Day Twenty-Nine...

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...came in like a lamb and left like a lion. Mike's sister Kathy came over to pick us up for more visiting. We drove to visit some Houlihan cousins (Mike and Kathy's mom's side of the family). Lois is one of Jeanette's nieces. She and her husband Henry live in a large, very well-kept 55 and older mobile home park. Their daughter Cathy was there to visit as well. Lois had recently had a repeat knee replacement surgery so she was stuck in her chair with her leg propped up. She was scheduled for physical therapy too soon after the first surgery so it messed everything up. After the second surgery her doctor told her not to do anything until he specifically told her himself. With daytime television not being what it used to be, she looks at pictures of her grandchildren in addition to the two soap operas she still watches. Mike and Henry reminisced about Henry, Joe (Mike and Kathy's dad) and their other buddies and caught up on what other members of the families are up to. Because Kathy (what is it with these families and the name K/Cathy?) was on a tight schedule, we could only stay for an hour or two. All too soon it was time to say our good-byes.

Kathy dropped us off back at Kathy's house (see what I mean?!?). She had to head back to the hotel, check out, return the rental car, check in at a hotel near the airport, grab a shower and dinner and get to Fenway Park in time for the Foo Fighters concert with a few coworkers. As we're standing in the driveway she uses her finely honed sales skills and convinces us we need to go to the concert as well. It wasn't sold out, some additional tickets had been released and the Dropkick Murphys were the second opening act. She's gooooooood. So I guess we're going to a concert.

Okay, now we have to figure out how to get there because we sure aren't DRIVING. An hour later we were on our way to catch the commuter train into Boston's South Station where we would pick up the Red subway line to Park Street, transfer to the Green subway line and take that to Kenmore. I gotta tell you, they have a good mass transit system here; you just have to understand and remember what "Inbound" and "Outbound" mean. We grabbed sandwiches at Dunkin' Donuts for dinner. Mike didn't know they served anything but coffee and donuts.

As we walked the few blocks to Fenway, we could hear the first opening act play. We entered the ballpark just as they were finishing their set. They were loud...really loud. Glad we missed them. We found our seats...third base line...next to the visitors dugout...second row. These would be AWESOME baseball seats. A little far away and not quite high enough for a concert. The stage was set up in center field. There were seats in the outfield, but the people with those tickets didn't use them. We could barely see the band's heads over the fans' heads. It was a good thing they had big screens on either side of the stage for people like us. In the end, it didn't really matter because the sound was great and the shows were fantastic. Next up--Dropkick Murphys. We really like them. They're a Celtic punk band from Quincy, Mass complete with accordion, tin whistle and bagpipes. We sang along to all the songs we knew. Mike was surprised I was enthusiastically singing Tessie even though the song is about the Red Sox , but hey, it's a catchy tune. I just didn't say Boston or Red Sox when those lyrics came. For some reason they don't play that song outside of Massachusetts. Their set lasted about an hour.

Last on the bill was the headlining Foo Fighters. They were really good. About halfway through their show, lead singer Dave Grohl showed video footage of him breaking his leg during a show in Sweden and still shots of his x-rays and hospital stay. He's still in a cast of sorts so he sits while performing. He's not sitting on a stool or anything so mundane. No. He's got a motorized throne decked out with stage lights and guitar necks. It began raining before they came on and continued all through their show. The rain felt good. Felt like home. Unfortunately though, because of the rain and the darkness most of the Foo Fighters pictures we took didn't turn out well. The light bouncing off the rain drops made everything fuzzy. Bummer.

We had to leave the concert early to ensure we caught the last train out of Boston back to Middleboro. After we left Mike shared with me a vision that popped into his head as he watched the throne moving around the stage. He envisioned a Spinal Tap kind of moment in which the throne approached the front of the stage, the guy with the remote lost control of the chair, the chair gets closer and closer to the edge, Dave Grohl looks around beginning to panic and the chair rolls off the stage, breaking his other leg.

Yet another long, very fun day. I think most of our time here will be like that. It's all good.

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Comments

[Tee]

Gosh, I hope I haven't over said it, but I am STILL so excited for you guys! Doing so much, having a good amount of time to do it in. So exciting! And as I keep saying, thank you so much for the blogging!