Wonderful Husband and I did our usual for Valentine's Day, which is dinner at WingNuts, a card exchange, and no roses or gifts or chocolates. (Though I did hit up Target for a couple bags of discounted dark Dove the day after.) Nice quiet tradition, and the waitresses thought Squiddle was adorable. And I discovered nursing a baby in a booth is trickier than in a chair. Didn't help that he was being kicky-flaily.

Saturday, my uncles from the Bay Area showed up, and met their great-nephew. They both held him, which is one better than my other uncle will do. :) He was agreed to be very cute and well-behaved, and Uncle Scott said that Squiddle pretty much looks like a Gerber baby. Which is a fair, accurate comment.

And then, Saturday night, Wonderful Husband and I went to a concert! We saw Sting and Paul Simon at The Forum in Inglewood. We didn't have great seats (the very last row, just a little off center), but the sound was pristine and the concert itself AWESOME. The setlist was great, and their combined band was phenomenal. Wonderful Husband's more of a Sting fan, I like both artists, and we both had an excellent time. And it turned out to be a very good thing that we'd gotten tickets to the show on the 15th rather than to the later-announced (and geographically much closer) show on the 16th, because it meant my parents could watch Squiddle.

Because on the 16th, my parents flew down to La Paz, Mexico for a few days. Or at least they were supposed to. They showed up at the airport and found their flight had been cancelled without notification. As had their return flight on Thursday. Fortunately the airline was able to reroute them, but what had been supposed to be a direct 2.5-hour flight turned into a 3-hour flight to Mexico City, a 2.5-hour layover, and then a 2-hour flight to La Paz. They didn't get to their hotel until 1:30am, Mountain Time. And on Thursday they're going to have to drive to another city entirely (I forget which) to catch a flight back. As you may imagine, the phrase "not best pleased" covers the situation....

Finally, a weekend that felt like a weekend.

Yesterday, Wonderful Husband and I polished and released a fansub episode, went to see Monsters Vs. Aliens in 3D (which, BTW, we've decided is a format that is Not Really Worth It and have decided to avoid in the future; the fact that it cost at least half again as much as a regular movie may have helped this decision. The movie itself was good, if not great), then went to see The Dead up at The Forum. Wonderful Husband claims that it was his first rock concert since he was in-utero, and seemed to enjoy it. I also enjoyed it, but would it would have been better if I wasn't fighting sleep deprivation at the time. The drum set was fragging awesome and what Rainforest Cafe only wishes their fake thunderstorms were like.

Today, I finished making my Mother's Day present for my mom (an apron which, this being the first time I've used this particular pattern, needs to be redone since apparently the pattern was designed for a skinny twelve-year-old or something, but Mom seemed to like the general idea of it) and then went up to RenFaire, which despite it being a half-day low-key thing with me in civvies again, I really enjoyed. I caught a few shows I've been meaning to for a while, and a few more that I just happened across, watched the court ladies play games for a while, chatted with some of the boothfolk (one of them a casual acquaintance/friend), and generally... relaxed. I'm usually not too good with crowds or people I don't know so when I make steps toward bettering that, I tend to notice it. Stopped by my parents' place to give my mother her card and gift, and admired what they've done with their garden space this weekend.

Now to go shower off the 'Faire dust and the concert marijuana haze, and then get to bed....

While flipping through radio stations yesterday, I paused on one of the pop stations, hearing a snippet of something I recognized. It was Lady Gaga's song "Poker Face."

I saw her (and Natasha Bedingfield, who was quite simply incredible... she's even better live than on album) open for NKOTB last year. LG had the stage presence of a rock, her banter was annoying, and her costume best described as a reject from Angelic Layer. She remains the worst opening act I've ever seen, and that includes whatever-his-face-was who opened for Backstreet Boys on their last tour.

But the funny thing is, I end up liking her music when I hear it on the radio. I may have to get the album. *is irked*

In other news, I have tickets to go see the Grateful Dead (now just The Dead) when they hit the LA area in a few months.... ^_^

Well, last night. There was a concert. There was NKOTB. There was a not-so-random celebrity sitting in the same section I was, which slightly weirds me out but fortunately amuses me much more. There was a drunk woman tripping on the stairs next to me, spilling her beer on my trousers in the process, and all over the floor so it was sticky later. I wrote down the set list and will be doing a looooong post about it behind the magical cut tag later, but in short, was it awesome? IT WAS.

Somehow a boyband has managed to age with grace and dignity, keep their own style, and make me really happy that they came back together, even if I still think their new album is one of their weakest.

Thursday night: concert bliss. Good seats, good friends, and fun music. I like the "Never Gone" album much more now after hearing it performed live. Unlike last tour they also did some playing around with and rearranging their old hits. It was interesting, hearing the reinterpretations. Nick played guitar and Kevin played piano, which created happy places inside me. There was still some of the pyro and the lighting was godlike (and strobe! and lasers! whee!) and my ears were ringing until I fell asleep. But really, I think my main impression is that they were a more relaxed on stage than I've ever seen the Backstreet Boys. We were joking that this should be subtitled the "Thank God We Still Have A Career" tour. It was very minimal--no dancers, little choreography for the new material, and the costume changes mostly looked like they'd just raided their regular clothes. For the most part, in fact, I'm not sure they *needed* costume changes except for singing and dancing on a lit stage and it was easily 80+ when the concert let out at 11pm, well, the phrase "sweat soaking through their clothing" comes to mind. But honestly? Nick *went into the audience* for part of one song. And returned with his clothes untorn, his person unmolested, and his sanity presumably intact. A fan dressed up from one of their new videos (BSB have cosplayers ^^;) managed to get onto the stage, security grabbed him and was leading him off, Kevin caught them and brought him back on and let him jam with the group for a bit before seeing him sent back into the audience. If it wasn't a plant, that was cool. I don't think the volume of fangirls was much less than on the Black and Blue tour, but somehow everything seemed mellower. Like the audience and the group both have both grown up, somehow....