LAST Thursdah -

Okay, so plumbing saga aside, i had myself a nice little Thursday planned... We were going to go see Mr. Damien Rice & pretty lady bird sing at the Greek, wheee!
Uhm, no, not quite.

So i pick up sassy-pants & i stop at a gas station 'cause i'm low on gas. i give the clerk $15 and go pump gas,. I get back in the car & we're driving and my gas light turns on. Hmmm. Well, i probably just forgot to close the gas cap all the way, my Mom has mentioned this issue with this truck-y before, no problem.

We get to the Greek & icky stack parking. I twist the cap on & we are off to trek up the hill. As we enter the rod-iron gates, i hear the trickling of "f*** you" (Rootless Tree, effing beautiful song about the anguish of breaking up with someone. Have Kleenex on standby, seriously, no joking, it's devastating. This version is acoustic & 100 times better than the album's version.).

It's just after 8 pm & the main event has started, sheesh! Rootless Tree, AKA the "Eff you song" was the mascot for the evening & our new mantra. Please don't be offended if we start sing-screaming this lyric, nothing to be alarmed about, just the usual crazy.

We scurry to our seats. Pretty cool set, bare with a couple chandeliers hanging & stark lighting. Mr. Rice sings. And sings. And sings. By himself. Uhm, where's Lisa Hannigan, people? This is killing mommy. His voice is rough & grating... By 9:15 pm, stage-fright or no stage-fright, Lisa isn't coming... (when we saw them perform when they first broke-out, she hid in the shadows singing).

So a 2 & 1/2 hour show... which for about an hour i folded a gum wrapper into various shapes. At one point we were chatting close together as not to disturb our fellow listeners with our mocking of the eye-closed prodigy groaning on stage and the woman behind me taps me on the shoulder to tell me she can't see if i lean over... Uhm, yeah.

The high-light was his encore story & rendition of "Cheers darlin'" it's a bit long, 10 minutes, but it's rather awesome. There are lots of versions of it online, during our show he drank an entire bottle of wine & smoked at least 2 cigs & ended with snow falling on the stage as he walked offstage. It was like a little play. A tad dramatic, but kinda great. He had this whole thing about "his elbow touched hers & she pushed back" or so he thought... And how magical the first time elbows meet can be...

Let's see... we leave the Greek sad & disappointed that the lovely Lisa Hannigan has left the band.
We get in the car & the gas light is still on. Great, one other thing i managed to break.

We go to Fred 62, i have a scary soup but the Hippie Sandwich did not disappoint.

We head home. Tired, cold & saddened that what made the music of Damien Rice has been greatly diminished.
We're on the 10 heading West & right before Fairfax, i detect a problem. Car is winding down. We need gas. There isn't anything on Fairfax...

We make it to the La Cienga exit, over Cadillac but then we're stopped at the light at La Cienga. The gas station is just across the street & the car dies. Sassy-pants & i look at each other, wordlessly remove our respective scarves (each getting tangled naturally) and we leap outta the car.

I pop it in neutral, she runs to the back & we start pushing. And pushing. I thought we were just going to the side, but there's a break in traffic so we go for it, like we're an unwieldy 2 year old, we huff & puff across the 6-lane street via the crosswalk. There's a guy standing on the street and Sassy starts yelling "you're just going to stand there & let 2 girls push a truck across the street?!" and brow beats him verbally into helping us. She's so pissed, she doesn't even thank him.

There's a dip & we're in the gas station picking up speed and i'm able to pull the car back & put the break on. The closest pump is Super-Special Gas, but i don't care, anything will do. I go to plug the nozzle in & i'm about 1/2 a foot short. We push once again & fill up the green-machine.

We get in the car & drive away (not after being solicited by a gent raising funds for vets) and we immediately start laughing. I mean REALLY laughing. Laughing so that my stomach ached & i was crying. Yes, while driving... not so smart, but by this time it was 12:30 am & no one was on the road.

In case you were wondering & have made it to the end of this story, no, the Greek theater is not 40 miles away. When i stopped for gas at the beginning of the story, i neglected to actually put the gas into my car. Yeah. Can we say i've been a bit outta-my-mind lately? The good news is that as of Tuesday, my backyard is back in one piece & i can use all water related facilities to their fullest capabilities.