A really good weekend

Last weekend was divine. Well, except for the part where I stressed about the fact that I wasn't doing undivine things, ie: work. I am soooo behind right now, it was completely irresponsible of me to take pretty much the entire weekend off, and I was feeling it Monday morning, but I sure did enjoy it Friday Saturday and Sunday.
It was ear-candy all weekend long! Friday night was the best of it- we went to see Sigur Ros at The Greek in Berkeley, and I. Love. This. Band.
I realize that they are not for everyone, but they are definitely for me. Danny describes them as "Enya for hippies" which is funny, and probably slightly accurate, but that description does nothing to describe how great they are. To me, they are like listening to art. The sounds they make are like the sounds I hear when I am looking at something beautiful and breathtaking and never-before seen.
Here.

Shawn describes the evening better on his blog so you can read about it there, but I do just need to reiterate the rain. The moment could not have been more perfect. The first rain of the season is always a big deal to me (namely because it means I can then make Egg Nog and officially start listening to Christmas music (which I also love, but please don't judge Sigur Ros on the basis that I also like Christmas music. There are 1000s of normal, non Christmas-music loving people that feel the same about Sigur Ros). Anyway, the fact that the first rain happened at that exact moment brought me such intense happiness. It is a moment I will always always remember.
Here we all are after the show:
Oh and I also have to say something about watching the people's faces around me. Man, man, man, I was wishing I would have had my camera. . . . except for when it started pouring rain, then I was pretty glad I didn't have it. But I think I took a pretty good picture of some of them in my head, so it's covered, for me anyway. I feel like if there was some way we could catch every single person in the world in that feeling, there would be no hate. It somehow just seems impossible that you could see someone with that expression on their face, an expression that looks as if they were communing directly with God, and feel angst toward them. Everyone just appeared so filled with self-love. I don't even know that I recognized the look as that in the moment, but now I think that's what it was.
It was a good place to be.

So then Saturday and Sunday were the Hardly Stricktly Bluegrass Festival. This was the first time Shawn and I had been, but I think it will be a new tradition. It was as if they were putting on a show just for me- like someone looked at my faves list on the ipod and made a live concert out of them! We saw my love, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Buddy Miller, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Greg Brown, and Iron& Wine, (as well as Hot Rize, who I didn't previously know). Sitting in the warm sun, listening to great music, for free. What more can you ask for! (funny how the rain and the sun could both be so perfect). My favorite of these was, not surprisingly, Iron & Wine. Shawn wants to see if Sam would be willing to live in our basement and sing to us every night. . . . I have my doubts, but it's good to have a dream. That man writes some seriously amazing lyrics.
So there it was, a really good weekend. Except for the part where I didn't get to see my mom :)