The getting of the rabbit tattoo
July 6, 2011
Perhaps you read the tale of how I came to the decision, despite having professed for years that I’d never ever want one, to go ahead and get a tattoo. Here, then, is the account of the experience, from designing the perfect rabbit suitable for permanent emblazonment to, tee hee, Sparky McFuzznuts the squirrel.
I have drawn this rabbit a lot in the last year and a half, yet when it came time to draw one for the tattoo, well, I guess I experienced some performance pressure. I thought I’d whip one out in a maximum of ten rabbits. Turns out, it was fifteen pages of twenty-four rabbits. That’s just under one rabbit for each day of the year.
I didn’t love any of them on paper, but I picked the ones that passed as my favorites, cut them out and taped them to a single sheet of paper, and scanned them in. As a graphic designer, I was confident in the digital magic that could be done. I narrowed it down to parts of three or four rabbits that I knew I could Frankenstein together for The One.
In choosing The One, I practiced what I’ve preached to my mother on many a Teddy bear shopping excursion. It’s true that there are ten or twenty Teddies to choose from. And I know you want to choose the one with the cutest face. But once you get any one of the ten or twenty home and away from the other nine or nineteen, you won’t know the difference.
Once I got the rabbits to where I liked them, I employed the same strategy. It came down to one rabbit with two minor variations. I knew that once I got one away from the other, I’d never know the difference. Having also learned from playing Trivial Pursuit, I went with my first instinct.
The final decision was the size. After I had drawn a bunch of the rabbits, I started to think that maybe it didn’t need to be quite that big. I printed out the final rabbit in a range of sizes and decided to go just a little bit smaller.
Jers was my tattoo artist at Saint Sabrina’s. I tried to draw him out on some advice—he was the professional, after all—but he kept insisting that it was my tattoo and my decision about anything I asked him. Then I realized that the squirrel he was holding on his business card was actually his furry companion, Sparky McFuzznuts. Then I saw the back of the card.
During the process, I quizzed Jers about Sparky. I refused to look at what he was doing. It’s not that I’m afraid of needles or blood, but I just have this habit of psyching myself out and I didn’t want to take any chances. Learning about Sparky was the perfect distraction.
Jers said he rescued Sparky as an orphaned youngster. He nursed him to adulthood and tried to set him free, but Sparky just hung around the yard so Jers accepted him as an indoor companion. Sparky is about three.
It wasn’t too painful. I had figured it would be akin to when my cat CJ is in her basket just to the side of my mouse arm and decides that she needs to be in physical contact with me. She reaches out and doesn’t exactly dig in, but still she kind of grapples my arm and hangs on and it’s prickly. I anticipated that the tattoo would be heavy-duty prickly. It was more like CJ was scratching. Not painful, but quite noticeable.
I endured—adrenalin was definitely in play—but I was very happy when Jers let up and it seemed like he was taking a break. Then, before I could remark, he said, “You’re done!” What? It didn’t even take fifteen minutes. It is a simple design and I had no previous experience to judge by, but I sure wasn’t expecting to be finished that quickly.
It’s been a week and a half and, thankfully, I’ve not had a moment of buyer’s remorse. Jers did a wonderful job and I love my tattoo!
What I do all day
June 17, 2011
12:11 Ooh there’s Hola Arepa. I should really get something from them since I find myself all the way down here. I can write the Father’s Day card while I wait.
Went to Target where I got a card for my dad and am going to the Post Office next, but I cut over a street too soon. Lo and behold!
12:43 This is really good! Are those bassoon cases?
Finishing my chicken avocado salad arepa with a side of pickled cabbage slaw. Two girls from the nearby music school have joined the line carrying instrument cases. My first thought is bassoon, but maybe it’s English horn. If there were a bell outdent, I’d think trumpet. But they’re flat. The girl with the dark hair is excited about arepas and says arepa with a good Spanish accent.
1:14 Yay new toothbrush cover!
Back at the office brushing my teeth after lunch. I am quite excited about this replacement toothbrush cover.
3:51 OMIGODILOVECAPRESE! I wish *I* had a Leviathan IPA.
My esteemed work colleague is photo shooting tomato recipes this week and just gave me some tomato and fresh mozzarella slices with marjoram and basil. So good. Then I see that Meghan’s enjoying a tasty IPA at 3:00 my time.
