Quick Takes: A real hodge podge this week

1) A free piano concert in Frederick: Earlier in the summer we saw in the paper that the piano store downtown (Downtown Piano Works) was having a free piano concert. We showed up at the time it said on the paper, but on the wrong day. Whoops. Turns out, you have to reserve a seat for the concert anyway since there are only 30 or so and the next day's concert was already full. So we got on the e-mail list and signed up for the next concert, which was last night. It was really a great show and it felt so intimate being in this small room with the pianist playing beautiful music by Schubert. I look forward to attending more of these.

2) Mad Men fans are a wee mad: I mean mad in the "crazy" sense, not upset. Here's proof. Believe me, you will most likely waste a lot of time looking through these. I might be speaking from experience.

3) Kat's birthday! My sister Katherine's birthday is on Monday. She's turning the big 3-0. Happy Early Birthday Kat!

4) Kat's bday and Katrina: Yes, my sister's bday is the day after Katrina slammed into Louisiana's coast. Poor thing's birthday always got interrupted by rude and unwelcome hurricanes. I remember my mom would bake cupcakes for her to take to school, only finding out we'd have school off that day because of another hurricane, which meant we had a lot of cupcakes for our hurricane party. Katherine was not amused.

5) 5 year overload: If you haven't noticed already, you soon will, because this year is the 5 year anniversary. If you want to know my take on it, I think my favorite NOLA journalist Chris Rose can say it better than I ever could.

6) Back to school: On another note, kids in our county started school this week. Walking to the train I pass up a group of young girls waiting for the bus. Man oh man they had some crazy back-to-school outfits. Let's just say the Limited Too never sold clothes like that. I did notice that as the week wore on their clothes began to cover more and more of previously exposed skin. Yep, girls, it's not summer vacation anymore!

7) An idea you'll love (I hope!): Next week I'm going to toss out an idea for a club of sorts for my 3 or 4 readers here. The only hint I'll give you is that it involves FOOD. Do I have your attention?

As always, read more Quick Takes posts here!