The old broken stars they fall down on the land

So, last night we made the journey into Waterville to see James McMurty perform at the Opera House.

The House was full; I think the three empty seats in the row directly in front of us may have been the only empty seats.  It was a crowd almost exclusively made up of the gray of hair, and all of us had a startlingly raucous good time.

I had one of those Awkward Moments of Mortality when the Aggressively Blonde woman in her Coordinated Outfit sitting beside Steve got up to dance.  "Really?" I thought.  "She's sixty-five if she's a day."

hi-hat

James, who was without the Heartless Bastards for this show, sang and played for two hours straight.  You know what?  Having just recently finished a tour where all I did was sit and talk for two hours, I don't know how he did it.  I went back to the hotel exhausted, and my voice still hasn't recovered.  James has another show tonight, in New Hampshire.

If you get a chance to see James perform -- grab it.

Even if your hair isn't gray.

* * *

. . .so, today at the Confusion Factory, having identified the Cause of the Stuckness on First of Five, I will be going through Dragon Ship and extracting a chronology so I can figure out where I am in Space and Time.  I suspect this will show me that the two story arcs I had thought to tackle this time are mismatched, which will mean I'll need to sort through my Big Box of Story Tackle and Spare Parts to find the correct linkage, which is kind of a pain in the hat.

But not as much of a pain in the hat as writing three-quarters of a book and then realizing that the timing's off.

* * *

Fans of Sprite will be pleased to know that she has ascended from the Cold and Dreary Basement and is now spending almost all of her time upstairs in the warm world, where she has become the Terror of the Stuffed Chipmunk, and started circulating a petition to ensure that All The Hugs Belong to Her.

The petition has little chance of getting enough signatures in this house, but its nice to see that she's civic minded.

The rest of the cats continue, mostly unperturbed.  Mozart accords the kid a sort of absent-minded goodwill; and she's respectful, as is proper.  Scrabble, of course, isn't about to take any 'tude from an overpowered kitten, no matter how tall she is.

Trooper actually deals with her the most, which is a mixed blessing, I think, from his perspective.  On the one paw, it's good to have somebody to play tag and wrestle with.  On the other paw, she's trying to take over all the Good Places he's identified for himself.

On the left hind paw, though, he's not shy about asserting his rights, when they matter.  Just yesterday, Sprite had taken over the Plan B box in my office, and Trooper decided that he wanted it.  So, he just. . .walked in, apparently intending to lie down on the kitten, if that's what it took.

The kitten vacated in favor of the blue rug behind my chair.

And thus. . .tranquility reigns at the Cat Farm.

What did y'all do this weekend that was fun?