Busy Day 1 of 2

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"

I really need to get to sleep

It was a very long and enjoyable day. Morning chore was to return that bogus SATA adapter to Fry's for a refund. Back home, stripped the bed (Spook helped by jumping on the sheets as I was trying to remove them). Opened the new 1800 threadcount microfiber tiger stripe sheets, and they didn't fit. Looked at the package, they were twin, not queen. Went online and got an RMA label for those after putting the second set, this one more leopard like, or maybe cheetah, not quite as high quality. Spook kept helping.

2 pm longtime friend had her MFA recital at her college half an hour up the road. She was trying to show how music from musical theater could replicate the Hero's journey from Joseph Campbell's books. There were four other women in the cast, it was done concert style, with my friend singing the majority of the 17 songs, but the other sharing equally in reading the blurbs on how each song fit into the theme. She was fantastic, only made a couple of small goofs, and one of her cast was so good I congratulated her, and am now following her on Facebook. The show was so engrossing that the 90 minutes went by without me ever wondering what time it was. And a well deserved standing ovation, which embarrassed the heck out of my friend.

Originally, I met her at a strip joint, her stage name was Jade. Two strip joints, actually. I still have her photo card. Imagine my surprise when she appeared as a lead soprano in a Gilbert & Sullivan show my best friend George was in. They became an item, but eventually they both moved on but I continued to perform with George and "Jade" gave up bikini dancing, got married and concentrated on being in local community and semi-pro theater. We have seen each other on stage but have never been in a show together.

Home after that, almost went straight to downtown SJ for the next event, but needed some lunch. 6 pm found me in downtown San Jose for another friend's indie movie premiere. He wrote and starred in it, helped produce it, and I think it was his best film work to date. He has hooked up with a filmmaker who pushes the envelope when it comes to violence, and his last three films have featured more blood & gore than the story called for, but not this time.

No standing ovation, because everyone was in shock. The ending was a gruesome surprise, and tied together all the previous murders with one BLAM! Well, not quite. After what I thought should have been the ending, they waste 5 minutes on the one character who isn't dead yet.

So I'm giving this weekend a 75% score. Songran was a 0, but Reilly & Maloney, "Jade" and Indie were all total winners.

Plans for tomorrow:
Urologist for bladder exploration
Kaiser business office to slap them upside the head about the bills I received yesterday.
Drop off the RMA at UPS