TVotR and Dirty Projectors

Two nights ago Maranda and I attended a TV on the Radio concert at the 9:30 club in DC. The opening group was Dirty Projectors. We had never heard of Dirty Projectors, but were quite impressed. They are an odd group, they were all dressed in very dated looking clothing (vintage?), had frumpy hair, and had very awkward dancing styles to say the least! They are touring their just released Bitte Orca album, which we found to be really amazing! With two female vocalists singing elaborate harmonies in sharp contrast to the guitar riffs and the powerful male lead singers voice. Based on our ears, this group has tremendous potential. See Bitte Orca review on Pitchfork (linked above) for a much better review than my meager attempt.

TV on the Radio performed their extremely successful 2008 album Dear Science. It was a smashing performance, with Nigerian born Adebimpe ripping up the stage with powerful and expressive vocals and equally expressive dancing. Guitarist and vocalist Kyp Malone has a crazy cool beard and hair and an equally expressive personality. In Dear Science he often soars into falsetto, which combined with Adibimpe's expressive whistling adds a lot of uniqueness to the TVotR sound. While I liked the album pretty well on the iPod, I LOVED IT in concert, the songs took on an entirely new life, making it a night to remember!

Thunder and Lightening

So we have had a couple amazing thunder and lightening storms recently.  Yesterday in the early am hours a really humdinger swept over our house, with cracks of lightening illuminating our darkened room and crashing thundering literally vibrating the windows!  Maranda and I marveled at the storm, and also at the fact that Kieran did not show up at our door or start screaming in his room.  I was pretty convinced that he must have somehow slept through the celestial heavy metal concert that passed over our house.

In the morning when I walked into Kieran's room to wake him up, he sat up quickly and began to excitedly tell me about the loud storm.  "It was so loud that I crawled under my covers to be safe.  Then I fell asleep still under the covers and got all sweaty when I woke up."  I asked him if we was scared and he said "a little, but not too bad."  As far as I know, this is the first time he has crawled under his covers during the night to feel safe, Maranda and I both got a kick out of him relaying the story.

Memorial Day Weekend

This memorial day we went fishing....  Seems like we have been doing a lot of fishing lately!  It was a great trip, with Maranda outfishing me quite effortlessly.  We caught a total of 23 keeper size crappie, 8 bluegill, and 1 perch.  Kieran did a masterful job of fighting the perch, bluegill, and several crappie.  Maranda could be considered a show off after she hooked four crappie in under three minutes.  We were also accompanied by our friend Bruce from a church we have been joining fellowship with.  It was a fun time to swap tales and he kept the boys entertained while I ran to retrieve Maranda's frequent fish.

Here is Kieran proudly showing off our catch

A trophy bluegill

Our friend Bruce with Tristan

Miso Soup

We have just begun introducing Tristan to food, with a couple attempts at rice pudding that caused quit a grimace by the little man.  Last night while eating sushi take-out, I gave Tristan a taste of miso soup.  Instead of grimace he had an absorbed look on his face as he tasted the new flavor.  On the second attempt he grapped the spoon and lunged forward to intercept the advancing spoon.  We were both surprised that he liked it so much.  Maranda commented, "I can't believe he likes that better than rice cereal.  My immediate response was, "I too like Miso soup better than rice cereal!"  

Weekend Fishing

Friday evening Maranda caught a nice red eared sunfish (Shell Cracker), about 3/4 pound.

Saturday I tried out my new spot and caught and released a wopper large mouth bass.  She was in full spawn, estimating she weighed 5 pounds!  Check out her fat belly.