Picture Sunday

Ahhhh, Sunday. The sky is bright (or was, before the sun went away), the air is crisp, the leaves are crunchy, the neighbors are slamming their car doors. What a wonderful world we live in.

The weekend is indeed over, and unfortunately for you, or fortunately, depending upon how you see things, I spent most of it without my trusty camera by my side. Friday's Oktoberfest was absolutely dismal, don't even ask, but one day if I get the nerve I might blog about Poodle Night and the The Night of the Seven Trumpets so you'll understand. Anyway, if anything, it brought out three stellar Sauerkraut Band quotes. However, only one of them is printable, so that's the one you'll get tonight.

Me [bemoaning the lack of room onstage]: Some night I'm going to come up here with a bunch of my friends. Except that I only have the one.
Mr M: And I'm already here.
Me: Oh well.

That's actually kind of a sad quote, sadder now that it's in print for everyone to see.

Saturday was the day of the big Band Festival. My sister and I got up early and arrived to see all the bands but two. It was Geek Heaven, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I got to see:

- The B'burg High School Band, which got a Superior rating (the highest you get), featuring K, R, J, and whiz-kid M, who was the band's soloist for the program, and a cute thing she was, too. Not only plays the saxophone, but dances while doing it!
- R's mother, a very nice lady who always seems to be toting cookies. And they're really nice-looking cookies.
- ESP, who came and sat with us during GHS's performance and another, and helped us giggle through something I'll be telling you about later.
- The GHS Band, featuring no less a person than Taytie himself. His band got a Superior rating as well. OK, I'll pause a few moments while you all cheer.
- Another Band, which featured one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in my life, which inspired the giggling.
- No less than three kids from three different bands fall on the wet football field.
- Flag girls in lime green jumpsuits so thin and slinky they may as well have been wearing nothing at all.
- Tay's dad, who sat with us after the band played. See, he's a Hood. The band's show was based on music from Robin Hood, and a bunch of Band Dads did the engineering and building of the props. They call themselves Robin's Hoods, of course, and their salutational greeting is, "How go ye?"

Anyway, it was lots of fun, didn't rain nearly as much as we'd feared, in fact, only a fraction of my 27 pounds of rain gear was put into use, and it was a good, if pictureless, experience.

Last night I sat and listened to my TV a lot, since it's about to die and has no picture. Finally, after beating it for five or so minutes, a picture appeared, but, well, it's just one more thing to worry about.

Then today I met the morning knowing I had a whole day with nothing to do! No traveling, no concerting, no commitments of any kind! And I got so hinky I pleaded to come to Mr M's and hang out with him and play duets. So on the road I went, and I'm glad he let me hang out while he was still busy packing things away to go to Maryland for his new job. The duets turned into a clarinet lesson, but it was still fun, we ate, and we watched British people fight World War II. On TV, they didn't do it in his living room, though that would certainly have made for an exciting weekend.

I got to thinking on the way down today that in all this talk of Mr M, you haven't seen Poderosa East, where he makes his home. And will now be making it on the weekends. So here it is, with the man himself out front.



Yeah, you think he's out there on the porch waving at you, don't you? Well, think again. In reality, he's showing off his brand-new bottle of 10w-30 motor oil. If you've got it, flaunt it, I guess.

Our dinner came from a very nice restaurant in B'burg.



That would be Zeppoli's. I had mozzarella sticks and salad, Mr M had rigatoni and Italian sausage, and cheesecake. The cheesecake was separate, it wasn't part of the pasta. OK, when you're giving the menu, you know it's time to wrap things up, right?

It's just that such a nice restaurant, such a nice meal, and now I have to look at this. This! Say hello, if you dare, to Beef Stroganoff.



Oh dear. This whole card reminds me of the Tilt-a-Whirl. Between the tablecloth, which basically camouflages the green beans, the plates, and the suspect color of the beef, I'm starting to feel just the least little bit queasy. Thank God the card people didn't include pictures of the other suggestions for this meal, apple dumplings and tomato-cucumber salad. The salad may have just pushed me over the edge.

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Blogger worked! Blogger's picture file upload feature actually worked for me this week! Thank you, Blogger people. I love you.
* Oh, and on the blog front, I'm afraid I have had to go "word verification" on the comments. I'm sick of the clarinet spam, I'm sick of the asparagus-growing spam, and I'm sick of the "my, what a nice blog you have!" adult website spam. You can still post anonymously, you just have to type in some letters before doing so. Think of it as my own personal eye test for you. Because I care. And I hate spam.