Sooooo.....

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

You should have told them they are anxiety chameleons and you need them with you at all times.

Or that you were checking for MONOHYDROGEN DIOXIDE leaks.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

MONOHYDROGEN DIOXIDE

Is there such a thing? HO2?

[alphabassettgrrl]

Busy is a double-edged sword. I love it, but dam it's exhausting. Kind of glad tomorrow's a down day; at least until the evening.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I swear, whenever I have a really trying set of days, I can count on the next few to be really terrific.

[Kevy Baby]

This must have been an interesting accident (a Google Maps Street view glitch)

Not a big deal, but it amused me when I stumbled on it.

[Betty]

What a fun day we had. My Aunt got married in a small ceremony down in San Diego outside by the ocean down by all the battleships, cruise ships, etc.

We then all (about 15 of us - all family) got in a water taxi and crossed over to Coronado and ate here: http://www.peohes.com/ FYI - the decor does not look like this. It's now more of an ocean theme done in a very classy way - without having fish and shells around - the shapes, bright colors, sea glass type of feel. Loved it.

We were seated outside in the shade right over the water right next to the bridge. We could watch the ships come and go (huge military ships down to kayaks.)

After a leasurely lunch of lobster bisque, halibut with macadamia nuts, sauteed bananas and frangelico (yeah - bananas and fish - who knew?) we finished with a macadamia nut ice cream pie with chocolate cookie crust. (other choices where a seafood cobb salad, coconut shrimp and key lime pie which I sampled and they were also delicious.)

Then we took the water taxi back but this time took our time and toured around the area a bit. My son got to drive the boat.

I miss the ocean.

Traffic on the way home was a bummer. In the jeep, without a/c and sitting on the sunny side the entire way - in traffic. Bah! Glad to be home.

Left the house and got home at the same time I would have if I'd gone to work (within minutes) which was odd.

Now I'm home and have the whole weekend ahead of me.

[Alex]

So we weren't able to do anything for our 10th anniversary because I had to work that weekend. We had planned to drive down to LA to see Swell Season at the Hollywood bowl but when that wasn't possible I noticed that they'd be playing the Oregon Zoo this last Friday and so I decided we'd take a day off and make a three day road trip out of it.

That was good. I've been annoyed at work and about 1500 miles of driving over three days helps reset the batteries.

Anyway, the concert was fine. To guarantee we'd have good seats (since we didn't know when we'd get in) I'd bought the reserved blanket seats. If you're in the Portland area and are thinking about one of the zoo's summer concert events I can recommend this. No crowding and the included dinner buffet was actually pretty good (and if you want you can end up taking a whole cheesecake back to your blanket).

The only warning would be about the rentable lawn seats. I'm fat so when mine broke I decided to not replace it. Once is mechanical failure, twice would be fatual failure. But the relatively slim guy next to me went through two and I saw three others break throughout the evening.

Anyway, unexpected to us was that Swell Season had an opener and it was Black Francis. I'd never heard of him but thanks to our modern communication age I could look him up while we listened. Apparently he was front man for The Pixies. I've never heard of them either, but being able to look that up made things much clearer later when Glen Hansard made several references to how important The Pixies had been to him.

The other thing they made reference to was something that will go into my list of missed significant events. Earlier this year I missed my chance to see a perfect game after Lani decided she didn't want to go and then an iffy weather report dissuaded me from going alone. I've had a couple other near misses on big things before too.

Anyway, the day after I bought the tickets for this concert I was riding home on BART and noticed an ad listing the events in a concert series at a nearby winery and what do I see? August 19 (just one day before our concert in Portland) - Swell Season.

I seriously contemplated Craigslisting our Portland tickets and seeing them local instead but in the end the lure of the road trip won out. During the concert Hansard made a couple comments about the night before having been a really weird night and how much they loved Portland and how good it was to be there, etc. We just thought it was "Hello, Cleveland" type prattle.

But this is what happened the night before at the concert we ended up not going to:

Headline: Swell Season shocked by onstage suicide.

Frankly, if I were them I'd probably have taken the next day off.

ETA: Oh, and this concert immediately shot into the top five concerts for me. But that may be because I've now seen only five concerts. They make the top four because Natalie Merchant was really awful.

[Mousey Girl]

The Boy starts 8th grade today. He is up, dressed and he ate. His backpack is ready to go. He has his shoes on. He is less than a 5 min bike ride from school. Too bad he can't be on campus before 8am.

[wolfy999]

It is possible to see Murphy, see the Fireworks and see World of Color all in one evening. Not easy, but possible!

[Mousey Girl]

I caught The Boy primping this morning. He was combing his hair, after wetting it down. I was totally shocked.