1. After sleeping in and resting up after being out late Wednesday night, I supercharged my day by yakkin' with Dan Armstrong for an hour on the telephone. We spent a lot of high quality time talking about movies, especially film noir. Dan taught Film Studies at LCC for many, many years and I consider him the honorary dean of Vizio University. I could have continued this conversation for another couple of hours, but the time we did have was jam-packed with superb analysis, story summaries, and excited and positive evaluation of a number of movies from the 1940s and 1950s.
2. Stoked after yakkin' with Dan, I then fired myself up even more by sitting down at The Paddock and having lunch with Linda Schantol, the administrative assistant of the academic division I worked in for many, many years. Linda is the most devoted Oregon Duck fan I know and I was happy that she is pleased with the Ducks' football season so far. We also discussed Linda's retirement. Her last day of work at LCC will be in mid-December and she's looking forward to having time to rest, enjoy herself, and not have to contend with the day to day problems she's faced all these years in her work. There will be a party for her on Dec. 7th and I am beginning to scheme and dream how I'll return to Eugene and attend the celebration.
3. Jeff and I went to Pandita, a taqueria with a twist, serving fusion cuisine. I ordered what I'd call a fusion of Mexican and Japanese cuisine. It was a salmon tostada. The salmon and avocado and cilantro were served on won ton chips and seasoned with a delicious Japanese vinaigrette. I loved it. The flavors were creatively combined and delicious to eat.
After we finished dinner, Jeff and I went to the WOW Hall to hear Terrapin Flyers, a Grateful Dead cover band. .
I hadn't been in WOW Hall since the July 22, 2017 Babes with Axes reunion show and I loved being back.
The Terrapin Flyers show was a lot like a Grateful Dead show, only on a much much smaller scale. The audience consisted of people of all ages, with many adults around my age and older dressed in tie dyed shirts. Some even wore tie dyed pants. Nearly everyone (but not I) stood for the whole show and danced in various styles. Some swayed in place, others wove through the crowd, dipping, extending their arms and hands in various directions. I didn't see any spinners. What I did see was happiness and joy. I witnessed many people embracing one another, as if they were attending a reunion.
I loved it. It took me back to when I used to dance maniacally during WOW Hall shows and also took me back to the mass of people swaying and dancing and loving the scene at Grateful Dead shows.
The best thing about the evening was that the band was superb. Their musicianship was stellar, their vocals, especially their harmonies, were clear and tight, and they played a superb variety of Grateful Dead songs, including, but not limited to "My Uncle and Me", Cumberland Blues", "Eyes of the World", "The Wheel", "The Other One", "Mason's Children", and several others. Their encore performance of "Ripple" was gorgeous and calming.
It was a memorable and uplifting night.
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