Beal and Zac got in town Thursday and we did Thai food for lunch in Fremont. :) Thursday night we did a little grilling down at Golden Gardens and it was lovely! In attendance were Dieter, Zac (from Boston), Beal (from TX), Jake, Doug, Moses, Laura, D'Marcos, Chad, Renee (from IL), Lucas, John, and Rod! (Kathy apparently came by, but didn't find us as she arrived after dark and we had no candles or fire... sad!) We did get to see a lovely sunset, eat lots of grilled food and watermelon, and socialize with a whole diverse set of folks in from out of town. Much love goes out to Moses and Laura for saving the party and getting the much need, last minute charcoal! Y'all rock! Also a big you rock goes out to my buddy Ryan who called yesterday from Dallas! Hadn't talked to Ryan in many moons, and I was excited to hear his voice after so many months!! He also gets a big Happy Birthday shout out, so if you know him, do send him love!

FRIDAY:

The Market!
Today we wandered town for most of the day. This morning we went to pick up Dieter's friend Julie (from CA) from the airport. I met Julie last spring when we went down to California and she's very sweet! We went to Chubbys and Tubbys (got shoes!), ate crepes in Capital Hill, got Oh My God peaches from the Pike Place Market, and are now ready for some dinner. When Dieter eventually gets off work, hopefully he'll get to join us too. Before I go, everyone is encouraged to think kind thoughts for Andrew, who checked himself into the ER today because of a crazy fever. Hope he's better soon!! Take care y'all, and have a fabulously fun and safe Labor Day weekend!!

Pike Place Market
Bear, longtime fish thrower, stole my gnome and tossed him into a vat of yucky, slimy, crawfish. Eww! On the bright side of things, I did get to retrieve it from the cute fish boy when he took it out. :)

Me and Bear
Smiling with the nice man who put my gnome in the dirty place.

More Market
The gnome was much happier with the flower women... they didn't make him go to gross places. :)

Oh My God Peaches!
They truly are the best peaches I've ever had! After I had them last year, I waited a full year for them to come back in season then hit the market for some sticky, ooey goodness!

The Fremont Troll
I think we meet up with Dieter, Zac, Wing, and Marta for dinner at the Northlake Pizza Tavern on Friday after Dieter got off work. I think we also stopped by the troll afterwards, but I can't be sure. The whole weekend was kind of a blur. Either way, pictured here are Dieter and Julie smiling for a picture with the troll. :)


SATURDAY:

Julie & Laura
Tonight is Saturday night and I'm tired! We skipped Pete's party last night and I think we'll be skipping Sarah's tonight too. The day started early with cooking breakfast, then I went over to Andrew's for a while to help with the move to the new apartment in Eastlake. That was a pretty quick job, and in a few hours we'd cleared everything out of his place and moved it into Eastlake. From there, I left him and went to Bumbershoot (the Seattle Arts and Music Festival).

The Fountain
While Beal saw Blackalicious, I saw Ani D'Franco with Marta, Vicky, and Julie. It was good to meet up with the girls, but the show wasn't all that fabulous (should've joined Beal for the other show). I'm not the biggest fan of Ani, but I have a CD or two and definitely like her music. However, I didn't recognize a single song she played during the whole show. Pretty lame. On the bright side, I did get to meet up with Marta and friends for the show. :)

Teatro Circo
Anyway, from there Julie and I went to see Circus Ballyhoo, which was just so-so. The ruckus caused by a guy in his undies running around the fountain getting tazed by the police upstaged the acrobats and ballerinas on stage. :) We ran into Lucas, Renee, and John at the circus show... a pretty amazing feat for a festival with 250,000+ people each day. Next was Zuco 103... they do Brazilian Euro Funky Trip Hop stuff or something... interesting, but would've liked some kind of a beat. Or maybe I was just cranky because I wanted food! I was surrounded by amazing food booths from every ethnic background, but the closest Julie and I could find was roasted cashews (and even they had peanut oil so I still couldn't have them!). Cooking every meal can be hard when you're gone from home all day!

Me & Julie
We eventually gave up the circus and the bands and just headed to the EMP to check out the exhibits. I think we were both more content inside (and members get to bring guests free, so it worked out well all around!). At the end of the day, we went back to the apartment to hang with Zac and Dieter. Alan's coming too, so it'll be a party. :) (Speaking of parties... happy birthday to Elisa... her birthday and party were both this weekend!).


