Today was sort of lazy. I went to Lucky's for their phenomenal weekend brunch, only to discover that they were swamped with holiday catering orders and so had only a limited menu. One mocha later, I was ensconced back in my apartment. The day was given up to the cat and crosswords.

These were only interrupted by trips to the refrigerator for leftovers and to various windows to see if I could spot any of the air show planes. No luck, although I heard them! Then Jess called on her way back from an equally fruitless shopping trip. We considered heading to the East side to continue in that vein, but decided against it. "Just come over," I said.

"Do you have any strong feelings about ice cream?" I asked. "Are you kidding? That was one of my ideas on the way here!" she said. So we walked up the street to Scoops, that wonderful Tremont sweet-tooth mainstay.

I've gone for their milkshakes, sundaes, ice cream sandwiches, and regular old cups and cones. I've had the dirt sundae with worms and I've swapped my cup for a toddler's dropped cone. Today was a clear call: mint chocolate in a waffle cone. We sat outside and stared at the shuttered windows of Edison's and ate our ice cream, and then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in my potentially awesome backyard.

Beats the air show! (For me, at least. Today, at least.)

Read the, uh, scoop on other local ice cream -- before the summer ends!

When I first got involved with the Burning River Roller Girls, current skaters said things like, "Derby will take over your life," and, "Derby will completely change your life." Well, everyone gets involved as much as she's able, and I must admit that I had no plans for roller derby to take over or change my life. The number of hours in the week just won't allow it.

I've definitely done things that have both taken over and changed my life: becoming a bike messenger, playing in bands, playing in a touring band. And while derby isn't going to do that for me, I just came across something that will. It's a program called City Fresh, and it's goal, in the simplest of terms, is to get local food into urban areas.

Food, you say. Big deal. Well, it is a big deal. First, people eat horribly. Second, people eat horrible things. (Those two are not the same.) Living in a city, especially, makes it difficult to eat very fresh food. I do buy local free-range eggs at a stand in the West Side Market, and I do eat at restaurants and bars that use local food. But it's expensive to eat at those places every meal, although sometimes I think I try to!

But back to the life-changing: last week I went with my friend Molly when she picked up her "market bag" of produce at City Fresh's stand at West 25th and Clark. There were a bunch of neighborhood kids there, putting the fresh food in bags. I signed up, and then today I went back and picked up my own bag! There are a few types of greens and herbs, there are peppers, tomatoes and onions of every color and size, there are corn, squash, zucchini, and eggplant. Oh, and peaches.

Everything is so fresh, and so fragrant, and I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to do with it all! But I know it's going to change how and what I eat on a daily basis, and I am really, really excited about that.

Read what another blogger wrote:

Once I had a cassette, taped from a CD, of this Belgian band named Deus. My cassette was getting worn out, so I wanted to find my very own CD. The people who turned me onto Deus were into some pretty obscure stuff, so I worried that it would be difficult to find said CD in Cleveland.

I ran to Bent Crayon, and asked John if he had any. "No, they're all out of print!" he replied. But he did own a few Deus albums of his own, and he said he'd copy them for me. Well, before I saw John again, I found a CD on ebay and won it. (I was the only bidder.)

Fast-forward a few years and many bands and their CDs later: tonight found me at Bent Crayon, standing precariously on a yellowish couch with three other people, also precariously perched, at the back of the very small, crowded store. Up front, where we on the couch could not see, despite our (slight) elevation, was Bonnie "Prince" Billy, or Will Oldham, as he is known by some.

"We welcome Bonnie Prince Billy Monday 8/21for a 6pm in-store performance," read the record store's website. Well, I for one was glad to be welcomed. There was a small number of invites for this event; it was free, and they were trying to avoid a riot, as far as I could tell. I had no invite, but I thoughtfully got to the store an hour early and drank a mocha at Arabica, next door, with the guy who was running sound for the show.

Thanks to him, I entered invite-free. And spent the next hour happily entranced by Oldham's songs, even while shifting around on the couch in my heels. So I'm thankful to John for (a) knowing who Deus was, and (b) bringing Bonnie "Prince" Billy to town! There's nothing better than live music in a record store, except maybe live music in a record store next door to a coffee shop.

My friend Sharon invited me to her birthday barbecue. Sharon's a total foodie. She works with local farmers and farmer's markets and she also is an amazing chef, so anything involving her place and food is a must-attend event. It was a small gathering -- a few friends, some siblings, a small nephew.

