Joel came to town

On Friday night, Project 86 was in Franklin with Flatfoot 56 and Wavorly. Naturally, I went. Ironsides was the local opener. They were fine. Wavorly was fine. Flatfoot 56 was crazy. Their band is comprised of the typical guitar, bass, and drums, plus the not-so-typical mandolin and bagpipes. The bagpiper even wore a kilt. They got the crowd moshing and convinced them to do a rather impressive circle pit. I was entertained.
Project 86 was excellent as always. They played another very different set than any that I had heard last year. "S.M.C." "Chimes" "Me Against Me" "Last Meal" and "One Armed Man (Play On)" all made it onto the set list after years in absence. This show also marked the first time I ever saw Project 86 without them playing "Stein's Theme." I was sure they were saving it for the encore, but five solid minutes of shouting "one more song" did not bring them back on stage. As it was, they played a thirteen song set. All of it was spectacular.
Anna had lunch with her friend Melissa on Saturday.
While Anna was having lunch with Melissa, I was meeting Joel in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. Originally, Joel was supposed to drive himself down, but events conspired so that he ended up riding down with his mother and sister (who were heading on to Louisville to see his aunt).
I introduced Joel to our apartment. I made hot wings. Joel met the animals. He seemed to be a big fan of Chief. Daisy seemed to be a big fan of Joel.
Joel agreed to go to Cincinnati with me to see Project 86 on Saturday night. The venue is called The Underground (not particularly original). I had never been there before and was very pleasantly surprised. On approach, I realized it was one of those venues that grew out of some mega-church wanting to build the biggest most impressively awesome youth center it could. Thus, though I am sure I would hate the church that built the place, I was thoroughly impressed by the place itself. It had two levels, complete with a coffee bar, a video game room, computers for internet access, clean bathrooms, pool tables, several video screens, and an excellent stage and sound system. It made for a great venue for a rock concert.
This was Joel's first true rock show. I think he enjoyed himself alright. He was probably amused by my antics up by the stage during Project's set.
For the opening acts, I stood in back with Joel, but for Project, I made my way up to the front of the stage. As I said, the sound was really good and helped make for an excellent show. At one point, Andrew knelt in front of me, looked me in the eye, and gave my shoulder a squeeze, and I thought to myself, "Self, when you write about this in your blog, it is going to sound so incredibly gay."
After the show, I said hi to Andrew. At this point, he certainly knows me by sight, and he mentioned the "nice little moment" we shared during the show. He also asked me how many shows this made for me. "Twelve," I said. "You're still an amateur," he replied. Don't worry. He was kidding.
Joel, Anna, and I all spent the weekend at Anna's parents' house. It just allowed Joel to have a room to himself, where there wouldn't be animals all over him. Though the whole no animal theory didn't hold strictly true, seeing as Hank drug Joel's toothbrush around the house and tried to eat his medication.
On Saturday, I got tricked into to teaching teenage Sunday School. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but there is this family that had been going to Brown's Corner. The father taught the teenage Sunday School. When Anna's dad became the pastor, he started leaving church after Sunday School so that his family wouldn't sit under a non-Baptist's preaching. He informed Anna's father that God hadn't told him that he could leave the church yet but that he couldn't let his family listen to Anna's father preach. Apparently this past week, God finally told him that he could leave the church.
Now I am teaching Sunday school. It's alright I guess. Anna will do the children's church stuff, and I'll do teenage Sunday School.
On Sunday morning, I had my class (which is pretty much just two girls) give me ideas for what they wanted to learn. I'll try to make the class as awful as possible for them.
Joel, Anna, and I spent most of Sunday just hanging out.
On Monday, we felt it necessary to right a wrong. Joel had never had Chick-fil-a. We fed him Chick-fil-a. His reaction was two-fold. He was very grateful for experiencing it, and he was very sad that there are none near him in Michigan. He particularly enjoyed his char-grilled sandwich.
Joel had to meet his mother at five Monday night, so that he could go down to Louisville and see his aunt as well. By the time we got back to Anna's house from Chick-fil-a, we really needed to be hitting the road again to go meet Joel's mother, but I wanted Joel to have one last new experience before he left. So I got out my handgun and introduced Joel to the wonders of firearms. Joel actually proved to be a decent shot for his first time. Due to the time constrains, he only got to shoot a couple clip-fulls, but he did manage to hit the target several times.
When we got in the car to go meet Joel's mother, Anna was convinced we would be ten or fifteen minutes late. But I will have you know that we pulled off the interstate at our exit at 5:01 p.m. And in fact, the map we had used to decide where to meet had lied about there being an A&W at that exit, so Joel's mother went off in the wrong direction looking for the missing restaurant, and thus, we ended up having to call her and tell her where we were.
I should mention this. While Joel was transferring his bags from our car to his mother's, his aunt found it necessary to start showing Anna all the shoes she had just purchased while shopping. I have no idea why. I also inferred from some comments made by Joel's mother that the part of Joel becoming a lawyer that makes her the most pleased is how good he looks in suits.
People who read this blog: Person from Russia
Someone from Russia has visited our blog several times. I don't know how they are finding it. As far as I can tell, they aren't googling anything. I really don't know. So this is a shout out to my mysterious Russian reader. You know who you are. How's mother Russia treating you? Give Putin a kick in the balls for me.