7 Quick Takes – Anniversary and Comments on Local Concerts

1. Last week DH and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary, which also marks 5 years together, a nice mini milestone. We had a nice lunch out at collectively our favorite restaurant (the lunch prices are slightly cheaper than the dinner ones so this is also being frugal!). We each had our own appetizer; they make the BEST mussels. Most restaurants have either garlic cream or white wine sauce but this place: Cultivated Indian Point mussels steamed in fresh garlic, basil, tomatoes and chilis.

Dh had the garlic bread, he won’t touch seafood with a ten foot pole… or most vegetables (He won’t touch the vegetables with a ten foot pole of course). After our entrees we shared a dessert, a delectable ice cream cake worthy of Scanway. (Scanway is my families favorite cake place, DH would just prefer ice cream cakes from DQ). It’s called Pecan Praline on the menu but this is the description: ‘Ice Cream Torte with dark chocolate sauce.’ YUM!

2. My mom took the cats to the vet a few weeks ago for their annual check up. Unfortunately, (wow that word is so not strong enough) one of the cats, the big friendly one has cancer and it’s very aggressive. We’ve decided not to do anything and just let him live out his days, however many are left. He’s only 9 (10 this fall).

3. Friday night baby found a mud puddle in the driveway…

4. On Saturday I FINALLY got some quality time with my best friend. She’s always very busy taking classes, doing homework and I rarely get to see her. She never even made it to baby’s birthday party, but she’s been there for every other important event in my life. I hadn’t really seen her since St Patrick’s Day (I saw her briefly at the bridal shower back in April, but she was just in and out and we didn’t get a chance to really talk.)
We’d both had a lot going on in our lives the last few months and we were a little out of touch.

This time we finally had time to talk about everything on my list with each others lives (I’d made a list so we’d cover every aspect), at the playground, then on the front steps and finally on the long drive home (it’s about 20 minutes but I ended up drawing it our an extra 30 by driving around side streets till we had finished saying everything.) And look what she brought me

My missal bookmark had just gone missing after last week’s mass!

5. Saturday evening we were planning to go downtown to catch the last 2 acts of a day long concert that was taking place on the hill. I hoped that from the Public Gardens or somewhere nearby we’d be able to experience the bands from afar as I had when there was the concert in our neighborhood. It’s true we wouldn’t be paying for tickets, but we were only hearing the last 2 acts (the headliners) and we would be content not actually seeing them. (Dh was working all day and I couldn’t see myself spending 9 hours straight at a concert given the circumstances, and we only knew the last 2 acts so I wasn’t considering purchasing tickets). I don’t think there can be anything wrong with it, the air waves are free for anyone to listen and that’s inevitable with an outdoor concert. They can’t ban people from all the neighboring streets.

Actually, it may not be that easy to hear much more than the base, which case it would not be worth our time to use this method. It’s not much of a concert if you can’t hear the vocals. We would like to do the same for Paul McCartney, but from a different location, possibly the hill since that concert is down on the common. That takes place Saturday, so if the weather’s nice I expect we’ll go and at least give it a shot.

It would be nice of course to buy tickets, but our region has a bumper load of concerts this summer: Bon Jovi, The Offspring and Tragically Hip, Paul McCartney, KISS, and ACDC, and it’s just not financially responsible to buy tickets for all of them. All the same, some of these acts may never again come so close, so it would be a shame to miss out altogether.

DH and I bought tickets to KISS before a lot of the others were announced, and before we found out I was pregnant. It looks like he will probably take a friend on my ticket, but I’ll see how I’m feeling when the time comes. And I still have my mind set on going to a concert in august, also on the hill so I’ll be able to sit, for which we both like all 4 of the acts, one of which we never got to see because the concert got canceled on us. I’m just holding off on purchasing tickets until the last minute, because if I’m not up to going then it’s a waste.

6. So back to Saturday night’s plan… Friday night there was an announcement that the Tragically Hip had a family emergency and couldn’t play the show (1 headliner down) but as a result the entire 9 hr concert was going to be a FREE show! (everyone who had bought a ticket would get reimbursed). So, after DH got off work we drove downtown and actually got to see the Offspring instead of trying to hear them form afar. It was a little chilly, the air was foggy, and it was muddy as all… but it was still worth it. I had packed and dressed accordingly, and was fairly comfortable. DH’s sister had called and warned us about the mud, so DH and I wore old shoes. We only had to trudge through it once each way though, so we didn’t even get all that dirty

The concert was enjoyable but not quite as good as I had hoped. This is due in part to our distance from the stage, but at 5 1/2 months pregnant I just didn’t see myself moshing up by the stage, so we sat on the hill instead. In between the stage and the crowd around it and us was just a big place to walk through, so I felt a bit apart from the action. The only other thing was that the band opened with probably DH’s and my favorite song, but they had some technical difficulties and we didn’t get the vocals till the song was half over

DH and I also had fun watching the messages on the screen. Since it was a festival put on by Virgin Mobile they were letting people text in whatever message they wanted and would then display them scrolling across the screen throughout the day. Most of them were just shout outs to friends significant others, a few were proposals, not sure how many were real. Then there were the funny random ones. My favorite was probably “Hey Evan, we should play some halo later tonite”. I appreciate this because I actually know what they’re talking about, and because it was so unique.

Some others that made us smile:
“Blair!!! We lost you!”
“My wallet likes being here as much as i do”
“I have never hated mud more than I do right now”

7. I changed the header. It’s not one of the best photos because it’s not off the good camera, but for now it seemed to fit both summer and the header shape.