Well, my birthday weekend was really nice. My boss let me off work a bit early on Friday, which was good, since I needed to get my car inspected before going away for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, that took an hour and a half because the guy did it wrong the first time and then did two other cars ahead of mine before doing mine again. But anyhow...
I came home to find gifts from my mom, my brother John, and Sarah. Since I'd been desperately needing clothes since I lost so much weight, my mom got me a nice pair of Dockers and a polo shirt for work. Sarah got me a few work shirts, some t-shirts, and some nice jeans. John got me The Cure's Trilogy DVD and The Grateful Dead's Closing of Winterland DVD, which both look excellent so far. Sarah also got me Tekken 4, Guilty Gear X2, the first two volumes of Risky/Safety on DVD, the 30th anniversary release of Bowie's Aladdinsane, little clone trooper ornaments for my office, the Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII expansion pack, and a stuffed owl. Quite a good haul. And my older brother, Mike, left me a message telling me that he'd bought me gifts, too.
Also as a gift, Sarah took me to see The Innocence Mission at Jammin' Java. The show was to start at 8, so we got there around 7 and the place was packed. I'd never seen quite so many people there before. Sarah had reserved, so we signed in, found some seats, then went to get some yummy chili. At 8, the opening act, Don Conoscenti, came on. He was quite good, playing banjo, guitar, and piano. We both liked him quite a bit, but not enough to buy his CDs. We just didn't see ourselves listening to them often. However, the second opening act (which we hadn't expected) was better. A lovely and talented girl with a guitar, Mila Drumke had just moved to the area from NYC... without her band. So, for this show, it was just her, which worked quite well. After hearing her, seeing how much the CDs were, and seeing how much the CDs would've cost if we bought them online and had them shipped to us (about $15 more for the three she has), Sarah decided to buy them.
At about 9:15, the Innocence Mission came on. And they were phenomenal. Karen's voice was just as beautiful live as it is on the CDs, perhaps more so. I love Don's style of playing and both he and Mike played great. It was so nice to see them all up there having a good time, smiling at each other, giving each other little looks. Though they don't tour often, you could tell they really love playing together. And Karen's smile is lovely and truly infectious. They played a good mix of songs from all of their albums. And came out for three encores. After the first three song encore, I thought there was no way they'd come out for more, but they did. The crowd was really great and obviously huge fans. Everyone was calling out songs they wanted to hear. And everyone was very forgiving during a pretty humorous moment when Karen started playing a song in the wrong key (and both Mike and Don apparently switched keys to play the wrong ones right along with her). A great show.
After the show, Sarah chatted with Mila for a bit and got her to sign the 3 CDs. I'd brought along Glow, Christ Is My Hope, and Sarah bought me Befriended there at the show. I got each of the band members to sign the cases for them. All of them were really nice and kind and sweet and I got to chat with each of them for a bit. I felt really dorky telling them all it was my birthday, but I was just excited to finally be seeing them after being a fan for over 10 years. I wasn't fishing for Happy Birthdays (thought I got that from each), I just felt like it was a great birthday present for me to have them come to my favorite place to see a show on my birthday.
By the time we got home, my birthday was almost over. But it was really great. And now I don't feel quite so bad about being so close to 30.