Roadie

It's been a well-travelled 48 hours for Meh and myself as we had a (very) brief road trip down to the Beaver State for a pair of concerts by Meh's choir. It was fabulous to get to see them perform (I'd miss their Folklife triumphs), and both Eugene and Portland are great towns to spend some time in. So, at 7 am on Saturday morning, Mima arrived (thank you again so so much mima - and right in the midst of Owen deciding that he wanted to be potty trained) to watch the boys, and we were off in the green car.

It was our first time in that other Emerald City, and we stayed at a very cozy inn at the north end of town. After meeting up with the other singers for lunch and a rehearsal with the band, Meh and I successfully stopped at the one site I had wanted to see in town -- a few years ago (at Folklife no less), I'd found an amazing vegetarian food cart serving up vegan cheesesteaks. I know, I know - what's the point. But they were so good that, when I discovered they were based down in Eugene and wouldn't be back in Seattle anytime soon, I'd even gone as far as to e-mail asking them for the recipe. They gave some hints but declined in general, so it was great to be able to visit their, um, home cart (semi-permanently established in a parking lot) and share the yum with Meh.

There was some actual yum (or more specifically Yumm) for dinner with the singers before heading to the concert venue, with a quick detour to a local bakery of repute to select post-concert treats. While in line to pay, I spotted cookies shaped like a monkey and a dinosaur, and knew that I'd found Z and O's gifts from our trip. O has already gobbled up most of the dinosaur today ("Where'd the dinosaur's head go, daddy?"), though Z preferred to just hold and look at "George cookie".

The concert itself was fabulous; I continue to be amazed by these women picking up and mastering such a multitude of songs in multi-point harmony, complex rhythms, in a number of wholly foreign languages, and putting on concerts of fully memorized music to boot! The audience was receptive and supportive, and Dunava's set was followed immediately with a round of Balkan dancing -- even I managed to get my feet untangled enough for a circle dance or two, though I also helped capture the audio recordings (and of course pictures).

For day 2, we had a little while to explore before heading up to Portland, and visited the (unfortunately closed, but grounds-accessible) Shelton McMurphey Johnson House before walking along a nice Willamette River park. Then we were off to PDX, where there was a nice casual afternoon performance for the director's grandfather, followed by a few hours to explore. Of course we had to make a return visit to everyone's favorite 68,000 square feet of independent bookstore. My favorite stop this time was the rare books section, which had everything from a $15,000 archaic book to a giant $500 book of Star Wars blueprints.

After a tasty pizza dinner, it was time for concert the second! This one was in an excellent but slightly more intimate coffee house-like space at a local church. Again, the girls did amazing work (with their third concert in twenty four hours) and the audience was very supportive. Pictures here. Afterwards, we were back in the car and on our way home to relieve mima -- huge thanks to her and papa once again for watching the boys during our 40 hours away!