive to the store or 20 minutes on the tread mill, and they offer many different languages. You could learn to ask if you can leave your luggage at a hotel in many different countries. ; )

Our Apron-Making Weekend

Because my apron was so boring compared to theirs, Lvov drew lovely pictures all over it in permanent marker, and wrote nice little notes to me. In the front pocket of my apron she wrote me a secret message upside-down, so that when I look down to get something out of my pocket, I can read it perfectly. She wrote, "you are the most beautiful mommy in the world!"

Little Miss Rosie Cha-Cha

A.K.A....."AK"

Akychame wants to be an electric guitar goddess, an animal rights extremist, and a graffiti artist after graduating from Harvard with her best buddy Rebekah.


Speaking of graffiti art, last year we had a picnic at an old castle ruin in Bad Durkheim. In one of the turrets there had been a bonfire, so we each took a stick of charcoal and drew graffiti all over the castle walls (which would be washed away that night in the rain).



Akychame kept writing "AKA-AK" all over, so we asked what it meant. She said that graffiti always has a special tag name, and that's her tag. AKA (also known as) A.K. (her nickname). Very clever!


Oh yeah, I'm clever! So clever! Break it down!