Busy Day 1 of 2

[howeird]

It was a bit of a panic because I was not finding the Thai temple, and it was past 9 am, so I pulled off the road and found the address online, and punched it in. I had passed it twice. Usually for Songkran festival the temple parking lot is full by 9, and they have someone at the driveway directing traffic either to a hidden driveway which leads to parking behind the monks' quarters, or to two off-campus parking lots which have a shuttle service. But not today. Apparently Those In The Know were showing up tomorrow. Today I found parking right by the temple, and nothing was happening until 10:30. And even then, they delayed the children's dance performance till about noon, because of a lack of audience.

They did the usual dove release, but not much else. I left before 1 pm. I only staid that long because I found the very attractive hostess of the Thai conversation meetup.

That's her in front in grey top & jeans with the cell phone taking a photo

Photos on my flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/albums/72157664937925843/page1

I liked this one from the kids' dance thing:


The line for food was long and the food was meager ultra-spicy Isan cuisine. Not my favorite. So I went home, nuked a Stoufer's new line of frozen dinners bourbon beef which was also not so good. The beef wise fine, but it was a tiny portion, 3/4 of the plate was something brownish orange with broccoli in it. Bland, I have no idea what it was. I will not be buying those meals again.

Watched an episode of Shark Tank in two segments - went out on the porch to read, but it was about 90° out there so I came inside and turned on the air conditioner.

Drove to Palo Alto for the 7:30 Reilly & Maloney farewell concert. My GPS took the address literally, and I ended up spending 10 minutes finding an entrance - the street its address is on has no access to the church. Access is from a street perpendicular to it, which also cannot be accessed from the street it is addressed on. I was way early despite that, and a good thing because the place was packed by 7. They had not done their usual online reservations, and had way underestimated the draw of a duet's final performance in a town they had made famous in a song, who had been performing on and off since 1971. They both look all of the 73 years old that they are, but their voices are still strong, and their guitar/banjo/harmonica skills are too.

It was the best audience anyone can hope for, standing ovation when they came on stage. Which was kind of a joke because David Maloney was in the middle of the room welcoming people and directing traffic from the start, buy Ginny Reilly, as is her habit, hid until it was time to come out.

They sang some new songs, and some, but not all, of my favorites of theirs. On balance, it was okay content-wise, but the main thing was to b there for a Historic Event™. After the last number there was a huge standing ovation, and they were about to pack up when one of their long-time friends in the front row whispered in David's ear,  a request which could not be denied, Palo Alto Cowboy. The whole audience joined in.

They were selling surplus CDs for $10, I picked up one, discovered I only had $20 and there was no change in the cash box, so I picked up a second.

Home, corn dogs for a dinner-like treat, watched enough of the news to see the Wariors trounce whomever they were playing.

Plans for tomorrow:

Fry's, return the unusable USB-HDD adapter
BofA, get some cash
A friend's MFA lecture/recital about half an hour up 101
Another friend's indie film premier in San Jose. It's gonna be close. I may blow it off if MFA Girl's after-party actually takes place. So far her event page is almost all "sorry"

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Reilly and Maloney. The name seems familiar. I checked. They're on an 80s comp cd I bought long ago with a lot of Seattle-based musicians. KEZX album project. The song they did was "Pioneer Square." I remember it.

Anyhow, I noticed they have an album called "Together Again."

I particularly liked the ironic use of that title by Michael Cooney on a solo album. Which is a great CD if you can find it. (Direct from Michael, here: http://www.michaelcooney.com/recordings.html, or Amazon.)

[howeird]

That would be them. I first saw them in Seattle somewhere around 1971-2 as I was either just attending or covering a music festival at the Seattle Center which has been called both Bumbershoot and Folk Life. They were on a stage in the middle of one of the lawns, and they caught my eye before they caught my ear because they were very bright strawberry redheads. They would have been mid-twenties. I followed them on and off through the years because they were on and off as a duo. Ginny is a Seattleite, is married to someone else and has a kid, David is a midwestern farmboy transplanted to San Francisco, Sort of. His dad was a bartender, but they lived in a farming community. I am under the impression that David had some legal or abuse issues which kept him off the stage for a while, and the together again was his charm triumphing over Ginny's common sense.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I bought that CD because it had Uncle Bonsai on it. At the time, they had a couple of albums out, but nothing on CD yet. Uncle Bonsai is great.