Wendy DeCora.com

[WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST]

Even though its only the 11th, July is passing quickly. The month started off with the Iowa City Jazzfest. I volunteered to help this year. After some miscommunication with the volunteer coordinator, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to end up doing when I showed up on Saturday morningish. The volunteers each get a free jazzfest t-shirt to sport while working. I picked mine up on Friday night when I went downtown to check out the opening night of the fest. They had women’s cut shirts, but those weren’t the ones they were giving us for free, naturally. So a regular guy’s cut tshirt it was. After running into Jerry & Sara, as well as Tammy, I headed back home and decided to get creative with my tshirt. Its amazing what ten minutes of time and a pair of scissors can create. I just shortened the shirt and the sleeves and made it a v-neck. It was much cooler and I kept having women stop me and ask me where I got it or how I made it.

Anyway, beyond my ever-so-stylish tshirt, I had a good time working on Saturday. I ended up helping with the youth side stage, where the performers are all of high school age or younger. A fun group to work with. The other volunteer was a college student named Cole who was really nice. She was fun to chat with during the day. The guy who was running the sound board and handled all the equipment was also enjoyable, but I can’t remember his name. The way it works at Jazzfest is that there are three side stages (local, youth, college) that play all at the same time in between the acts on the main stage. My job entailed introducing the acts on our stage, giving shout-outs to all the sponsors, and then, in between sets on our stage, hanging out on the stage and watching all the equipment. You could hear the main stage acts from our stage, so that was nice. Heard a lot of good music on Saturday. There wasn’t any main stage act that I had heard of before or was jazzed to hear from their descriptions, but the music was mostly great. On the stage I was working, the last act was a real treat. Sixteen year old kid from Illinois named Adam Larson. He plays the saxophone; soprano, alto, and tenor and had his own quartet. This kid was UNREAL for someone that age. I would’ve thought he was some 40 year old guy who’d been gigging his whole life if I’d just heard and not seen him. And thankfully, he was really nice and unassuming. (ah the differences between sax and trumpet players…) He’s obviously used to the acclaim, but when people were coming up after his sets and telling him that he was the best thing they’d heard all day, he actually appeared suprised and pleased. I chatted with him for a bit, wished him luck, and told him someday ‘d be able to tell people I’d met him back at the beginning of his career. His dad gave me one of his CD’s as a thank you for helping them out that evening. Which I still haven’t listened to because its just been kind of crazy and I want to really listen to it, not just throw it in when I’m not paying attention.

Saw several friends during the day, wrapped up the evening with J&S and S’s parents, Rod & Elaine and their new dog, Malay (or however they spell it) catching the last main stage act on the Pentacrest. It was a beautiful night, though it had been blazingly hot all day. I drank around six bottles of water during the day. SWEATY! Got home sometime after 11pm on Saturday night, I’d been at the fest for more than twelve hours. Oh the shower felt good!

I learned the hard way that one should really only volunteer for one entire day of jazzfest per year. Getting up and getting back downtown twelve hours after I got home was a bit of a stretch and the guy I was working the local side stage with wasn’t what I needed when I was a bit tired. I showed up and introduced myself to him and he stared at me like he could’ve cared less who I was and why was I bothering him with my name and a handshake anyway? Then he came up to me a few minutes later and asked if I wanted to introduce the first band and make the announcements. I had done this all day the day before, so I wasn’t opposed to doing it, but I was kind of tired, so my enthusiasm was waning just a bit. I responded with a, “It doesn’t matter to me, I can do it if you want.” Because, that’s how I felt. Get this: the guy responds with, “I only deal in absolutes. ‘Yes’ or ‘No’?” The hell? That guy was way too intense for me. I did introduce the first band, but he did the rest because he was way more into it than I was. I basically sat around waiting to be needed, snacking on tasty mango gelatto. The band I did introduce is really great, Euforquestra. I had heard them this past fall at a NOLA relief concert. Their current sound is described as afro-cuban. A great beat… they’re only two years old and from Iowa City. Check out their site and they are getting more gigs around the country. I need to get their CD. Gotta support the up-and-commers.

The rest of Sunday was a bit of a blur. Sleepy Wendy.

Monday, the 3rd, as I previously indicated, I worked. Then on the 4th of July, I got up at like 5:30am to get down to Bussey for our big hometown 4th celebration in time for the morning pancake breakfast and the parade. Not a huge crowd of family this year, but things tend to be a little quieter when the 4th is in the middle of the week and people might only have that one day off. But the weather was nice and I saw a few of my high school classmates I hadn’t seen in awhile. Ate too much pie and got a bunch of Stephen King paperbacks for $.20 each at the library book sale. mmmmMMMMMmmmm book sale. Headed back east in the afternoon and went to the Roethler homestead for an impromptu BBQ gathering. Domino bounced a lot and Lindsey was generally cute as always. J&S were there, as well as Sarah, Stacey, and Lucas Harrison, and several of D&A’s neighbors. I left the party around 8pm I think and went home and went to bed. No fireworks for me. I don’t believe in driving to fireworks. If I can’t see them from my deck/porch, no thanks.

