The Thursday of every month here in Seattle is First Thursday. This means that all the museums are FREE. The art galleries also premier their new pieces and stay open late serving wine and cheese. For most people it’s an excuse to stay in the city after work and look at the new art. Typically you see people in black turtle necks with berets and skinny jeans walking from gallery to gallery while smocking Clove cigarettes.

Okay, they don’t all look like a beatnik, but you get my drift.

Back before we moved into the new house and were living in a high rise apartment in downtown Seattle, we used to frequent First Thursday. This was much easier when Babboo was younger and not able to reach the canvas on the wall. From time to time we would even meet friends at the Seattle Art Museum and take advantage of the awesome Happy Hour menu at the Museums restaurant (that place is awesome, by the way).

When we moved into the new house we learned that our community also hosted a First Thursday, or sorts. Sure there was no swanky Seattle Art Museum to attend or any official art galleries, but there were some cool jewelry stores and real estate agencies that showcased local art for the event.

Plus, it’s a good excuse to get out of the house and be able to be apart of something cooler then cleaning bathrooms and going dishes. It’s always makes me feel like less of an Old Lady when I can say, “Oh we went to First Thursday last night” to my coworkers on Friday morning.

As far as I knew only the art museums were free on First Thursday. But guess what? It’s not just about art anymore. The Museum of Flight is also free as is the Experience Music Project. Holy crap, score!

Last week I went with the youth from my church congregation to the Experience Music Project, or just the EMP, if you’re from around here. I had been to the EMP years ago after someone gave us tickets for a wedding present, but that was a long time ago.

The King and also attended a special night with Rhett Miller, lead singer of the Old 97’s, at the EMP weeks before Babboo was born. This was something we bought tickets for without knowing what exactly we were buying tickets for. That event ended up being very, very cool. (But also hard for a very, very pregnant woman to sit through without multiple trips to the potty.) Anyway, The King and I had been able to sit in the audience while an interview with the lovely Mr. Rhett Miller was recorded for the EMP’s archives.

So last week I returned to the EMP. Not much seemed to have changed since the first time I toured it all those years ago. Except this time they had a wall documenting all of the recorded interviews they’ve done for their Music Archives.

You’ll never believe whose name I found.

Yes, I forced one of the 12 year old girls from church to take my picture.  Yes, I looked like an idiot.  Yes, none of the teenagers knew who Rhett Miller was.  And yes, I proceeded to inform them.

(Yes, I am a nerd.)

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Check out my latest post over at SeattleMomBlogs where I discuss my commute hurting my heart.

The great interweb pilgrimage to San Francisco begins today. And while I chose to not attend this year, I’m still feeling a little pang of regret for not booking a flight. Instead of wallowing in the sadness of missed friends and parties (and maybe celebrities?), let’s instead talk about The King’s National Nude Day (NND) proposal.

What is National Nude Day, you ask?

Well, you can probably deduce that it’s a day where people are nude.

You’re right, nudity is involved.

You can also probably deduce that it’s a National thing.

Okay, it’s really not. It’s more of a world wide holiday then just an American holiday. But National Nude Day sounds better then World Wide Nude Day. Plus, I’m not sure how it would translate into every single language. So we’re sticking with National in this instance.

So what are the specifics of this proposed National Nude Day?

Well, head over to AndSoSheBlogs to read my guest post which offers up more information about National Nude Day. And join the discussion as how you’d present yourself on this very special occasion.

For the record, I’d probably choose to wear the shoes I’m wearing today on the next National Nude Day:

And, of course, a little glitter.

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Don’t forget to check out today’s episode of “Fresh Air” on NPR.  Dude, Rhett Miller (aka: The Serial Ladykiller) is Terry Gross’ guest.  You know I’m going to be listening in.  (Apparently it will be online at 3:00 p.m. ET.)

