Before we get into this week’s delights, a little behind the scenes info. I keep track of my weekly delights in the Notes app on my phone. When something brings me a little joy or makes me smile I try to remember to jot it down in my Notes app, so that when I’m writing these posts I’ll remember what happened over the last week. I have a handful of things in that Note that have been there since the beginning of this process as they are perpetual things that make me happy. I figure they are delights in my back pocket in case I have a week where I don’t have a lot of other things to talk about. I believe that one or two of them have made it into previous posts. Another one is going to make it in this week’s list for a very specific reason unrelated to the fact that I don’t have as many things to post about this week as in some previous weeks.

• That thing is stickers on poles. Many of the light poles and electrical boxes in my neighborhood are covered in stickers that people have put on them. I enjoy looking at the random stickers that get put up on them.
• That leads into this second delight. Since January 11, 2021 I have been posting a photo a day in my Instagram stories of the flamingos I find in people’s yards within walking distance of my house. Flamingos are a thing in my neighborhood, but I honestly never thought it would go on this long. This week is about to mark the end of that project as I have run out of new flamingos to post. I warned people that #FlamingoaDay was about to come to an end. One of my friends was very upset about this and sent me a pack of 50 flamingo stickers. I guess she expects me to go around defacing light poles with stickers myself and then posting about it to keep the project going. One of the things I enjoyed about doing this is hunting for the flamingos, so it won’t really be the same if I’m the one putting them out. Another friend is also very disturbed that as it stands now this project would end just shy of 600 flamingos. So to please both of them and remedy what I have always thought is very odd that despite all the stickers and all the flamingos, I have never seen a flamingo sticker, I am going to stick up a few flamingos around the neighborhood just until I get to 600. I’m not going to do all 50.
• Someone posted about their missing cat in our neighborhood Facebook page the other day. They said that she responds to food, her name, and pspspspsp, which cracked me up.
• There is a stand at our farmer’s market called blacksauce kitchen that is famous for its biscuit sandwiches. Most Saturday’s I get breakfast from them. Last week I was in line behind this older woman who had apparently never been to blacksauce kitchen and had no idea what it was. I guess she just saw a really long line and decided to get in it to see what everyone was waiting for or something. I have no idea. All I know is that she started asking all kinds of questions when she got to the front of the line like literally what is a biscuit sandwich. The woman taking orders was like um it’s a sandwich made on a biscuit. There were a lot of questions many of which seemed to have obvious answers. She finally managed to order something. When I got up to take my order the woman working there said to me, I just gave myself a raise after that. I guess that woman must have liked what she ordered though because this week when I got in line she was right in front of me again. This line is always crazy long. Like what are the odds that I wind up right behind this same woman two weeks in a row? As soon as I got in line and my husband saw her he just looked at me and started laughing.
• Someone I follow somewhere shared this lovely Twitter thread. It’s a crazy story, apparently all true, and with a wonderful ending. Just go read it.

And now for your musical delights.

• As I’m writing this I’m watching a replay of a livestream of the Trampled by Turtles concert at Red Rocks that happened earlier this week. One of the few good things that came from COVID is the acceleration of livestreams of concerts being available. There’s still only a real minority of shows that you can livestream, but it’s way more than pre-pandemic. It’s not the same as being there, but I was never going to get to Red Rocks to see this show in person despite Red Rocks being at the top of my concert venue bucket list. Even better I didn’t even have to pay for this. I’m on their mailing list and got an email saying that if I pre-saved their new album on Spotify I would get a code to watch the replay of the livestream this weekend for free. It’s been a great show, so I’m very glad I got to watch it. Multiple of their children have come out to sing with them on songs as well as Erin Rae and Caamp who opened for them. Caamp joined them on “Alone”, which is my all time favorite Trampled by Turtles song, so that made me very happy.
• On the most recent episode of the Song Exploder podcast Madonna was on talking about the song “Hung Up” from her album Confessions on a Dance Floor. I hadn’t thought about that album in a very long time despite the fact that when it came out it I listened to it pretty much daily for months as the soundtrack to working out back in the days before podcasts were a thing and I replaced listening to music while exercising with listening to podcasts. Listening to it brought back a lot of memories of a very particular time in my life. It led to me actually listening to the full album for the first time in probably at least a decade. It’s definitely of a time, but I still enjoyed it.
• Apparently Billy Joel brought out Olivia Rodrigo to sing her song “Deja Vu” and his song “Uptown Girl” with him during one of his recent concerts at Madison Square Garden. I thought that was pretty great. I like how he’s just kind of grinning at her watching her sing. Delight.

