Ahhhh, the weekend. I love the weekend. I hate Monday. This weekend was a rather mixed up sort of thing. Saturday Scott had to work, as usual, but we had made plans for me to meet him after work so we could bolt into Columbus to do some herb shopping (no no, COOKING herbs!) at Penzey's & then grab a bite at Cheeseburger in Paradise. I met him, we raced the Goat along the curving route of 161 (I love driving that road) and on into Dublin. We grabbed the herbs & asked the ladies working at Penzey's if they knew how to get to Polaris, which is where the Cheeseburger is. They gave us directions, we listened but didn't absorb, and ended up calling the restaurant anyways to verify what we thought we heard. 15 minutes later we were seated at a small table behind the wall by the kitchen. I should've whined, but I'm not much of a whiner, so we sat at our awkward table & watched the waitstaff do, well, nothing. The only person that seemed to be doing anything was a Mexican busboy bussing his little heart out. We thought that maybe they put all the unattractive people & families behind the wall so as not to scare away the pretty people that frequent the Polaris area (they have a "fashion mall" there for fuck's sake - can you imagine the horror?). Ended up, we were largely disappointed with the experience - I'm not sure what we were expecting - Key West in a restaurant? Parties? Palm trees & a beach? but it ended up being more like any other chain restaurant with a slight Caribbean edge. The burger was good, and huge, the beer was cold & tall, so all was not lost. I was amused to find out that the house beer, Island Ale, which is what we enjoyed, is actually brewed by Leinenkugel's in Wisconsin. I think they're in Wisconsin anyway.

The dinner crowd started rolling in & we decided to get the hell out of the city as quick as possible - the Polaris area was actually built up around a popular concert venue, and we were taking no chances that Big & Rich/Toby Keith/Phish or anyone else were going to hold us up on our ride home. Being a bit more relaxed on the drive back, I cruised at a smooth 70 behind a red Mini Cooper with Scott snoozing in the seat behind me. We pulled into the dealership, he hopped in his truck & we were on our way home. And, after getting home, we hung out for a bit, played darts, watched TV, whatever, I passed out at 9:30. yes! Lame!

Sunday was a weird thing. All last week & part of the week before I'd been dealing with Dude & his people for the local Blues Fest. Dude had extended an invite, "If you & your husband want to come & hang out in the hospitality tent & meet everyone, give this guy a call & he'll set you up with all the proper credentials." I mentioned it to Scott, we were terrified at the prospect of such a large gathering, but how could we pass it up? I had called "this guy" on Thursday, never heard back from him, emailed Dude's publicist in a moment of panic on Friday, and never heard anything back. Dude himself didn't come in on Friday, so I couldn't say anything to him about it. After all, I do realize we were probably low priority on the list to these busy entertainers, but hell, we wanted to go! Yesterday we toyed with the idea of just driving down here & seeing what we could get into, but chalked it up as a bad scene - surely the village would be full of Dude-admirers & press, something we didn't want to get involved in.

Around 4 o'clock or so, when the musicians should've been preparing to go onstage, I get a breathless & flustered call from my very excited mother, who said she came down to the town to sell off her massage table. No, it wasn't busy AND she'd been walking down the street when she noticed some very nattily dressed black folks in front of her. She sped up to catch up with them, heard them talking about their flights in, and then realized that Dude was with them. I asked her, "Was there a very tiny, exotic-looking woman with them?" "Yes!" Mom declared, "And she was very light-skinned!" "That would be Erykah Badu, the lead singer of the whole band that I had to have shipped in." She had no idea who Badu is, but she was tremendously excited nonetheless. I know she jotted it down so she could relay all the exciting news to her man. Scott had caught the gist of the phone conversation, and, sickened & disgusted, went out on the back porch to mope & grin psychotically to himself. To me, it wasn't a huge deal - I know who Badu is, but I'm not a huge fan, I see Dude all the time so that wasn't an issue, but I really wanted Scott to get the opportunity to meet him, not to mention hanging out in the hospitality tent & rubbing elbows with all the blues musicians. And, here's my mom, freaking out over just having walked behind them. She did say she accidentally bumped into one of them (she has a tendency to wander & not pay attention, something that's nearly got her run over more than once) & the gent turned around, put his arm around her, and apologized profusely & prettily. I think she was smitten.

So, at that point, not much use in heading down here (we live "there", I work "here" which is where the Fest is/was). We just stayed home, threw darts, marinated some meats for dinner this week, and that was that. Low key. Could've been so much more!

And now, I'm here today, people are making me crazy as usual, I have cramps, and all I can think of is 6 o'clock & that sweet rush of freedom.