I remember, years ago, when a certain “diet pill” was on the market. It seemed like every adult in my small town was on it. I watched as all the customers at the convenient store (yes, that’s what we called it) I worked at literally shrunk before my eyes. I remember this one specific woman who was losing weight at a very fast (and very unhealthy) rate. Every week she’d walk into the store wearing a new outfit, showing off more of her thinning frame then the week before. You could see how happy she was by the new spring in her step and the sparkle in her eyes. She loved being thinner. She became more talkative and outspoken. She started to flirt with the male customers.

I was thrilled to see how being a smaller size made this woman seem to love life so much more. I imagined what it must be like to be her and enjoying herself for the first time in maybe twenty years. I was young back then and didn’t truly understand the pressures of marriage, kids, and just life in general. I also didn’t understand the feeling of being older and not being content with how you looked on the outside.

All I saw was that she was happier. And much more confident.
I remember thinking that instead of some magic diet pill someone should invent a pill that gave you self confidence. It wasn’t being thinner that made people happy, it was just the confidence that made them happier.

At least that was my perception.

It’s funny what a little confidence can do.

I really do fine it interesting that somebody hasn’t invented a pill form of confidence yet. Dude, get on it.

And it’s funny what people gain their confidence from.

Alcohol is often referred to as liquid confidence, right? I imagine that’s one big reason why people drink in social circumstances. If I was a drinker, you know I’d be drinking any time I had to go out in public or had to be around people at all.

(By the sounds of that last paragraph, it’s a darn good thing I don’t drink.)

(Thank you, Jesus, for helping me not be a [confident] lush.)

I think I gain my own dose of confidence when I’m dealing with something I’m comfortable with. Like if I’m in charge of a certain project at work and I know the ins and out of the project, then I’m all about rocking my confidence. If I’m in a room full of people that love TV and want to talk about TV…dude, I’m the most confident person in the room.

It’s when I find myself surrounded by people that like to camp. Or mountain bike. Or go on hikes. Or run races. Yeah, I’m the one over in the corner being all nervous and crap.

So not confident with that subject matter.

I’m confident with public speaking. But only when I’ve been given ample time to prepare what I’m speaking about. And as long as I like the topic. (Yeah, like the one time I was asked to speak in church about the Reformation. Um yeah, I know nothing on the subject.)

I’m confident with my Weight Watcher chocolate chip cookie making skills. So much so that I entered a cookie backing contest at work last month. (I didn’t win. The contest was fixed. I’m just saying.)

I’m confident with my knowledge of all things Rhett Miller and Old 97’s.  Oh yes, those topics give me confidence.  (But not enough to make me confident in Rhett’s presence.)

I guess as I get older I gain more confidence in myself. Or rather, I’ve learned to not put myself in situations where I’m all wobbly and speak incoherently about subjects I know nothing about. Pretty much I steer clear of REI and people that like to hike in their spare time.

(Well, except for my bestest friend from high school and her damn hippie husband.) (I heart them.)

That doesn’t leave me much, I guess.  It just means I’m stuck only being confident when I’m speaking publicly at work, about Rhett Miller and television, while serving chocolate chip cookies.

Holy crap.  I suck.

So tell me, what would you do if you had a prescription for Confidence, in a pill form?

Call me a nerd (NERD!), but I love going to Canada and being all “we’re in another country right now”. I mean, we are in another country, but dude, we’re only a few hours away. And Canadians still speak the same language.

(Although they do use different money, so that’s kinda cool.)

Hey look at me, I’m in another country!

And look, we’re in Canada without our kid to mess up our lovely hotel room! (The lovely hotel room that we got for cheap on priceline! This room typically goes for well over $200.)

In case you aren’t sure what we were doing up in Canada for One Night Only, let me show you:

We were rocking out.

Holy crap, after over three long years, my all time favorite band, the Old 97’s are finally back on tour. Being as The King and I are such huge fans, we had long ago promised that we would see every show we could.

And so last Friday afternoon, we left work early, dropped Babboo off at The King’s sisters house and headed for the border with our concert tickets and passports in hand.

The show was scheduled to start super early. As in 7:00 early. Apparently Vancouver has some sort of curfew where the bands have to be done and off the stage by 10:00 PM! Dude, that is early.

With that in mind, The King and I arrived at Richard’s on Richards in time to catch most the opening act, Hayes Carll, who hails from Texas.

