A Rare Night on the Town

It's so odd that I would have one evening outing on any given day, but, to have 2 of them occur in one day is really unusual and even more so, that it worked out that I was able to attend both events made me really happy and have to take back my usual whine of "I never get to go anywhere."

Mr. Smiff and his bunch were playing at Bluegrass Night at the Ryman, directly caddy-cornered to Wolfy's where this big Blog Get-togetha was happening. I got all my passes from the Ryman and checked out the scenery and saw actor David Keith (remember him? He killed himself in An Officer and A Gentleman) milling around. I did see Vince Gill and band (including Mike Bub, Dan Tyminski, Michael Cleveland, Jeff White, and the fabulous Charlie Cushman warm up and met some really nice fans from Jonesboro, TN. Said howdy to Grascal Dave Talbot and his wife, my friend Myrna before commencing to Wolfy's.

I made my way to Wolfy's and the first person I bumped into and rode the elevator with was Katherine Coble and her Other Half. (Disclaimer-I know I'm going to forget somebody. Part of it was half being in awe of
being in the company of these talented blogger types and the other was I was out of the house at an adult gathering and not once did I have to tell a young person to "Stop it!" or "Watch that smart mouth, Young Lady" or be told by an adolescent that I was embarrassing them.)

Let's see, we had us some Aunt B, who I had the pleasure of meeting a couple weeks back, Kathy T. (who I recognized immediately and much to my delight did her "thumbs up" just like she has on her blog picture) the smilin' CLC showed up with his purty tie and sweet spirit; Kerry Woo, Chris Wage, Rex L. Camino, I did see Sarcastro across the crowded room, but, never got the chance to say hey to him, my fellow-former- Franklin Rebel Jag, a Pea-less and very sweet Shauna, my girl Busy Mom and the perfect postured and beautiful Lindsay Ferrier; the short and precious Short and Fat; How fun it was to see my new, but feels like old, friends Newscoma and Squirrels on Snark, who made the drive from the happening metropolis of Dresden for the occasion (thanks for the t-shirt); News2VJ Todd Dunn, Mista Kleinheider (who knew he was so dang cute?), DorkNation; Everybody's Girl Brittney and the Boyfriend were both a delight to meet.

The biggest and funnest surprise of the whole shebang was when Web of Webslog showed up. I've seen this blog before and did not know this was the Web, formerly of Franklin High School in the days were both of us proudly wore our maroon and white polyester band uniforms and I can confess here and now, the Web I had a tiny crush on way back when. (There, I admit it!) The world is small and he's even worked with Mr. Smiff in his professional life and he gave me some good updates on some of our classmates. We also compared notes on parenting sons with ADHD and it was pretty surreal. He has not changed one iota since 1986. Great to see him.

I did finally head back to the Ryman and walked in when Mr. Smiff and them had about 3 songs left in the set. I'm told I missed a thunderous applause moment for my husband, but, it probably wouldn't have happened had I been there so it's probably good I was doing the Blog Schmooze. I was quite pleased to see them get a rather loud, enthusiastic encore.

During intermission, I not only accidentally bumped into Amy Grant's most likely very expensive purse, and my old friend Shawn Camp and his girlfriend, Carla, but, I also ran into Sara Clark, who I missed at Wolfy's. I also got to see my pal Bob and his lovely and charming lady friend, Miz Margie. You want to see something cute....a couple of 70 year olds courtin' at the Ryman Auditorium at Bluegrass Night.

The auditorium was so stinkin' hot and crowded, I sat through one song of Mista Gill's. Love Vince, but, not enough to sit that long and be hot and claustrophobic. From what I heard Mr. Gill was in rare form and was using some uncharacteristically colorful language and apparently, because he's Vince Gill and can, did every song he knows. It went on forever! By the time Mr. Smiff and crew finally finished greeting their public and he got all his stuff together, it was midnight before we got home.

Whew...big time all around. I knew this would be long and I'd better get it on here early before the kids overtook the computer.