V-Day Weekend

Happy Belated Valentine's Day weekend, readers! I wanted to update on Saturday, but the day got away from me, even though I didn't do much of anything but relax. M. and I exchanged gifts and it was a very comical scene. I gave him a stuffed Boyd's gorilla carrying a heart that said "Love Bug" and he gave me a Laser Level. I typed that correctly, not the other way around. It just made me laugh! The Laser Level was exactly what I wanted, since I'm the one who does all the picture-hanging in our house. In fact, I wanted the combined Laser Level/Stud Finder, but M. said the home improvement store hasn't been able to keep them in stock they're so popular. I joked he could get me a stud finder for Mother's Day. We just had a nice dinner at home Saturday night. I didn't feel good all day, so I wasn't in the mood for going out anyway. It took me until late afternoon until I was feeling better and I'm not even sure what it was, just kind of run down and tired, maybe because H. was up some on Thursday and Friday nights.

Sunday, we watched the Daytona 500 together (what a great race!) while I caught up on the laundry I didn't get done on Saturday. The washing machine is still acting weird - after a load of towels, they were so sopping wet I had to run them through another spin cycle before I could put them in the dryer.

My mom came over around 4pm, then off the two of us went to see Toby Keith in Baltimore. We were in almost the exact same seats as when we went to see Martina McBride, so we had an excellent view of everything. Blake Shelton was the opening act, which we didn't know about, so that was a pleasant surprise. In addition to his few hits, he also sang a couple of Conway Twitty songs (SLOW HAND and TIGHT-FITTIN' JEANS) and a version of the Bellamy Brothers' REDNECK GIRL, all of which I felt he did justice to with his deep voice.

The show started at 7:30pm and Blake Shelton was finished by 8:20, but for some reason Toby Keith didn't take the stage until 9pm. The most bizarre part of the evening was that G. Gordon Liddy came out to introduce him. I kid you not! I guess they're friends, but I really couldn't make sense out of it. The show itself was a high-energy rock show, with only two of Toby's slower songs played. I loved his horn section - three guys who danced and rocked throughout the entire show. He played for two solid hours, with the grand finale of AMERICAN SOLDIER and COURTESY OF THE RED, WHITE & BLUE, complete with fireworks and confetti. He did a one-song encore, which hardly seemed worth it. The finale was a hard act to follow.

The only downer for the night was trying to leave. We sat in a nearby parking garage for an hour. And by sitting I mean, we sat in our parking space for that hour, not even inching along toward the exit. Terribly frustrating for several reasons - paying on the way out instead of paying on the way in, no traffic control at the light right outside the garage exit, etc... And downtown Baltimore wonders why it has trouble attacting people from the suburbs.

So we didn't get home until 1am. When the alarm went off at 5:45am this morning, it felt like the middle of the night. I'm going to be dragging all day today.