holy ghost

dear holy ghost,

hiiiiiiiiii. it's me. the one that's obsessed with you and is tumblin all your shit. i love your blog.

mmmkaybye,

kt

p.s. follow them on FB, twitter and tumblr and get gripped

p.p.s. feel free to peep my labor of love while you're at it

edna j.

so i took a trip home to OR this weekend and visited this little raisin, edna j. drydale.

vintage braves cap courtesy of spencer barnes' minors team

spencer's closet - dallas, OR - circa 1997

she's my 92 year-old great grandma and is totally outrageous. i took davy crockett to pay her first visit to GG and edna was enamored with my little ball of sweet black lovin'. the best thing about grandma is hearing what comes out of her mouth. since her days are exclusively filled with eating and TV (primarily COPS, major league baseball and the occasional episode of matlock), reality gets strangely garbled for her and she ends up regurgitating outlandish tales that paint her and my great grandpa as american folklore. lucky for y'all, i committed these tall tales to memory for your viewing pleasure.

GG: how's your job overseas going?
KT: oh, i live in seattle now. my job's fine.
GG: no, you work overseas...
KT: uh, no, rem does. he's flying airplanes overseas. he gives people gas. his wife is in spokane flying helicopters.
GG: rem got married?!
KT: uh, yeah grandma. last year. you have a picture of it right there. see? that's rem and that's ashly?
GG: that's REM?!!?
KT: ha, yes. yes, it is. they live in spokane.
GG: oh so you bought a house?
KT: no, rem and ashly bought a house. in spokane.
GG: ohhhhh yeah. it's right next door to our house in spokane.
KT: come again?
GG: yeah, we have a house right next door. with six foot fences so the dogs can't jump out.
KT: niiiiiice. that's gotta be super convenient for you.

grandma LOVES reminiscing about colorado. her and great-grandpa used to live there as kids and adults. my grandpa even literally got stuck in the kissing camels at garden of the gods and the fire department had to come get him down. that one actually is true. the following tale is 69% false.

GG: you know your grandpa laid curb in colorado. all of colorado springs.
KT: really...
GG: he was the best cement finisher in all of oregon (ah, i see we've jumped states here)
KT: doesn't surprise me
GG: and he built the air force academy.
KT: by himself?
GG: pretty much. and he built fort kit carson.
KT: wowwwwww. that's awesome. so he pretty much built all of colorado springs.
GG: yep. best cement finisher in all of oregon

and have i mentioned she's addicted to MLB?

KT: what are you watching?
GG: the world series (in actuality it was a recap of baseball in the 70s)
KT: who's playing?
GG: my boys!
KT: ahhhh, who's your boys?
GG: oh i can't remember right now. america.
J: isn't america always in the world series?
KT: (just go with it)
GG: america and japan. we're killing them.
KT: oh reallllllly.
GG: oh yeah, i love the dodgers. (she has zero affiliation with the dodgers)

i wish i would have taken pictures of her wall decor. someone (cough*grandmamatie*cough) has cut out kitschy pictures from her boston terrier calendars and pasted them on HUGE pieces of posterboard. they now masquerade as "tasteful wall hangings". great grandma swears those are her champion bulldogs - and she's kind of right. my family has raised bostons for 4 generations and she did have at least one champion, sampson.

GG: those are my champions
KT: i see that. which ones are those?
GG: oh, you know, that girl.
KT: you mean chica?
GG: no...
KT: sampson?
GG: i don't know. that girl.
KT: i remember chica & stubby. wasn't chica mom's dog and you took her when rem was born?
GG: that was your grandma matie's dog. i took her because i had a big backyard. 6 foot fences.
KT: ohhhhh yeah...in spokane. next to rem and ashly.
GG: exactly.

i promise you she's not crazy, just hysterical to listen to. i used to try and correct her stories but it's wayyyyyyyyy more fun to just roll with them. when she used to live in her own house and watch COPS on heavy rotation, she'd swear up and down that the dallas PD visited her neighbors on the reg, arresting them and getting them "facedown on a tarp with their hands cuffed behind their back". literally directly seen on COPS. it's a shame too, her poor neighbors were actually really nice people too.

i can't only hope to be this badass in 68 years.

i kept marveling at how still davy was sitting and how she kept looking directly at the camera.

come to find out edna had an iron clasp on davy's windpipe for the better part of a minute.

alex clare

ob.sessed. can't get over him.

if his voice were a math equation it would look sometehing like this:

voice of ben carson (hot bodies in motion), adele & gary go PLUS music of deadmau5 EQUALS alex clare

perhaps better described by forrest j. underwood as "Black Keys meets Dubstep"

you be the judge...







whaddya think???

