Had a wild weekend by my standards.
Friday my kids went down to Universal Studios Orlando for a concert, with their church group. Since I would have to pick them up at 2:30 am, and Mrs. K was going to happy hour with some friends, I figured I might as well go out. After dropping off my daughter at the church I came home, had some dinner and a few beers, sat down in a chair, and fell asleep, figuring the missus would be back by 6 pm, maybe 8 at the latest.
Woke up, 11 pm! Called to make sure Mrs. K was OK (just out yakking with her fellow teachers still), threw on some clothes and drove downtown. Being the night before the UF-Miami game, it was pretty crazy. Parked 5 or 6 blocks from my destination and hoofed it to avoid getting screwed at the pay parking lot.
The aforementioned destination was a benefit for an old acquaintance of mine, Rob MacGregor, a local musician and studio owner, who’d got on the wrong end of a drunk driver’s car. I’ve gigged with him several times in the past (including one of his band Grain’s last shows being my annual birthday gig) and recorded a couple albums for my local piss-ant bands at his studios. He’s recorded all the Gainesville indie/punk “names” like Hot Water Music, Against Me, and Less Than Jake too.
I had a great time, here’s a pic of MacGregor playing harp with the band, called the Righteous Kind, a couple of whom are also buddies of mine, that’s his walker (ouch) in the foreground:
One of the first people I ran into their was my friend Marjorie from my neighborhood, out on a date, she introduces me as Brian “Krashpad” Kruger, haha, here’s those 2:
Then I ran into my friend Rebekah, out on a "sort of first date" with another buddy of mine, Rob Harris. That was a little awkward, because she came up and started talking to me for quite awhile. But she's really yummy (if I were single...) so I was charming, let her sip my extra beer (it was packed so I'd bought 2 pints at once just to avoid the bar line!) and put in a good word for Harris. Here's that lot:
The band photog also managed to take perhaps the most unflattering pic of me ever taken, but what the hell:
So anyhow, the band finishes up and I drive over to the church to wait on the kids. While I'm in the parking a lot all kinds of people are walking through, going between an apartment complex on one side and a house party on the other. This couple goes by, and the girl, a gorgeous blonde, comes running up and says "Wait, I have to tie something on you!
I'm thinking "What does that even mean?" as she proceeeds to take 3 brown paper towel squares, still linked, off a roll under her arm, rolls them up and ties them around my head in a head band. She then says " Don't take this off, if you go downtown you'll see everyone is wearing these!" Well, I had just come from downtown, and had not seen one person impersonating a Micosukee tribesman with a paper towel headband. She then explained gleefully "It's for charity!"
And off they went. Such is Gainesville on the night before a big Gator football game.
My kids arrived shortly thereafter, and of course I still had the headband on, because, after all, it WAS for charity. They had a great laugh when I told them the story of how the headband came to be on me, and we finally rolled in to Casa Krashpad at 3 a.m.
On Saturday we slept in, then I got up and mowed the front lawn. Got cleaned up and took the kids back to church for parking lot detail. The church sells spaces in their lot every home game and makes a lot of money for the youth group. Was there from 3:30 in the afternoon to 8:30, then went home and watched the game on TV.
Sunday I stayed home and did a little writing for work, watched some NFL games, and recuperated.