Weekend Update

On Friday, I was indeed Sweating to the Oldies, if you consider the reunion of the Baaba Seth show "oldies." It was in the nineties and so humid that I once considered taking a maxi pad out of my purse and unwrapping it to absorb the sweat from my face. (It was an Overnite.)

On Saturday, we went back for more. Brandon got us tickets to the Nickel Creek/ Fiona Apple show for my birthday. The concert was billed as "Nickel Creek w/ Fiona Apple," which we took to mean that Fiona Apple would play first, then Nickel Creek would come on, and Brandon and I would take our bluegrass-free souls back into the air-conditioning.

It became pretty clear pretty fast that this isn't what the plan was. Nickel Creek came out. They were pretty good, so we stuck around, on the theory that Daniel Gilbert put forth in Stumbling on Happiness, that people are famously awful at predicting what will make them happy. Several songs later, Fiona Apple came out and played with the band. Just one song that was hers. To be fair, I don't know how the promoters should have billed the show. "Nickel Creek w/Fiona Apple, and by that, we mean that Fiona Apple will perform, you understand, SIMULTANEOUSLY, with Nickel Creek"? Maybe. We sat on a bench. We had a beer. We sweated and listened to unfamiliar music. We sweated more. I mentioned that I still has the Overnite in my purse to Brandon. He declined.

As it turns out, in this case, we were right in predicting that the configuration of the concert failed to make us happy, or even pleased. We went home, where my mom, sister Jill, and niece were waiting with Caleb. We showered, did some karaoke, then unearthed some of Mom's old albums and sang along with Billy Joel's The Stranger. Some are satin, some are steel, some are silk, and some are leath-ah!

Familiarity wins, at least for now, at least when my ladies are down visiting, at least until the heat wave breaks.