Bonnie Raitt and Keb' Mo'

Tonight's the Bonnie Raitt and Keb' Mo' concert. My husband thinks I should stay home. But, dang it! I paid for that ticket and have been looking forward to this concert since the summer. I think I can manage to sit in a seat for two hours. It'll be the first time I've gone out for any length of time since the appendectomy. I'm going with a friend and I know she'll bring me home if I start feeling bad. If it were anyone else but Bonnie Raitt, I'd consider listening to said husband but it's Bonnie Raitt -- I can't miss it.

My girl child is trying out for the All-State Strings Orchestra. She plays the cello. I'm so proud of her. Her brother plays the violin, but, although he's extremely talented, he won't try out for the orchestra. I don't know why, but he won't. The girl child is extremely brave in my opinion. When I was her age, I couldn't even do projects that required me to speak in front of a class, but here she is trying out for All-State!

Reading

Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Gilman: I bought this for the title; I just couldn't resist. I think my problem with it was that I read it immediately after Running With Scissors which is a superior book. It's not that this book is bad -- it's funny at first but after a while I got tired of the humor and a little bored with the story. The reviews say that once you get to the part where Gilman starts working as a writer the story becomes more riveting, but I don't know that I care enough to read through her boring college years. I've already read the K-12 years and that's enough.

Vanish by Tess Gerritsen: I like Tess Gerritsen -- her murder mysteries are usually tightly-plotted and well-written. And I like the Jane Rizzoli series, which Vanish is a part of. I don't know that I would have picked it up though if I'd known it was a hostage drama -- those are usually far too tense for me -- they make me jumpy. In this one, an about-to-give-birth Jane Rizzoli is taken hostage along with 5 other people in a hospital. Her husband, an FBI agent wants to help with the hostage negotiations and tries to keep from the media that Jane is there as he doesn't want the hostage takers to know they have a cop. The story is good but too tense for me.

Music

Bonnie Raitt and Friends: Bonnie Raitt is one of the few artists whose live cds I'll buy; she's excellent on her concert cds -- Road Tested is almost always in my car. Unfortunately, I learned by checking out amazon, that the cd version of Bonnie Raitt and Friends -- the one I downloaded from iTunes -- is missing two of the songs from the dvd -- Tennessee Waltz with Norah Jones and Papa Come Quick with Alison Kraus. I would've loved to have these songs and I don't understand their omission from the cd. Still, Bonnie Raitt sings and plays well with others, so this is a nice cd to have added to my collection. If I were going to pick only one live cd by Bonnie Raitt, however, I'd go with the older Road Tested.

Half the Perfect World by Madeleine Peyroux: The amazon review says that fans of Norah Jones should love this album, but Madeleine Peyroux is more compelling and less boring than Norah Jones. Her voice alone -- the voice that reminds you of Billie Holiday with each note she sings -- takes her way beyond the Norah Jones category. Her choice of music is interesting too. Her cover of Everybody's Talkin' from Midnight Cowboy is just lovely. Of all Madeleine Peyroux's albums though, I still like Careless Love the best -- that could be because I heard it first but it's still the one that holds together the best for me.