Get this, Hayes Carll was totally was awesome. While I admit that, on paper, his type of music wouldn’t appeal to me-I throughly enjoyed his set. As did The King.

But then, da-da-dum, Rhett and the rest of the band took the stage.

And then I died.

Rhett Miller always begins his sets with a clean, crisp shirt. (He also always looks super dreamy. Dreamy is the best word to describe him.)

The Old 97’s started with a song from their new album, “Blame It On Gravity”, and then just kept up the magic with “Barrier Reef” which is one of my all time favorite songs in the history of music. (I even took a little video of them. You can watch it HERE.) The King and I were both excited when Murry Hammond, the bass player, sang the fourth song. Listening to Murry is always a treat.

As per usual, as the night progressed, so did the sweat on Rhett’s shirt.

I’m not sure what to make of the Vancouver show. It was super small. Like maybe only 300 people. And I’m not 100% sure that most of the crowd were that big of fans of the band either. I sort of got the feeling that a lot of them were there because they heard a band from Texas was playing.

I saw loads of actual cowboy boots. And some line dancing.

And, surprisingly, a lot of gay men.

(Which makes sense since Rhett is so dreamy. But still, it surprised me. I’m just saying.)

Since the show was so small the Old 97’s used the night to try out some new things. They played “Here’s to the Halcyon” (from the new album) and admitted they had never played it together before. Of course they rocked it. (I like the new album more and more each time I listen to it.)

The concert flew by. Maybe it was because it was so early in the night. Maybe it was just because The King and I were having a good time. (Is there where I tell you that the guy standing next to The King kept farting during the entire concert? Yeah, it was bad and almost ruined his night. Almost.)

I can’t speak for Rhett, but I think he and I made eye contact a few times. (Rhett, if you’re reading this, did we make eye contact?) Although he mostly had his eyes on the cute college girls up on the balcony.

As promised, the Old 97’s exited the stage by 10:00. Thankfully they came out for one last encore and said they had been informed backstage that they didn’t have to leave after all.

And so they played a few more songs. Naturally “Timebomb” was the last song. And it was heavenly.

We headed out of the show a little too fast for my liking. I brought my CD and a sharpie to the show in hopes of getting the band to sign it. The King told me stuff like that embarrasses him. So instead we just headed to our car. Hoping it was still here. (We’ve noticed that Vancouver parking lots have this weird thing where homeless people ask you to pay them extra to “watch” your car while it’s parked in the pay lot. Which we take to mean “if you don’t pay me, I might do something to your car.” So we pay.)

(Our car was fine.)

We woke up early on Saturday and realized how much we were missing our little guy. We got up and headed out early enough, hoping to miss most of the wait at the border crossing.

Um yeah, we didn’t miss the traffic. We had almost a two hour wait at the border. Which meant we had plenty of time to waste by taking pictures of us together in the car.

You know, just hanging out together. And what not.

I tried to get a picture of the Peace Arch through our sunroof. But instead I got a picture of both the Peace Arch and our roof rack.

Awesome.

(I am available for hire for all your photography needs, just let me know. I’m cheap. And also, not very good.)

I was able to spend the majority of the time in the car preparing my Father’s Day sermon for church the next day. (It rocked, in case you were wondering.) It was good to have that said and done with. And with time to spare. Phew.

We arrived back in Seattle in time to pick up our kid before who he forgot exactly who Mommy and Daddy were. Thankfully Babboo had a good time at his first ever sleep over with his cousins and didn’t want to leave their much bigger and toy-filled house.

But whatever, we had to get home and change to go to my cousin’s wedding.

The run down of my little cousin’s wedding is this:

• Girls look pretty in wedding dresses
• Boys look nice in suits
• My kid likes to run in circles
• And he likes to eat tacos and drink soda
• Mexican food should be served at all parties
• I shouldn’t have a cousin old enough to be married
• I am old

We then raced home in time to pick up our first-ever-teenage-babysitter, change into our party clothes, put Babboo to bed and head out for the Second Night of Awesomeness in our Weekend of Awesomeness.

