Reindeer Doodle

I created this little reindeer Christmas doodle to help me wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

So far this year I have managed to get a few Christmas cards sent out. I still have a few packages to send off, so I hope those will make it to their destinations on time. This year it is not our focus to give many gifts, but to remember family and friends and the reason for the Christmas season, the birth of Jesus.

I have really enjoyed seeing all the Christmas trees decorated in so many unique and beautiful styles this year. I enjoy seeing all the Christmas lights at night. The neighbors on our street have really done a great job putting out their decorations and lighting up the evenings. Best wishes to all!

LUDO Doodles

I created these little drawings and doodles of the band LUDO last night. I had a fun time making them with a digital doodle program called Bamboo Doodlescape. I find it usually frustraiting to try to draw with a mouse, but for doodles it worked out ok. I would much rather use a pencil when I draw. I think I could actually use some more doodles or drawings in my blog more often. It might be fun to express ideas through drawing rather then words. Best of all I feel good that I actually did something creative today.

The History of My Little Blog.

We are all a bit mad here....

I feel that some readers of this blog may be wondering how I came up with my theme and why I often refer to "Alice in Wonderland", "Through the Looking Glass" or about the mysterious characters of Luna or Raven Spinner . I wrote a nice introduction when I trasferred my old blog into this site in June of 2009, just as we were shutting down our madteapartyafternoon.com web site. If you would like to read about this event, here is a link to my earlier blog about it:

Clink here to follow my link.

My blog has morphed into this creative outlet for me now. I find that most times I discuss books, movies, and music on my facebook, but my blog is more about creative projects I am working on or events I have been to or seen lately.

Botanical Gardens and Butterfly Exibit.

We spent a lovely afternoon at the Tucson Botanical Gardens last week. The best part of the gardens is by far the exotic butterfly exhibit. Walking into a heated tropical room full of amazing butterflies is like walking into another world. They have entry rooms and exit rooms to make sure the butterflies do not land on you and then escape the exhibit into the environment. It can be kind of amusing to have these voulteers who cary around dusters and fluff you down every now and then. I have never been "dusted" before. I wonder if this is how furniture feels?

The butterfly room kind of reminds me of a large fancy green house. There are many exotic plants and pools of fish and lush vegetation all around. The butterflies are just everywhere and sometimes they do land on you. Our baby loved seeing the butterflies flying above him and feeling their wings brush his legs when they landed on him. Our oldest son could not stand still when the butterflies tried to land on him. It was quite humorous to watch him jump to the side and laugh in delight. He also liked watching the fish. The room is quite warm and they do let you leave to cool off and then come back in later. The butterflies are from all over the world and are quite large and rare. Outside the exhibit you can see where they cultivate the cocoons and caterpillars before they transform into butterflies. The exibit is very educational and I was happy to share it with my family.

A gift of beautiful flowers.

I couldn't help but post a picture of these flowers. My husband was awarded these after a recital in which he performed on October 10th, 2010. They smell devine and are very pretty. I wish that they could talk. I'd imagine I would feel very much like Alice then....

LUDO concert September 28th

I absolutely love the band LUDO from their masterful lyrics to their sweeping melodies, catchy tunes, dramatic flair and humorous stories. I mean, what band do you know of that sings about, self loathing pirates, winking cyclopes, robots and cyborgs, parading skelletons, dreams of manta rays, true love, banking robbing with the girl you love, and all that topped with whipped cream? Who wouldn't love that? I feel extreemly lucky that D.L. White introduced me to them about a year ago. Her blog Storm In A Tea Cup often features LUDO as her muscial interlude. She also sent me a copy of each of their albums about a month before the concert. What a wonderful surprise that was. I have been listening to all four albums over and over ever since.

The self titled LUDO(2003), Broken Bride (their rock opera from 2005), Your Awful I Love You (2008) and the brand new Prepair the Preparations(2010).

I was very excited to discover that LUDO would be in my hometown as part of their tour in September 2010. We had to attend, even though I have not been to a concert since the Police in 2008. D.L. White was able to travel and attend the concert with us. What an amazing night ensued. Here are some pictures to document this fantastic concert during the "Prepare The Preparations" tour.

They opened the concert with the main theme from "Never Ending Story" (which I had not heard since I was a kid and LUDO admittedly say they are all big fans of 80's music, so this was quite fitting) and traveled right into "Go-Getter Greg" about a guy who is a bit obsessive over a girl who has moved into his apartment complex. Greg is a bit of a stalker, but it's a humorous song with funny lyrics and a very catchy chorus. Watching Andrew Volpe's facial expressions when he sings makes the song even that much more humorous.

