Jason and I went to a David Gray concert yesterday with my friend Robyn and her husband Shon. We had a delightful time! Robyn is definitely a “kindred spirit”. She and I have a lot of the same interests and viewpoints so we get along splendidly and never run out of things to discuss. Our men seem to jive well together too. (Man-date possibilities?)
Every year we undertake a maddening endeavor: a Halloween party of such magnitude that only those with questionable sanity would attempt it. Okay, maybe it’s not quite elaborate enough to be a product of lunacy, but it’s a ridiculous amount of work: sewing costumes, decorating every possible surface of two floors of our house, buying and wrapping prizes, organizing games and contests. Preparations start months in advance and cleanup takes weeks if we are diligent and months if we are not. If you can’t imagine how putting on such an event would take so much time it’s because you have never tried it.
Decorating for this party is the most time-consuming task. Our Halloween decorations fill over 20 giant Rubbermaid containers. Just locating and organizing the items we want to use is quite an ordeal. But the hardest part of decorating is trying to arrange the same decorations into something different every year. Coming up with good décor ideas for each area in our house is hard; coming up with distinct good ideas every year is nearly impossible.
We love Halloween, which is why we take on this arduous chore year after year. All the work is worth it (in theory) when our friends and family show up decked-out in their costume inventions ready for some fiendish merriment. I especially enjoy watching the little kids, at least the ones that aren’t absolutely horrified by the Halloween paraphernalia, go from decoration to decoration muttering “wow” and “look at this one”. We’re glad to be part of the magic of Halloween even if it’s a lot of hard work, not magic, that makes it happen.
Jason and I love experiencing our world, whether that’s through a bike ride in the mountains or a concert in the park. Last week we did a lot of experiencing.
For starters, we went to a Snow Patrol concert. It was awesome! Of course, if I didn’t absolutely love Snow Patrol in the first place I wouldn’t have drug Jason to their concert. Although I wasn’t surprised by how skilled the band was live, I was surprised by their size: 2 drummers, 4 guitarists, and a keyboardist. I guess with all the layers in Snow Patrol’s music I shouldn’t have been too astonished that that many musicians were required to create their unique sound.
My favorite part of the evening was their performance of “The Golden Floor”. This song’s haunting melody and catchy rhythm made it an instant favorite of mine when I first heard Snow Patrol’s new album, A Hundred Million Suns, but seeing it played live exceeded all my expectations. One of the band’s drummers pounded away on some giant metal drums throughout the number. The intensity of his beating gave the song a primal feel and made the experience unforgettable.
Plain White T’s, the opening band, also put on a great, but extremely short, show. Their lead singer, Tom Higgenson, was sick and so they only played a few songs. Even though Tom was barely able to talk he managed to sing without sounding very strained. Since I really liked what little they played for us, I’ve decided that I need to purchase their CD.
Our second cultural event of the week was a Real SLC game. We won some amazing tickets for this game at a silent auction event for a charity. Our seats were right on the sidelines, behind the team benches. Sweet! As fate would have it, the day of the game was an incredibly rainy one. Blast! We loaded up for the match with lots of rain gear and garbage bags – everything we could think of that might decrease the soaking we assumed we were about to receive. And then the miraculous occurred: as we were traveling to the game the skies cleared and the night turned into a beautiful autumn evening. It was still cold enough that hats, gloves, jackets, and scarves were needed, but with that bundling it was pretty pleasant and, more importantly, it was completely dry.
Two days later we headed up to Salt Lake City again, this time for Star Wars: In Concert. Fantastic! A giant LED screen, Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) in the flesh, a live orchestra, actual props from the Star Wars films, and more geeky fans than you could possibly imagine made for a splendid nerdfest!
Hooray for three memorable evenings!
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