After going to bed at 2am on Monday, my sister and I were faced with a decision when we woke up at 10 Tuesday morning. We had volunteered to go help our friend Sara with a service project that she put together. She figured a lot of Guster fan friends would want to do a give back to the community deal.
But, she didn't get a lot of nibbles on the bait.
She told us really they needed about five people for this to be worthwhile, and Linda and I were people 4 and 5. or ... 3 and 4 because Henry doesn't really count as a people.
We thought about telling her we couldn't hang. I thought about how that would disappoint her. She mentioned after the concert that she might call off the arrangement, but she knew this work needed to get done.
I thought of things I'd rather do with a free day in DC. I kind of wanted to walk down to the white house, the mall, and take a walk about. Linda wanted to do nothing. I'd make her go for the walk.
She texted me and asked if we were still up to it. We decided to go.
It was very worth it. Very.
Two other people showed up without letting Sara know they were coming, so we were glad we were there. The goal was to set up a small greenhouse, but the coordinator was concerned about anchoring it down. The ground is really hard and unyielding so she decided she would build a floor of pallets and anchor it but we picked a spot for it, got the framing out, she'll come back with wood and tools and another volunteer crew, hopefully, and get it set up. We weeded and readied the raised garden beds. Everything had been hit with the hard frost but she had managed to get the last of the peppers and tomatoes before that happened. There was a ton of lavender, which she said no one really wanted so she's going to remove it all and not plant it again next year.
Some aggressive wild marigolds had taken over one of the boxes, so we pulled all that out, and decided we'd sow the seeds in the back corner and along the edge of the fence.
And there was a PVC fence that had been damaged, all along the edge of the plot where the garden is, so we helped fix that up.
All told - ouch. Sore. Tired. But fun. Here's our crew. Nicky is the woman standing next to me, she runs this program, they call it Veggie Skills or something cute.
Her enthusiasm for doing this work made me feel so much better about our decision to not blow this off. What a gift to meet her, and I'm happy we could make progress for her.
We headed back to our hotel and grabbed a quick lunch. Then we headed back to the hotel, it was well after 3:30, so Linda took a quick nap, I showered. That gave Linda some time to rest and get her shower.
Sara had picked our next meet and greet location very close to the venue, and it turned out to be a perfect spot. We had about 20 people show up over the course of the night. They were going to give us the whole upstairs, but decided to give us the back of the room at the first floor bar, which worked out well.
Linda and I arrived early - I knew Sara would be late (she was, very. They all took a giant nap and got to the meet and greet at 8. We got there at 5:30)
Here's just a portion of the gathering. About 6 people were not there yet, including Sara, Sean, and Henry. And our friend Spicy V had left to go volunteer for Reverb before this was taken.
Then the fun weird thing happened.
When we moved here, I found out the high school friends and acquaintances who were all around. I got to connect with Debbie in Berlin MD in October, Sean is in Loudon County but we still have not made it happen. Then there is Jeff. Jeff and I were in the same homeroom together, through junior high and high school. We didn't run in the same circles really, but he hit me up on Facebook to say he lives near Baltimore, works near my house, and we had some nice chats on FB. When I went to Vermont, he asked me to bring him some beer from a brewery there, the beer is named for another friend of ours from High School. Weirdly.
But we never got to meet up. Jeff goes to a lot of concerts. He said he's been to about 100 this year, and the year is not over. When he heard Guster was coming he asked if I'd be there - of course I would. And we aimed to connect.
So last night that finally happened. We should have rotated for the selfie and gotten the gorgeous stage behind us but this is proof of life.
Oh yeah, and then there was a Guster show.
It was amazing, completely different from the night before as every show has been different than any of the shows before that. Unique in all the world.
They brought some wonderful school children on to play horns and strings for the encore. They did Jesus on the Radio from the opera booth above the side of the audience. And my friend Justin took a great picture of me taking a picture of Ryan Miller with Adam Gardner in the distance. Justin is an amazing photographer, I love all of his pictures, from Guster to the Appalachian Trail and the great swamp in NY. He's got such an eye. What a fun moment here.
I had promised myself that I wasn't going to dance and go nuts, I was so sore from the service project and from the dancing Monday night. But there was no standing still. Two rows ahead of us there was a couple who were just dancing like mad, and she freaked out when they played "Ramona," so I ran around to grab her and dance with her. Her partner was laughing hysterically, and the guys to her left were also dancing so hard. Complete strangers. But their energy called me and I could not resist.
Digits below the acoustic balcony encore of amazingness, photo by my friend Rachel.
Tuesday digits
exercise: Busted my ass working in the garden, danced all over the lincoln theater, my fitbit logged zero minutes. It lies.
blood glucose:
8am: no reading in the AM - forgot to check before leaving
4pm: 154
midnight: 207
food:
Coffee, water
10:30am: 2 starbucks gruyere and bacon egg whites
1pm: metformin
2:30pm: 6 buffalo wings with celery and bleu cheese; 1 glass of pinot grigio
6pm: a few slices of goat cheese and sausage pizza, very thin crust (very tasty), 2 cheesecake bites, a few glasses of wine.
8pm: metformin+jardiance
between 9-10 another glass of wine
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