TWTW - the one with the family for my brother's birthday

Bay skies, first weekend with beach tags, favorite lemon poppyseed donut from Drip N Scoop, creeping on other people's flowers season, pets in the vestibule

Fishing, Friday night pizza from Boyars, Saturday extra large orders at Wawa, China Glaze Planted & Enchanted, Shibumi working, porch sitting, using the pipe to block sandstorms

Worn out dogs, first gyro of the year from Opa on Sunday, stunning beach day Saturday, working on my Coastal Grandmother aesthetic, beach reads are back, the Falconer

Ferris wheels with visible slivers of moon, happiest 39th birthday to my brother, strong resemblances, fence flowers, tiny treasures, peace in a pic

Lumineers in Camden, sliver of moon, top of the hill hang on chairs rented by MFD, the most people I have seen in one place in years, parking lot pees, no one knew the cover they did of Thunder Road

No swings, but I did do the music ride at Wonderland with my niece. Really fun, on the go weekend. Loved spending it with these people as always

I had all the photos done for this by Monday and here we are on Wednesday. 

This five days on, two days off business is fucking bullshit.

Peace in the east.

If I knew Picasso, I would buy myself a gray guitar and play

Wednesday night after work I had some time to kill, so I submerged myself in the airless humidity of the grounds of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to check out the exterior sculpture garden behind the museum. The building itself is magnificent, I could walk all around and stare at it for hours.

Not to mention it has a killer view down the Parkway and the Rocky statue.

As well as a nice view over The Water Works. The sculpture garden is small but in general the exterior grounds of the Museum are a great place to wander, and it's free. Free is for me. Did I also mention it was hot? Hot is not for me.

After my sweaty foray around the grounds, I UBER'd down to the waterfront to meet Debbie & Melissa. We took the RiverLink Ferry over to Camden for the Rob Thomas & Counting Crows concert. I will never drive to a concert in Camden again. The ferry is the way to go. Ten bucks a person and no stress. I had a peanut butter and nutella sandwich with strawberry as a topper for dinner from Lunch Box Philly and it was delicious.

Rob Thomas was already playing when we got there. He sounded good and seemed like a cool guy that we all agreed we'd be friends with. The Counting Crows didn't come on until after 9. They were really good musically and Adam sounded great. The last time I saw them I was in college, and they played the songs off of August & Everything After very differently than they were recorded. They took a lot of liberties so it sounded more like what you hear on their live CDs. They did that with some songs at this concert, but what they also did was stray from their hits to play some lesser known stuff. I enjoyed it. I like how it's not necessarily a sing along for every song, but more like a show and of them pushing the limits of their music. I dig it. They didn't play Mrs. Potter's Lullaby but you can't win 'em all.

Let's see, what else...we broke our asses sitting on the lawn for a zillion hours, saw some awesome non-concert attire, smelled a shit ton of weed, watched drunk people fight and lose things and almost fall, witnessed a domestic dispute on the ferry back, and sweat every spare ounce of water out of our bodies.

Not bad for a Wednesday. But now it's Friday. It's still hot as fuck, but the weekend is upon us and I wish you all a good one.

Concert Douchery

This weekend I was in a large concert crowd two days in a row, which I usually try to avoid because large crowds turn me into Zuel and it's best if the public and I are not exposed to each other with such frequency. Concerts are great for people watching. And when people watching, it's always fun to play Spot the Douche. In a sea of humanity, it's not that difficult.

You have the can you please sit down-ers, which, no, I cannot. Actually, I do sit down because someone (MFD) urges me to, and then I get pissed and I stand up again because this is the encore of a concert and I believe it's an appropriate show of thanks and respect to the artist who just played for hours and go fuck yourself for making me turn around and explain to you that everyone else is standing up. When I go to a concert or a sporting event, I fully expect people in front of me to be so in the moment that they stand to express that. I either stand as well or I sit and listen. Something I never do: ask them to sit down. If you want to see perfectly, watch it on TV. p.s. saw you up dancing during Call Me Al, you cannot dance then be the dance police when others are dancing

You have the shushers. I hate shushing. And at a concert, people are going to sing and cheer and right on, you guys. It's your time too. Concerts are interactive experiences. The performer needs the crowd and the crowd needs the performer. For those of you who want to listen to a song so quietly you can hear a pin drop, stay in your living room.

You have the non-stop talkers. On the other hand, there are people who need more than a shush...if you wanted to just talk the entire time, why did you pay to come inside? You can do that in the parking lot for free.

You have the wild boars using inside toilets. Ladies (and I use that term loosely), if you spray the entire seat with your pee, wipe that grossness up. If you don't, someone else has to. And that's fucking disgusting, animal-like behavior.

You have the Very Important Person Leaving the Concert (VIPLC). This person does not follow the one to one etiquette of the parking lot, as in one person from each direction goes, taking turns, so that the line moves and everyone gets home. This person busts themselves up to the front and cockblocks everyone from escaping parking lots.

You have bros. Although to be fair, bros annoy me everywhere and I am up my my eyeballs in bro encounters recently so I have zero tolerance right now. I saw a guy in a white blazer and sunglasses at night at Peter Gabriel/Sting that looked like he was attending the Catalina Wine Mixer and not a freaking concert on the lawn in Camden, New Jersey.

Tell me your concert douches.

p.s. in the non-douche vein, happy birthday to my cousin Courtney!

Thursday Thoughts - this week is still happening

1. Ladies, I need to recommend these Lou & Grey pants from LOFT to you for bumming around in this summer. Relax, enjoy.

2. Thanks so much for the love on my Tuesday post about not waiting in this life. In times of loss, writing is cathartic for me. It helps me work through things. If it helped you too, I'm glad.