5:24 Video games meh.
Looking at an article about 50 great apps for your iPad. I’m okay with word games, and I did buy Bebot.app for my iPhone, but all these ridiculous shooter games … I don’t care how novel the platform is. Soccer-playing zombies? Meh.
6:02 How can it take me 3 minutes 27 seconds to change clothes when I know what I’m going to put on?
Changing into workout clothes. I know it took 3:27 because I checked my 30-minute timer before I started.
6:34 It’s always too warm in here.
At Curves, in the middle of my workout. [Okay, so I wrote this one afterwards.]
7:07 6 yellows, I thought I did better than that.
Entering my workout into the computer. I worked harder than six yellows. The goal is all green.
7:38 Apple Store, here I come. Hmm, I’d better turn left up here.
Leaving the strip mall where I picked up cat and rabbit food, as well as some grocery store sushi for myself. I ate one piece. Excited to be heading over to get a new bumper for my iPhone after my old one wore out Saturday.
9:11 These chopsticks probably poison me a little bit more every time I use them.
Finally eating my sushi with chopsticks made in China.
9:42 Should I face the glass with the gargoyle forward even though it’s a Ruination glass and I’ve got Arrogant Bastard?
Second to last important decision of the day. When I try a new beer, I take a “beauty shot” of it poured in a glass. Ruination is the same brand as Arrogant Bastard. I love the Ruination gargoyle, but I also like the slogan on the other side of the glass, “I’m bitter and I like it.” Internal debate is because Arrogant Bastard is a little bit hoppy, but it’s more malty, so it’s not bitter so the slogan isn’t exactly applicable, but of course it’s also not Ruination. I went with the slogan for the Arrogant Bastard.
Creepy GPS tracking (the day in bike ride, part 2)
June 9, 2011
Maybe it’s a little unfair to call it “creepy GPS tracking” since I’m the one who installed the app on my iPhone and turned it on for the express purpose of tracking my bike ride. If you were a reader already last summer and saw my bike ride reports, know this: the maps that I included were all hand generated by me.
A couple of months ago, my friend Jack who was already out biking in, of all places, Scotland, turned me on to Cyclemeter.app, one of the three flavors of app that Abvio Inc makes to track your activity at three different paces (walking, running, biking). I haven’t delved into why different apps are necessary for different speeds. Someone else can figure that out if they’re curious.
(Not because it was Scotland per se, but because it would have been Scotland in March, and that seems a little early to be galavanting around on one’s bicycle that far north.)
Anyway, I embraced Cyclemeter as an easy way to get a map of where I’ve gone. I had tested it on a couple of previous short rides that didn’t involve stops. Saturday was the first time I’ve used it on a longer ride. As I said in last night’s entry (to which you can refer for details about the highlights on tonight’s map, other than the toilet which is mentioned below), I didn’t plan on all the stops and wandering around that I ended up doing. I left the app running the whole time.
When I got home, I had Cyclemeter send the map data to Google Maps. I looked at it and at first glance I thought, great, that’s where I went. Then I zoomed in and things got the aforementioned creepy.
It followed me around the Midtown Farmers Market, and it followed me following the deer. And it captured all of my movements in Minnehaha Park where I ended up spending an hour or so between the Falls and the band I listened to for a while. I didn’t think too much of it. I was mostly pleased that even though it’s the bicycle version of the three apps, it kept working while I was walking, too.
The creepiness crept in when I noticed that in addition to tracking my general walking around, it also managed to capture my every move inside the bathroom, which was my original reason for getting off the bike path and going a little ways into the park. The GPS shows you that I used one of the northern stalls and then had to walk a few feet to the center to use the sink. I exited and started walking around.
Had I thought about it beforehand, I wouldn’t have had any reason to believe that the tracking would pause while I was in the bathroom. A satellite doesn’t know that I had to pee like a racehorse. Next time, though, I will try to engage the pause feature. I don’t mind a little privacy for certain things.
Map and satellite image © Google Maps and affiliates
Last Saturday, all I was planning to do was ride my bike the ten minutes to the nearby Midtown Farmers Market, eat the farm egg sandwich with asparagus pesto, greens, maple vinaigrette, and Parmesan that the Dandelion Kitchen food truck was making, and bike the ten minutes back home. No such luck. The weather, though slightly on the warm side for my personal preference, was simply wonderful and I couldn’t help but stay outside.