There were local sausages and chicken, there were vinegar-ed tomatoes, there were berries, there was corn. It was a feast of Ohio's best. But then her brother brought out the capping glory: Uncle Mike's beef jerky. It's made in Wooster, Ohio, and it's awesome.

This is no dried-out, dusty-jar-on-the-bar jerky. It's moist, as moist as beef jerky should be, anyhow. I was never a huge jerky fan, but after Uncle Mike's I can imagine the days to come -- I've just spent all my energy hiking, or roller-skating, or driving my band van across a few states, and lo and behold: I've got a yen for jerky. Thanks, Sharon. Happy birthday, really.

I used to tell people I kept my van at St. Clair and East 63rd because it was safer there than in my Ohio City neighborhood. And I got plenty of raised eyebrows for that. But St. Clair and East 63rd is home to the Compound, which is home to quite a few practice spaces and apartments, all inhabited by various members of Cleveland's rock elite.

The Compound is also home to Straight Outta Compound. This began last year as a showcase, of sorts, of all the bands that practiced there. It was so much fun, filled with so much beer and so many drunk musicians, that they decided to have it again this year. The criteria was changed a bit to include not only the bands that practice there, but all of their friends' bands as well.

That made for twenty bands. Starting at noon. And people were there, at noon. I was not; I was happily at home unpacking more boxes and admiring my couch placement. But later in the afternoon, after a call from my bandmate wondering where the heck I was, I hopped on my bike and rode out. I stopped to get some Gatorade and Guinness (the perfect warm-weather combination, I swear) and continued on to find the dusty gravel lot filled with people, bikes, vans, a tent-covered stage, a tent-covered sound board, some dogs, and more bikes.

That made for a good time. I had a fair number of hours until our late time slot, and I easily filled those by watching the BYO BBQers, the bands, the band-watchers, the dogs, and one sad fight. Last year the cops conveniently came by during the very last band; this year they drove past a few times but didn't stop (or at least not while I was around to see). Arriving at five, I missed a lot of bands I wanted to see, but I still had a fantastic time. I even met another roller derby girl, who recognized me as a newbie by my Burning River Roller Girls tank.

There was a girl throwing fire during Six Parts Seven and there was an ice cream truck that played the ice-cream-truck music. Some kid I didn't know nicely drove my bike and me home at the end of the night. I lost my most favorite sunglasses and even drove back the next morning to find them, but had no luck. I did find the same pair on ebay the next day, so even that was okay.

Oh yeah, the whole thing is surrounded by a huge gated fence, which explains why the van was safe there. It also explains the name, if you think about it for more than a second.

Check out Lou Muenz's photos from last year's fest; this year's will be up soon:

Where have I been?! Moving. For, like, a week. It took a few days to unplug everything, fill boxes, and wait. Then it took a few more days to empty the boxes and plug everything back in. I've never been in a position to hire movers, so I've gotten pretty good at moving myself and my stuff around.

Usually, I skip the packing part. My logic is quite sound -- if you don't pack, you won't have to unpack. So I throw everything, loose, in my car, and drag it all back out, loose, when I get to the new place. The timing of this move was less than ideal, however, forcing me to actually use the boxes I had to borrow from a friend. I filled as many as I could, then I went out of town to work for a few days. Hence the "wait" from earlier.

When I got back home, exhausted, the fun began. My band played a show late that night, and very early the next morning I got up to move. I went to Home Depot for a shower curtain rod. I picked up my trusty moving partner, Mike, who has stuck by me and the packing tape (or lack thereof) for a few years now.

It's no news that it's been fiercely hot as of late. What a great time to move, I thought, cheerfully enough. About seven hours later I was at the end of my line and about to indulge in a little Victorian-style hysteria. My new bathroom floor was not where it should've been. The toilet was in the bathtub. The phone was ringing in my new apartment but it wasn't for me. I got rid of my land line, in any case!

But once the bathroom was refigured, the phone was removed to its rightful place (now the apartment across the hall), all my stuff was dragged in, and I was heading back from a case-of-Dortmunder-and-Edison's-falafel-pizza run, I felt better. Not much better, but better.

A few days later, after connecting the DSL, going to Ty Fun for awesome Thai food, and enjoying a much-needed solo happy hour visit to Sage, I'm completely ready. From Ohio City to Tremont: some old haunts, some new discoveries, and now my neighborhood!

I think it's pretty cool that Cleveland has a Botanical Garden. I went years ago and loved the butterflies, the flower-y things, and, most of all, that enormous centipede (or millipede? I never knew the difference) from Madagascar. But I must admit that I was just turned on to a different place for people who love flowers and shrubs.