Buckle in. I’ve got a lot of delights for you this week because I have a backlog on my list of delights from before I went on vacation and didn’t write a delights post for a couple weeks.

• Pete Seeger stamps. The USPS just released some new stamps celebrating Pete Seeger, which whey released in conjunction with this year’s Newport Folk Festival. I bought some to use on the rare occasions I have to physically mail something. I thought it was very appropriate that they arrived on the same day as my socks from the sock of the month club my husband gave me for Christmas, which happened to have records on them. I also used the stamps to mail a deposit check to the woman I’m re-renting a place from for next year’s Newport Folk Festival, which also felt very apropos. I hope she noticed.
• While we were gone on vacation I got a jury duty summons, which is the opposite of a delight, but my friend who was cat sitting took a photo of my summons next to Scout and caught her in a photo cleaning herself at a moment that her tongue was out such that it looks like she’s sticking her tongue out at my jury summons. She texted me the photo and said that she and Scout feel the same way about my jury summons. I agree with both fo them.
• I had doctor’s appointment last week and people in the waiting room were friendly in the exact right amount. Not overly friendly like forcing you into some conversation you don’t really want to be a part of, but several people said good morning to the entire room of people and one woman told everyone to have a blessed day as she was walking back to see the doctor. I feel like I don’t see strangers interact like that very much and it was kind of nice.
• On Tuesday morning I was confused when I woke up and got up earlier than I need to. I was thinking about what time I was getting out of bed on vacation to make sure I got down the beach before the sunrise, which is about 10 minutes earlier than I normally roll out of bed on work days. It meant that I actually made it out for my walk in time for Baltimore’s sunrise, and I was very glad I did because it was a spectacular sunrise of the sort that I don’t get to see too often because since there are too many trees and buildings blocking the horizon I have to rely on just the right kind of high clouds to reflect the sun and give me really great color. This was perfect.
• My street is like the harbinger for friendly orange cats. For a long time we had Killer, who was the unofficial mayor of Hampden and who people still talk about even though it’s been several years since he died. Now there is another friendly orange cat roaming around. Based on posts in the Hampden Neighbors Facebook page I think his name is Sam. I’m pretty sure he’s the same cat people have been talking about anyway. He decided to pay my stoop a visit the other morning when I was trying to leave for work. He was sitting there and every time I tried to open the door he would try and sneak into my house. It was very adorable. It’s nice to have another neighborhood cat roaming around again.
• On my walk the other morning I passed this squirrel with a cartoonishly large amount of dried grass stuffed in his face that he was trying to get down. It made me chuckle.
• On Saturday night I drove down to DC to visit a friend and we went to some Jazz in the Parks thing that they’ve been holding on the Great Lawn in front of the original location of Walter Reed, which has long since moved to Bethesda. In the original plans it was supposed to be us plus our husbands, but I failed to put it in our calendar so my husband agreed to work to do some off-hours testing for his job. I almost didn’t go because I didn’t feel like driving down by myself, but I’m glad I did. It wound up being a lovely evening to sit outside, picnic, and listen to some music. I’m trying to remind myself take advantage of things I can do outdoors while it’s still nice before my social life goes back into lockdown with the cold weather.

And now for your musical delights:

• I honestly don’t remember in what context I heard the song “We Built This City” by Starship and added it to my delights list. But my list says “We Built This City” and I vaguely remember hearing it recently, but that’s about it. I do love that song. I always have and presume at this point I always will. I know people like to say it’s a terrible song and it routinely gets put on worst song lists, but despite the fact that it is pretty hokey and definitely very much of it’s time I will never not listen to it when it comes on. And for a song that everyone apparently hates it has over 106 million views on YouTube, so I think people love it like I do, but just feel like they’re supposed to say it’s awful. I would never.

• As I’ve previously mentioned the Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs podcast is doing a season in which they’re ranking 40 songs to determine which one is the most Lilith Fairest. In last week’s episode they talked about the song “I Know” by Dionne Farris. It’s not a song that I could pull based on the name alone, but as soon as they played a clip I got huge sense memory. It’s not a song I ever particularly cared for and still really don’t, but it is definitely a song that has the power to evoke the feelings of a certain time in my life that I very much appreciated.

