Weekend Update

But here's a weekend update while I have time.

I was sitting in the Speech Therapy waiting room on Friday talking to the other mothers and MerleFest came up. This woman (who as an undergraduate dated Rick Fox!) who I'm friendly with loves Elvis Costello so I promptly gave her Friday's tickets because I was too wiped out to go. I hope she went, cause I heard it was an awesome set. Nonetheless, we exchanged e-mails and I hope to hang out with her and her husband sometime because they have a booming social life as well as a child with special needs and that's a rare combination.

We got settled in the "Little Pickers" area right at 2:00 PM and who did we run into first? But Josh and Alex Boyer. Among 80,000 festival goers and we randomly ran into the Boyers three separate times. But I'm not complaining. MerleFest is not the same if you don't run into the Boyers. Alex (who was born the day after Grace) has been to 6 MFs and he's only 5! Then Monica and her husband walked up and it was a little mini Watauga High School reunion.

The kids wanted to jump and climb and swing and run around so that's mainly what we did all day. David and I have come to grips that MF with kids is a fantastic place for kids to play with excellent music in the background rather than a fantastic music-listening experience with excellent activities for kids. The kids ran around, played, danced, ate, drank sodas with caffeine and had a blast. We tried to catch a set by the Infamous Stringdusters on the Hillside stage, when one tune in, Grace literally somersaulted down a steep hill, and spilled her Sierra Mist all over her. It was all I could do to not laugh, because she was completely in tears, but we decided it was time to keep a movin.

The musicians of the 20th Homecoming Jam (Sam Bush, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck, etc) delivered in high fashion and it was all very pleasant to the ears, but we spent that set literally as far back as you could be in the Little Peckers, I mean Little Pickers tent watching over the kids in the sandbox. Conclusion: David needs to build a really big sandbox to put in our backyard. Not one of those dinky plastic sandboxes in the shape of a turtle, either; a big one where they and the entire neighborhood can get in and play. If he builds it, they will play. They played happily for over an hour while David and I sat back and actually got to talk to each other. It was nice. I was too tired to stay for the last act, Alison Krauss, who didn't even begin until 9:30 PM, and we left MF probably earlier than we ever have. Maybe it has to do with getting free tickets (thanks, Jane!) but I wasn't consumed this year with cramming as much music into the schedule as I possibly could.

And honestly? The best music I heard all day was a 5-minute set that I happened on in a guitar-selling tent where three musicians were unassumingly taking turns with the lead on a favorite fiddle tune: "Arkansas Traveler."

Yesterday was a lovely time catching up with Kate, Daniel, Sheila and my dad (although, the visit was in two shifts but that's something I can't get into now) and I came to another conclusion: visits to Boone where we stay only one night rather than two or three are perfect. I think it's always better to leave wanting more than the other way around.