Kristen is making sauce. Delicious sauce. I’m a fan of sauce. Nothing’s anything without sauce. Goo. Delicious syrups and gravies. Oh Hell yeah. We’re listening to Roscoe Beano, watching the sun creep down the wall. The cat is getting lazy and we’re getting the opportunity to be lazy in the aftermath of launching our fundraising campaign, and we’ll celebrate our last night in Illinois with spaghetti.
And spaghetti sauce.
I’m trying to remember if my mom really made any sort of spaghetti sauce. I doubt it was anything more than a premade Ragu or something since when *I* was making dinner in middle school I thought I was pretty amazing for frying up some mushrooms and adding them to diced tomatoes and onions and making my own sauces. I was just making things up, but it implies that the bar wasn’t too high.
Roscoe’s writing is really something special. We chatted with him briefly on the phone earlier today and he’s such an easy guy to underestimate. Genius level writing delivered with a sly smile. He’s someone I’ve known for a long, long time and yet he STILL blows my mind a bit when I settle in and listen. Watching new audiences fall to the same sin – first underestimating and then falling in Love. He writes hooks that don’t SEEM hooky, but if you’re hooked, and they stick in your head for hours afterwards, they must be… “hooks”. And beyond that, they must be GOOD hooks.
Shifting gears, answering emails, tasting sauces.
It’s a good night.
Oh. And someone made a good offer on my mom’s house. Just trying to get a response from my brother. He’s sent a “thumbs up” but I kinda want a slightly more clear YES when talking about selling my childhood home.
And then things kind of went to Hell. I’d been noticing a little missing in the engine for much of the trip, but as we crossed Indiana it all got suddenly and dramatically worse. Mileage, which normally hangs in the high 30s or even 45mpg on the flatter states, had suddenly dropped to the mid 20s, we were struggling to accelerate, and then we had some new engine noises to boot. We called our mechanic back home and described things to see if he’d say “limp to your destination” or “oh my god, pull over now”.
With Cesare’s advice freshly in our heads, we limped on to Toledo and started researching shops. We found something that did online scheduling and got ourselves a first-thing-possible appointment and set an alarm to see if there was anything possible BEFORE the first-thing-possible once they opened. I’m very grateful that we’re staying with my old friend who goes all the way back to elementary school – as Jason has seen me at my worst and is calm in a crisis.
At the same time, I’m fielding calls and texts from my realtor – mostly GOOD news but kind of stressful – as we’re in the throes of putting my mother’s house up for sale and getting list-price offers right from the get-go. In this case a major stressor is that my brother, who’s waffled on a couple of things, is about 7 hours ahead of us in Austria and only communicates via WhatsApp – to the tune of me sending the offer I thought we should go ahead and take, and receiving solely a thumbsup emoji in response – no clarification if that was a “yes, do it” or a “acknowledged” kinda thumbs up.
Many back and forths and trying to plan various outcomes and finally falling asleep… the next morning is drizzly and grey (but at least no longer a hundred degrees) and the shop Heather’s at comes back with a worse scenario than we’d actually imagined : a $5k repair for a failed catalytic converter that was going to take five days to arrive!
Hey! But on the upside, we’ve got an additional 10k on offer for my mom’s house if I can get answer from my brother! But on the downside, it turns out that the festival this weekend does NOT have a house drumkit for our stage! Also, we’re definitely going to miss our show tonight – but the booker wants ME to call the venue with the news. She gives me the number which turns out to be the main hotel number for the overall facility. I get transferred a couple of times and spend some time listening to recordings while on hold extolling the weave counts on their linens until I finally get to talk, apologetically, to a person who knows what I’m referring to.
Cancelation in place, we start the laborious process of actually advertising a canceled show, which is ironically harder than advertising an ON show because you’ve got to hit all the same places you’ve been hitting for MONTHS and do it as FAST AS POSSIBLE even as you’re fielding texts from people asking about the show. ilyAIMY.com, Facebook (Profile, Page, Group), X, Blusky, Instagram, Bandsintown, mailing list, undiscoveredmusic.net… is that all of them? Email the two people who’d emailed you questions about the venue last week…
In the meantime, Heather abandons the repair shop and bring it to our friend’s favourite place, who quotes 2.6k + tax and end-of-day because they “should” have the part. The realtor calls to say “hey, what’s up with the lock on your mom’s house? Oh – it’s okay – the owner’s here!” and hangs up (!!?!) and I give a small budget to the festival to solve the problem with a cash donation if they can just work it the Hell OUT.
We get the car to the new shop, walk home in the rain. “The owner” turned out to be another realtor engaged in some shady bullshit, and … and…. And now what?
It’s been quiet for almost half an hour. Probably everyone’s grabbing lunch.
I’m strapped in for whatever’s next.
(in good news and things to be thankful for : we launched our fundraiser about 48 hours ago and are about 48% fully funded, so yay!)
…
……
Just solved the kit problem. Yay!
……..
The car’s NOT going to be done today, we have to cancel tomorrow’s show too. My brother and I turn the narrative around and say “best offer by 11am tomorrow, we’ll sign it” and put it to bed. The shop says “don’t call us, we’ll call you” and we have nothing to do but sit and wait.
And cancel Thursday’s show.
Back to work.
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