That’s right people, we saw the Old 97’s again.

Oh yes, more of this:

And this:

There was even a little more of this:

Which is something we haven’t really had much of in the past two years of child-rearing and house-building (respectively).

Hayes Carll opened the show again in Seattle. And he was great, again. But the little treat about the Seattle show was the other opening act, I Love Math. I Love Math is a fun little band that plays fun little songs. They also share the same drummer, Philip Peeples, with the Old 97’s. Although I admit most of the members of I Love Math looked like they couldn’t be a day over 17. Dude, do their moms know they’re on tour?

The Seattle show was totally different from the Vancouver show. While they were much tamer in Canada, they totally rocked the (completely packed) house in Seattle. The Showbox was full of fans. And while that makes for an exciting show, it also makes for a show full of d*uche bags and idiots. Seriously, I paid money to hear the Old 97’s sing, not to hear the d*uche bag behind me sing.

(I’m all for singing along to a band you like. But dude, you don’t have to scream along. Just mouth the words. And that’s only if you have to.)

And while wearing 3 inch heels two nights in a row played havoc on my poor feet, it was worth it to see the Old 97’s two freakin’ nights in a row.

(Check out my video that proves how hard this band rocks.)

The Old 97’s played rocked for quite a long time. They had three (!!) encores and I could have danced through three more. But I’m not sure our babysitter would have liked that. She was already out way past her bed time.

And, let’s be honest, it was way past my bedtime too.

So tell me, have I finally convinced any of you to give the Old 97’s a listen yet? I’ve only been begging y’all to give them a try for three years. Download one of their songs. Stat.

And then to top it all off it’s my mom and brother’s birthdays. And, holy crap, is this Sunday Father’s Day?! Oh and I am giving the sermon in church this Sunday, which apparently, is also Father’s Day?! And dude, I have to come up with something meaningful to say about Father’s Day and Jesus? But also, I don’t want to offend anyone that had a bad father. Or no father. And crap, when am I going to have time to get that written? And why does my boss keep throwing more work at me? And really, this project has to be done by tomorrow? But I have a hair appointment tomorrow. And a Weight Watchers meeting.

And a dentist appointment today.

And I need to return our cable box this week.

And visit some new daycares closer to the new house.

And we failed our final electrical inspection yesterday.

Plus The King’s mom is having that (minor!) surgery tomorrow. And it’s my cousins wedding this Saturday. And I need to buy a gift. And buy Babboo some new shoes to go with his new tuxedo (thanks Durga! You look great, by the way!) and holy crap….can I just die yet?

And I just got the second book in the Twilight series that I’m dying to start. (Dying!)

The light at the end of the tunnel week?

Friday night will be spent, alone, in a hotel room (that I got for a sweet deal!) with The King. In Vancouver, Canada.

And we’ll be seeing the Old 97’s in concert.

(If I don’t get my picture taken with Rhett this time, I may just have to settle with my lame photoshop skillz.)

And then Saturday night? Yeah, we’re seeing the Old 97’s (again!) in Seattle.

Holy crap. I just have to make it through all this other stuff (see above).

And then, the party will begin.

So tell me, what crazy things do you have going on this week? And um, if it’s not too much of a bother, can you return my cable box for me?

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Yes, my latest New Thing involves the new house. And a toilet. And a video. You got a problem with that?

Before you go any further with this post, I need you to think about someone famous that you like. Really, really like. Maybe you love Duncan Sheik or maybe you love John Krasinski.

I’ll give you a second to think about who it is.

Got it? Okay, let’s keep going.

You all know that I love Rhett Miller, the lead singer of my favorite band the Old 97’s. I have made no secret of my deep and abiding love.

The King and I have been watching the tour dates for the Old 97’s all year. They were never scheduled to come to Seattle. We decided we’d just have to fly and see them play someplace else. Unfortunately with The King busy building us the new house and with a one year old, plans have never been made.

