Week 42

Speckled Bird took wing last night at the Camel. We were up in the mountains with Peter and the Harrises, doing our version of JMU Family Weekend. It was a nice weekend, even though it was cold and rainy. We even saw a few snowflakes while we were hiking the ridge. The main event was eating, however. Darien typically brings too much food on these things, but Kandy outdoes her without breaking a sweat. Maybe she thinks we are going to get snowed in for a week or something. I'm not complaining. Between the two of them we had crackers, cheeses, hard salami, olives, lamb, pilaf, green beans, bread, salad, popcorn (on the cob, the way God intended it, Kim informing us that it is the higher water content in some corn that causes the pop as the water reaches a boiling point under extreme hit), apple crisp and vanilla ice cream, coffee, bacon, baby sausages, scrambled eggs with onions and cheese and basil, lemon muffins (tell Darien to put this one in Duke Dip), apple cider squeezed on the spot from the apples we picked up at Carter's Orchard on the way out, more Carter apples, cold fried chicken, dark espresso chocolate, three types of lunch meat for sandwiches, thick homemade vegetable and beer soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, peanuts, and candy corn. I'm probably missing some things. That was just until 6 p.m. on Saturday when Darien and I had to leave. Kandy was at that point making double recipe of lasagna so the boys could bring some home, along with another dish that Josh had requested and I don't know what all else. They were there for Sunday as well, so I'm sure the cooking didn't stop when we left.

As I said, we had to leave the food and drive to Richmond. The GPS told me that it would take me 2 hours and 24 minutes to get there. I only had two hours to be there by the 8 p.m. opening, or Antonia would scowl. I made it in just two hours, but it really didn't matter since they didn't start on time anyway. The crowd in Camel was probably exceeding whatever the fire marshal considered its capacity. They played two sets, with Josh and Chris doing lead vocals on a number of songs before they turned things over to the regular Bird and played their entire EP all the way through. It was fun, and earned them an encore. I'll probably to the next one too, but I won't be able to write about it here, since it will no longer be a new experience for me.

The counter probably didn't get cleaned because we were gone for 24 hours. I'm sure that is the reason.