Yesterday morning, after a leisurely solo breakfast on Johnny Mango's patio, I drove out to Oberlin to pick up some roller derby gear from Fable Skateboard Shop. On the way back, my friend Nate suggested we stop at the topiary gardens on route 113. "The what?" I asked. I mean, I did go to Oberlin College, so you'd think I'd know about this stuff.

We head west on 113. And even farther west. And then, right past Miller's Homemade Ice Cream, we come upon Schoepfle Garden. It's part of the Lorain County Metro Parks, and it's pretty awesome. It's free, so you just wander on in and immediately get to enjoy all the flowers, the trees, the ponds with the fish and the frogs, and the topiary bushes.

I had just joked that when my wonderful cat dies, I think I'd commission someone to make a topiary of her. Nate says, "Yeah, you could have her sitting on a chair." I think, well, that's a non-sequiter, then I round the corner and see him pointing to a huge armchair with a dog sitting on it. Who knew? It's better than having them stuffed, I guess.

After we wandered through some of the park, we headed back and stopped at Miller's for ice cream. Potential ice-cream eaters, beware: the medium is enormous. Just so ya know. My favorite flavor as a small child was Haagen-Dazs' maple walnut, which they discontinued. Not to fret! Miller's makes a maplenut. Just as good as my first, I'll say.

So I missed the Taste of Tremont, but I got some knee pads, a shiny new helmet, awesome ice cream, and a stroll through an awesome area uber-relaxation zone.

You can look at Lou Muenz's killer photos from last year's Taste of Tremont to see what I missed:

This weekend has been hot. Like, in the '90s hot, I swear. (Okay, I'm only guessing.) This is also the weekend of Summer Session '06. Our band got asked to play this year, and since we're a bunch of crunchy kids, the idea of playing outside and camping after definitely appealed.

I have to admit that I had never heard of Summer Session. Shitzstock, yes; I'd played that awesome outdoor fest in New York with other Cleveland-area bands. But not Summer Session. It's possible that this is its first year, and it's also equally possible that I just run in the wrong circles. And where is Rome, Ohio, exactly?

But not to fret. Rome is near Ashtabula, it seems; that's the exit you take, anyway. So, yesterday, we packed up our semi-trusty van and headed out to Rome. We pulled into the Teleki Park campground and were met by a dozen cars and vans and people setting up tents, the sound system, and the grill. Good start!

Our boys hung with the boys from Kent's Unicron and The Doctor Teeeth, while Charlie pulled out his cooler. He opened said cooler to reveal bags of ice, a bag of cut limes, a bottle of Rose's Lime, and a bottle of gin. Gimlets, anyone? I'm so glad he joined our band. Some gimlets, beer, and sweat later, a metal band from Mentor opened the night. I think we were next -- I don't remember -- but I remember standing in the rain, watching Unicron, and then falling asleep in the van before The Doctor Teeeth even set up.

Now, the van. Was hot. Really, really hot. Especially way back in the loft away from the front door windows. So a few hours later, I gave up on the idea of sleeping and sweating and focused on just sweating. One of our number was sleeping on the dock of the lake, and another was sleeping on the hood of someone else's car. We might've been the only band who came to a campground with nary a tent in possession. It was fantastic.

As we were standing around talking about leaving this morning, a few hipsters we didn't recognize wandered up. Turns out they were in Revolver Modele, a band from Minneapolis with which we'd been exchanging messages. Pretty random. We wished them well and headed back home, sad to miss day two of the fun, but certainly hoping they do it again next year.

Continue for more photos!

I had a very specific reason for loving Kill Bill, Vol. 1. To me, every single shot, every scene, that I would've wanted to see was there. That was what struck me the most. Last night, after officially becoming a Burning River Roller Girl, I had numerous options. Most of the derby girls were heading to the Garage for drinks. Paul, from JJ Magazine, was having a birthday party at Lava Lounge. And Vampire Belt, with the famed Chris Corsano on drums, was playing at the Beachland.

After a few minutes of soul-searching, I went to the Beachland. And Vampire Belt did for me what Kill Bill did. I'm not, generally, a huge noise fan, but every sound I would've wanted to hear was there. Someone in attendance actually said, "Boredoms, eat your heart out." I couldn't make something like that up if I tried.

I don't know if I'm unwillingly becoming one of those people you always see at noise shows, but I seem to go to them pretty freakin' frequently. What happened to the punk, I sadly ask myself. What happened to the rock'n'roll? Well, if I hear more noise from the likes of Vampire Belt, I'll be a converted noise-girl. Look out, noise-boys. I'm on your side.

