Irene flies in in the morning. It's been toooooo long. I missed her like crazy. And she looks a million times more beautiful than I remembered (and I remembered her looking pretty beautiful). Remind me never to leave her behind on tour again.

Since this is a music blog, I'll keep this short - there's no shows until New York - three days from now. A really nice break. We get stuck in traffic - but don't care. We get lost in Chicago - but don't care. We consider moving to Chicago. We get a sweet hotel room. We visit with our friend Thomas from NYC (Thomas designed my original website and I should really thank him publically - it was a killer site and the structure is still here). He's now in Chicago studying theatre and, I think, loving every minute. Thomas is good people.

We stay out late. We wake up late. We drive a long way to Pittsburgh - talking the whole way. We have Thanksgiving dinner at my cousin Jason's house, with his lovely wife Lauren and my aunt and uncle, Ken & Judy, and Lauren's folks. The food is amazing. Their house is amazing. Their dog is amazing (a beautiful Bernese Mountain dog, who, when she runs, looks like two guys in a dog costume). Pittsburgh seems like "poster child for the American dream" - there are neatly raked leaf piles on beautiful lawns next to kids playing football with their parents, against stunning houses, trees, and American flags.

We leave the next day late - enjoying ourselves too much - and drive to NYC. We've check into the Days Inn on the uppper west side, which looks to have recently been renovated - from, what we can only assume used to be a "by-the-hour" hotel. There are holes in the 7th floor hallway that you can see the lobby through. The ice machine is on the 5th or 10th floors, and the 2nd floor is filled with some kind of dust that makes you cough.

But it's New York and we're thrilled to get back there.