Slackjaw's Forum

Well now, happy summer solstice to you all out there. Hope your weekend was even a quarter as good as ours turned out to be. In fact even if yours was just about an eighth as good as ours was I’d still wish it on you. That’s what a nice time we had. My sister-in-law’s family has a place up near Arlington and most years around the solstice they play host to a party of family and friends and let all of us stay up late and camp out under the stars. They live on some leased forestry land that has just the right amount of old trees and clearing. We try to go up every year and bring instruments and beer, spending the evening around the campfire trying to remember any song we know more than the first line to. It’s a fun cast of characters, some of whom we only see once a year at this party. The party goes well into the night and if you bring your kids, rises early in the morning as well. We set out close to noon on Saturday, packing what seemed like a weeks worth of stuff for our one-d...

It was a great weekend by any account. There were birthday parties attended, fathers day gifts unwraped and strange stew-like meals et. The weather was fair and what rain there was, was light and soon turned to sun. Friday afternoon I took the oldest boy to a party at Owen Beach in Point Defiance Park. Though the sound is freezing cold, the boys didn’t seem to mind and spent most of the time splashing about in the water. Saturday night The Prairie Dogs played a show at Kings Coffee to about 30 or so people. It’s actually a good amount to come see you play at that place. It’s not very big and it makes for a nice cozy atmosphere but also one where everyone has a place to sit down. Doug brought his whole band to open up for us. Not sure that’s really what I had in mind when he asked if he could open up for us but there they all were. His band is good but they don’t really mesh with what we’re trying to do so it made for a rather disjointed gig. They brought a lot of their own people with...

Well this weekend The Prairie Dogs are playing another show at Kings Coffee . I’m not sure how this is gonna work out because we haven’t had a chance to play together for almost three weeks due to the fact that one of our members has been in England on vacation. I imagine that it’ll be the fine sloppy mess that it always is. I had a great idea for a post last night amidst the crying children and being kicked in the kidneys all night. The funny thing is I knew that I would forget it even as I was thinking about it, but having no pen or piece of paper handy, I just had to let it go. I keep thinking if I leave my mind open today it’ll pop in there but so far no go. The littlest boy is scheduled to go into the hospital at the end of next month. The doctor wants to lengthen the tendons in his left hip. I really don’t want to see him go through this but I can’t really see that we have much of a choice. The best part of it is that we can do the surgery here in Tacoma and not have to travel u...

Well it’s looking like the littlest one is gonna have to go into the hospital again and have some surgery on his left hip. Guess they need to lengthen some tendons in there so he isn’t so crooked. I feel bad for the little guy cause he’s already spent way more time in the hospital than any two year old I know and it just doesn’t seem right. Still…if we’re gonna get him walking I suppose that this has to be the first step. Straighten him out so he can stand tall. Speaking of the boy, he’s been doing very well in therapy lately. He’s just starting to figure out how to use his hands to push buttons and his head and neck control gets a little bit better every day. We planted a bit of a garden in the back yard last month and all the seeds are sprouting. Last year when the tomatos were green, the older boy and his friend picked every last one for some game they were playing. This year we have an understanding that they’re not to be picked until dad says it’s ok. Guess we’ll just have to see...