April 2010

The piano at my house sits in front of a big window. This feature lets me look over my front yard and into the street while I play. This is often a delightful way to engage my mind in songwriting. Whenever I’m struggling for a line, I can look to the street for inspiration. Cracks in the concrete maybe, or a young lady on a run. Even mud in a rut.

This evening I noticed that my sidewalk was piling up with twigs. Small, fresh pine branches have rained down on the cement and have nearly covered the path to my front door. I think its the squirrels. They chase each other in the trees and their frenetic behavior shakes branches loose. Anyway that it happens, it makes my house look shabbier.

The whole time I noodled on the keyboard this evening, I wondered what the song-writing potential of “twigs on the sidewalk” was. I’m still wondering. The way I feel today, after a long, somewhat frustrating day of toil, is that those twigs just represent another chore. One more item on the great task-list of life that I’ll probably get to dealing with on Saturday.

Maybe you, Dear Reader, can see more than I can tonight. And maybe, tomorrow, the song will come.

–Grant Dawson

Show number 1: RADIO WEBCAST – April 21st at School of the Wise 2 Bistro in Chanhassen, MN. 7pm. This gig is also being streamed live on twincitiesradio.net. If you can’t make the show, be sure to tune in.

Show number 2: CHILDREN’S SHOW – April 24th at the Ginkgo Coffeehouse in St. Paul, MN. 10am. This really is a children’s show. I’ll be playing the piano, talking about its history and generally getting the little ones enthused about music. So, if you are a kid, or have kids, show up. It’s free and it will be spectacular.

I love those two words next to each other. Gas cat. It is just fun to say. Gas cat, gas cat, gas cat.

Today I arrived home to a house that smelled heavily of natural gas. I caught a whiff even before I put my key in the door. I entered cautiously, careful not to turn on a light (lest the spark blow me to smithereens), and was greeted by a slightly loopy cat sprawled on the kitchen floor. The front burner of the stove was on and gushing gas. I shut off the stove, scooped up the cat and stepped back out onto the porch. Questions swirled in my head:

How did the cat manage to get the stove-burner lit without also getting a flame to go? Did the cat try and fail to burn my house down? Is he that unhappy with me? Would he really prefer the wet food over the cheaper dry stuff I buy on sale? Or maybe he hadn’t meant a sinister plot but a tragic one… maybe he wanted to end it all? Gas himself like a lonely housewife at the end of her wits? Maybe I interrupted his suicide.

Puzzled, I went back inside, opened all the windows, fed the little wretch, locked him safely in a basement bedroom and retreated to a safe distance. I figured the cat could stay in the house and deal with whatever fate had in store. You make the bed you lie in and all.

Hours later, after dinner at Chipotle and the buying of several books at Barnes and Noble, I returned home. No explosion, just the key in the door, the flicker of the overhead bulbs and the meows from the basement bedroom. Lonely meows from a  sobered, possibly suicidal gas cat vying for attention and the comfort of his saving grace.

–Grant Dawson