• I was driving home from work on Friday and passed someone riding an electric scooter while wearing one of those mirrored motorcycle helmets that makes it impossible to see their face and makes them seem kind of robotic. This was at the exact same time I was listening to the song “Heads Will Roll” by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. The speed at which he was riding fit the song so well, and it was this perfect 10 seconds where I was like this feels like it should be a scene in a movie soundtracked to this song.

On Thursday night I went to Merriweather Post Pavilion to see Brandi Carlile with Allison Russell and the Indigo Girls opening for her. It was like a mini modern day Lilith Fair with so many amazing musical women lifting each other up. Allison Russell has had an amazing year and deserves all the accolades she has received, but she will tell you that Brandi has helped lift her up and achieve all those dreams. Brandi talked about how much the Indigo Girls mean to her and how she used to busk outside their shows as a teenager and then how she opened for them early in her career and they would invite her to hang out on their bus and how much it meant to her. Now she is at a place in her career where she is headlining the large venues that the Indigo Girls would not be able to headline anymore and she’s bringing them out to open up for her in some kind of full circle thing. Allison Russell is following in their footsteps and using whatever power she has to help bring up people behind her as well. She has an amazing band of women backing her up who all have their own other stuff going on and she never misses an opportunity to highlight them and their work and encourage people to go seek it out. That includes SistaStrings who were doing double duty with Allison and Brandi. I first got introduced to SistaStrings, who are sisters Monique Ross on the cello and Chauntee Ross on the violin, back in February when I saw Allison Russell play at the Barns at Wolf Trap. Then when Brandi started this tour I saw that they were playing has half of the string quartet she’s been touring with the last few albums. I was like she stole them from Allison! Anyway, they played in both sets, and they are a real force. My favorite part of the whole show was the last minute and a half of the Brandi’s song “Sinners, Saints, and Fools” when they were basically headbanging while playing stringed instruments. It was pretty amazing. The sound in this video is pretty terrible, but I’m linking to the part I’m talking about from someone’s cell phone video if you care to look.

Allison Russell was up first. She only played for a half hour, which was what I was expecting, but I still wish it had been longer. She did come back out and perform with both the Indigo Girls and Brandi Carlile though. I love watching her and her band perform. It’s just a big old love fest out on the stage with them, and they can all really jam.

The Indigo Girls were up next. I expected that they would have an hour, but I was surprised that they only played for 40 minutes. That’s because Brandi is really giving it her all this tour. Her set clocked in at 2 hours and 15 minutes. That’s almost unheard of these days. If you get longer than 90 minutes from the headliner at most shows you’re lucky. Anyway, parts of the Indigo Girls set were a fun singalong, which was great. Sadly, most of their set was ruined for me by the obnoxious women who finally showed up to sit in the seats in front of us 2 songs into the Indigo Girls’ set. I wish that my super power was not attracting the absolutely worst people in any concert venue to be situated directly by me. I’m out here saving the rest of you from them I guess. They were obviously already drunk and/or high when they stumbled in. They would not shut up. They were having obnoxiously loud conversations even during quiet songs when everyone else was sitting and trying to listen to the music. They were paying zero attention to the concert. I’m not sure why they bothered paying hundreds of dollars to be there. They could have done the same thing at a bar for free. I guess then they couldn’t have had the zillions of selfies they took of themselves at the concert. Mind you this was two women who looked like they were probably sisters in their 50s plus a twentysomething woman who was one of their daughters. Not who I would have stereotypically pegged to ruin my night in this manner, but they did and not just mine. Other people sitting around them finally ran them out of the show with a little over an hour left in Brandi’s set, so we at least got to enjoy that. The people in front of them and sitting next to them kept yelling at them to shut up. It still didn’t get me completely away from them, but once it was clear that no was coming to sit in the 6 seats to my left a couple of songs into Brandi’s set, I moved down 4 seats to get away from them. They finally took the hint and left, but I can guarantee when they tell the story they will not be the villains in it. It’s too bad because I had been enjoying people watching until they showed up and ruined it. That included realizing that the man in his 60s and the girl maybe in her late 20s/early 30s a few rows ahead of us were in fact a couple and not the father and daughter I thought at first.

