aimee mann and my 34th birthday

I had a pretty good 34th birthday. Doc surprised me with a homemade miniature cake (red velvet and white layers, with cream cheese icing and crushed up cookies in the center) and a big Hello Kitty balloon. The balloon has actually been the source of a very entertaining revelation: Loki is scared to death of balloons, or Hello Kitty, or both. He hid under the bed for two days straight, and hasn’t been downstairs at all until just last night. The experiment that proved my theory left me with numerous cuts on my right hand.

Saturday night we had a little cookout party, which was a lot of fun. I wish it hadn’t been so hot outside, because I was hoping that we could spend the evening on the patio.

Sunday was a very different weather situation. I got up early to run around the park, and it was cloudy and low 80s, which was OK for running (humid, but OK). On my second lap, a reddish-brown medium sized dog fell into step beside me and ran with me for the next two miles. He had no collar, and no owner in sight, and he just silently trotted along by my side, only occasionally stopping to sniff at something or to meander out into traffic. I’m sure that people driving by thought I was his careless owner. He didn’t seem to listen when I tried to call him back on to the sidewalk. He stopped and waited for me while I stretched afterwards, then dutifully followed me home. I wouldn’t let him in the gate, and he looked sad, but then moseyed off.

Later on, I met Yvonne at the Farmer’s Market where we stocked up on fresh vegetables. It’s nice to go with a friend and split the goods, because if you have small families like we do, you often can’t eat the quantities that things come in.

It stormed all afternoon. We watched television for a while, then napped for a few hours while it rained buckets outside. The temp dropped into the 70s.

Then that evening, we went to see Aimee Mann do an acoustic show at the Lakewood Theatre. It was a fabulous concert! She played a good mixture of older songs and new ones. She also has really good stage presence and is very entertaining when talking to the audience between songs. Before “Save Me” she said, “Most people know this song from the movie ‘Magnolia.’ But I like to think of it as the one that lost an Oscar to Phil Collins’ cartoon monkey love song.”

At the end of the show, she said “This is the part of the show where we leave, and you clap, and we come back. Or we can just stay and play some more songs.” And then she took audience requests! And played several songs that they had not rehearsed in a long time and weren’t even sure they could do — I don’t think it was just an act because they did mess up at the beginnings a few times. On Driving Sideways, they told the pianist the first chord, and a few seconds later he asked “Ok, now what’s the second?” I did not shout out any requests, because she did three of my very favorite songs: Wise Up, Red Vines, and Driving Sideways. The only songs that I wish she would have also done were How Am I Different and Satellite. Other songs she performed included You’re With Stupid Now, Invisible Ink, Goodbye Caroline, You Do, Invisible Ink, Little Bombs, and One. There were several others as well which I don’t remember now.

Two big bonuses: I did not smell like smoke afterwards, and I was not deaf. LOVE the Lakewood Theatre!