Not too Petty

Let’s start the weekend recap on Thursday. Jill was in a good mood – not counting cleaning up Illa messes, it was her favorite day as she got to go to Capitol Hill and speak to two congressmen and sit in on hearings for her health policy class. I got home later than planned and we only caught the last half hour of Brindley Brothers inaugurating the Herndon Thursday night concert series. Since Illa couldn’t have any food, we went to eat at Guapo’s so as not to eat in front of him. Tasty food, I had rotisserie chicken and Jill had a taco platter.

Friday I was up early to drop my car off and catch the last bus to my building (which still takes an hour from the mechanic). I missed the bus on the way out and had Jill come get me as we would have been way late otherwise. I paid for my repairs and went home to pick up Jill. We got to Celebrate Fairfax around 7:30, and Getaway Car was already on. So we followed the sound of music to the side stage, and sat down to watch them. I never I thought I’d see a smoke machine on a side stage, but they used it well. We were having a good time until the rain shower during their last song, “All Time Low”, but we toughed it out under my jacket.

The rain continued, so we went to the Government Center building and waited for it to pass. Not long enough, as it started to pour as we headed to find food – we ducked into the baby changing tent to stay dry. Finally it was over, and Jill got pizza and I got a crab cake sandwich and hush puppies. We ate on the run as Collective Soul had started, and made our way to the stage where it was the most crowded I’d seen it. We got over to a clear spot at stage right and grooved to the hits; I really enjoyed “Gel” and “Why Pt. 2”. We headed out during the last song to avoid the rush, and made it home by 11.

Saturday we slept in some, I woke up around 9:30, took Illa for a walk and made an egg sandwich while watching the MTV Movie Awards (best bit was a DaVinci code spoof with Jimmy Fallon). I read some newspapers, then headed upstairs to check out the Tom Petty setlist and familiarize myself with the songs I didn’t know. I bought tix on eBay earlier in the week – 2nd row in the 2nd section, for not much more than face of one ticket. Jill had decided she wanted to go to the show even though she was on call, so we’d decided to take separate cars. I found out Saturday that our friends Stuart and Janice got tix too, so we decided to caravan and tailgate before the show.

I made wraps and a fruit salad, and we left around 6. Traffic was light, and we got to Nissan around 6:30. We set up chairs, and tucked in to our meal. We were having a good time, but forced ourselves to leave when Trey Anastasio came on. Stuart came down with me to watch since Jill didn’t care about Trey (not a Phish head), then we joined them on the lawn during the break, when we caught up with our friend Jolene and her friend Dimitri.

Once Tom started, we made our way down and enjoyed a great show of his hits. My favorite of the first part was his version of the Wilburys’ “Handle With Care” (I’ve always been a huge Wilburys fan). The best reason to come to this tour was he had Stevie Nicks touring with him, and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” was a treat to see (they also played their other duet, “Insider”, plus Stevie sang lead on “I Need To Know” before singing background vox on others). Great show, but we left during the encore as usual.

Sunday was pretty relaxing, slept in to 11, then got up and made scrambled eggs while I watched “Hex”, a new BBC series that’s kind of a Buffy knock off with witches, but not bad. I read more newspapers in the afternoon, then went grocery shopping with Jill. When we got back, I marinated some shrimp, then made broccoli to go with before I grilled the shrimp. I made some BBQ for tomorrow’s dinner, then took Illa on a long walk before watching Simpsons and Family Guy ass I packaged up some eBay auctions that had just finished. Now I gotta get to bed as I’m gonna try and get up at 6AM tomorrow.