out on the town

Well, I must be over my guilt because not only did I work a full day yesterday (away from my two sick children who stayed home AGAIN), but I even went out last night without them.

Last weekend, on a whim, Chris bought us two tickets to see Kenny Wayne Shepherd. It was a completely thoughtful act on my husband’s part because he knows how much I love to go watch live blue’s performers and I haven’t seen anyone in over a year. I’m not sure why, but I am terrible at planning ahead when it comes to getting babysitters. I forgot about the tickets and didn’t start looking for anyone until late Thursday. Long story short – I never found a sitter. Chris has been feeling pretty crappy the last couple of days, so he suggested I take someone else and that he would stay home.

Me: “Beth, are you ok?” (She had quite a scare with her breathing earlier in the day so went to the doctor yesterday afternoon.)
Beth: “Yes, it wasn’t a heart attack – it’s bronchitis.”
Me: “Cool – so do you wanna go downtown and see a band?”
Beth: “Sure.”

So there we were, last night, naively searching for an open table at a restaurant on a Friday night. The weather was beautiful yesterday and that pulled people out of their houses or some event was going on downtown. It was mobbed. Lines outside of restaurants, lines outside of clubs, and people walking all over. We never did figure out what was going on, but I asked Beth if General Conference (a semi-annual big-deal meeting held at the Mormon Temple downtown this weekend) might be pulling people downtown. My wonderful fence-sitting Mormon friend turned to her lovely still-searching semi-agnostic non-Mormon friend and said, “General Conference? This weekend?” It was a precious moment!

After a couple attempts, we happened upon a great Italian restaurant that was kind of fancy-dancy, but Beth insisted we were dressed up enough. Beth was in IRONED non-denim pants and I had lipstick on, so I guess she was right. The maitre‘d was a little hesitant to seat us without a reservation, but quickly found us a “romantic” little table in the back, back corner. Actually, it was just right. We had a great meal and then drove over to the bar.

As soon as I walked in, I felt like I had stepped back ten or fifteen years into my past. I have spent many an evening in dive bars watching blues bands. The smoke, which I’m no longer tolerant of, was thick and the clientele was familiar – mainly middle-aged “earthy” types with no less than 25 black Harley-Davidson T-shirts in the joint. It was Nirvana for me. The warm-up singer was great and the smile on my face didn’t disappear until about two hours later when my age (or the fact that I had been up since 4 am with a sick child) suddenly caught up to me and I became absolutely exhausted. Kenny Wayne was great. He looked much older than the last time I saw him at an open air festival in Central Wisconsin about 10 years ago, but was again very impressive. (He’s still only about 30!) Beth and I stood in a great spot near the stage, but it was also near the speakers. The bass went through my chest and I liked it at first, but after we left I couldn’t really hear for about 30 minutes. I have to admit I don’t remember experiencing that before. Like everything else that is probably due to my older status, but I’ll blame the high altitude here in Salt Lake, instead, for my muffled-ear-reaction.

This morning life is back to normal. Ella is still asleep and only had one coughing attack last night. Harrison’s cough is getting worse, but hasn’t had much a fever for almost 24 hours and Chris has been up for hours because his throat is so sore it kept him awake. I am back in my casual clothes with the only reminders of my big night out being the smell of smoke in my hair and the stamp from the bar on the back of my right hand. How quickly the roles of a mother can change.