Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Believe it or not, Colin won tickets to the Mountain Jam festival this weekend!

Let me share my little bit of joy...

My partner, Colin turned 40 this month. He's been really bummed about it, being not where he wants to be in his career, and seeing growth in the belly and not so much on the top of the head, etc.

Colin loves a singer named Micheal Franti. This guy is a real activist with singing - he went to Iraq and all over the Middle East with his guitar, just singing peace and love, you know.

We saw Micheal was playing at the Jazz festival in New Orleans, a city that's very special to Colin. (he grew up in Pensacola, three hours away, and kicked back many a good cocktail there.) We bought plane tickets and made hotel reservations, hoping for a nice balm to colin's small mid-life, uh, downward correction.

Then the economy totally tanked. Colin has worked a total of maybe 7 days in 2009. His work went bye-bye with Citibank. With my illness, we have about 3/4 of one job between us.

We cancelled New Orleans, ate $150 each per ticket (which cost only $220 in the first place), and sat at home and made rice noodles instead of paying for a hotel.

Knowing Micheal travels, we checked out his touring schedule and saw that he's playing -not once, but twice!- at the Mountain jam Festival in Hunter Mountain, NY this weekend. We figured a trip to someplace drivable would be cheaper. And we could camp. We made a reservation for the campsite - and paid for it.

Still, as the festival approached we looked askance at the $89 one-day tickets. Should we cancel yet another musical adventure? Where is mortgage and rent going to come from June 1?

Then Colin twisted his ankle - badly - in his first "sports photography-related" injury (he was taking pics of an old-fashioned baseball game and tripped. Go figure.) Did we really want to drive up there, camp and have him hobble all over, to the cost of over 100 bucks each?

Then one day last week we were listening to the radio in the car - we always listen as far as we can on the way upstate, because we don't get much radio at our house - WDST out of woodstock would be giving away tickets all weekend!

So we made our calling plan. Saturday we couldn't be near a radio or wi-fi. But Sunday we called several times, only to get busy signals. We mastered the repetitive dialing technique on our cell phones - which also barely work up there - to dial at least once every 10 seconds - that's one call every 5 seconds between the two of us. We just had to get through.

On Monday we realized because we were listening to the radio on line, there was a delay, but we didn't know how long. So when we felt they were about to offer tickets, we started calling.

I got ring tone instead of a dial tone! Excitement! Then I heard the contest announced - the 8th caller would get free tix! Finally some guy came on the line and said, "you're number 2, keep trying!" Was it the DJ? I jumped up and down like a maniac. "Call! call!" I demanded of Colin, who of course already was.

We both continued pressing "end" and "send" on our phones as fast as we could. We dialed and dialed. It was like junior high, all over again. Except i think neither of us really had the guts to talk to a DJ in Jr. High. We both got busy signals. I began to suspect the whole contest was a sham.

Then i heard Colin saying, in matter-of-fact tones, "why, no, I haven't won anything from WDST in the past 30 days."

Did he win? did he? Then I see him hustling, as fast as his limpy leg will carry him, out the front door and onto the very edge of the deck. He's lost his Stage Manager Voice, as I call it. "Wait! Sorry, hold on, I'm up in Fleischmanns, I have bad reception!"

Oh, noooo! Was he caller #8, only to be doomed by the fact that the Verizon tower is behind the hill and in Spring the leaves are sooo beautiful, but their blooming hinders the already wimpy signal?

But the call stayed true. And Colin did a victory hop on the deck, screaming, "I've been trying to do this for at least 20 years! I won! I won! I won!"

And thus, my friends, your energy, spun with fate and a little determination on our part, has brought our household...not a good landlord, not the perfect job, not a miracle cure to my illness...but maybe the thing in the world which would actually cheer us most. FREE tickets to the Hunter Mountain Jam at Hunter Mountain this weekend.

And good things come in threes. Then we came home, and there was a new tree planted in front of our building in Brooklyn. A Japanese something-or-other. (Colin had called 311 and requested one months ago through the "Million trees NYC" Program, like, ages ago...) Really? A tree? In front of our slum building?

And ...we brought a bike home from upstate, (a donation from my dad, who happens to be about Colin's size,) and locked it up with a good, sturdy lock and hope to get it tuned up at Bespoke Bicycles in Ft. green within the week.

Thank you all for reading in. Sunday I'll be in my tie-dye stringy dress with a happy Colin and yodeling Micheal Franti. Should keep me from getting too caught up in being poor and old.

Bless!

Niki

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