This was my first time visiting this particular market. I go anywhere on Saturday mornings, it has been to the Mill City Farmers Market to visit another favorite food truck, Chef Shack. But this Saturday, Dandelion Kitchen’s tweet about that egg sandwich caught my eye and I thought, why not? I’ve often enjoyed their lunch creations downtown during the work week and I was excited to try something different.
It was delicious. I bet they’d sell a lot of those egg sandwiches at lunch, too.
There were a few other food stands at the market, so I went back for more. I decided to also try the Caprese kebab and the curry satay chicken from Kabomelette. I don’t know how I was expecting the Caprese to be prepared—I guess as a kebab I was thinking it would be hot—but it was the only thing it could have been—mozzarella balls and grape tomatoes on a skewer. I think those fresh mozzarella balls might be one of my favorite forms of cheese. The curried chicken was quite good, too.
I will try the other food stands the next time I go back.
When I finished eating, I had a ten-second debate with myself about whether to take the long way home, aka, do the ten-mile bike ride loop. It was a debate because I hadn’t packed my bike the way I would if I planned to be out for a while; in the end, I knew that if I went home to re-prepare I probably wouldn’t go back out, so away I went south instead of north.
I was rewarded within a mile. As I approached the corner of Hiawatha Avenue and 46th Street where the bike trail jogged off into a less-concretey setting, a young deer came trotting out of the brush looking as if it had a mind to cross Hiawatha. I was able to cross 46th quickly enough that I could shoosh it back to where it had come from. A few yards on and I could still see it between the road and the nearby houses.
I went off-road and stalked it gently to see if I could get some pictures. It was obviously an urban deer because it didn’t seem too concerned by me. We had a few stare-downs and I could see that it was a young buck with about six-inch antler sprouts. He eventually waggled his tail at me and sauntered back into the undergrowth and I decided it was time to move along.
My loop took me through Minnehaha Park. After dilly-dallying at the market and communing with the deer, I found myself in need of facilities and availed myself of the some in one of the pavillions. When I came back out, I noticed that Minnehaha Creek was flowing more energetically than I’m used to seeing it when I ride east from Hiawatha. I let myself be hypnotized by what could be considered mini-rapids and walked my bike along the bank for a ways. I came to a footbridge over the creek and went up on it. I looked over the other side and suddenly realized that I had accidentally come upon Minnehaha Falls.
No kidding, that’s the first time I’ve ever been to the falls in person in the twenty total years I’ve lived in Minneapolis which is just crazy. It’s a landmark location. For the second time in the day, I made the decision to take my time. I locked my bike up and explored, along with a hundred of my closest friends.
Doesn’t matter that there were crass people and screaming kids all around me. Doesn’t matter that to go down and then back up, I had to negotiate about three storeys’ worth of short, stone steps. Sometimes, the aesthetics still win.
I found out that the hoard of other bikers I was seeing on the trail, most of whom had little number tags pinned to their backs, were participants in the Tour de Cure for diabetes, the finish line of which was in the park. As part of the festivities, the cover band Stitched was playing. I sat and listened their interesting range songs, which included Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” and the Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster.” I liked the guy’s voice.
I finally got going again and went my merry way north along the Mississippi River. When I got near the end I decided that I was too hot and tired to deal with the long, steep hill that I knew awaited me to get up from the river back onto the streets in my neighborhood, so I peeled off into the side streets which were a little less direct but much more flat.
As a result, I was able to ride through the Milwaukee Avenue Historical District, a charming example of urban preservation. The houses were built in the late 1800s and rehabilitated in the 1970s. The street was turned into a pedestrian mall and when you walk (or bike) along it, you totally have the feeling of being in another era.
I got home and realized for the first time in the nearly four hours that I had been out that oh yeah, it was sunny and I hadn’t put on sun screen because I had only been planning to be out in it for twenty minutes. Fortunately, it never felt as bad as the crisp to which it looks like I’m fried here. Still, it was shocking when I first saw it.
I showered and refreshed myself, built a fire with which to cook, and enjoyed a few Summit Gold Sovereign Ales while sitting on my steps. All in all, I consider it to have been one of the most enjoyabledays—partly because it was ninety percent spontaneous—I’ve had in the last few years (London vacation last summer notwithstanding). Hurrah!