I've posted before regarding my lack of interest in sports and their accompanying events. So I surprised myself more than anyone else when I agreed to go to a Cleveland Indians game last night. It was a pretty straightforward offer: "I've got tickets to the game tonight. Want to go?"

Me: "Game? What sort of game? Ohhhh, a baseball game! Umm..." And here I paused. Being in somewhat of a hermit-state, the last place I thought I'd want to go was a crowded, jam-packed, and, er, crowded stadium. For a sporting event, no less. I stayed in on the 4th, completely and truly -- didn't leave my house once. And I was happy with that! So to break down and go to a ball game the very next day? Sure. Stranger things have happened. I'm sure they have, although I'm not sure of their details.

Then other people got in on it. "Why can't you go roller-skating tonight?" "Um, I guess I might be, I mean, I could be going to see the, uh, the game --" "What?! Oh my God! You've gotta go to the game. Are you kidding me? We tromped the Yankees last night and you're not sure about going to the game?"

So I went. I went on my bike and got a flat tire, but I went. And, wouldn't you know it, I actually had a lot of fun. I just got whatever my friend Kelly got. "A beer." "Yeah, me too." "I want a hot dog! With mustard." "Yeah, me too! With mustard!" Our friends were cracking up. But, see, I really wanted the full experience. "What's an inning? What's an out?"

I'd been to one baseball game, ever, and I was too young to remember it. So this was sort of my first game, in my mind. And Kelly, as an experienced game-attender, was a prime example for me. She set it, and I followed it. Happily! Too bad we lost solidly to the Yanks, but hey. I didn't really care. I was surprised that the sold-out crowd seemed to be half-and-half hometown and New York, but I didn't really care about that, either. I want more baseball tickets!

We knew we were off to a bad start when we left Cleveland at 6 p.m. on Thursday to play a show in Chicago, on Thursday. We were off to an even worse start when a mile onto the Ohio Turnpike, right outside Lorain, our engine started smoking. Smoke inside, outside; it smelled like we were on fire.

So I pull to the shoulder and we all get out and worry. Charlie jumps under the van and the rest of us continue to worry. He has me turn the engine on and off a few times. "Okay, I've found the leak," our hero says. "Do we have any duct tape?" "Are you kidding?" I ask. "We've got tons of it."

At this point, we're all incredulous. I've always said duct tape and zip ties will fix anything, but I'm not sure I ever truly believed it. But he goes under with the duct tape and comes back up. "Well, this will get us to a hardware store, where I'll fix it for good." We're freaking out. He's MacGyver! He's our very own Renaissance man! Who knew?

So I drive, carefully and slowly, to the next turnpike exit. No smoke, and the temperature gauge holds steady in the normal range. We head into Vermilion, pass an eerie abandoned Ford plant the size of a small city, and find a hardware store. It's in a strip with a Goodwill, a Mexican restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, and a liquor store. I consider spending the night in the parking lot. We check the status of the duct tape job. It's still perfect, but we don't want to rely on it for a long drive.

The boys go in the hardware store and re-emerge with some rubber tubing, a few metal clamps, and a screwdriver. And a bike pump, for back home. Half an hour later, after Charlie camped out under the van, Sebastian skated around the parking lot, and Brandon, Stanton, and I just watched, we're back on our way to Chicago. And, believe it or not, we somehow get to The Mutiny in time to play the last set of the night.

"I was going to try to send you a text message explaining how lame you are, but it's just too much to type in. If you were to see the setup that the Boredoms have up here, you would not be bailing at all, 'cause they have drums everywhere and synthesizers everywhere and everything is miked up and it's gonna be awesome and you're gonna miss it and they're never going to come to Cleveland ever again. Yeah. So there."

I was planning to stay home last night with my semi-neglected cat. But you get a voice mail like that, what are you gonna do? So I went to the Grog Shop to see a very, very rare performance by Japan's Boredoms. Everyone in town was expecting a sold-out show. So imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the Grog, passed the Boredoms' incredibly huge tour bus, and found a parking spot a few blocks down! Turns out the place was only half packed.

The crowd was squeezed up to the stage in a tight little mass, effectively creating a visual barrier between me and the band with its drums and synthesizers everywhere, as promised. So my friends and I took turns holding our little cameras up in the air, set on video record, and then watching what had just happened. There was that, um, slight delay between the audio of now and the video of then, but at least it was a start.

