An Unexpected Dream Come True

Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose parents held, briefly, season tickets to the local concert venue known as Pine Knob. That summer, those parents went to several concerts at Pine Knob, while the little girl and her younger brother stayed the nights of the concerts with their grandparents.

Actually, this is a true story.  Late summer, 1978.  The little girl was me.  I was six.  Bob Seger was my most favorite musician of all. I loved to listen to my parents' records, especially Bob Seger ones.  If they didn't want to listen to music, I would beg to be allowed to plug the headphones into the turntable and listen all by myself while everyone else watched TV or did other things.

One evening,my parents were going to Pine Knob to see Bob Seger.  I didn't know this until they dropped my brother and I off at our grandparents (whom we loved to spend the night with), and Grandma asked who was doing the concert that night.  Bob Seger, they told her. 

Bob Seger!  That changed everything. I did not want to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa.  I wanted to go see Bob Seger!  Those of you who are parents can imagine the scene that ensued: stubborn 6 year old girl not wanting her parents to go to the Bob Seger concert without her.

In fact, I still remember chasing my parents' car down the (not terribly busy) road beside Grandpa and Grandma's house, crying and yelling for them to come back and take me to the concert, Grandma running behind trying to catch me before another car came along and ran me over!!! You could say it was one of those events that leaves a lasting impression on a child's life.

Fast forward 41 years.  Historically, DH and I have not been concert goers.  Our lifestyle and budget hasn't included many live performances of anything, especially music, unless our children were the ones performing.  I can count on one hand how many 'real' concerts I've been to in my life.

Bob Seger went on tour again this year.  His final one, it seems (or, at least that's how it was billed, and at 74, you wonder how many concerts he has left to sing).  Did I want to go?  Badly.  Extremely badly. Did we have money to go? No.  This summer, this whole year actually, has seemed like one surprise financial challenge after another.  So I resigned myself that I would never see Bob Seger in concert.

But then something happened, that at the time seemed completely unrelated to concert going.  DH had an unusual work assignment that had him out of the country for nearly three weeks.  And there wasn't a whole lot of lead time to prep for it. Saying that I found this sudden (and, at the time, length undefined) departure traumatic would be an understatement. We're not talking a normal work trip that has him 2-3 time zones away for a week or maybe two. We're talking other side of the world, days and nights reversed, not sure when he'll be back or if we'll even be able to talk on the phone daily.

Well, we got through that.  Maybe someday I'll even write a post about the experience.  And once DH came back, and spent about four days recuperating (while maintaining his normal work day) from both the jet lag and the ungodly long work hours put in while in this other country, he found out he'd earned some extra special recognition at work.  Some sort of points redeemable for goods kind of thing.

Here's where these two seemingly unrelated stories blend. 

One of the options for points redemption was tickets to the concert venue DTE Energy Music Theater.  Formerly, in my childhood, known as Pine Knob. Can you guess where this is going?

YES!! DH and I went to the Bob Seger concert on our wedding anniversary in June!  For free!!  (Well, for a lot of those "you done good" points he'd gotten at work.)

We had awesome seats, the below picture was from where I stood, not even zoomed in. We were that close to the stage. 

I had just the most fantastic time. And a long held dream of mine came true. I might not be 6 (I'm 47), but for a while, I was a little girl watching her most favorite musician--he has always remained my #1-- on stage and listening to him sing (and me signing along) the songs of my youth. What an unexpected dream come true, in the strangest of plot twists.

I got to see Bob. At Pine Knob.

A Chapter Ended

The California Horse has returned home.  Well, to his owner's parents, at least.  Not to California, where he originally came to Michigan from in May 2017, but to the farm in Oregon they had purchased since then.

After a little more than two years of leasing him, the time came to say goodbye.  I most definitely miss him.  Not just the daily routine we had, no it's more than that. I think that possibly I have felt a deeper connection with this horse than any of the ones I owned.