We obsessively check their website for updated tour dates. We finally saw they were coming to Washington for the 4th of July. Unfortunately they were coming to be part of the Willie Nelson Family BBQ at The Gorge. This was something we had no interest in at all. Since we aren’t Willie fans we didn’t want to pay $80 to get into this show only get to see the Old 97’s play a few songs. Plus, you have to camp at this place and what would we have done with Babboo? It just didn’t make sense for us to go.

I kept hoping that the Old 97’s would do a show in Seattle before they headed out to The Gorge for the 4th. I never heard of anything. Finally The King heard on the local radio station that they were planning on doing a live in-studio event.

I knew I had to go.

So last week I e-mailed the radio station to find out how I could be a part of the in-studio audience. The DJ wrote me back and said it was only open to Gold Donors of the station. Being that I did not donate over $500, that was not me. The DJ gave me an e-mail address of someone else at the station who sets up the in-studio events. So I e-mailed her. She wrote me back and said that this particular in-studio taping would not have room for anyone other then the performers, the DJ and the sound engineer. There would simply not be any room for audience members.

After the e-mail from the radio station I got online and looked up Rhett’s publicist. I drafted a little e-mail to her and asked if she knew anything about a show in Seattle or how I could get into the radio in-studio performance. She wrote me back in less then 5 minutes, which was very cool. Unfortunately she told me that she is no longer his publicist. Not cool. She suggested I contact Rhett through his Myspace page since “he’s really good about getting back to people.”

I can’t access Myspace at work anymore. It’s blocked.Which is probably a good thing since I’m sure people can spend forever on that damn thing. I’m not *cough* one of them *cough*. I typed up a letter to Rhett, e-mailed it to The King and asked him to log onto my Myspace account and forward the e-mail.

And then I e-mailed to Rhett’s manager, the Old 97’s publicist and managers and even their booking agents. I spared no one. They were all going to get an e-mail from some crazed fan out in Seattle. In my e-mails I mentioned my blog and how much of a true fan I really was.

And then I waited to hear back from someone. Anyone.

Monday before I headed into work I decided to check my Myspace account at home. You know, just in case. I just about screamed out loud when I saw this message in my inbox from Rhett himself:

I will tell the KEXP folks to let in [insert my real name] +1. I don’t know where or what time, so if you can figure that out, I will see you there.
yrs,
Rhett

Holy crap! I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. The King was skeptical. He wasn’t sure that we’d be able to get in. I mean, the radio station had already told me that I was not invited. I didn’t care. I had an e-mail from Rhett. That was enough.

The in-studio was the next day. Since I can’t access the radio station’s website at work, I had to have Mrs. Squirrel log on and get the information for me. I’d have to leave work early. The King would have to miss a few hours at work. Oh well, we were on the list.

I spent most of Monday discussing what I should wear. I decided on an outfit that was hip enough, but still dressy enough to show Rhett that I took this little meeting serious. Of course heels and lip gloss were involved. The King thought we should ask them if they wanted to go to dinner with us that night. He figured what else would they have to do? He assured me he would be in charge of asking them.

I was able to find our only Old 97’s CD not packed away in our storage unit for the band to sign. I put the CD and a Sharpie in my purse, next to my camera and business cards on Tuesday morning.

I had The King print out the message from Rhett, just in case there were any problems with us getting in to the radio station. He didn’t like this part. He could just picture me waving some printed e-mail in the face of radio security screaming; “but I’m on the list!” I promised him I would do all the talking before we got inside the station. After that, he was in charge of doing the talking.

On the way to the station we were listening to the radio in the car. The DJ was talking about it. He said that Rhett and Murry of the Old 97’s would be there shortly. Crap, the entire band wasn’t going to be there. Oh well, Rhett is my fave and Murry is The King’s fave. That’s fair.

Once we got there we got right in to the lobby. I told the girl at the front desk that we were there for the Old 97’s event. The girl asked me my name and checked it to the list she had on the desk. I got a glimpse of the list. Mine was the only name on it. Just seeing that got me all twitterpated.