SUNDAY:

April & Alan
Alan was also in town for the weekend (from Portland), and he spent Saturday night at my place. I didn't get to spend Monday with him since I was finally going to have alone time with Beal, but I did pass him along to April (who also met him back in Oklahoma and was wanting to see him). He moved to San Francisco as soon as the week was over for a new job... hopefully he'll update us soon on the new and exciting life in the big city!

Me and Dieter
Sunday Beal and I had a nice breakfast and chat, then went to Bauhaus for coffee with Erin. In the afternoon we met up with Dieter and Julie who joined us for another day of the festival. We saw the Shins and they were okay. Kinda did the "I want to be trendy, emo, and Euro" thing, but they weren't horrible. We also saw Jason Webley who was fun as always, wowing the new faces, hamming it up, and getting himself on the evening news for being arrested while trying to perform a mass baptism in the International Fountain. That silly guy! And the final band on our bill for the night was Death Cab for Cutie - local band that everyone loves. I didn't love them, but definitely liked them better than all of the previous bands. :) Seemed like genuinely entertaining guys.

Me & Beal
I'm guessing we took this photo outside the Space Needle too... no idea though. I just knew I needed a picture with my Beal. :) Anyway, after Bumbershoot, we headed to the 5 Point Cafe for food and drinks. I was exhausted and hungry, and was tortured by the huge plate of greasy fries I couldn't eat. Many thanks to Dieter for his strength in not letting me jump off my diet and into the pile of fries. Many thanks to Beal and Julie for letting me sit like a log when I was sooo tired!


MONDAY:

This boy can play!
Beal and I had another relaxing morning and returned to the festival for yet another day. We saw The Minus Five - first really enjoyable show I saw all weekend. Fun too (they kept alive a running joke that they were really the Bee gees), but not still as good as Wilco. Wilco was next and they were great! Rocking, danceable, and very cute crowd! (Why is it that everyone seems cute this weekend?!?). Pictured here is my drumming hero Jesse. He plays for a band called Discohesive, but he also plays solo around town and he can jam like no other! He goes hard core and goes for hours. Wow!

Peter & Kathy
At the Maceo Parker show (former bandleader for James Brown), we saw Kathy and Peter (David's roommate). It was probably the most amazing show I saw all weekend! It was great! He got funky like nobody's business and I got dance for a few fabulous hours!! Wow!! His son Corey kicked some butt too! Best show of the whole weekend! Even got to hang with both former Seattle roomies... Beal and Kathy. We even ran into Brett and Karen out in the hall before it started! Crazy... I haven't seen Brett in many moons (probably since I was still at YVC).

The Derailers
Yeah! Austin folks would be proud to know there were so many Austin bands on the schedule over the course of the weekend. The Derailers had a great crowd, and I got to go straight from the Maceo groove to the Derailers grove without ever having to stop dancing. Yeah! After the Derailers I ran into James (speaking of cute people) at the festival (he was "working" a booth for Gregg's... so rough). We chatted and he recommend the Marc Olsen show to me. I was really excited to see James and chat with him, but I've gotta say his choice in music was super boring. I went to go see Marc and he was pretty lame despite his humor between "haunting" songs (how much vibrato can one guy do song after song? geez). Ah well. Wasn't bad, and the rain was only really light.

Wow, so I was just checking out the Bumbershoot website to see if they had pictures I could add, and just found out something exciting about The Minus Five. Apparently the "terrific, catchy guitar-pop" is the pet project of Peter Buck (REM) and Scott McCaughey (REM, Young Fresh Fellows). In addition, the band members change from gig to gig, some to song, but have included folks from the Posies, the High Llamas, Ministry, the Model Rockets, and Mott the Hoople. Who knew? I feel kind of silly... I go to live shows around town always hoping that maybe Peter Buck, or Ann and Nancy Wilson, or Dave Matthews, or the Pearl Jam guys, or the other Grunge kinds will be playing incognito, and there I was seeing Peter Buck and not even knowing it. Guess they don't surface often for performances, but I was lucky enough to catch them live without knowing it at the time. For me though, that's what the big music festivals are all about. You pay for an all day pass, and get a chance to sample a bunch of bands for the price of only one show. Quite a steal really. If one sucks, that's okay because you're sure to catch a good one before not too long. And when they're good, they're really good (like Maceo, Minus Five, and Wilco).

All in all, a lovely weekend. Many thanks to Beal, Julie, Kathy, Dieter, Peter, Marta, and Vicky for keeping me company at various shows! And many thanks to Jake for getting me, Julie, and Beal in free for one of the days! Take care y'all!