paris

showing some pre-weekend love for all two of you who read this thing on fridays. it cut my heart deeply to have missed my new obsession at wakarusa last weekend (post on that coming next week) because, quite frankly, grace potter and the nocturnals have stolen my heart. and in all honesty, i'm jealous of her. her badass-ness. her raspy, rocker voice. her LEGS FOR DAYS. oh and her bangs are awesome. i tried fake bangs last night and in the wise words of andria, "uh...you look like a total hippie" - and not the good kind. it probably didn't help that my hair is on a 5 day, no wash binge and looks strikingly similar to a lion's mane.

i have to give solid ups to one, forrest j. underwood, for bringing grace into my life. i'm pretty sure he a) wishes grace's name were actually paris and b) truly means it when he sings, "i wish i were in paris" along with the ear snack below. PLEASE, if you do anything good for yourself this weekend or in your life in general, put GP on heavy, heavy rotation. your body, mind and spirit will thank you for it. she's currently making the rounds @ america's greatest music festivals but has a bangin' tour schedule going on right now as well.

if you're interested in hearing more of grace & the nocturnals you can do one or both of the following:

1. email me at kbarnes@spu.edu and i will dropbox you the entire album or,

2. turn on your favorite local country station and hear her sultry croon cover the multitude of sin's kenny chesney's voice creates on their duet, "you and tequila"

happy friday fellow music lovers. happy friday.

p.s. the aforementioned forrest j. underwood just happens to be an extremely eligible bachelor who also happens to bring the party wherever he goes and happens to be a C-130 pilot for the air force...interested?

dream come true

now on day 2 of my 2 week vacation, i'd like to say i am well-rested, refreshed and every other restorative adjective known to man. but, i'm whooped. normally this would really be cookin' my grits if it weren't for the reason for my exhaustion...

dear readers, please meet my dream come true in the flesh, miss davy crockett. yes, i said MISS. she is a lady and queen of the wild frontier. this pup is mellow, fearless and full of vim and vigor. my entire life has been spent begging for a four legged fur ball to call my own. my annual christmas list used to go something like this:

1. puppy

2-50. a sister

when i was 10, the barnes family got the best dog ever in our boston terrier squidget.

she was my best friend and knew my every secret, but got mysteriously sick seven years later and she had to be put to sleep. worst. day. ever. especially since college graduation i've been pining for a french bulldog. i have proof here and here. and lo and behold the good Lord answered my prayer in the form of a 4 month old, 10 pound ball of the best thing i've ever had.

why davy crockett? because he was a true american hero, fought and died for Texas (the best state EVER) and quoted my favorite line in history, "You can all go to hell. I will go to Texas" So my blog absence is happily due to her. Because seriously, who has time to blog when A) they're on vacation and B) too busy taking one million pictures of their dog?

monday funday

what a weekend folks. what a weekend. it all kicked off friday night with a phenomenal allen stone show @ neumos in capitol hill. gah. there was scintillating company (with him, her and her), a grumpy sushi waitress, cupcakes, hipsters, PBR in a can, a potential unibomber and lotsa hot, sweaty bodies in motion. all that to say - it was perfect because of the following:

1. running into old and dear friends

2. avoiding the unibomber - this 50+ year old fellow came to a show in a full on trench coat, felt hat and HUGE backpack. unfortunately, he looked eerily similar to my future father-in-law (unfortunate because i really like my FIL). i might have started a rumor that there was a bomb in there (A JOKE RUMOR, OKAY?) and finally had to ask him by the end of the night what the EFF was in the bag. books. books? yep, books. he loves them and carries them everywhere. not weird at all...

3. watching allen freaking stone. he's amazing. take stevie wonder's mannerisms + a dash of john mayer's facial expressions + the voice of robin thicke + justin timberlake's falsetto and you've got allen stone. since my work finally got smart and blocked youtube, the company's greatest time suck, go search "allen stone neumos is this love" and listen to allen's smooth cover of bob marley's "is this love?"

4. your friends and mine, the gentlemen of hot bodies in motion, made a guest appearance during a delicious stevie wonder cover. it made my arm hairs stand up it was that good. in other news...today was most definitely MONDAY FUNDAY. my mailbox overfloweth with good things. check it out.

have i mentioned that i one day will own a paper company called the nitty gritty card committee? don't even think about stealing my name, copyright pending. anywho, i have a penchant for paper products espcially ones like these here from kate's paper goods.

i went to SPU with kate hart. she was a wicked runner and super cute (still is, to be clear) and now based out of sunny pasadena. when i saw her pacific NW suite, i had to have it. lucky for us, her blog is just as cunning as her cards are.

i love love. i also love my friends. so when my friends fall in love and get married, it the BEST thing everrrrrrr. received deb & colin's wedding invite today and can't wait to rally with my family and party in the mile high state for memorial day weekend.

and finally, i got this little gem in the mail. thanks to my newest girl crushes, brandi lisenbe & kelly garcia, of bueno bueno. i was lusting after it, dreamt of it and had to have it especially when i saw lonnie webb had TWO! it came and i'm wearing it all over the place already. and i thought i didn't believe in love at first sight...