Well, I suppose it's been some time since my last post. Embarrassingly, not much has happened since then. I'm still doing the same old thing. I'm coming to work each day, wishing i was somewhere else, and obviously not winning the wishing battle.
I did get an adventure in August. I'll call it my Hippie Adventure.
My husband has always been a fan of a band previously unknown to me. Band's name: Phish. Said band never floated my boat. I listened occasionally to an album now and then when we were travelling, just not getting it. I went to a concert clear back in 2003 with him, but having had the brilliant idea of bringing my month old son along (hey, he's a month old and my first! i wasn't ready to leave him just yet!!), i spent the entire evening moving around the grass as needed to avoid the various type of smoke that were floating around the venue. I had fun, but still didn't' get it.
Ladies and gentlemen. I attended a concert this August--most beautiful venue i can imagine for a concert (the Gorge Amphitheatre up in Washington!)--and I GET IT. I like Phish! I can put up with the vast numbers of hippies to attend another show, should we ever win the lottery and can afford another trip! It was SO much fun!
First of all, it was beautiful to get away from work--where i had been pulling full weeks AND on calls during the weekends, and was completely emotionally and physically exhausted. So maybe it was partly due to that. As much as i hate to say it, it was a nice break from the kids, too. I love my kids. I would do anything for my kids. And believe me when i say this, it was in THEIR best interest that i took a break from them as well. Ü
I love a man--live with a man, share a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom with a man--that i don't see very often. He works swings, i work days, so that we don't have to have the kids in daycare for long. This leads to us seeing each other on weekends, and an average of 25 minutes a day during the week. So i REALLY enjoyed being able to spend time with him.
So, we get going on the trip--drop the kids off, drop the pooch off, fill up on gas, and head out. We were about 45 minutes into a 10 hour drive when we hit a wall. Road block. No one knows why, thus, no one knows how long. We sat there, studied maps--no where else to go, so sat there in a stupid little line BARELY into our trip for a little over an hour. We finally got going, and it begin to rain. And rain. Texas-type rain, where you can barely see and occasionally have to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out because there is so much coming down at once. It rains the next 9 hours of our 10 hour drive. I was nervous, because we were set to be camping at the venue, AND we were going to be spending the next two evenings in an outdoor-grass-amphitheatre concert (with people that this rain was the most of a shower that they've had for a while, no less!). But, about an hour from our destination it quit raining, and was actually really nice for the rest of the weekend.
So...we met up with our friends who we were sharing a camping pass with (and so we had to leave our vehicle in Moses Lake unattended so we only had the allowed-1 vehicle) and headed out. We went to the grocery store, stocked up, and headed to the venue. Where we were herded like cattle for the next hour into a tiny little section of a field that they proclaimed would be our "camping spot". We were around 5 feet from the vehicle on each side of us, and were given another 15 feet in front of our car for our tent/gazebo. You're not allowed to drive in and out of the campground once you're there, so during the day--this little area is where we get to "chill". It wasn't so bad. We got to walk around a lot and check out all of the...characters...we were surrounded by. I was even (unfortunately!) able to notice that there is actually a new trend in female armpit hair --kind of like a Brazilian bikini wax, except for the armpit. Apparently, this is quite fashionable in the armpit-hair-wearing-hippie-folk we were camping with. Ü
The concert was a LOT of fun. I fell in love with the band. Maybe i fell in love with the enthusiasm my dear husband has for the band. Either way, it was good stuff. I was able to relax and dance a little (badly--but that's the great thing about hippie-concerts--EVERYONE looks good dancing compared to a hippie!), and get my fill of people watching. I was able to hold hands under the stars and listen to a ballad with my husband. I was able to buy a bottle of $6.00 water that the venue owners couldn't have paid more than .75 for. I was able to find an empty outhouse in the maze-of-a-hundred-outhouses with my poor pregnant friend on more occasions than i wished. But it was really fun!!
The concert went two great nights, and aside from someone breaking into our tent and going through our stuff, it was a really great time. I had a lot of fun continuing to get to know Josh and Mindie, and getting to know why my husband got sucked in in the first place.
Anyway, the moral of this seemingly endless story is--sometimes, something that you don't think you want to do is a lot of fun. And sometimes, you'll find yourself trying to catch up obsession-wise with your husband in his love of something you feel like you missed out on for years. And always, seeing your kids faces after you've been away for a few days is priceless.
Thanks for reading. Ü
