The Bonnie Raitt Day

There I was. Innocently looking at puppy rescue vids on YouTube. Sad puppy covered in fleas rescued from abandoned house, starving puppy rescued from garbage bag thrown on side of busy highway, sad puppies found in field during rain storm. The usual heart-tugging footage of abused puppies saved and adopted out to nice homes. Okay.

What do I see but Bonnie Raitt will be in Boise on August 14. Get your tickets now!

It’s May. I dither for a day or so, check the prices, which are jaw-droppingly expensive. I have not attended a concert since…um…Aerosmith? In Boise? Years and years ago? Yes, that’s the case here. I finally take the plunge, get my ticket at the cheapest price I can find. Wahooo! Going to Bonnie Raitt at the Boise Botanical Gardens.

Birthday present to myself.

Time marches on. It’s August all of a sudden. I’ve been job-hunting, sobbing over my lack of abilities to land a job and then, get a job. At a hotel. I am slated to start trainings the day after the concert. I figure that will be fine, it’s only four hours, whatever.

No no no. As Ugh, the post before this says, I started training the Thursday before the concert. I had to nix Sunday as it cut into my going to the concert time.

Did I mention where the concert is actually taking place? An open field. Bring your own chair. A list of instructions a mile long, plus hey, don’t try and park near the event. Take the shuttle! It’s here, on this vague map! Outlaw Field, to be exact, beneath the big hill with the cross on it. I spend two fucking days looking for a chair. I have to buy a chair. Or stand there for two hours. I also get myself a water bottle. Where I work is right by the local Wal-Mart.

I get this email from the event center on Friday. The concert is Sunday.

By Saturday, the night before my birthday present– I’m a tired, used up tube of nothing. Front desk is exhausting, confusing, bewildering.

I wake up Sunday exhausted and spent. Don’t wanna go nowhere! Have actual thoughts of just staying home. But no, I have a small royalty check that needs to be deposited. I found and bought a chair! Twenty bucks, little director’s chair, it’s perfect. Comfy and low. I can get in and out of it without embarrassing myself. So instead of loading up my route on my phone at home, where I have the internet, I, sigh…yeah. I attempt this in the next town over and guess who didn’t think about how phones and connections works because she’s tired and stressed as hell over new job?

But! Intrepid me also typed out directions for the parking garage in downtown Boise and where the shuttle is and how to get out of downtown Boise and back to the freeway!! Thank goodness.

Boise, by the way, is a confusing mass of one-way streets downtown. It’s just a giant rat’s maze. I, however, know that W. Front Street becomes the freeway. If you can find that one way, you can get back to I-84, which can take you back toward Ontario or forward toward Mountain Home. There’s also lots of construction going on. Which can reroute you and…I didn’t hit any of that.

I manage to find N. 8th Street. No parking garage. I park on the street, after asking at the little gas station on the corner of 8th and W. Fort. Very nice guy helped me. He didn’t have to. I do mean nice, genuinely nice. I have to circle about, and nearly get lost trying to get back on 8th. No parking garage, so I just park on the street, being careful about no parking zones, or meters. I leave my GMC there, locked up, get my chair and backpack with my bottle of frozen water– so I’d have ice water at the concert. I know the shuttle stop is, allegedly about a ten minute walk away, by the Wells Fargo bank.

Fuck me running, can I find this place? No. I go up and down the streets it’s supposed to be one or near. Nada. Nothin’. An hour of this. It’s six. The concert starts at seven. I’m a sweaty, dripping mess.

I get back to the gas station. I have to beg the attendant for help as I have no internet connection on my phone. Can’t find a wifi that’s free in the area to use. It’s Sunday eve. Uber? Taxi? Taxi, it is.

I get one to show up. At six thirty. I breathe a bit easier, the place isn’t that far off if he quoted me a reasonable price like that. Twenty five bucks, plus taxes, etc. Sure. I just want to get there, I have cash. I’ve spent nearly the cost of the tickets on taxis, chairs, gas– because I forgot to fill up at home on the farm gas tank–and so forth.

Taxi shows up. He’s also very nice, a hustler but I don’t care at this point. I would have handed him my torn off arm if he could get me anywhere near where I was supposed to be. We hit concert traffic and it’s a crawl. It’s L.A. traffic time. And the minutes are ticking. I help the driver take down an address as he blanked on how to spell ‘highway’. He’s got an accent I can’t place, but it sounds Eastern European. He has to send a driver to Lowman, Idaho, about two hours away from Boise, to pick up a guy for the airport. Three hundred plus dollars. The airport is his bread and butter.