Brandi’s set was great. As I already said she played forever. A good mix of stuff of her new album and her previous ones though mostly the newer ones aside from “The Story”. That was the most singalong version of that song I’ve heard at all the many concerts of hers I’ve been to. This crowd was obviously in the mood to sing. I’ve been to a lot of Brandi Carlile shows as you probably know if you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, so I know it’s not unusual for her to say that a show is one the best nights she’s had in her life or the last decade or something to that effect. She doesn’t say it 100% of the time, so I honestly think she believes it when she says it though it’s definitely part of her act. It doesn’t matter though because she will 100% convince you she’s never said that to anyone else with her performance. She and her band put it all out there. They always put on such a good show. During her encore, which was over 30 minutes long she had Allison Russell out to sing “You’re Not Alone”, which they had just released as a single earlier that day. She also had the Indigo Girls come out and sing a couple songs with her including “Least Complicated”. Talk about a singalong. It was a great night and it would have been perfect if it wasn’t for those dumb women. I’m glad that they only impacted half my night, but it would have been better if had been none of it.

I’m a little short on delights this week because I spent the majority of the last week isolating in my house due to a major COVID exposure. I worked from home because I have that luxury and figured it was best for me and work if I did. My husband and I chose to spend most of our time in separate rooms and masked in common spaces in case one of us got it and the other didn’t. There’s only so much delight I can experience from within the walls of my bedroom all by myself.

• Obviously my first and biggest delight is that neither of us actually got COVID. I was going to say somehow at the end of that sentence, but I don’t actually think that’s the case. Yes this disease as somewhat capricious, and there are certainly people I know who have been exposed and not come down with it despite doing none of things I’m about to mention, so I know there is a certain amount of luck involved and we both certainly could have got it despite our precautions. However, I do firmly believe that we put ourselves in the best position to not actually get it by doing literally all of the things they say to do to keep yourself COVID free. We are both double boosted as per the CDC guidelines for our age and health conditions. Knowing we were in a higher risk setting with traveling and in the large crowds of a music festival, we tested every morning and thus caught my friend’s positive case right away and immediately all put N95 masks on and didn’t take them off again until we were home. Even though we spent 7 and half hours in a car together driving home we as I said all kept our masks on and drove with the windows partway down to maximize fresh air ventilation. It was long and hot, but we got home COVID free, so worth it in the end. Fingers crossed we repeat none of this next week in our beach trip with friends.
• Our get out of jail free day happened to coincide with free scoop day at The Charmery for WYPR members. For some reason my husband and I have separate memberships instead of donating the same amount once as a family, so we both got a free scoop. I guess it pays to be disorganized and donate to the same organization separately instead of jointly.
• Really the best part of going to get the free ice cream was the life size cardboard cutout of Kai Ryssdal, host of Marketplace and co-host of the Make Me Smart podcast, which is my favorite. He has mentioned on the podcast previously that these cardboard cutouts exist in various NPR stations across the country as they were some promotional thing he did for Marketplace years ago and that every once in awhile people run into one visiting a station and comment on it to him. I snapped a photo and sent it to him on Twitter, and he retweeted it with some commentary. It made me very happy, and I very much enjoyed reading everyone’s comments on it.

• Speaking of podcast co-hosts, NPR’s Code Switch podcast recently announced B.A. Parker as their new co-host. This week’s episode was a short introductory episode to who she is. Gene Demby gave a little intro to her work and then played a song to introduce her like walk up music. It was John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”. I immediately thought she must be from Baltimore or is at least an Orioles fan. I was totally right. She is from Baltimore and an O’s fan. For those of you not in the know “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” is the 7th inning stretch music at Orioles games. Here’s an explanation for everyone wondering why the heck that song is played at every O’s game. I was very excited to be right, and did that thing I talked about before where I excitedly point at my phone while everyone near me must think I’m insane.
• For your musical delight this week I have a song from the Footloose soundtrack. I recently snagged a cheap, used copy of it on vinyl and finally had the opportunity to listen to it for the first time this weekend. It’s one of my favorite movies, and I love the soundtrack. We had it on cassette when I was a kid, but I haven’t listened to it in years. I still love it. This is the first time I have ever watched the actual music video for this song. It’s so ingrained in my head with the footage from the movie that it was kind of weird as I was totally expecting there to be movie footage in the video. Instead it’s a whole little mini-movie in and of itself. I do have to say *chef’s kiss* for having the characters in the video walk past a cinema with Footloose up on the marquee though.