March 5th, 2018.

This is our first time away from Not Our Cat since he’s become Our Cat. Farewell sweet beest!

Racing westbound on I-70. How many times have I written that? For once we’ve timed it right and we don’t HAVE to race – easy departure from 695 dumping us on to the interstate, easy ride west. We cross under the Alleghany Mountains with a hint of snow on the hills and plains around us and sunshine flooding down on us. It’s an auspicious beginning to a very welcome trip.

Pittsburgh in the setting sun as we roll into town on a Monday night.

TLC is carrying us through on the stereo, Heather knows every word and her wiggly-headed glory is well backlit as the sun starts dipping to our left, turning north towards Pittsburgh, we’ll race the sun to the venue tonight.

Our venue for the night… the fabulous Mr Smalls!

Sun glints off fields of white, grey brown and black trees stretch up on the horizons, reading more like a poor-resolution-hiding filter effect than reality, feathered edges and fractal intricacy. Ice rappels down the cut cliffs, framing the highway in tranches of refracted sunshine, prisming dramatically off the stone walls and channeling the setting sun.

It’s a beautiful, desaturated drive.

I have the vague disquiet of leaving my open mic for the next several weeks, but it’s in good hands and I’m not worried, just aware of a shift of pattern. Part of my body KNOWS I should be packing the car and printing a list, ready for the inevitably tense drive into the city to look for parking.

Kristen joins the house band at Mr Smalls in Millvale, PA.

It’s weird to realize that our stolen cat is more than stolen at this point, and so now we’ve got to worry about Amy popping around to check on the  beast. He’s now TECHNICALLY ours, but I don’t know that HE acknowledges it, so we’ll have to see how our departure interrupts his regular patterns. Having Amy drop by the house and let him out or let him in occasion, dropping some food here and there, we hope he won’t forget us while we’re gone! Cats only have so much brainmeats ya know.

Tomorrow we’ll touch Michigan for the first time ever. We’d HAD an actual gig booked but it got canceled due to the booker remembering “oh yeah, we only do music every OTHER week”… sigh. Too late to put something else in the slot, tomorrow we’ll check out an open mic at a music store that’s apparently the only U.S. retailer of Chapman Sticks. I’m kind of excited about this. Plus, yeah – another state down.

Racing westbound on I-70. This time we’ll take a hard right at the lake and cross another state off the list.

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1 thought on “March 5th, 2018.

  1. Susan Schneider says:

    Oh my. my…he doth wax poetic as freaking hell on the landscape…..it’s amazing how beautifully you can turn what you see into WORDS!

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