TWO WEEKENDS - ONE POST.

Oh boy.

Don't you worry none. It moves faster than the Delaware.

Saturday the 5th, we went down to Musikfest and saw Alice In Chains. THAT was an amazing show. Damn good, I must say. It was just a little odd used to seeing a colored fella with an afro singing instead of a blonde Irish looking junkie. The audience was singing nice and loud, but no one was moving or dancing. Except for our group. We were dancing, you can be sure. The chics behind us were singing so loud and off key, one of our friends dared me to ask them a question...

me: "Excuse me. Do you know who sings this song?"
chick: "What?"
me: "Who sings this song?"
chick: "Umm duh, Alice In Chains!"
me: "That's what I thought."
chick: "Umm, you do know you're at an Alice in Chains concert, dont' you?"
me: "Umm, you do know that was a joke - don't you?"

I was supposed to say, after she told me who was singing - "well then you should let them sing it" but I didnt feel like getting into a brawl.

It wasn't just me that noticed the crowd sucked. Alice did too. And to show their disproval, they didn't do an encore. Once they were finished singing, that was it.

Do you remember when Howard Stern punished the audience by playing "Send In The Clowns?" Well, instead of an encore, Alice did the same thing. "Send In The Clowns" was playing over the speakers as we exited the field.

But they were punishing the others - not us. We were good fans. Just so you know.

Then on Sunday, we rented a towncar and J & M joined us to see Poison & Cinderella. What? Who?? I know, I know. J and I are totally stuck in the 80’s. Earl and M just came along for the ride.

The town car was a last minute idea of mine because no one wants to get stuck driving after a concert. I called two rental places, both quoted me the same price, but I went with the one that spoke English and booked it for 4pm Sunday.

Well - Can you believe that car-guy-son-of-a-bitch called me back at 11:45pm Saturday night to tell me that I had been misquoted and it would be almost double what we thought? He assumed that I would have no choice but to accept this because it would be almost impossible to find another car at such a late time. Ha! He assumed wrong because I told him no thank you and called my back-up Indian guy - who I woke up out of bed – but I had no choice. He understood my situation and agreed to be our driver for the same price we originally had been told.

And you know me, I sent a nasty email to the first car people telling them they should have eaten their mistake – funny thing though, I never got a reply.

Something to consider too – renting a town car is a good thing to do for a concert, but remember, the town car usually drops you off and goes away, so you wont have a car to store anything in…

Well you cant go sit in a parking lot before a concert without beer and sandwiches, right? So we brought some but in a Styrofoam cooler. That way, in case we lost the cooler, it wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately though, we weren’t able to finished all the beer or the food before the concert started. Just as we were looking for places to hide our stuff, J’s coworker just happened to be parked in the same lot we were sitting in. She said we could put our cooler in her car. Needless to say, we never caught back up with them afterwards… sooo bye-bye leftovers.

By the way, that concert KICKED ASS.

Well, our band kicked ass. We weren’t there for Brett. I mean, poison schmoison - we wanted our CINDER-freaking-ELLA! Hell yeah baby. At least that’s what my shirt said (did you know that Wal-mart was selling Cinderella shirts?? I never thought I’d see the day.) Anyway, they were AMAZING! And I am proud to say, I knew every word to every song they sang.

Now for this last weekend -

Forewarning - During the month of August, do not expect to easiely find inner tubes to float down the Delaware river in.

I learned this the hard way on Saturday.

Earl, J & M, and I decided to go a-floatin’ down the Delaware sometime last week, but waited until the morning of to look for tubes. Obviously, we thought we could just run out and pick some up – but that was not the case. It took me 2 ½ hours to finally end up with two snow tubes.

I went to Walmart, then KB Toys, then a pool store, then Sports Authority (who had two but wanted $80 a piece for them), then Dicks, then another Walmart… the whole time being on the cell with J to see what they were finding out by them. Finally, Leslie’s Pool Supplies sold me two snow tubes at half price (because they are winter items) and J & M ended up with a big floating triangle thing and a blow-up kayak.

We all ended up meeting at the bridge in Easton around 4pm. It was then that we realized that we weren’t even sure where to drop the second vehicle off at that would bring us back when we were done floating. We decided to actually make the bridge the ending spot and drive upstream to the boat launch to begin our float. By the time we got to the launch and blew our tubes up, it was about 5pm.

Not a good start.

But the day was perfect, the sky was clear and blue, and the river felt like bath water. So in we went and started to drift – very very very very very slowwwwwwwly.

It was so relaxing. We had our drinks, we had our friends, and we had the perfect day. We looked like one of those beer commercials with good friends having a special time... What more could you ask for? Well, how about a little current. Just a little one. Please. Nope, nothing but glassy, quiet waters.

Of course at some point, everybody ended up in the water. When’s the last time you swam in the Delaware? It was so nice. But eventually, as the sun went below the trees, it got a little chilly in the shadows, so we pretty much stayed in the water the rest of the trip.

Thankfully, someone brought flippers to help with our drift. I strapped them to my feet, wrapped a beer cozy around my hand, grabbed the rope that we were all tied to, and began to tow us down the river.

Lets just say I got my exercise for the day.

We finally saw our destination, but never seemed to get any closer to it. That’ll happen when you’re moving a whole 4-miles an hour. By now it was almost 9pm, it was completely dark, and we were freezing and hungry. So M was sent on ahead in the kayak to fetch the truck. The rest of us paddled ourselves to shore, climbed our wet selves out into the cold air, and lugged the tubes and triangle up the hill to the road. M came by with the truck blasting with heat, and we all piled in with our deflated floaties.

Lessons learned?

1) Don’t try to buy your tubes in August
2) Don’t try to buy your tubes in August the same day you want to use them.
3) Don’t get on the river after 4pm.

At least we’re prepared now for next time. Oh yeah, Abi - I finally bought the spray sunscreen like you said. Good stuff man! And just in case you're wondering, I slept really, really good that night.

Sunday, I had to run out and get Aspirin for Jack. He ran from the family room into the living room - that's when I heard a loud YELP. He forgets that he is not a young pup anymore and tends to over do it sometimes. Poor bubs. His back right leg was pretty lame. The Aspirin seem to help, and I massaged his leg several times through out the night. We even let him sleep on the bed with us souly because he wanted to. Seriously, who's going to deny a lame dog what he wants? Not us.

We also got to watched the Musikfest fireworks from our roof. Actually, Earl was on the roof. I was out on the sidewalk pulling weeds. I don't know why I can't just sit still.

Would you be surprised if I told you when I came out the front door, there were two 15-year olds making out against my house?

I didn't think so.

She was very pretty and he was a punk. Both gave me the look of death for disturbing them. Yeah, sorry kids for walking in on your groping session against my house. All the while I was sitting in my family room watching TV, this was going on against the same wall. That's disturbing. And such a shame, too. Because as they walked away, I thought to myself that by the end of the summer, she'll be pregnant. And that kid she's with won't give a damn and will move on to the next one.

On a different note - I made my famous Chicken Marcella for dinner. According to Earl's belly, this is one dish I can ace.

So there you have it in a nutshell. See? I told you it moved faster than the Delaware.
What did you do this weekend?
:)