3. The online Stella & Dot party I'm hosting is still happening. Click here to shop, 40% of the proceeds go to Paw Works, a no-kill animal rescue in Los Angeles. Do it for the doggies. Some of my favorite Stella & Dot stuff is actually not jewelry - I love their Getaway bag for weekend trips (mine was a gift from Lori a few years back), and this little elephant bag to carry my weekend stuff back & forth to the shore.

4. Speaking of the shore, this is the second weekend in a row I was supposed to be there but am not able to be. I'm learning how to work out needs of incoming renters without physically being there, which is important in a pinch. I need to get down there at some point, maybe a quick down and back Saturday night. Debbie and I are heading down next weekend for sure. I need to zone out and the shore is a good place to do that especially when I can't get into the main house to do any work in there. LOL

5. I scored Bruce tickets for September 7. 

6. I have heard the word shart at least 10 times this week. From different sources. I could include many shart week memes right here but I'll spare you even though like farts, sharts are always funny. You're welcome.

7. My skin has reverted to super dry winter skin and I've had to pull my vitamin D body butter back out. Where are you, spring?

8. My house is a wreck but I got to sit outside in a rocking chair with my wonderful niece for a while last night and watch her watch the world. It was better than cleaning by a mile.

9. It's carnie week on my street. If you get home late you get to park far from your house and retrieve your car in the dark of night in your pajamas, dodging the late carnival leavers (stop looking at me Swan), scurrying through your neighborhood like a sewer rat, and hoping the Glamour Don'ts crew is not on patrol.

10. E-card of the week:

Sing us a song, you're the piano man

Billy Joel's show last night at Citizens Bank Park did not disappoint as a reunion between me and him. And 20,000+ other people of course. It had been 20 years since I last saw him in concert, and it was MFD's first time seeing him.

It was a beaut of a night - no humidity and a soft breeze coming through the ballpark. Billy was in a great mood, throwing cigars out to the audience and handing them to the veterans who came out on Goodnight Saigon as well as showing the crowd a photo of his new baby on the big screens.

Gavin DeGraw opened for him, and I am so behind the times on music that I had to text Laura and ask if Gavin DeGraw was famous. Whoops. I recognized some of his songs after that.

I love how he asks the audience to choose between two songs. New York State of Mind won out over our wedding song Just the Way You Are, but them's the breaks. Other highlights for me: Allentown (I have an awesome video but my nasal voice singing along is too much even for me), Goodnight Saigon, Don't Ask Me Why, Say Goodbye to Hollywood, This is the Time, and We Didn't Start the Fire. Piano Man is never a favorite of mine, but singing it along with so many other people in an open air arena is a pretty freaking cool experience. He played one song that got a hard no from me (No Man's Land) but the rest were fan favorites and I enjoyed even the ones I don't love like Still Rock and Roll to Me.

We had seats in section 139, the last section they sold on the lower level. That left us free to move over into those empty partial view seats and have a lot of room throughout the concert...especially after we moved away from the habitual farter and the girls who talked throughout like they were at the nail salon. Including the one who kept saying so he sings AND plays the piano? Are you kidding me lady? He's the goddamn Piano Man. Yes he sings and plays the piano. Anyway, moving next to an entire section of empty seats was awesome. We had so much room which is usually in short supply at concerts.

Thanks for a great show, Piano Man.

MFD would like everyone to know that we stayed until the very end and got out of CBP in five minutes and were home in 25. I'll give it to him, it was excellent post-event timing.

It's a long delicious slide into the weekend from here. Enjoy it my friends!

Friday Five: Halloween Week Musings and Reminders

1. Happy Halloween from the Three Amigos. Don't they resemble Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short? Mae is Martin Short. Some outtakes:

When Gus is enraged he closes his eyes so he can pretend you don't exist

2. I'm going to be like a store right now and discuss Christmas on Halloween, okay? Okay. I'm finished Christmas shopping with the exception of my Gamma's family photo calendar that I do for her every year because I need photos from Stephen & Aubrey's wedding to finish it. We'll be away Thanksgiving weekend and for over a week in December, so if it doesn't get done now it's not getting done because I want to enjoy the season, not spend it shopping. Hence, I did all of my shopping online and I'm finished by October 31. I bought my photo cards from snapfish too. There's a 40% off coupon through today. 

3. The Fleetwood Mac concert was amazing on Wednesday night. I had tears during the first song because I've loved them for so long...it's some of the earliest music I remember hearing in my life and I've heard it consistently all the way through. Stevie can't hit the high notes anymore - age? cocaine? booze? - but she still rules. She's my favorite. I love this piece on her from Rolling Stone.

We saw Michael's Aunt Maureen & Uncle Matt before the concert for a bit, and had drinks and wings with Jill & Frank. My parents were in the club box next to us so we watched the encore with them. This was the first time I've been in a box for a concert, and yeah, I don't want to watch outside of a box ever again. It's easy to be spoiled. 

We were hungry after the show so we played pretend we were 21 and went to Lorenzo's on South Street. Respect the slice that requires two plates. And this concludes my Wednesday night overview on Friday.

4. Today is the last day of the October Wallet Watch. Link up on Wednesday, November 5, to share how you did. And don't go out and buy all the things this weekend just because you can.

5. Today is also the last day of the Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge for October. The theme was food. Don't forget to link your results up Thursday, November 6. Choose Your Own Adventure for November starts tomorrow. The theme is organize. 

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Check back here tomorrow for a special Saturday post talking about my goals for the Organize theme as well as a special November giveaway.

Happy birthday to my uncle Perry today!

Happy Friday! Happy Halloween! Be safe out there.