Kristy Hanson

Last night, during the second presidential debate, I was reminded of the one of the things I like most about Obama; that is, his ability to motivate me to participate. He’ll talk about the Peace Corps or community service and and all I can think is, “where can I sign up?” Interesting, then, that my desire to participate in my country’s government has been put to the test today, at…yup, jury duty! And here’s how it’s gone:

7:30 am
I arrive at the criminal justice building downtown and get in the security line. The officers around the metal detector are already just slightly cranky, as though they’ve dealt with one idiot too many today, but…it’s 7:30. The police officers who direct me to the elevators are quite friendly, though. (I could have figured it out on my own – there are signs – but I’ll later realize that this is just the beginning of all the redundant instruction I’ll hear today.) In the elevator, I notice that there’s no 4th, 8th or 10th floor. Weird, eh? I wonder if they really don’t exist, or if they’re just super-secret floors closed to the public. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit that I wanted to write another political blog, or at least, a whiny one – the economy’s crap and the campaigns are turning nasty. However, I’m resisting the urge to mope publicly.

I’m not a true stress eater, but food is definitely a comfort on a day like today. Or any day. I made a comforting tortilla casserole with a southwestern bean and corn salad tonight, taken from my Mollie Katzen cookbook. The casserole called for buttermilk, and though I’m usually a slave to a recipe, I didn’t want to hunt down the real thing. Thanks to the internet, I now know that you can make buttermilk by throwing a tablespoon of lemon juice (or white vinegar) into about a cup of milk and letting it sit five minutes! It’s amazing how tickled I was by a trick that everyone else probably already knew about. And I’ll definitely be using the internet to figure out recipe substitutes before I run to the store for that ingredient I forgot…although you can’t always substitute or omit, as I discovered last week when I forgot the baking powder and made rock-hard muffins. But THAT is another story.

I’ve been a bit quiet recently, mostly because I’ve been traveling – some travel was for music, and a lot of it has been with and/or to see family. I am in fact about to take off yet again, to Romania this time, to meet Mike’s family. It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and I’m incredibly grateful to have the flexibility to do it right now. When I return, I’ll post some photos from ALL of my summer/early fall travels – a little retrospective montage, if you will. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to blog about my LA experiences a lot, which people seemed to find fairly entertaining. I suppose when I was an idiot getting off the bus at the wrong place and getting into altercations with people at the 7-11 (‘member that one, folks? if not i’ll tell the story again), that was funnier than my current routine, which is more, well, routine. However – every day I notice quirky things, some of which seem uniquely LA and even uniquely my neighborhood and some that I’m sure we all recognize.

Some choice moments: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m actually kind of quoting Aimee Mann in that title…which will make sense in a second. 

So, this is how a day in my life (right now, anyway) goes. I’m working part-time for a few weeks, so I vowed on Tuesday night that I would wake up early Wednesday, work out, eat a nice breakfast, then go to work, come home, maybe go for a hike, make a nice healthy stir-fry(I’m sort of trying to detox from tour food), come home, clean, practice guitar, go to bed at a decent hour. But, of course, Tuesday night was our double header of record store visits – Aimee Mann did an in-store at Amoeba and Sam Phillips was afterward right across the street at Borders. How could I NOT to go both? And then one thing led to another and we wound up getting home kind of late. And I was so excited to see them both, and I met Sam Phillips and she was adorable and so kind (and I made Bruce’s The Promise Liveblog again kinda just by being there! Crazy. He’s also very kind and I was excited to meet him in person).  Read the rest of this entry »