Where to begin?

Well folks, it's been a busy week in Lake Woebegone. It's actually hard to decide where to start my gushing because there were so many delights this past week, but it is always safe to start with Todd Snider. Last thursday, I went to see my favorite performer and it did not disappoint. Todd played with a full band, which I had never seen before (given some of the funny looks exchanged by the members of the band, it was unclear whether *they* and Todd had seen each other before). But it was great-- he leaned away from most of my melancholic favorites towards those songs which more readily lend themselves to a full band/honky tonk interpretation. It was still peppered with some of his absolute best though and it was fun to see such a different energy level from someone I have seen so many times. In addition to the bliss that is seeing Todd Snider live, there were two good opening bands (The Trishas, especially-- look for them on this year's lake CD and see them pictured below). The highlight of the evening for me, however, was the encore, and then the second encore. The encore was all three bands coming out on stage and singing Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door which made me think I had died and gone to heaven. The second encore was Elvis (Todd's longtime roadie) coming out in full Elvis (the King) regalia to sing Hounddog with everyone on back-up vocals. He brought the house down.

The weekend, of course, also marked Betsy McCabe's induction into the SHOF (schaackmobile hall of fame). Her visit coincided with the Fort Worth Stock Show, one of the largest in the country, where we saw gigantic and miniature versions of many different kinds of animals (in addition to normal-sized ones, but those aren't nearly as interesting.) We got to see tons of cool stuff about how the other half lives (by "other half", I mean the legions of kids who grow up showing animals, their parents, horse breeders, cowboys, etc.) You must imagine the scene for a minute to appreciate what a cultural experience this actually was: a giant hall full of thousands of people and livestock pens with a small arena in the middle where 11 year-old girls (primarily) in western-style shirts and sparkly belts tugged on the necks of their beloved animals while making extremely serious eye contact with even more serious livestock judges who circled around looking at the flanks of these domesticated beasts. Everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting to find out who would be crowned the winner based on some mysterious criteria I still don't quite understand. Amidst the anticipation, Betsy and I are watching and chatting, until we realized we weren't really sure what we are looking at and exclaim (aloud) "Wait a minute, are these goats or are these sheep?!" Everyone else in the bleachers who was watching must have thought we were kidding or we were idiots. Unfortunately, we weren't kidding.

It was lucky for me that the stock show was going on or else I would have somehow had to figure out how to entertain Betsy in the midst of the Metroplex (or as she put it-- the world's business park capital) during a coldsnap. In addition to the stock show, we also celebrated our spirit animal (owls, sparkly owls preferably) at a pub in Arlington with friends on Friday night (us with Carol, pictured below). It was great to have her here and quite a coup for the SHOF to receive such rave reviews from its most skeptical inductee. High praise included comments like: "I slept like a baby!" and "I didn't even have to pee outside!" As a result, the SHOF is currently preparing for a deluge of potential inductees. Thanks for coming Bets!