Missouri Hangover Pt. 4

Jeez, how did the final recap get away from me? Anyway, suffice it to say the Levon Helm show ROCKED. I stood and danced pretty much the whole night. He opened with "Ophelia" which was followed by "Look Out Cleveland"! I was rockin' and rollin'! At one point Brandone texted me "Down in front!" and I responded with "I paid good scratch for this seat!!!!" And what's more the LEGENDARY Howard Johnson was there on tuba!!! Holy rock and roll legend!!!!!!!! And it was soooo groovy to see another legend, Larry Campbell, in person. Levon's band was huge. Horns, organ player, upright bassist, it was so fucking awesome. SIIIIIIIGH.... I was a little miffed at the encore which was of course, "Cripple Creek" and all the people who finally stood and sang along, whereas I was singing along to all the old songs, not just the one that hit the Top 40! But as I stated later, you gotta give Levon his bread and butter!

After the 2-hour show I wanted to try and say hi to Levon, Amy, and Jim. I did get to meet Howard Johnson and I said "Glad to see you're still blowing after all these years!" and he said with a laugh, "What else am I gonna do?" We ran into Amy and she said she told her dad that it was me and he said he wanted to say hi to me! Gush!!! Then we ran into Jim Weider and he said I looked familiar and I reminded him who I was. We didn't hang around long enough to say hi to Levon however, to my disappointment, but we were hot, sweaty, and drained and God knows if he was ever gonna come off the bus anyway.

We headed to a nice little convenience store as we wanted snacks. I got this decadent peanut butter filled pastry to split w/J2 and a corn dog to split w/J1. We also got some fruit. Back at the hotel Brandone played "Grape Toss" and tried to get grapes in our mouths. We agreed to meet early downstairs for the complimentary hotel breakfast before they had to hit the bricks back to Jeff City by 8am. Unfortunately I woke up with several red small welt-like insect bites on me which were clearly from bedbugs. I've stayed a thousand nights in a thousand hotels and have never experienced this! But it was bound to happen sooner or later, I guess.

The funny part at breakfast was when J1 and I decided to split a waffle. He got up to go make it but then asked, "Do I know how to make a waffle?" I walked them out to B's car and we all hugged and kissed goodbye and as they drove out of the parking lot I made sure to run alongside and wave, like so many wives running alongside a train as their soldier husband goes off to war. Chuckle!

Sooooo... my next trip will be in August to New Orleans for a weekend w/Mr. Wonderful and his sister and her daughter. I can't remember if I posted this yet, but he got us a hotel with a rooftop pool! Oh hell to the YEAH!!!!!! Speaking of my beloved Stefano, we had a great weekend together. We went back to the Middle Eastern market so I could stock up on their killer chicken salad for the week. Stefano bought a baby octopus salad and I could only take one bite. "The poor baby octopusses!" We watched The Insider at his house on Saturday and last night at my house I showed him Sideways, one of my all time faves! I got more work done on my file; I really wanna finish that report this week! My Lt. sent me an email response to a couple of follow-up questions I had and he said "You will do good at this, you're asking all the right questions." Well, of course!