Again, a big THANK YOU to all of you who wished me a happy birthday! There were a handful of new people who stopped by (including a guy who lives here in town and saw me driving down the street--God bless vanity plates!). A huge thank you to
Julie and
Moose (formerly Bone Girl--much easier name to call her!) for going above and beyond expectations with their "tributes". And to
Lizabeth,
Andi,
Ty, and
Rachel for putting a blurb up in their own blogs. To those who promised boobie pics or flowers--I'm waiting!
As mentioned in my previous post, the birthday was downright tame. I did get a balloon bouquet at work from Moose that was very nice. I ran out for dinner and a beer, then I went grocery shopping. Sort of pathetic that on a Friday night, my birthday, I'm shopping for groceries. But I'm old, so it's OK.
Saturday was much more exciting. We had a gig in Great Falls, so we're leaving town around 2:30 in the afternoon. We had to rearrange the U-Haul trailer to get everything in. There was a music stand wedged behind some drum cases. I'm trying to pull it out, and must have pulled the drum cases to the side a little.....
Have you ever seen the cartoons of Homer Simpson stepping on the rake and having the handle whack him in the face? And how funny that is?
The offending music stand totally blindsided me (which is tough to do when it's right in front of you). The side edge of the stand hits me straight on, right in the lips. It could not have hit me in a more damaging spot for a brass player. I only let out one expletive, and immediately covered my mouth to catch any teeth that might have wanted to fall out. My next thought was to check for blood. There was alot of it. So I grabbed the first thing I could to mop that up--a grossly dirty towel in my car. Dirt, dust, weird stains--I didn't care. I needed to stop the bleeding. Fortunately, the holes and gouges that the teeth put into my lips didn't bleed. Much. But the show must go on, so I insisted on getting some ice to curb the swelling. The ice was wrapped in the dirty towel, and as the ice melted, the dusty, dirty, weirdly-stained towel turned into a mud wrap. Well, not that bad, but it makes for a good story.
Once we finished setting up for the gig, we ran over to Applebee's for dinner. I really wasn't hungry, and my mouth hurt, but I really liked the looks of their drinks. The short story on my "dinner": 2 Bahama Mamas (coconut rum, creme of banana, and other fufu-type things) and their biggest glass of Killian's. And I got a chocolate sundae for my birthday from the day before, so that was nice. The booze didn't do a thing to me, but the frosty cold drinks felt good!
The gig was pretty good, and my lips were fairly numb by that point, so the night went pretty well. Didn't get home until around 3 AM, and I didn't go to bed until around 4. You can find a picture of the injury, and the band, over at my other
blog. I also sent the picture to Moose and the
Eye Girl (who was still up--so we chatted for a little bit).
Getting home late means I slept most of Sunday. Moose
did call and wake me at 9 AM. I'm always glad to hear from her, but did she check to see what time I sent the pics to her?? I stayed up to read the paper, then went back to bed. I did get up in time to join the rest of my family to do the family b-day party in the afternoon. We BBQd steaks, played some poker, and generally enjoyed the time together. All in all, a laid-back weekend, with various doses of adrenaline. Sorry I couldn't be more exciting, but geez--I'm old!!
