A Weekend for the Ages

Most of the time, my weekends are hectic with appointment after appointment for my second job. I love it, which is why I continue to do this job despite its erratic nature and uncertain future.  But, I digress.

This weekend I had no appointments. No Sunday morning appointment that starts at 8am over an hour away. No Saturday afternoon trips to Madison to fight against traffic trying to go to Badger basketball games and 5K runs by the state capitol.  None of it.

But it was excellent anyway.

We went to the Farmers' Market on Saturday morning. We bought three pounds of honey and watched a friend of ours play in his bluegrass band.  Then I came home and went for a walk on an unseasonably warm day.

I don't really understand the desire to fish as a past time and ICE fishing seems to add another level of sadistic tendency that definitely takes it off my radar of enjoyable leisure activities, but it seems to be quite an attraction for Wisconsin men of certain ages, so who am I to judge?  I covertly took a picture of them before I continued on my quest for five miles a day.

Saturday night was the main event of the weekend. We went to see Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives at the Stoughton Opera House in Stoughton, Wisconsin.

First up , the Opera House itself is lovely. The acoustics were wonderful, everything went smoothly, and I think we're going to try to get to a show there at least once or twice a year from here on out. The tickets were only $40, but Dr. BB bought them in November or December, so you have to plan ahead since the venue is so small and popular that shows frequently sell out.

And then there's Marty Stuart and his band. I put this on my Christmas list because I thought it was a live musical experience both my husband I would enjoy. There's only a small piece of overlap in our musical enjoyment Venn diagram and Stuart fills the space nicely. Neither of us LOVE him, but we like him well enough.  But I was seriously overwhelmed with the experience. It was so delightful. Stuart's voice translates so much better live than it does on recordings. I found it deeper and richer than anything I'd heard from him before.

And the three members of the Superlatives?   They were amazing.  I would have been content to listen to them all night long, even if Stuart hadn't been there.  (Don't get me wrong - I totally squealed "THAT'S MARTY STUART" when he came on stage, which made Dr. BB laugh because OF COURSE that was Marty Stuart.)  If you get a chance to see him on this tour, do so!!!

He played some Stuart classics like "I'm Tempted", "Hillbilly Rock," and "The Whiskey Ain't Working Anymore," but he also played some songs off his new album and allowed each of the members of his band to perform some of their solo works. It was awesome.  Look how happy we were.

And Sunday morning we slept in, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and early afternoon stroll before doing some work for school.  And petting fuzzy kitty bellies.