C's Birthday Bash

Friday night was C's (of Urf! fame) birthday, so his parents decided to celebrate with C's favorite food at my favorite restaurant (The Memphis Pizza Cafe) and then listen to some of his dad's favorite music at Otherlands.

Otherlands is a really nice venue for family friendly shows. The music starts at about 8:00pm, there's no smoking, lots of chairs and sofas, yummy snacks, coffee and beer. I haven't been in the store since the gift shop (almost) completely disappeared. While I miss browsing the cool knick-knacks, I was glad they weren't out for the monkeys to paw. (There's a small gift shop in the old storeroom that is locked up at night.) It was nice hanging out in a giant room away from the crowd in which the monkeys could color, play hide and go seek, follow the leader, and even chess while we adults chatted.





We came to see The Jugtown Pirates of Lake Champlain who were a group of young, spunky trust fund anarchist types. They travel around the country in a tricked out Partridge Family-like bus playing for free and selling CDs for donations. They looked really young to me--maybe fresh out of college--and I couldn't help envying them a bit. I imagined them to be socially conscious vegans traveling the country spreading their good music and kindness along the way. They started the show by showing us the tattoos (of the band's logo) that they just got.


Warren, the kids and I grabbed a table up front so we could really check out the band. Click and her crew joined us while S.A.M. and RJA remained in the back where they could safely talk and not be expected to dance and/or bob their heads. Kristy floated between the two worlds.


Satchel became enamored with the band's monkey and took turns bringing the other kids to check it out. Apparently it was taboo to approach the monkey solo.


After an hour or so Jiro, who has been napless all week, gave a big yawn, curled up in my lap and then when right to sleep. Having nearly 40 pounds of sleeping baby, a broken leg, and a herniated disk at L4 put a bit of a damper on my good time, but I was thoroughly enjoying the show--especially when the band's female contingency joined in.



By 10:00pm we had to call it quits. The kids were tired, and the parents were tired too. I'll definitely pay more attention to those weekly emails I get from Otherlands and return for more music soon.