Tunes Tuesday: "Hawaiian Air," Friendly Fires

It's officially summer, so here is a summer song. Light as air, Hawaiian air.

Plus it has ace lyrics like "Seeing the mountains through a fog/ Watching a film with a talking dog," and a beat that might be as catchy as the band's breakthrough single "Paris."

P.S. - My dad told us he was thinking of spending a month in Hawaii in October and that we were welcome to join. This is huge, as we've only been on one family vacation to date that didn't involve visiting relatives. But my brother immediately dismissed the free Hawaiian vacation, saying it would be too hard to work out his schedule. Don't screw this up for me, Danny!

P.P.S - Joe asked what I was listening to as I was playing this album. "Friendly Fires," I said. "How do you come up with this stuff?" he said. I said, "You don't know Friendly Fires? They are almost mainstream."

"Are they one hit away from you thinking they sold out?" he said.

Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry Summer Cake - Take 3


Prior to our trip, I decided I should bring some sort of baked good as a hostess gift for Joe's mom in Indiana, and this cake from Smitten Kitchen looked easy enough. I am enamored with Smitten Kitchen. The cake requires your standard baking ingredients combined with strawberries. I could make it while simultaneously making dinner. How domestic am I?

Cut to: an hour and a half later, cake batter ruined twice, simultaneously mixing the dessert with one hand and stirring the hash browns for my breakfast salad entree with the other hand. Joe shows up as flour flies everywhere.

Joe: "Maybe we could just buy her a nice bottle of wine."

But I wouldn't be deterred. My first mistake was that I didn't read the recipe carefully and mixed the butter and sugar with the flour. That went in the trash. Then I redid the whole thing, but I used a tablespoon for the baking powder instead of a teaspoon. Doh!

Everything seemed to go okay the third time around, but perhaps I made a mistake that I didn't notice. "What if it's terrible?" I asked Joe. "Will your mom pretend to like the cake?"

"You'll never know," he said.

What a polite Midwestern mom. The third time was the charm and the cake was terrific. It really was. And if you actually read the instructions carefully, it will be easy, I promise.

File Under: Other People Can Hear You

During my commute to work on Tuesday, I passed a middle-aged man in a suit walking down the sidewalk in downtown D.C., singing in a stage whisper along with his iPod. Singing, mind you, not humming. I got close enough to hear a bar or two, and guess what was he singing?"Your sex is on fiiiiiiire."

Tunes Tuesday: Fitz and The Tantrums

Remember "Rich Girls," that short-lived MTV reality show from way back in the 2000s? No, of course you don't. No one does. It was terrible. I watched pretty much every reality show on MTV, including this one and also "Surf Girls" and "Sorority Life."

Where was I going with this? Ah yes. That show was lame, but the Motown-inspired "Rich Girls" by Fitz and The Tantrums is a decidedly good time. My friend/music soulmate Emily suggested Fitz and The Tantrums' "Moneygrabber," which is also fiscally-themed and a barn-burner. But I am picking Rich Girls for this week's Tuesday Tune because I have been fretting about my budget lately and I aspire to have a "doorman/elevator/penthouse/alligator/shoes and a driver" but I'm currently closer to the "low rent underground/pad lock studio blues" tax bracket.

What a bargain though, this week you get two songs for the price of one!