We had a normal short Friday, made a salad and cooked a pizza for dinner. It was a really good sleep into Saturday morning, I nearly hit 10 hours and Jill was past 11. We had a relaxing afternoon, she got a massage and I read newspapers on the deck. In the evening we headed over to the Birchmere, got our line number, then went up the road a bit.
The Birchmere has perfectly adequate (but overpriced) bar food, and with the number of times we go there (several times a year at least) I itch for something different. And Cheesetique qualified – a cheese shop that had a small restaurant in back. We sat at the bar and Jill had the tomato soup and the fig & brie crostini with a glass of Prosecco while I had the Street Cleaner Sandwich with a Kronenbourg 1664. Both very good selections, and we made it back to the Birchmere with plenty of time.
The only bad thing is we’d chosen something small and quick so we weren’t very full, so we had to get some nachos once we got a table. Lucy Wainwright Roche (daughter of Suzzy Roche and Loudon Wainwright III and half sister of Rufus Wainwright) opened the show, and was funny and charming – a perfect opening act for Dar. We’ve seen Dar with a band before (also on her first tour for an album), and it really brought out parts of the music you don’t hear otherwise. This band was smaller (just a keyboardist and djembe player), but they also added backing vocals and made a decent sound. I was particularly looking forward to hearing “Buzzer”, but she played a good selection of new and older tunes.
Sunday was nice, mostly reading and watching TV with a walk thrown in in the middle. I made Indian for dinner, tandoori chicken and spicy green beans, with a prepared eggplant dish Jill had picked up and some whole grain naan I had. We watched a little more TV after dinner and discussed what looks like drastic changes to the vacation plans, but more on those later.