I didn't get up to go birding - I didn't even bother to set my alarm for eight to go to Pea Patch because first of all it would have meant less than five hours of sleep and second of all (mostly) the forecast was for thunderstorms all day. Just my luck then that it turned out to be quite an agreeable day; lushly humid but not particularly cold or precipitative. I gather they didn't stay out birding very long even. It would have been nice to go. Instead, I woke up at maybe 10 or 11 to find myself next to Alyssa. And that made me really happy. Of course then she left to do more Spike work, and I tried to write stuff here. Rae suggested that we listen to When I Was Cruel in her room while she worked on her library model, so I brought my computer down and typed up the bit about Friday and the Travis Morrison quote. After four songs she insisted we leave and go to an art supply store, so I pulled her her pearly pink purly sweater on over my tiger-print Hawaiian and Sunday pants. The outfit garnered me some funny looks in Michaels, as we picked packs of ivory modelling clay, but the Produce Guy, whose newly opened store across the street we decided on a whim to visit afterwards, said he really liked my look. We bought kiwis, corn, brocolli rabe, and french bread from him, and then came home and ate the latter with olive oil and Rebecca, as we discussed little New England towns.

Then back to work - I counted up the minutes of old Elvis Costello records and listened to the new one. "Every Elvis has an army" he said. On first listen: it's good. I like the album. But it sort of sounds too much like Elvis Costello. I feel like almost all of his records stand out from the others in some way; each has its own peculiar flavor. And this one runs the risk of being "just another EC album" in the way that I feel like Bob Dylan and Neil Young and so on just keeping putting out albums, many of which aren't that distinctive from each other (as opposed to David Bowie and Elvis Costello and to some extent Tom Waits, where each album really is unique.) I'll have to listen to it more, but some of the songs don't seem quite as strong as others. I like "45" and "Tart" and the title track (although we were disappointed to hear that she says "Om" instead of "Um.")

That album ended and then we listened to Emergency & I, which I think Rae was disappointed by since it wasn't as "understated" as she had anticipated, and then I came upstairs to help with dinner. Joel and Rebecca had already prepared three lasagnas (two vegan, one non-), so I put together a carrot cake and oil-vinegar-oregano for the bread while Rebecca dealt with corn and salad. It was quite a feast, very summery and very tasty. Enjoyed by the flat, Rae, and Alyssa. Everyone took off afterwards, Alyssa and I did some dishes and then played jacks, struggling a bit for subjects. A spot of practicing, and a tense conference with Marié and Valé and Joelé in Oldé Club, and then I went over to Suzanne Wu's flat in the ville for Scrabble. When I got there she and Micah were playing a sort of violent tetris video game that they had declared an IQ test. They cleared off the table and we (Strapless Suzanne, Androgynous Andrew, Rambunctious Ross) began to play. Su got three bingos (premiums) in the first game - including "carrots" and "boilery" (totally a made-up word, but I challenged its crossword "dishy" instead, and that was good) - and I got "refoiled" (as in "Curses! Refoiled!"), which put me at a respectable 250-something (in between Su's 330-something and Andrew's 180-something or so.) We played another game, where the finishing order was the same (su, me, and), but a lot closer. The playing was pretty intense - they play with a 3rd edition dictionary, and use the challenging rule much more seriously. I played a bunch of two-letter words that I wasn't sure on but, they didn't mention it so I felt I was good. My big mistake in the second game was trying for a premium with "abrasing" even though I knew it wasn't a word, rather than just putting "apings" on a triple word. I also had to fend off Su's cigarette smoke and attacks from their misleadingly sweet-looking kitty Cassidy, who turned out to be quite a vicious little beast, leaping triumphantly onto the table from a sill several feet away, biting and scratching her would-be petters. So that was their home court advantage. It was definitely a fun time - my first time playing this semester - and we agreed to play again, probably here. And maybe anagrams or boggle too. Cool

and the flavor is…
tart