Soundtrack to a Day Off

Finally a day I don't have to go to work, make any appointments, do anything I don't want to do.  (Until tonight when we'll have our Thanksgiving Eve gig at church, but that's something I want to do and am looking forward to, so that doesn't detract at all from my Day Off.)  So my activity of choice at the moment is one of my favorite things to do:  stream an independent radio station live on my computer and discover songs I haven't heard before but love at first listen, and then buy them on iTunes.  I have a number of radio stations I turn to regularly for this pastime:

• KXCI, Tucson, AZ — where I first heard the Eels, along with lots of other now favorites, and who often feature live studio performances and interviews with local Tucson artists, including Leila Lopez, the partner of one of my dear friends, CB.  KXCI introduced me to "Growing Native" with Petey Mesquitey, whose 3 CDs I now own, one of them signed by Petey himself!
  
• mvyradio, Martha's Vineyard, MA — good old hippie stuff and "local" (ok, 2+ hours away but more local than Tucson is now) events, mvyradio is a little more commercial than my other favorite stations, but they play good music.
  
• WKZE, Red Hook, NY — another great old hippie station, and less commercial than mvyradio; I found this station while driving to the Wassaic train station to pick up James once and searched it out online when I got home, since it only comes in on the radio in select places between the mountains of the Berkshires and Catskills.
  
• WEXT (Exit 97.7), Troy, NY — the station I'm listening to right now, discovered on a drive back across the NYS Thruway during my mother's final hospitalization, almost comparable to KXCI in Tucson (it'll take a seriously great indie radio station to surpass my love of and loyalty to KXCI!); I just bought a Norah Jones tune, "Wish I Could," after hearing it here, and I'm not even a big Norah Jones fan.

And now I can add a new station to my list, Robin Hood Radio, from the northwest corner of Connecticut, broadcasting to the tri-state region of CT, MA, and NY.  One of James's friends and bandmates from high school, Hal Lefferts, has a daily show called WTF (Weekly Tune Fest), at 2:00-4:00pm.  I met Hal for the first time last night—he's playing at our Thanksgiving Eve gig tonight.  James hadn't seen him since 1973 before last night's rehearsal!  (We talked last night about how Facebook has brought old friends back into our lives, including those we weren't really friends with when we were actually together.  People change a lot through the years, and those we found alien in high school can now be simpatico.  Funny how some things matter a lot less when you're older, and some things matter so much more.)  Hal's a fine old hippie who plays fine old hippie music on his show, as well as newer additions to the canon.  His show starts in half an hour—I can't wait!