Learning to fly
June 6, 2011
I had occasion today to recall being brave enough to make my first bike ride without the training wheels. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I can tell you exactly where I was.
This might take a while and I might ramble.
When I was still a squirt (say, ages three through six), we’d spend the summers in Bloomington, Indiana, because my dad was working on his doctorate degree in music theory at Indiana University. It took a while because he only did summers. During the school year, he was a professor of music at Ohio Northern University. That’s a whole other topic, ONU.
There were a few kid milestones that happened during those summers at IU. I won’t claim to remember if they’re in chronological order. But they did happen. Oh blargh, now I’m calling my mom to check. Hang on …
Okay, it was during my ages three through seven that I went. My dad went one additional year without my mom and me.
The main milestone I want to focus on is learning to ride a bike, or more precisely, the day I ditched the training wheels. Because I do remember it. What I didn’t confirm with my mom just now was how old I was, but I feel like it was the summer when I turned six. (I was one of those fortunate kids whose birthday is in the middle of summer and no fuss was ever made in class during the year.)
I had a hand-me-down bike, an old Schwinn from a neighbor. I thought it was copper, my mom said it was maroon. On that momentous day, I was riding up the diagonal sidewalk between the two apartment buildings—the one where we lived, and the other one where my little best friend Angie M lived (Angie was a year older than I). Somebody, probably my mom, I guess, because my dad would have been in class, noticed that I wasn’t putting any balance on the training wheels and said, okay, let’s take them off. And we did. And that was it.
The other thing I remember about that day (and I’m sure it’s entirely possible that I’m blurring events together because, let’s face it, that was forty years ago) is that along that sidewalk, just about where it met the other diagonal sidewalk with which it made an X, I came upon a squirrel that wasn’t too frightened by people and seemed willing to let me walk up to it with outstretched hand. One of the other adults present sternly warned me not to interact with the skwerl because it might be rabid and if it bit me, I’d die. There was some other thing about stray dogs peeing in the sandbox where we kids liked to play. Yay, adults and their scaremongering.
Other things I remember about those years, definitely not in chronological order:
My mom and I would play Poohsticks on one particular little bridge over the Jordan River which ran right through the middle of campus. As you’ve learned, in addition to rabbits, I have a history of Pooh.
We did spend one entire year there, so I attended kindergarten. I got along well with my teacher. She’d walk me home sometimes. In class, I learned the classic “My Napsack on My Back” song (val-da-ree …) On the walks home, she taught me another song that had slightly naughty words, that her husband disapproved of her teaching one so young as I. Maybe she wasn’t my teacher. Maybe she was just a friend of my parents’.
I remember vaulting off a stone wall that I’m going to estimate was at least six feet tall. There were four or five of us kids doing it. We had no fear of mortality.
Angie and I came to be in possession of a shopping cart for a couple of days. We pushed each other around in it, and we turned it over and made a fort out of it.
Angie and I also set up a lemonade stand on the other side of the apartment complex on a busier street. We made a little bit. Angie figured it all out and I remember feeling like I didn’t walk away with as much as should have been my fair share, you know, probably $2.25 instead of $2.75.
IU might also have been where my interest in science kindled. For whatever reason, my dad the music professor had a class in a lecture hall in the geology building. In the lobby was what to me seemed a moon-sized globe, as well as a two-storey pendulum. I found them both to be fascinating. I attended class with my dad one day, and it was on that day that a rare earthquake occurred, the only one I’ve ever been witness to, thankfully. It wasn’t much, just enough to be felt and to cause everyone in the hall to look at each other in “did you feel that?” wonderment.
I think what this boils down to is that I really fondly remember my time at Indiana University. You know, and my childhood.
Post script:
My dad’s doctorate thesis was not approved. He did not get his PhD. Years later when I myself was in college, I took an editing class. We had to come up with a long manuscript to edit and I convinced my dad to let me use his thesis.
Top photo: me, by my mom.
Bottom photo: a youngster who freed herself of training wheels today and was the inspiration for this post but who shall remain nameless, by her dad Tyler, an acquaintance of mine. If I had one of myself peddling around at that age, I would have used it instead.
The cat???s the thing
June 4, 2011
Do you live with a cat? Then you know that if you put something down on the floor, they will come. A good box is hard to resist. Maru knows it, my cats know it. This, then, is the story behind the photo above, which I think ranks second of my all-time favorite my-cats stories.
