Friday Roundup #32 (First Concert Since March Edition)

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Macro close-up of a deep magenta and purple dinner-plate dahlia, its petals spiraling inward to a tightly coiled, pale-tipped center.
The dinner-plate dahlias around the side of the house have gone wild this summer; all this rain has been good to them.

We went to our first concert since March last weekend, which for the two of us is a genuinely long dry spell. We saw Train at Ameris Bank Amphitheater over in Alpharetta, which is our favorite venue for one deeply selfish reason: it’s a nine-minute drive from the house, even in concert traffic. We’re lawn people, and we usually pay a little extra for the Reserved Lawn upgrade, which gets you a pair of big wooden adirondack chairs right at the edge of the lawn. This time, for reasons I genuinely cannot explain, I didn’t book it.

So we rented a couple of folding chairs and set up at the top of the hill, and honestly? It was its own little revelation. Turns out there’s a patio upgrade up there for $20 a person that gets you real chairs at a table, your own dedicated bar, and your own dedicated bathrooms, which is worth every penny of that upcharge. Next time we’re skipping the Reserved Lawn and going straight for the patio.

The show itself was a delight, mostly because of a surprise: neither of us realized Barenaked Ladies, one of our all-time favorite bands, was the second opener. The first opener, Matt Nathanson, put on a great show too. All told, a very successful concert night, and a good reminder that we should do this more than once every four months.

Friday Roundup banner in the karacooks brand style. The words "FRIDAY" and "ROUNDUP" in dark green serif type flank a small circular pepper cross-section mark in the center, with thin horizontal rules and gold dots extending to either side. Cream background.
  • An Interview: Nephi Craig is a White Mountain Apache and Diné chef who runs Café Gozhóó up on the reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, and his new memoir Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef [Bookshop.org* | Amazon] went straight onto my reading list. He sat down with Fresh Air this week, and one line stopped me cold: “Well, you’ve been eating Native American foods and cuisine since as long as you can remember. It’s just that the stories are not told.” He’s right, y’all. It’s not just the Thanksgiving foods, it’s tomatoes and bison and elk and beans. The stories just don’t get told, and that’s a choice somebody made a long time ago. Go listen to the interview.
  • Coming on the blog: A day on the prairie for Uncle Jim, Bo Ssam pork on the Kamado, and the electrolyte powder we swear by around here.
  • What I’m Dealing With: My email situation, which has quietly become a whole project. I’m running five separate accounts plus a stack of aliases, and Gmail is officially no longer cutting it. John Scalzi coincidentally wrote about this exact problem this week and said it better than I could; the short version is that it may be time to get off the free stuff and onto a real address.
  • Garden Update: absolutely nothing to report on the actual garden. But I moved a bunch of the houseplants out onto the deck and they are thriving; the summer storms plus the fresh air and all that sun have perked everything right up. Oh, and around the side of the house, the big dinner-plate dahlias have gone absolutely wild on all this rain; that show-off up top is one of them.
  • What I’m Reading: I stumbled on An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood by Jimmy Carter [Bookshop.org* | Kindle] in my Kindle list and cannot for the life of me remember ever reading it, so that’s what’s on deck this week. I’m one chapter in.
  • What I’m Watching: Kevin hadn’t gotten around to Wicked, so we watched part one last week and Wicked: For Good yesterday. Honestly, this is the movie that made me see the brilliance of Ariana Grande (don’t tell Aldin I said that). She does an amazing job in both.
  • What I’m Eating: Beef and broccoli stir fry, Greek salads with chicken, and so many tomatoes. Not from my garden, sadly, but from the farmers market, so at least they’re good ones. (And yes, there are tomato recipes in the pipeline.)

What are y’all reading/watching/cooking/dealing with this week? Let me know in the comments.

P.P.S. Zach – Mr. Intensely Private and Not On The Internet – has started his own YouTube channel for weight lifting and working out. I’m as stunned as you are. Check it out and give him some love if you have a minute: Dad With A Gym. It’s in its early stages so be gentle.

* Affiliate link. The asterisk is doing transparency work. Details on the disclosure page.

Friday Roundup