erata: June

Soooo... is the diner review dead? No is the sad and annoying answer. May... for a parent, especially a parent of teens May is the month of nightmares for a teens parent and really any parent. Graduations, confirmations, mothers day, birthdays... it just goes on and on and frankly with all the drinking, partying and celebration I have been mentally vacant and not fulfilled my bloggers duties. I apologize to all 5 of you who occasionally stop by. Upcoming we are going to have some new music reviews on CD’s I have received, a little Twangfest which is also fun and a review of this book Blue Highways which has taken me like a month to get through. Ooops. I just did the Blue Highways one...sorry.

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So lets catch up. Obama is the “presumptive Democratic nominee”. I know I have been waiting for it but the Obama, Hillary race has made it tiresome and anti-climactic. Hillaries capitulation speech was well done and showed again how smart and possibly evil she is. Obama will have a hard time not picking her as VP, with all the baggage that entails. I am still hoping he takes that crazy, ex-army, fiction writing, former Republican, middle class white guy James Webb but at this point Hillary has (finally) positioned herself. She gave a good speech, seriously. And you have to take that seriously from a guy like me, I hate her like poison. I would still promise her the first Supreme Court opening (Ruth Bader Ginsberg is old and Hillary could screw with Scalia and his toadies) and make Bill Ambassador to... I don’t know, Venezuela a Sweden or some other place with hot women that is far away. That is just me. My brother has opined that if he picks her he signs his own death warrant. I don’t know. I hope that is not the case and I think he is going to have a tough time not picking her now. Go Webb, beat Hillary.

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We had our 25th Anniversary and we had our party. The party was a a combination of Pat’s high school graduation, Jon turning 21 and of course Sandy’s and my 25th anniversary. It was a huge pain in the ass getting ready for. My wife wanted things “just so” and I was just excited to get together with friends. My in-laws, God bless them wanted to have a nice sit down dinner for us and some friends but that did not seem to summarize our 25 years OR take into account all the nice people (or even a part of them) that God had tossed into our lives. That being the case we had a band (Jakes Leg) and a keg of Busch, and a keg of Schlafly India Pale Ale, and 4 cases of Bud Light and some other girly lime beer. We also had about 150 waters. The party was from 5 till whenever and predictably most of the old people and people interested in Pat’s graduation showed up early. We got a lot of family through the house before the band was supposed to start.

For those of you who do not know Jake’s Leg, shame on you. Randy Fuhr used to own a bar called 20 North down on (get this) 20 North Vandeventer backing up to SLU’s campus. 29 years ago it was a right of passage to sneak in with a fake ID and hear his band Jake’s Leg play the Grateful Dead catalogue. Thankfully, they are still doing the same thing even though Father Biondi (should such a capitalist be called “father”) eminent domained them out of business. It was very sad and they play around town now at a lot of different venues on Thursday-Saturday. They should not be missed. Although there are other quality dead cover bands that have developed (See Schwag and Dark Star Orchestra) these guys are still the real deal and three of them have been playing together for 20 years so they play tight and sweet.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day and I had set the band up back by the pool where people could either come down close or sit up on our patio and watch from a safe distance. They showed up and set up and were just so pleasant and accommodating. I showed them where the outlets were and they set up and then after setting up... the sky grew unexpectedly dark and everything got tense for me. it started to drizzle, and I found tarps to cover their stuff... we stared at Doppler on the computer (twice) and then made the call and they moved to the garage. We had the back part of the driveway tented so people were able to sit on the driveway and watch. I was very tense, until they moved and started to play and then it became for me at least... a party.

We have an eclectic group of friends and relatives but the band turned it down and played some nice tunes and did whatever requests I called out for (Tore Up, Sugar Magnolia, Mama Tried, Big River and Dixie Chicken) and did a great job. The food was good, the beer flowed and it was a fun time. the rain stopped and people (at least some people) stayed till about 12:30. We cleaned up a little and were in bed by 1:30 but the planning and setting up along with other May events kept me busy and grumpy for most of May.

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We hit Chez Leone for our actual anniversary on June 4. It was empty, the food was great and we split a fabulous bottle of Margeaux. the price fix there for three course is like 38 bucks and the food and service were excellent. We will go back and I heartily recommend it for a nice night out.

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Coming up next is going to be what else kept me busy in May. Stay tuned. It will be graphic.