A few months ago I finally joined the 2000s and got a large, flat-screen TV. I had been lumbering along with my old 21-inch CRT television that I think was close to twenty years old. I unpacked the new beauty and set it up, and put the box in front of some bookshelves in my middle room while I decided if I was going to keep the TV and then, having decided yes to that, whether I thought I needed to keep the box. During the time in which I was ignoring that monumental decision, my parents came to visit and I moved the box to the front room because I needed to get it out of the way.
(Even if you just started reading my blog a week ago, you can picture this, can’t you?, since I helpfully shared my floorplan on May 26. If you read that post—in which I semi-whined about the cool temperatures we’ve had so far this spring—please know that the forecast for the next week doesn’t show highs below 80F/28C. That’s how it goes in Minnesota. You can’t quite bring yourself to stash your winter coat, and then all of a sudden you’re screaming for air conditioning. But I digress.)
In the evening as we all were lounging in the front room where the large, flat TV box now was, none of us humans were really paying attention to what the cats (and rabbits, mine and my parents’) were doing until Dasie perched on the arm of the chair next to the box with obvious intent. She’s very athletic, generally, but somehow she managed to be in some weirdo position so that when she finally did vault herself into the box, she ended up doing a backflop into it. Not a bellyflop, but a backflop.
I grabbed for the iPhone because I knew there would be a photo opp. According to my mother, during the three seconds that I had my back turned, the cat came leaping right back out of the box, only it wasn’t Dasie. Unbeknownst to anyone (Dasie included judging by the look on her face), CJ was already in the box. My mom started howling with laughter at the sight of a black and white cat going in, and an all-black cat coming out. I just managed to snap this photo as Dasie surfaced, confused by any or all of the above.
This might be my favorite photo that I’ve ever taken of any of my four cats (two past, two present). It’s the gift that keeps on giving partly, I suppose, because I know that it fits right in with the rest of her personality. It makes a wonderful lock screen on my iPhone.
It’s not my favorite cat story though, because I didn’t actually see the cause and effect. Favorite story of all time goes to my original cat Dhia, pictured below also in a box. When she was just a squirt (read, young and spastic) she was lounging on the back of my bed, not asleep but not paying attention. I snuck up on her and smacked my hand down on the bed very close to her. She launched straight up into the air. Well, apparently not quite straight up, because when she came back down, she slid right down into the six-inch gap between my bed and the wall like a piece of bread in a toaster. The look of utter surprise on her face was priceless. Priceless. Mind you, I don’t make a habit of laughing at others’ misfortune but right now, twenty years later, it still makes me giggle out loud.
Just like I chuckle every time I look at this photo of Dasie.
May 21, 2011
The busy life of a rabbit
June 2, 2011
In 2003, when Robbin was just a bun, I captured ten minutes of still photos of him just going about his important rabbit business. I had printed out the photos and bound them together in a little book. I wanted to take a movie of me flipping the pages—because it sort of makes a little movie like a flipbook—but I moved five and a half years ago and I couldn’t find it. So I did the next best thing, made a quick video of the photos. That’s my former cat Dhia hanging out with Robbin.
Evolution of a tattoo
June 1, 2011
A year and a half ago, I drew this marker tattoo of a rabbit on my wrist. As the day wore on and then it was still there, albeit somewhat faded, after my shower the next morning, I slowly decided that I didn’t mind it. It faded from my thoughts until six weeks ago when once again, the rabbit appeared on my wrist. And I really liked having it there. (Blog post / TT mission // Blog post / TT mission)
It was then that my friend Lauren (the same one who had us thinking about cover songs the other night) gave me the old peer pressure one-two.
She lives in Philadelphia, but whenever she’d come to Minneapolis to visit our friend Rob (the one who moved to California, remember?), the two of them would always pay a visit to Saint Sabrina’s Parlor of Purgatory to get something pierced.
Lauren is coming to town later this month for a family thing on her husband’s side. She has made a case for me to take over for Rob in accompanying her to Saint Sabrina’s (looks like they’ve dropped the Parlor of Purgatory from their name). She has a new tattoo that she’d like to get, and I am just about sure that I will get the rabbit. I submitted a request for an estimate and if the price is less than the arbitrary cut-off point I’ve set, I’LL DO IT!
