: Midnight Ramble :
I had a great time on Saturday and pretty much spent all of Sunday recovering from it. First thing I did is take my car to be photographed for my insurance. The guy asked me if I had a trailer hitch on the car and said, "Normally I wouldn't ask that when it's a minivan, but since you're from Texas..." There seem to be a lot of preconceived notions about people from Texas, some true and some not. It's true we do have a lot of pickup trucks in Texas, and some of them actually do have shotgun racks installed in the rear windows. But aside from my love of spicy food and tendency to say "y'all" I don't really have much in common with those folks. I only had a trailer hitch so I could carry my recumbent tandem bicycle that was lost in the fire.
After Yoshi's close-up, I went to the DMV and finished my registration, which was waiting on my getting insurance. The lady helping me was a total bitch, clearly a burnout case. I wouldn't be surprised if she went postal someday. After getting my new license plates, I went outside to get Yoshi inspected. It turned out that his rear center brake light was out, so now I'm going to have to waste another Saturday getting that fixed and bringing him back to the inspection station. What a bother!
The rest of the afternoon I picked up my prescriptions (which were correct this month, thank goodness) and did some shopping at TJ Maxx. I bought a dark green wrap shirt top, which I liked so much that I just wore it the rest of the day. I also got a pair of yellow-brown slacks that I took immediately to the tailor, along with another pair I'd bought earlier in the week, to lengthen. A couple other things I bought didn't fit right, so I'll have to take them back next weekend.
In the evening, we drove up to Woodstock in New York to attend Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble concert. This is an intimate affair at Levon's house that happens every two weeks, and only about 100 people or so get to attend. We had a lovely drive up through the Catskill Mountains at sunset, and arrived as the first opening act was finishing up. The concert takes place in a lodge-style house converted to a studio/performance venue. The bands perform in the center of the room, with rows of chairs set up in front and to the sides, and more room in a balcony overlooking them. Behind them is an elevated backstage area for the musicians and their families. The structure resembles a ski lodge, and blends in nicely with the surrounding woods (there were signs posted in the grassy parking area warning of a bear and cubs wandering about).
The music was mostly blues standards, with a few rock'n'roll and gospel songs mixed in by the various performers. We stood in the balcony along the railing overlooking stage right, directly above the drumset, and for most of the night were treated to watching Levon play the drums with an ease and fluidity that was astonishing. The show wrapped up a little after midnight after one encore, and I got home at about 2:30 a.m.
Sunday I got up at 10:30 a.m., which really kind of threw off my sleep pattern. I felt really tired and lethargic all day, as did everyone else. We watched a baseball game, and I finished my laundry and putting things away. I also made some chili and ate about 3/4 of the pot. That might have contributed to the lethargy. It was also time for my bi-weekly shot of delestrogen, so I took care of that.
All in all, it was a very memorable weekend, since it was the first time in years that I've seen live music in any kind of forum. I don't go out to clubs and I rarely attend concerts, and when I do, I'm more apt to see the symphony, a Broadway show or an opera. Plus, the concerts that I have attended in my lifetime generally were when I was younger and so they were not very good bands: Billy Idol, Heart, Harry Connick Jr., U2 (the ZooTV tour in the Astrodome), Debbie Gibson and Chicago (at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, so that barely counts as a concert), those are about the only ones I can remember seeing live. In recent years I've been introduced to much better concerts on DVD, but there's nothing quite like seeing music live, of course. I expect that there will be much better concerts in my future than there have been in my past.
After Yoshi's close-up, I went to the DMV and finished my registration, which was waiting on my getting insurance. The lady helping me was a total bitch, clearly a burnout case. I wouldn't be surprised if she went postal someday. After getting my new license plates, I went outside to get Yoshi inspected. It turned out that his rear center brake light was out, so now I'm going to have to waste another Saturday getting that fixed and bringing him back to the inspection station. What a bother!
The rest of the afternoon I picked up my prescriptions (which were correct this month, thank goodness) and did some shopping at TJ Maxx. I bought a dark green wrap shirt top, which I liked so much that I just wore it the rest of the day. I also got a pair of yellow-brown slacks that I took immediately to the tailor, along with another pair I'd bought earlier in the week, to lengthen. A couple other things I bought didn't fit right, so I'll have to take them back next weekend.
In the evening, we drove up to Woodstock in New York to attend Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble concert. This is an intimate affair at Levon's house that happens every two weeks, and only about 100 people or so get to attend. We had a lovely drive up through the Catskill Mountains at sunset, and arrived as the first opening act was finishing up. The concert takes place in a lodge-style house converted to a studio/performance venue. The bands perform in the center of the room, with rows of chairs set up in front and to the sides, and more room in a balcony overlooking them. Behind them is an elevated backstage area for the musicians and their families. The structure resembles a ski lodge, and blends in nicely with the surrounding woods (there were signs posted in the grassy parking area warning of a bear and cubs wandering about).
The music was mostly blues standards, with a few rock'n'roll and gospel songs mixed in by the various performers. We stood in the balcony along the railing overlooking stage right, directly above the drumset, and for most of the night were treated to watching Levon play the drums with an ease and fluidity that was astonishing. The show wrapped up a little after midnight after one encore, and I got home at about 2:30 a.m.
Sunday I got up at 10:30 a.m., which really kind of threw off my sleep pattern. I felt really tired and lethargic all day, as did everyone else. We watched a baseball game, and I finished my laundry and putting things away. I also made some chili and ate about 3/4 of the pot. That might have contributed to the lethargy. It was also time for my bi-weekly shot of delestrogen, so I took care of that.
All in all, it was a very memorable weekend, since it was the first time in years that I've seen live music in any kind of forum. I don't go out to clubs and I rarely attend concerts, and when I do, I'm more apt to see the symphony, a Broadway show or an opera. Plus, the concerts that I have attended in my lifetime generally were when I was younger and so they were not very good bands: Billy Idol, Heart, Harry Connick Jr., U2 (the ZooTV tour in the Astrodome), Debbie Gibson and Chicago (at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, so that barely counts as a concert), those are about the only ones I can remember seeing live. In recent years I've been introduced to much better concerts on DVD, but there's nothing quite like seeing music live, of course. I expect that there will be much better concerts in my future than there have been in my past.
