DON'T Let Them Eat Cake

I fed the boys leftover almond cakes for breakfast. What was I thinking, you ask? I was thinking that we’ve been easing up on our donut habit lately and at least it was homemade and not deep-fried. Nels has built up a high enough sugar tolerance that he remained relatively unaffected. He spent the morning being his alternately charming and exasperating self. Alas, little 10th percentile-weight Willem could not handle cake for breakfast on an empty tummy. It’s fortunate that we were playing in the only carpeted room in the house, for Willem was flinging himself about with heedless abandon. He would nod his head violently, throw himself on his brother, then giggle maniacally and roll around on the floor.

“I’ve never seen him do that before, “ I said. “Oh. It could have something to do with having cake for breakfast.”

The day only went downhill from there, but the weekend that preceded it to that point was so fantastic that it didn’t even matter.

Why was your weekend so fantastic, you ask? Well, a band that we actually wanted to see came to Boise. Apples in Stereo. That’s them, not my boys, in the photo above. And as if that weren’t remarkable enough, we got a babysitter so we could go to the concert. A babysitter we weren’t afraid to leave the children with. Nels liked her so much that he cried in the morning when he woke up and discovered she hadn’t spent the night.

It is SO RARE that we go out (this was our first non out-of-town-grandparent-babysitter since we moved to Boise five months ago) that the show and the venue could have stunk and I would have still been ecstatically happy. In my child-free bliss I found it all to be perfect. Yes, the Neurolux was a bit of a dive. Smoky. Dingy. But the booth closest to the stage was empty and we sat there. We shared a $10 pitcher of beer. All was so well with the world that I even smiled in benevolent amusement when the party who squeezed in next to us procured a plastic cup in which to spit tobaccy juice. We’re not in LA anymore, kids.

The opening band was kind enough not to suck. They were Casper and the Cookies from Athens, Georgia, and they are what is commonly referred to as “a kick in the pants.” I have been to very few concerts, but at every one I’ve been to I’ve either been embarrassed for or felt animosity towards the opening act. But these folks were actually very entertaining and I felt it was the first time I’d ever seen an opener that wasn’t totally useless. Unfortunately I felt compelled to share these sentiments with the front man of Casper and the Cookies when I found myself standing two feet away from him after the show. And yes, I used the word “useless.” Next time I’ll be sure to eat a bigger dinner before I start with the beer.

I enjoyed Apples in Stereo too. When their set was done I could see that Robert Schneider, the genius mastermind of the band, was standing very close to us and talking to a surprisingly small number of people. I decided to go tell him that we had put Apples in Stereo on the “mix tape” we played at our wedding reception. Shaun came along too, and I’m glad he did, or we never would have found ourselves being simultaneously hugged by the spazz in the center of the above photo. He was even wearing that very same red blazer. With an arm squeezing each of us, he made us promise to go tell his wife at the T-shirt table about the wedding thing. Which we did. Fun night.

Saturday was everything a Saturday should be. Shaun went on a 41-mile bike ride and was back by noon so I could pass off the kid-watching baton. I headed off to the salon, where my hair was colored, washed, dried, cut, flat-ironed, and then cut some more for three glorious hours. We topped off the day with take-out ribs, the company of dear friends, two bottles of budget red wine, and the aforementioned almond cakes with raspberries and whipped cream. A fantastic weekend, indeed.