And then because I hadn’t been out of the house enough (who needs to do laundry?), on Wednesday (the 5th) I went to see Superman Returns in IMAX in Cedar Rapids with G-reg, Will, and Stacey & Sarah. We had dinner beforehand at HuHot with the rest of the Hodgi (aka Carly and Kaitlyn). My summer blockbuster movie roundup post is forthcoming, so I’ll just say this for now: see Superman Returns but don’t see it on a domed IMAX. And if you do, don’t say I didn’t tell you not to. Oh, and we sat in front of Nate Kaeding. Random.

Thursday I did laundry and vacuumed and tried to get some handle on the general state of my life because on Friday immediately following work and my chiropractor appointment, Jeff rolled into town. He’ll have photos of the highlights (I have a few) and the weekend unfolded pretty quickly as we were off to the Vine in Coralville for wings and beer priced to amuse those used to paying $15 for a drink on the east coast. The roll that night included Frosty, the Steeles, the Roethlers, and the Hodgeses. After dinner, Jeff & I went downtown which was hopping because the weather was complete perfection which brought out good crowds for the Friday Night Concert series. We just walked around and Jeff observed all the downtown changes/upgrades. Ice cream was procured from Whitey’s. They have a new S’mores flavor: cocoa ice cream, marshmallow cream and pieces of graham cracker—delish! We wandered over and consumed our cones on the steps of the Old Capitol now that the steps are all open again. J&S came in after Jerry’s softball game (I don’t even know if he won) and we checked out the newish Donnelly’s Pub, which is nice and smoke-free. Eventually we called it a night and Jeff and I headed back to my casa and watched some Simpsons’ dvds before retiring to bed.

That was pretty much the set up for the pattern of the rest of the weekend: meet friends, eat and drink with friends, sleep at some late point.

Saturday we met J&S for coffee, a walk around the farmer’s market, and brunch at the Hamburg. Then Jeff and I did some semi-quick shopping as Jeff needed another pair of Merrills, I got a couple of things at Old Navy, and then we bought tiki torches and supporting tiki accoutrements for the Steele’s deck where we were having a BBQ gathering later that afternoon. It was a great six hours or so with friends, including; Jerry & Sara, Diane & Andy & Lindsey, Frosty & Margaret, Stretch, and Josh (who we’d finally drug away from his work in Des Moines). Many tasty things were grilled and eaten. mmmMMMMmmm hot coals. After the food was consumed, we needed dessert, and, as if on cue, we heard the distant tinkling of the ice cream man’s melody. We were quite a sight: eight adults in the front yard with a light rain waiting totally impatiently for this truck to roll down the street. Jeff has pictures, they’re amusing. We got ice cream. :) G-reg finally showed up and we continued socializing until Jeff finally decided that he just had to go out downtown. So I went with Jeff, Greg, Stretch, and Josh. Amusing. We went to College Street Billards and ran into Russ, as I tend to do every eight months or so. Then we went to the Dublin and they have Woodpecker cider on tap. Yea. There was pool and this never ending game of darts. Then it was last call and spilled out onto the sidewalk with the rest of humanity. Grilled cheese was eaten and we were highly entertained by the people swirling around us, half of which had apparently gotten dressed in the dark. We then said our goodbyes because Josh and Stretch were insane and were driving back to Des Moines that night so they could work on Sunday. Oh the horror. We went home, Simpsons, sleep.

Sunday we got up, went back downtown to Donnelly’s Pub to watch the final of the World Cup with J&S and Frosty and his dad. They have really really good sweet potato fries and onion rings there! Italy won. Go Italy. Got to see the headbutt heard ’round the world. What was that guy thinking? Came out of the pub around 3:45 and had been thinking about going to play a round of frisbee golf but it was just HOT and humid out, so that plan quickly turned into “let’s go to the movies!” And so J&S, Jeff and I got our pirate on and joined everyone else in the country apparently, in seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. We went to a 5pm screening and it was pretty much sold-out. I think a lot of people had the same idea we had at that time of day. More movie comments forthcoming, in short: see that movie (if you haven’t already) it was really fun. After that got out it was nearly 8pm and Jeff and I rolled back to my place one last time. We watched more Simpsons and I made hamburger helper. He packed up and headed over to J&S’s for the night and that was the end of my weekend.

A really really great weekend with friends! But man, I’m still a bit tired…