Concerts, and Movies, and Sunburns, Oh My!
So much! I had a packed 24 hours Friday through Saturday nights.
Casting Crowns' concert was amazing! Different than some other Christian-band's concerts I've been to before: I've been to a lot whose focus was largely on entertainment (Toby Mac and Out of Eden) and others whose focus was on a worship experience (Third Day, News Boys, Delirious?, David Crowder Band, etc.), Casting Crowns mostly on their message. It was still an amazing concert, but the band stopped every third song to talk to the audience, explaining some of the songs, attaching them to both scripture and life-application. They were also amazing musicians, fantastic entertainers, and sounded even better live than on their CDs. Lots of concerts are better than CDs, but mainly for the experience/ambiance/energy. While CC's had all of those things as well, they were also excellent live musicians.
Also, met my friend's new BF. I like him. Which was important to both her and me. Their relationship is still pretty new, but I think they're headed in a really good direction. It was also good to lie at opposite ends of her twin bed and stay up talking for an hour after we'd turned out the lights.
Note to those traveling through (or living near) Bozeman, MT: the Cateye is a fantastic little café on Tracey Street. You should stop in, and if you're a fan of spinach, try the Popeye Scramble.
Since I've only got about a third of my current journal remaining blank, I treated myself to a new one when we stopped into the Bozeman Borders. For some reason, Bozeman's store has a much better (or, at least, different) selection of journals than ours in Missoula does. It's a medium sized Paperblanks, and it's shimmery purple. Amazing!
Maybe this isn't the place to admit this sort of thing, but I managed to change clothes while driving. Something I'd never tired before, but I got it done and no one is worse for the wear.
On a separate driving incident, I burnt the crap out of my left arm driving westward while wearing a tank-top for several hours under an utterly cloudless summer sky. I'd originally thought I had enough driver's-tan built up that it wouldn't be a problem. Then, when I reached Rocker (after two-ish hours) I thought I'd best put a longer sleved shirt on to be safe. I slathered the sun-injured shoulder and upper forearm with various combinations of aloe, lidocaine, and moisturizing body cream, six or so times in as many hours, and it was a long night thereafter.
My sister's Birthday was yesterday, and so when I came back today we had dinner at Jonny Carino's, for, are you ready, $19.40. I was psyched that we stuffed ourselves on amazing bread and salad and came away from a very nice sit-down meal for less than twenty bucks.
Then, we saw WALL*E. Oh My Goodness! That was, in fact, as cute as everyone says it was. The short film at the beginning was marvelous. The premise of the main film was disturbing. I'd never thought to turn dystopia into a children's film. But it worked. It worked overall in an artistic sense, it kept the attention of the kids in our theater and I certainly hope it made the adults think. I almost wondered if it wasn't bordering on propaganda as a kid's movie, but the worst likely effect is that kids would think twice about throwing stuff away, or, just maybe, want to get up and do something active; and those certainly are not bad ideas. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It was well worth even the outrageous $8.25 a seat our local Carmike charges. (OK, so maybe that's not outrageous to everyone else, but I've been really spoiled by either dollar-theaters or at least student rates, and this town/theater has neither.)