Squirrel’s vet adventure & band practice revelations

I spent a bit of time yesterday dreading a couple of things. One was taking my cat, Squirrel, to the vet. It was just for a check up, so I wasn’t worried about her overall health. She is likely the healthiest of all our cats, but she is almost impossible to crate. She’s small, fast and wily. If I can’t ambush, and stuff her through the cage door in a second and a half, I’m pretty much done for even finding her the rest of the day. I had already postponed her appointment three times, so, as they say – failure is not an option.

I Gabapentined her ass.

She was basically a puddle the rest of the morning, but when her appointment approached, I could tell it was starting to wear off. It still gave me the extra few seconds I desperately needed to get her behind bars. The rest of the appointment went without incident. She has an ear infection, so I’ll have to give her ear drops for 10-14 days (fun) and she got her rabies shot.

Then there’s the band

The other thing was band practice. I felt guilty that I didn’t hit the songs hard enough. I’m not going to lie and say “I didn’t have time to practice.” I had two freaking weeks. I make my double bass a priority, and practice almost every weekday morning, but Rowdy O’Reilly, or just electric bass time falls to the wayside. Even now, I’m at my keyboard writing instead of going over (Nothing but) Flowers by The Talking Heads. Why do I have such a mental block? Maybe it’s because sometimes I practice the shit out of a song, and then we drop it. Or, I don’t practice and I manage to pull it out of my ass somehow.

On a whim this past weekend, late, while Mike and I were enjoying a little recreational therapy, the song Low Rider popped into my head. All of a sudden, I’m like – “We have to do that song! Everyone loves that stupid song, and there’s very few words so Asher can’t mess then up!” I start texting the band right away, and I get a warning about drunk/high texting. “I’ll keep it short,” I promise. And I did, but the next morning, I was questioning my reasoning, but Asher and Joanne are used to my wild hares so I didn’t fret too much.

Asher shoots a text back a few days later. He loves the idea, and wants to break out the harmonica for the lead, give Joanne a fiddle break and have her play cowbell while Mike and I lay down the groove. With zero practice other than I was familiar with the song through my brief stint with The Iguanas a year ago, we got it sounding halfway decent. At one point, Asher really jams on the harp which I’ve really never seen him break out. It looks like he’s been itching to use it.

Anyway, I get home last night and I have that warm, fuzzy feeling I get almost every time I play out. I have to remember that feeling. This is my “Why.” This is why I do music. Plain and simple, it makes me happy. Happiness can be such a fleeting thing. I would almost say “especially at this age,” but all you have to do is scroll through Facebook and find all kinds of unhappy people at every age. So grab it while you can folks!