This past weekend involved a trip up to New Hampshire to visit my parents, which served a dual purpose – one to celebrate Mothers Day and the other was for me to be presented with my 34th birthday cake in as many years. Joining in on the fun were my sister and her two kids, otherwise known as my niece and nephew, Olivia and Cameron, respectively. So the cake is sitting on the table and I make a pretty simple inquiry to my five-year-old niece and I get a pretty simple answer:

Me: “Olivia, can you guess how old I am??”
Olivia: “Very!”

Um……youch! She said without even a hint of hesitation, too. I still love her, though, that cutie pie.

I realize it’s almost too hip to like Rilo Kiley, but those songs are really quite good. The band’s lead singer is Jenny Lewis, and in all her retro-clothed glory, she must make all the hip indie boys just swoon. Me, I like her voice and her songwriting. I just found out they’ll be here in town in about two weeks, so I’m tempted, although it takes a lot to get me to a show these days. What probably puts it over the top for me is that Nada Surf opens the show. That should be a keeper. However, two other must-see shows follow quickly in June: Spoon (June 7) and Sloan (June 15). Sloan, as I’ve probably said a dozen times here before, is a band I simply don’t miss, no matter what.

The new Pope had a VW Golf? It was auctioned off this weekend and – surprise – some dumb-ass American paid $244,000 for it. Hold on a second – a VW Golf? The Pope? Will they also be auctioning off his ski’s and Bob Marley tapes? God only knows how much someone will bid for his bong.