no, not everybody

i do actually know people i like, who don't suck, ok?

this week was the owner's birthday and i was invited up to shangri-lowell to share the festivities. small-world and all, he shares his big day with one of his neighbors, whom we both like quite alot. last year we partied together and this year was to make 2 in a row.

suppressed rebellion was still working its way out of his system in '08, so the owner was determined to "get drunk", lol, which isn't really his thing anymore. this time out a more low-key evening was in the cards. we did have the bonus of a driver happy to be designated, just in case.

not long ago we discovered a little out-of-the-way laotian place, whose proprietors and only staff are a daughter and her f.o.b mother. the former is a pistol and the latter cooks like a tiny southeast asian rockstar. the specialty of the house is meat, all kindsa ways, which, as we all know, thrills the owner. yo, even i liked the tongue there, ok? so we brought the other b-day guys, a cooler and 4 big appetites. it was a blast.

with rain falling and wind acting up as the start of tropical storm danny, we figured that night's park concert had been moved indoors, so indulged ourselves with purple sticky rice pudding topped with a kick-ass coconut custard and another drink.

surprise! w00t! the concert was in full-swing, outside, when we arrived. the weather forecast had skeered away most of the audience so we sauntered right up front and got down. plenty of crapola zydeco bands slide through the lowell music calendar, but these guys were terrific -- even deemed so by the native new orleanian (orleander? wtf are they called?) amongst us. the air was only misty, the grass somehow didn't feel damp and since all the human wet blankets stayed home afraid of meeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllting, many more folks were dancing all around than is usually tolerated by the determined sitters at these things. even the owner had the hip-sway thang!

(it was almost like my birthday too, since the keyboard player was a midget! yes! strangely long fingers like gollum's and all of us agreed we'd never seen a little person in a regular band. that's high confirmation with a professional musician among us, as well as the 10's of 1000's of shows likely under the rest of our blown-out eardrums.)

the show wrapped with an a capella solo by the singer in tribute to ted kennedy. he prefaced by mentioning how much the south loved the kennedy's -- he pointedly referred to the "real south", which was not lost on the crowd -- especially louisiana, a deeply catholic state, home to colorful and corrupt politicos that could rival our own, as well as emk's beloved second wife, vickie. he sang the "star-spangled banner" and it moved me and everybody else like it should have.

that was it.

good food, good music, good friends. a very good time. i'm a lucky lady.