This last week was a doozy. Nothing to do with the fabulous top ten lifestyle but the dreaded “W” word.  I can honestly say that this birth year so far hasn’t been good, especially on the professional and budgetary front. I will admit my current job appealed to me for its boring stability that would lend itself to a more interesting personal life. Lately, this has not been anywhere near true. Now I just want to work from home somehow and get me a cute little dog. By the way, I saw my dog last night—a black French bulldog with adorable little ears. I would name mine Onyx after my graduating class of course.

Anyway but back to the second week of May…Last Thursday, I went to see Alice Russell. I discovered Alice through the magic of Amazon. She was suggested to me and her MP3’s were on a $5 special. I played her music incessantly at work, when I could, as it really lent itself to creative stimulation. I slowly realized that this was a weekday show that started at 9p. and I’m not 24. I was beat, completely exhausted. I saw there was an opening act, so I decided to make my appearance around 10. I got there at 9:45 to see the opening act was still performing,  no slight against the performer, but I just hope for a short first set and that Alice would be on no later than 10:15. That did not happen. She started at exactly 10:38 (this is when you know you are tired). I will admit two things: first, the audience was extremely eclectic. Apparently Alice was on NPR that afternoon and I could see the NPR crowd, the stereotypical U Streeters, and the hipster set. Seeing Alice Smith was diverse and rather young, but this event drew folks who are 50 plus.  Second, Alice Russell needed another venue. Seriously, her kind of show and audience required another venue. It goes unsaid that I thought it should have started earlier. Alice was lovely. Her voice is gorgeous and lush. This made the sound system issues more frustrating as it clouded the perfection of her voice. In the end, I needed to duck out earlier to get the wonderful opportunity to watch road construction.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. I went to a Zumbathon. This was three hours of straight dancing capped off with a performance by E.U featuring Sugar Bear. I managed about 2 hours and 15 minutes as I got there a little late and it ran over. My thighs still hurt. It was fun and exhilarating and exhausting. I don’t plan on making this a regular habit out of consideration for my poor thighs. Finally, I finished the weekend with a pig roast. I haven’t eaten pork since I was a freshman in college but everyone else seemed plenty excited. All the event did was made me yearn for home. Every year my family has a pig roast for Memorial Day and I won’t be there this year. Hopefully soon I will have a wonderful Michigan edition post to share…