Tired, but wiser for the time..

It's been really nice to be back in Maine for the last couple of weeks.  I don't know if I was busy or not.  It felt kind of busy but some of it was just challenges that are presented when I wanted to venture around the Northeast without a car of my own to drive.  So some flexibility and fluidity with scheduling needed to apply.  All in all I think I managed to squeeze in a lot of high-priority events.  Things got off to a proper start with a Flatbread dinner minutes after landing at PWM and continued on a proper path from there, as Wallingford's cider donuts were waiting patiently as I arrived home.  TREMENDOUS.  Made it to Gipper's plenty, and all signs lead to having one last dinner there Monday evening prior to my Tuesday, 6:33am departure from the Portland International Jetport as I resume my island odyssey. 

All things considered it was a fantastic trip home.  I feel like this time around I had plenty more big ticket days than my trip home in July as I was more judicious in my traveling.  Yes, I spent a little under nine hours driving to and from Albany, NY, but saw a killer Black Crowes show with my sistas Jenny and KathV and still made it back to greater L/A Saturday to catch all of Skip's football game and hobnob with Bates' finest for the afternoon.  Sunday brought a hastily-planned Casco Bay lobster boat cruise with my sister where the Pabst's flowed like wine.  A good time was had by all involved.

Concluding this past week, and more or less my trip, I suppose, was the wedding of Liam and Rachel, two very close friends.  The gang was back in full force for three nights of silliness, two Yarmouth, wedding-hoopla'd evenings sandwiching a traditional Auburn evening of Gipper's, Goose, and an afterparty which saw about a dozen pallets go up in the span of an hour and multiple bets on what would soon be drawing the attention of the Auburn Fire Department: structure or forest fire?  As luck would have it nothing but my feets caught fire so everyone went home with smiles on their faces.

After snaking a post-wedding ride back to Auburn and immediately falling asleep at the after party I awoke to a crisp, fall morning and, well, no one else at the house besides the owners.  As luck would have it Ma was already out of bed so my call did not wake her and she was happy to swing by and grab me, but this pickle enticed me to begin heading home on foot.  I was still attired as nicely as my closet allowed for the previous afternoon's wedding (think college professor more than power broker..) so my sweater and corduroy blazer kept me toasty warm even as I was rocking $4 Surfah sandals on my feets (I found these to be more appropriate than either the asic's running shoes I brought home or the 8" Chippewa loggers I had been wearing most days as they're my favorite footwear and I'm going to miss them this winter as it'll be the first winter in seven years we won't see snow together.  I hope I showed them enough love over these last couple weeks..

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K, got that little recap all out of the way.  The Black Crowes show was legit.  Very, very happy I made it back to see them.  I was tempted to squeeze in a round two viewing but when J.Mac came up with Citizen Cope tickets I decided two shows was enough.  There's certainly some temptation to cruise to San Fran for a couple of days in December to catch a show or two during their six night Fillmore stand but that's another story for another day.  The show took place at The Palace, an old, fairly seedy-looking theater whose interior was either very well-restored or has just aged remarkably well.  Going in I had hoped to hear an acoustic version of "Good Friday" and I was lucky enough to have that dream come true.  I felt kind of silly though because it was the third song of the night and I didn't recognize the harmonica opening right away so it took a little while for me to build into things.    Overall I was quite happy with the setlist and the seventeen minute "Wiser Time" in the first set was absolutely killer.  Jenny-babe hooked it up from her Pepsi-folks and we were within ten rows of the stage, which isn't bad starting pay.  Low key, heady crowd down front, too, which was a plus, with the exception of one moron who tried to hop on stage and proceeded to get crosschecked by Chris Robinson and his mic stand.  Silliness all around.  The show continued as planned, as far as I could tell.

Not a video of aforementioned stage-bum-rusher.  Just a video of good music..

The Crowes do a lot of taping of their shows so I broke down today and bought the show from their archive site.  I'm a sucker for tracking down the live shows I've been to so naturally I was going to scoop this as it was readily available.  It's put a nice smile on my face this evening as I've been collecting the items I brought home so they can be repacked sometime on Monday.  It's going to be a little more weird heading out this time around as I don't really have a definitive plan on when I'll be back to the 207 again.  I'm sure I'll be back next summer at least for Em's Run but other than that I've really got no plan.  We shall see, eh?