Night & Day

Last Thursday, along with the rest of Midtown, we ventured to the Shell to see Todd Snider. It was really kind of cool to see the Shell absolutely packed. At first, I was worried that the kids would get bored because there wasn't much room to run, but they were happy to venture off for awhile and climb trees. Somehow, I managed to forget my newly formed "no black t-shirts at night" rule, so eying the boys from afar once again proved difficult and distracting. Luckily Warren was dressed in bright yellow so they had some luck finding us.


Once it got completely dark, both monkeys joined us on the blanket and actually listened to the music. Satchel was very interested and kept asking me what Todd Snider's name was. Jiro insisted on being carried to the front, which was fine with both Warren and I. (We took turns, though neither of us managed to take the camera!)

After the show, Satchel asked if we were going to get Todd's new CD. (We did.) Then he asked if he could take it to school next day. (They are still studying music.) I laughed and said, "You really like Todd Snider, huh?" He nodded his head vigorously and then added, "I like the way he was dressed!" Todd did have on a really cute outfit. (I found his outfit online--see below--he was also barefoot.)


The show ended around 9:30pm, after several encores, and was an all around success. We smartly chose to ride our bikes to avoid traffic, but I was very nervous about riding home in the dark. Through the old forest. We made it home just fine but it was by far the most exhilarating (read spooky) ride I've ever been on. The boys, of course, loved it.

Anyways, after such a successful experience on Thursday (and a couple of weeks ago), I decided that I absolutely had to take the boys to one of the children's shows at the Shell. So we went to see Conductor Joe on Saturday afternoon.

First let me say that I would not have wanted to be the poor person in the Penelope Opossum suit! It was scorching hot. Penelope had to go back stage to eat salad and do other innocuous things throughout the afternoon. (I pictured her filling the suit up with a cold hose.)


Second, the crowd mainly consisted of pre-schoolers, which immediately got the monkeys' hackles up. I could hear them thinking "THIS IS A BABY SHOW, WTF?" Conductor Joe kind of had a Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang thing going on, but minus the Chuck and Buck reference point/cool factor, it was a definitely missing some much needed street cred to lift it above, say, Barney. (For me, anyway.)

The monkeys humored me and stayed for the bulk of the performance, but they were not impressed. (Or at least they pretended to not be impressed.) After the show they had a storyteller and a music maker ready to entertain the kids, but we were ready to get home to our air-conditioner.