KimNovak.me — I am not an actress

To celebrate my birthday, I spent the weekend in various parks around Fredericksburg and Kerrville. Today, on the way back home to Austin, I stopped at Pedernales Falls State Park. I took these pictures at the bird blind.

A cardinal taking a bath

Grosbeak

Purple Finch

Hummingbird

For Crabapple Lane Rob

Two Hummingbirds

Day 13 of NaSoAlMo was full of snot. I have contracted a nasty cold. And I'm declaring NaSoAlMo a failure because my mind and now my body are not into it. I've NaSoAlMoed successfully for 5 years in a row before this, so I'm okay with it.

My final progress:

• NaSoAlMo 1: Untitled (Basic guitar recorded ~ 4:20)
• NaSoAlMo 2: Untitled (Piano chords sketched ~ ?)
• NaSoAlMo 3: Curiosity (Guitar chords sketched and lyrics finished)

This is more than I would have done without NaSoAlMo, so not a total failure.

I had an appointment with a surgeon today to talk about my gallbladder. He recommended surgery because of a large gallstone. You know that paper they have on the thing you lay on at the doctor's office? He drew a picture of my insides on that paper to show me where the gallstone is. Then he drew lines on my torso to show me where he would cut me to take my gallbladder out.

I scheduled the surgery for December 7.

This news took the wind out of my NaSoAlMo sails. There was no musical creativity on Day 12.

On the previous day of NaSoAlMo, I was too busy with the Counting Crows concert to do any songwriting or recording. My plan was to get back to it on Day 11, after I recovered from the excitement. And after I rented a Rug Doctor and cleaned my carpet. During the Eddie Vedder concert two nights before, Lily had an accident on the carpet (something she rarely does anymore). My fault, really--I left her home alone too long. The carpet has been needing a good cleaning, anyway, so what better time?

Day 11 was devoid of musical creativity.

Continued from Day 10, Part II

We, the Counting Crows VIPs, stood in line some more between the Sound Check/Meet and Greet and the Concert. I was in line with youngsters. I always wonder when I'm in situations like this if they think I'm weird because I'm by myself. And I wonder how old they think I am.

The couple of kids in front of me were from Oklahoma and had been to the show the night before at an indian reservation there. They were following the band to Houston the following night, too. I've always wanted to follow a band around.

We were among the first in line and when they let us in, they warned us not to run, that there was plenty of space in the front. The entrance is steep downhill, though, so it was hard to keep a slow pace. People were calling out to us "Don't run! Don't run!" and I yelled back, "I can't help it! It's steep!" I got down to the front and just to the left of center.

Tender Mercies

The first band to play was Tender Mercies. This band includes Counting Crows members Dan Vickrey and Jim Bogios. They had a similar style to Counting Crows.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Mean Creek

The second band was Mean Creek from Boston. They were rockin' and I was inspired by the chick guitarist.

Despite the many pictures I took, I did not watch the concert through my viewfinder. I only pulled my camera out periodically to capture a moment.

Counting Crows

Here are Counting Crows:

Below, Adam and David play "The Girl from the North Country", a cover song from their Underwater Sunshine album. In an odd occurrence of cover song synchronicity, Eddie Vedder had played it the night before.

A panorama of the stage during "A Long December":

I heart Charlie and his accordion:

During the meet and greet, Jim asked fans for requests. I requested "Margery" and got a frowny look in return. I'm pretty sure they never play that live, but I still wanted to request it. Despite his frowny look, I told him, "Oh, just write it down." I don't think he did. Here's Jim, not playing "Margery":

Toward the end of the show, Charlie's daughter came up on stage with a toy accordion to help out the band.

Below, are David Bryson and Adam Duritz. I believe they are doing "Holiday in Spain."

The boy who stood next to me at the concert was a barely 21-year-old who was sooo very into the Counting Crows it made me wonder how he discovered them. He was singing his heart out with the band and caught the eye of Dan Vickrey who gave him a pick toward the end of the show.

On this day, I sat down only once between 3:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. and that was in a port-o-potty. Even then, I don't think I sat down all the way. Gross. I didn't have anything to eat or drink during that time, either. Afterward, I went to Kerbey Lane Cafe for tortilla soup and it was the most satisfying tortilla soup I've ever had. I was full of happy again.