Next it was on to one of my all time favorite LUDO songs, Hum-Along which tells the story of unrequited love which includes an imagined journey which spans being kidnapped by pirates, and singing to jaguars in twelve bars. My favorite line in that song: "And between the jungle and the stars, you sing nonsense songs in 12 bars to me / And in my sleep I hum along / You'll never hear this song / You'll never see the movie in my head."

Drunken Lament a song about drinking away the pain of a break up, and I just adored "Too Tired To Wink", which has lyrics that are impressively complicated, and reminds me of something from the mind of Lewis Carrol. For example, check out this line: "I stored a cyclops for a week with hard-tack in the clink / If ever he would bat a lid I thought it was a wink / But the world is flush with monocular mush and dingbats to despise / You find they're not thinking, just narrowly blinking, / But never quite cleaning their eyes."




Later on they performed "Lake Pontchartrain" which is a fantastic LUDO song, telling a story about a guy and his two friends who discover what is really at the bottom of the lake during a dark and stormy night. Tim Convey, the keyboard player made sure to get the audience all riled up to sing toghether: "Come down to Lake Pontchartrain / Rest your soul and feed your brain /That's where you will get to see everything the water can be" and watching Andrew's facial expressions was hilarious during the "scary" parts of the story.



Tim Convy also took charge of the whipped cream spraying during their "Whipped Cream" song as we all did the funny "Whipped Cream" dance from their video.

"Anything For You", was a great change of pace and Andrew and Tim Ferrell shared the mic.



At some point there was a break in the music that I am a bit confused about. I still didn't understand all that "MIKEY!!!" stuff between Andrew and another guy from a different band named Mikey. You just had to be there for that one I guess and then they all got into a dog pile during a long guitar solo of Tim Ferrell's. It was a bunch of boys and guitars all over the place, but they were able to untangle themselves to finish with "Love Me Dead" much to the delight of the entire audience.



I have never seen an audience who could sing their hearts out to almost every word of every song. You could feel how much everyone loved LUDO. We cheered and cheered. When the house lights came back up everyone gave up cheering eventually and we figured that was the end of the concert, but LUDO returned to shock us with "Girls On Trampolines" which they swore they were NOT going to sing. Haha, jokes on us! Thanks for the unexpected oncore!


The actual set list:

Go-Getter Greg
Hum Along
Drunken Lament
Too Tired to Wink
Topeka
Lake Pontchartrain
Rotten Town
Part I: Broken Bride
Whipped Cream
Horror of Our Love
Anything for You
Save Our City
Good Will Hunting By Myself
Love Me Dead

Encore:
Girls on Trampolines

After the concert, and much to our delight and surprise the band members signed autographs, took picture with fans and talk to everyone. It was amazing to get to meet these tallented guys and we couldn't help snapping some photos of them. I got my CD signed by each member.

Andrew Volpe (Lead Singer) and us. We were total nerds talking to him, but he was cool anyway. I am sure they are used to fans being silly and forgetting what they really want to say. I've never met anyone famous before, so I was pretty star struck and I couldn't think of anything intellengent except, "Your show was fantastic!" I can think of about a thousand things I would like to say now, but at the time I was just giddy from the concert experience. Maybe next time I'll keep my head together better.

Matt Polermo (Percussionist) and my husband. They had a nice conversation.


Tim Convy (Keyboardist) He called me a "sweetie."

Tim Ferrell (Lead Guitar)

My Pets Are My Pals.

I found my little dogs all sleeping on my couch today. I decided to break out the camera and snap some pictures of my old pals. Ivory is 12, Ebony is 11 and Rascal is 9 years old. Having older dogs is a challenge because they are kind of grouchy at times. They don't adjust fast to new situations, but their personalities are pretty sweet and have been since they were puppies.



Ebony loves to sleep in my bed, although I don't let him do that except at nap time occasionally, he will snuggle as close to me as he can, right next to my back. One morning it was so cold outside he ran in, jumped up on the bed and literally dove under the covers. He was hiding. He didn't move a muscle in case I decided to put him into his little doggie bed instead of let him stay under the warm covers with me. It made me laugh so hard I let him stay under the covers of course.




Last week Rascal was barking and barking at me and I had just let her out to go potty. I kept telling her to "hush" but she just wouldn't be quiet. Finally, after a time I realized the water dish was empty and she was telling me she was thirsty. I filled up the dish and she was happy. She is a demanding little thing and cute as a button. UPDATE: As of July 2010 Rascal has been adopted by my mother in law. I am so glad Rascal has a new home that doesn't include a 4 year old to stress her out and she is getting super spoiled. I think she will fit really well there.



In this picture Ivory looks like she has one ear, but really she was just annoyed to get her picture taken. None of my Chihuahuas like to get their pictures taken, except Ebony sometimes. I often find it hard to get a picture where Ebony isn't in it. What a ham.