As I was looking back through my Tweak Today submissions, I saw how often this rabbit has made an appearance, and in what varied mediums. Its appearance has also evolved somewhat, from the kind of pensive fellow in the original marker tattoo to the rather more coiled fellow in the second marker tattoo and the recent chalk drawing.
Here, then, is a gallery of … The Rabbit.
Drawn in condiments. Hershey’s chocolate syrup and Readi-Whip, to be exact. (Blog post / TT mission)
Cut paper picture, recreating a way I used to make art as a kid. (Blog post / TT mission)
Connect the dots. (Blog post / TT mission)
Blaze orange duct tape 3D sculpture. (Blog post / TT mission)
Hopping mad. (Blog post / TT mission)
A woodcut I made, art for the sake of art. (Blog post / Blog post 2 / TT mission)
Carved on a zucchini. (Blog post / TT mission)
In a picture to hang on your refrigerator. (Blog post / TT mission)
Chalk drawing on the bike path. (Blog post / TT mission)
[Update: The tattoo price estimate did come in within range and I did get it. Read all about it in this later post.]
The day in yard project: Garden pathway
May 30, 2011
So for five years I’ve had these round pavers, languishing in stacks in front of my place, waiting for the whim to overtake me to make them into a path. My new upstairs neighbor bugged me all last summer to do it and I coyly demured. The last thing I want is to be told when to do something, or for it to seem like I’m doing something because somebody suggested it. Today, I finally got in the mood naturally and, thankfully, without any helpers.
Our section of yard was the only one without some sort of little path. Five summers ago I lugged home nine round stones from Home Depot. I wasn’t ready to actually labor that day so I set them aside and there they stayed. I originally measured taking into account having space in between each one. Soon after I decided I didn’t want space between them. I never went back to buy the two or three extra stones. But in the intervening years, I’ve found two flat, square pieces of concrete or something that will do.
Yesterday, the bug nudged its way into my pants and I laid the stones out. At work I’m doing a book about gardening and one of the tips for making pathways is to lay the stones down and let them kill whatever’s underneath so you’ll know how much space to clear. I put them down, pretty sure that I was just going to dig everything up. I don’t want grass in between.
Today, I grabbed the hoe and went to it. I was quite pleased indeed that it didn’t take long at all to dig up the grass, less than an hour. However, a little while later, my thumbs of all things got tired from the impact of all the hoeing. Even now, they’re feeling pretty weak. Nevertheless, the speed with which I cleared the grass kept me enthusiastic about the project.
I had a supervisor (Dasie).
After I started embedding the stones in the dirt and it became apparent that the rest of the job would not go as quickly, I broke out the beer.
After about three hours, the stones were fairly snugly set with dirt repacked around them. The trouble with the project that you can’t see is that the stones kind of rise and fall due to unhackable large roots of the maple tree in the yard. There were two. I straddled one, but a stone had to sit on the other one to maintain the spacing. Oh well.
Then I decide that another phase of the project needed to be moving the little rock border forward. So I did that. Then I decided, after four hours, that I was done for the day. Or rather, my body decided for me. I think I’ll get some impatiens to put in the newly-vacated space.
I had planned to wait to grill until tomorrow, but it suddenly seemed like a good idea. I had package of pork country style ribs thawed and ready to go.
It was a good decision. It was a delicious meal with which to reward all my hard work. I was, however, a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to move again once I sat down.
I took some ibuprofen eventually and that really helped. But then I got the best comfort (CJ)!
Come on baby, cover me
May 28, 2011
Tonight my friend Lauren asked about cover songs that are better than the original. The first one that came to mind was the Smiths “How Soon Is Now” covered by ????????. I know there will be those who question whether the cover is better than the original. Maybe not. But it’s at least as good. ???????? is my guilty pleasure act.
Then after a few minutes, I remembered a cover that I’m in love with because it actually does blow the original away, like a summer breeze. Oh wait. The Isley Brothers’ version of Seals and Crofts’ “Summer Breeze” is amazing. The original takes me back to my childhood, in a good way. But the cover makes me feel all funky and groovy and mellow. It’s out of this world.
I present them both below for your listening pleasure.
???????? “How Soon Is Now”—buy it here
Isley Brothers “Summer Breeze”—buy it here
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 