Then Rafeeq grabbed me and sort of tossed me on top of the jukebox. Turns out the top of the Grog jukebox is a swell place to watch a show. You can see over the heads of all your fellow concert-goers. So I watched the rest of the set perched up there, and it was a treat. Three drummers going at once sounds amazing but looks even more amazing.

Unfortunately for me, Rafeeq had wandered away from the jukebox at some point. When the show was over, I had to tap some guy on the shoulder and ask if he could help me down, which he kindly did. I discovered that the band had two small children with it, both with enormous headphones covering their tiny ears. What a childhood!

The Boredoms formed in the mid-'80s and infrequently tour the States. According to the people I've asked, they may have come to Cleveland in the early to mid-'90s once, either while opening for Sonic Youth or playing Lollapalooza's main stage. In any case, my telephoning friend was probably right -- we probably caught our one chance to see them here!

No official site, but read a fan's:

So I've been known to frequent the West Side Market. Quite often, in fact. It's one of Ohio City's premier attractions and one of the perks of living in said neighborhood. While I'll regularly hit Maha's for falafel, Reilly's for breakfast shepherd's pie, and City Roast Coffee for mocha, I just recently began hitting the West Side Market Cafe.

Located in the back of the market, the cafe is a small and comfortable spot with both a breakfast menu and a lunch/dinner menu. Sandwiches, steaks, salads, soup, frittatas and more to eat; coffee, beer, and wine to drink. I met my friend Tina there a few days ago for lunch; we were joined by five or so others and began drinking beer. With lunch. That led to an afternoon and then evening and night of complete debauchery.

So today, after a few friends ate and I drank coffee, I departed before the drafts started pouring. It's only 1:30! But I'm glad I added the cafe to my list of local eateries. I remember when it first opened a few years ago,and I'm glad it managed to thrive. The cafe also just sponsored a Burning River Roller Girl, so you can bet you'll run into a few roller-skating derby girls.

Read what CoolCleveland has to say about the West Side Market Cafe:

So you know how San Francisco and Philly and NYC have those Chinese restaurants that serve vegan versions of their dishes? Like, you can get fake sesame chicken. Or, fake General Tso's. Well, any vegan or vegetarian worth her seitan knows Cleveland has one, too. It's way out there on the East side, way out there for this Ohio City girl, anyway, but it's there. Peking Gourmet.

The dining room was pretty empty, as it often seems to be, and we enjoyed the quiet, private coziness. Odd paintings on the walls, perhaps due to a lack of sunlight down in the basement. Who sees Renaissance stuff in a Chinese restaurant?

Peking Gourmet has two menus, one for real-meat eaters and one for fake-meat eaters. We started with the vegetarian potstickers, my favorite, and then shared a medley of fake chicken and real vegetables served in a potato "nest." For dessert they serve tofu cheesecake, but we were all too stuffed to take that on. Next time! Just potstickers and cheesecake, for me.

Well, CMJ Music Fest is drawing to a close. Last night found me at the Beachland Ballroom for the Akron invasion; Gil Mantera's Party Dream, Beaten Awake and Houseguest, all rock bands on Akron-based label Audio Eagle, were joined by Pittsburgh's rap-extraordinaire Grand Buffet.

Attendance was as I'd expected -- the kids came out in droves. So too did they for Friday's Detroit Cobras at the Beachland and The Stills at the Grog Shop. Proof that Cleveland needs CMJ to rock? Well, um, no. Those shows were going to (a) happen anyway, practically, and (b) be well attended, anyway.

Not that I'm dissing the situation. It's just that a festival that works well in NYC won't work well in Cleveland, for a few major reasons. First, the venues aren't all easy to bounce between. In Manhattan, you can pretty easily catch a band here, catch another band there, and still get to see a third elsewhere. It's entirely possible to do so in Cleveland, but we're not really used to doing so.

Second, while New York has tons and tons of concert-goers, Cleveland doesn't. So while having multiple venues competing for crowds in NYC is fine, it's just not feasible here. There aren't that many of us, and we're going to go see bands anyway! So don't split the crowd, please.

Third, having the Music Fest in Cleveland isn't hurting CMJ any, but our independent venues have to shell out even more than they're used to for these shows. And if attendance doesn't support that, then the clubs hurt. That's not something we like to see.

But back to the show last night -- it was awesome! All four bands were great, but I think the surprise highlight of the night was definitely Grand Buffet. Well-thought-out, witty rap -- the crowd loved it. And I loved the whole weekend. Thank you, CMJ. But I'll be doing it again next weekend anyway.