The King and I sat on the couch and waited until 3:00, when the interview/performance was scheduled to begin. A guy came and got us and took us back to the recording room (I’m sure there is an official name for this room, but I don’t know what it is). The King and I sat behind the sound engineer. There was a glass window separating us from where the DJ and Rhett and Murry would be. The sound engineer started to do a countdown while the DJ and the boys came in the room got set up.

There were a couple of radio people in the room with us. All of us laughed when Rhett or Murry said something clever. We all paid attention while Murry was talking about the church he plays at every Wednesday or when they were talking about their hunt for a new producer for their upcoming album. Every time I looked over at The King he was smiling. We were enjoying ourselves.

They would sing a song and answer some questions and then sing another song and answer more questions. The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes. When it was over the people in the room with us just left. They didn’t go in and talk to Rhett so I wasn’t sure if it was allowed. The King left to go to the restroom. I got nervous being all by myself. I didn’t trust what I would say if I saw Rhett. Thankfully The King was fast. He said; “okay let’s go. I need to get back to work.”

“But wait, aren’t we going to go in and talk to them? I have to tell him thanks for inviting me.”

“Okay, then go!”

I walked right up to Rhett and introduced myself as the girl from Myspace. The first thing he did was apologize. He said he had just had lasik 6 days before and he wasn’t able to wipe the goobers off his eyes. He said; “now you’re going to tell people you met me but I had these weird goobers on my eyes!” His eyes looked perfect as far as I could tell. Perfect.

We started to talk. I introduced The King, they shook hands, they talked. The King told him about how he had just seen him perform in Malibu a few weeks back. They talked about that show and discussed how “low brow” the venue was. I told him (again) about this little blog and how I’m embarrassed that he might read it. He promised me he wouldn’t. He said he never reads things like that. Then he asked me what it said. I told him the truth; that I just say “I love Rhett Miller” over and over again. The King said; “it’s not that bad!”

Rhett told us how hungry he was because he hadn’t eaten today. He said he was afraid he was going to forget some of his lyrics when they were singing earlier. Yes, this would have been the perfect time for The King to see if he wanted to go and grab a pizza with us. But he didn’t. Nice. I’ve since forgiven him. (Sort of.)

Then we started talking about our kids. Us breeders, we always like to talk about kids. He told me I looked good for just having a kid a year ago. I flipped my hair and thanked him. We talked about marriage and how having kids can put a strain on it. We talked about The King building the house and never being home. We talked about what it’s like to travel with kids. We told him about our upcoming trip to New York in September. Rhett lives in New York and so he asked us when and where we were going. He said he’s trying to book some gigs during that time so I should contact him again and he’d give us the hook up. He said he wouldn’t forget me since Babboo and I have such unusual names.

I forgot to have them sign the CD. I wasn’t too upset since I’d gotten his autograph last year. But still, it would have been nice to have it another one with Murry’s autograph next to it. I asked if I could get a picture for my website. I gave The King my camera and stood in close to Rhett. The King got all frustrated when he realized the camera was still set on “record” from the last time I had used it. It just meant I would have a video of Rhett and I together to share with the interweb.

Click HERE and HERE to watch the 15 second accidental videos on Vimeo.)

It’s actually a good thing that The King got a few accidental videos. It made up for the one horrible picture he took. (The head tilt is back!)

When The King got back to his office he found out he had won free tickets to the Willie Nelson/Old 97’s show the next day. This sucked since we were throwing a pool party at our place that day. The King gave the tickets to someone else at his office and we tried to forget about that.

What did this experience teach me? Don’t be afraid to do a little legwork for your idol. I told Rhett about all the people I had e-mailed in my attempt to meet him. I told him that I was so impressed he was the one that actually responded to me. I told him that alone said something about him as a person. He said that when he read my message I just made it all seem “so easy”. I told him what I wanted and he just had to put my name down. That’s right, I’m easy.

What else did it teach me? That people are just people. Seriously, while meeting Rhett was amazing and a dream come true, it really was just like talking to an old friend. A friend who I’ve admired, respected and looked up to for years.

Who knows, maybe The King and I will get to meet him again in NYC and talk some more about our kids.

So tell me, what would you do if you got to meet your idol?