In the early morning hours last Wednesday, as the sun was rising, I met the horse shipper at the barn.  The California Horse's owner had made all the travel arrangements with them, I just needed to provide his paperwork for interstate travel, and have him and his gear ready to load onto the big trailer that would carry him away to his retirement out West.

This horse has offered me the chance to take my riding to a whole new level, and even as he was leaving, I again got a new experience: loading a horse onto a big horse van.  I was the one to lead him up that ramp on the side of the trailer, and stand with him while the stall partitions were put into place around him.  Other than snorting a little, and standing at attention with his head up, reminding me just how huge an 18 hand horse is, he was very good.

He waited patiently for everything to be secured, the ramp to be stowed, and the door shut.

Then the chapter where he and I share life together closed, and he left for the new chapter of his.

Goodbye, California Horse.  Thanks for the experiences, the knowledge and the memories I will carry with me forever!

(Post Script: I got a text, about 48 hours later, that he had arrived to Oregon safely and was settling into his new home.)

Yarn Along: August; socks & socks & a shawl

Happy Yarn Along Day!  I'm excited to join Ginny for this month's Yarn Along.  For some reason, it just seems like it was forever since the July edition.

There's been several car trips for me in the past month, which means lots and lots of sock knitting.  Because socks are such an easy, portable project that fit (mostly) right in my lap, I can while away those hours as a passenger quite productively.

I finished the On The Fence socks I talked about last month.

And I so loved doing colorwork socks that I immediately found a new pattern and yarn combo for another pair.  Might be selfish, but I'm keeping both the On The Fence socks and my current project, Christmas Eve socks, for myself.  Kind of handy that the other female members of the family (K3 and my mother withstanding) have larger feet than me. So, if I want to keep a particular pair, I just don't knit any longer of a foot than I need my personal socks to be.  :0)  I do have another color combo of yarn in the wings for a second pair of Christmas Eve socks for someone else, if I have time to get them knit yet this year.

But for the ones that are mine, all mine, I am using two colorways of Knit Picks Stroll Tweed: dove heather and forest heather.  The colors are gorgeous together, better than what the photo makes them look.

I am nearly finished with the blue and grey Beachcomber Shawl that I mentioned in last month's yarn along post. I had started it, only to find I was using a size 6 needle rather than a size 8 (darn tiny numbers on those interchangeable tips!), so I ripped it out and started again with the correct size.  It's a very fast knit and I only have two rows of the final lace chart to complete, then it's on to the picot bind off!  

Once that is off the needles, I have in mind some grandchildren-sized sweaters to knit before Christmas.  I think I can get three little sweaters done. . . the biggest one will be a girl's size 8, and the smallest a 6-9 months. . . There's plenty of time to get them made, right? Plus finish my Christmas Eve socks, of course.  I find it's nice to have a "big needle" project and a pair of socks going at the same time.  You never know when you're going to need a portable project. ;0)

I read quite a bit this past month (also a by product of increased time in the passenger seat).  I finished the Fall of Giants that I was reading in July, then read Death on Tap as well as Meet Your Baker, both of which are fun mysteries by Ellie Alexander.  After that I read Wildflower Heart by Grace Greene, which was a good book but after the others it kind of fell flat with me.  Not on the same par.  So, I ordered up another Ken Follett book, Winter of the World, from the library, and read the vast majority of it over a (not very enjoyable) weekend camping/canoeing & kayaking trip with a group of people who, it turned out, like to sit around and do a whole lot of nothing while yapping about a whole lot of nothing.  Since I'm awful at sitting for any length of time without something the engage my hands and/or brain, and I have a low tolerance for mindless chatter, I read. Ended up finishing the giant Follett book in less than a week.  Rude of me?  Maybe.  But to me, not sticking to the plans and therefore missing out on 1/2 the time we'd planned to be on the water was rather rude.  Kayaking was the whole reason I had decided to go on the three day trip with this particular group.  Anyway. . .

How's your knitting and reading been?