Canine Connections

 Speaking of Connectors, last Saturday, the 18th, I had the pleasure of attending a show at The Green Briar in Brighton. My friend Cage was opening for Lulu's In Crisis. Cage invited our friend Conor Shanhan to play for part of his set. After Cage played for a few minutes he called Conor up on stage and I watched the two of them raise their pint glasses and smile as they traded places at the microphone.

Cage is a major Connector. He has worked a wide variety of jobs, and lived in, and traveled to many places. He makes friends (and acquaintances) quickly and easily, and keeps contact with them.  He's been doing it since before online social networking was a thing, and the existence of MySpace, and now Facebook has only made it easier for him to create fabulous new connections. Cage can sometimes make me look like a hermit by comparison,* but I'm still pretty good.

When I was in The Diary of Anne Frank in 2001 at Riverside Theater in Boston, Cage played Mr. Frank to my Anne. We became very close that year, and he became like a father to me after my own father passed away in 2003. Meanwhile, I had met Conor S. when I was a freshman in college. He was in the sketch troupe, and I was in the improv troupe. By 2005 we would be roommates in a 3-apartment farm house with seven other friends. Now Conor and Cage are friends through me, and this is the second performance gig Cage has arranged for Conor.

Just as I was patting myself on the back for making this obviously perfect introduction, Conor took the microphone in hand between songs and offered an explanation for how he'd come here. 

And I started to laugh.

He recalled how a really special spirit had aligned him and Cage. He had  lived with me, and I lived with... a beagle. Lucy was actually one of Cage's two beagles. After Christmas that year Cage gave me the beautiful gift of sending her to live with me, to chase away the Pioneer Valley Winter Blues.

Lucy quickly became the Queen of the house and of our circle of friends. She had many fans who would stop by the house just to say hi, or to ask if they could take her out for a walk. Conor started a facebook group called I Love Lucy, and many of our friends joined in order to upload photos of videos of her. Cage joined the group as well, and identified himself as Lucy's dad. Conor sent a message to him right away, thanking him for allowing Lucy into our lives.

That message was the beginning of many messages back and forth between Conor and Cage. They met in person one time after that, and have been friends ever since.

"Lucy is no longer with us," Conor informed the crowd somberly. "But her amazing spirit lives on. This is for Lucy," and he bowed his head and began a heartbreaking rendition of Tom Wait's "Picture in a Frame."

Later on Cage mentioned to me not for the first time, how talented Conor is. He plans to get Conor a spot playing in Boston more often. Later I saw him introducing Conor to the owner of the bar, and I felt a surge of happiness, and some pride at having a hand in this chain of events.

Then I realized that in this case the Connector was actually a small and gregarious beagle named Lucy.

-------------------------------------

* Although his secret seems to be that on Sundays he sometimes refuses to pick up the phone or allow any visitors, preferring to sit alone in his house watching football with his dogs.

** You may have read or heard me  refer to Cage as Pim, which is what Anne Frank called her father. This way Dad and Pim each get a name.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

If you are in the Boston area tonight and trying to decide which bar to cram yourself into look no further.
Tonight from 6pm to 8pm at GOODBAR the one and only Conor Shanahan will be playing  traditional Irish drinking and dancing songs for your drinking and dancing pleasure.
Check out the facebook event page for directions and even some sample videos of Conor strumming and singing to fan the flames of your Irish music passion.*

*************************************************************************

And now... a video of my dear friend Pim (Cage Pearson) playing one of my favorite songs:



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Yeah, I re- read that sentence and decided to stick with it.

Storage Unit #198

Here are some things I found when Pim called from Florida and gave me the combination to "our" storage unit.

1. My spare car keys.
2. The bubble machine
3. The NCLEX prep material stuff I was trying to lend to Blake months ago but couldn't find in my basement. (It's ok, he passed the test anyway).
4. A box labeled "other people's stuff," that contained (among other things) a binder of music for a show I never did, Danny's mom's copy of "Life of Pi," Danny's copy of "Choke," which I borrowed around the same time, a deck of cards and some comic books. (Maybe Steve's?)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My upstairs neighbor threatened, in printed word, to take our boots if he found them in the foyer again. And to not return them. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this grown man is threatening to steal my boots and hide them in his apartment.
If it weren't in all caps and bold I would have thought he was flirting with us.
I was going to hang the letter up with his other one from last summer but Laura says it makes her too mad. And I want Laura to be able to use the bathroom. Which is where we hang letters.
I'm over it. He has a lot of anxiety about the front hallway. I don't. So he wins just by caring more. It's way easier this way.

Missing Posts

You can see I missed many days of posting. We stopped paying for internet use, and I got too busy running around Tokyo. My Mom told me this morning she was very worried I had just disappeared into Japan. I will try to fill in the entries in the correct order, but time is difficult because we lost and then gained a day.

When I got home last night Pim picked me up from the airport and the first thing we did was head to Doyle's in J.P for a giant cheeseburger. I "took a moment" outside the irish pub to breathe in the New England fall air and to examine the leaves on the American Maple trees.

After Pim dropped me off at my apartment I wandered around it, looking at my life like an outsider. Perhaps I dreamed the whole thing up. I fell asleep with a candle burning and awoke in total darkness unsure of the day or time until I saw the candle had only been burning for less than an hour.

Today I spent my time answering messages, voice mails and emails. I'm on my way to work.
I can hardly believe any of the last week happened, and yet I feel like a very changed person. I will be writing a lot tonight to make up for the missing days before any more details fade. then I will post the photos.

But the best thing to do if you want to know what happened is to ask.