Finally, close to seven, I get let out near the Boise Botanical Garden. 40 bucks. I’m fine with this. He was great, got me there, got me as close as he could, hustled me a bit, sure.

I see hordes of other people, with chairs. I follow them, get in line, wait another half an hour, with the opening act, Mavis Staples, already slinging the blues into the evening air. She sounds fantastic.

Did I mention the strap on my little backpack keeps breaking? I finally hook it to the plastic thing that allows you to adjust the strap…if the strap wasn’t broken, frayed and bad.

I’d drained the melted water in my water bottle so I’m very thirsty. But read, in that email, that there’s a water station to refill bottles. M’kay.

It’s probably a hundred or more, btw.

I wait in line. I get my backpack and chair inspected; I pass. I get waved with the wand for security. I get my ticket scanned. I’m in!

It’s a giant field. There’s a banner that announces it’s Outlaw Field. Mavis is still performing. I see some space at the very edge of the grass and decide to just plop it there. Done. Get my chair unfolded, I sit and slump, almost shaking with how much I’ve done to get here.

Mavis finishes. Bonnie Raitt will be on stage in probably half an hour.

I try to get some water, as my ice isn’t melting very fast. It’s ten bucks for two tokens or something. I ask where the water station is. It’s across the entire field, next to the stage. I walk over that way, find it, fill my bottle up twice. I drink down the first one, refill. I feel a lot better and less shaky.

Did I mention the two cuties who sat next to me? These two cute friends [or girlfriends], with tons of food and just happy to be there smiles. Very friendly sorts.

Bonnie takes the stage at last. She’s in a bright turquoise top and her red hair can be seen from space. Nobody is supposed to take pictures or record anything. But. All around me are people doing just that on their phones. I, too, snap a few pics but the security taps me and tells me to stop. Nobody else around me taking pictures got talked to but I did. Sigh.

She sounds wonderful. Relaxed, at ease, a total pro. She sings Angel From Montgomery. I’m just so happy! She does some new stuff, some old stuff. There’s plenty of blues slide guitar. She says nice things about Boise and how beautiful it is there. The night starts to fall and I’m glad I went.

Okay. So I leave when everyone else starts to leave. I’m mad determined to find this shuttle and see where I went so wrong.

Find the shuttle!! I’m asking everyone like a dork where it is and the guy directing traffic points behind me with the look of ‘right there, idiot’ on his sweaty face. Did I mention it’s a superhot day?

I clamber aboard, with my chair. I stand in the very back, as it’s already full. A guy gives me his seat, I take it. We’re off into traffic! It’s wall to wall cars leaving the place, of course but eventually, the bus gets us back to the Wells Fargo stop. My jaw drops. I’ve been here before. Ugh!

I calculate that I am parked directly down from the bus stop.

I walk and walk and walk, in the dark, carrying my chair and my about to fall apart backpack. Yes, that building looks familiar. I remember that church.

The numbers are going up as I trudge down N. 8th Street. Is that my GMC??

It is! I made it back to my car!

Getting back to the freeway. Of course I go the wrong way on 9th street but I do a u-turn and find W. Front Street, and the freeway and home. I left at three or so and got back at midnight.

Will I ever attend a concert there again? Probably not. But now I know where everything is and how to get there and back again. Experience added into my brain cabinets. I got a souvenir hat.

The end.

Ugh

Started new job. Training. I suck. I feel very stupid and incapable. Never done this kind of wok before so maybe I should go a bit easier on self? Huh. Hotel work. Yeah.

Rescued four toads this morn from sunken dog pond. They were very cold and sluggish. I need to put something in there that wildlife can cling to or climb aboard if I don’t get out there in a timely manner.

Trying to get stuff written and submitted.

Oh hey, I have a new book out. The Adventure of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus. It’s a fun, breezy read. No, really, it is. There’s some gore, violence, a bit of sex, even…I know!

That’s all I got. My brain is a blank hunk of quivering jelly.

F

I don’t know if you can cuss in a title but the F word sums up my August 2022 situation so far.

Looking for a job has always been a horror shitshow for me. I guess I need a makeover/faery godmother/trust fund intervention here.

I got three rejections on the same day. Nothing new but they were awful quick after I’d sent off my hopeful little submissions. Whack me with a hammer. It’s kinder. Maybe.

I am writing. Terse little sci fi attempts, mostly. I did get an idea for a possible novel out of one of those sci fi stories. That’s something, right? I can’t seem to concentrate longer than five seconds right now, so might be a while before I actually force myself to attempt the first chapter.

Going to the Bonnie Raitt concert in Boise next weekend. A bright spot!

I’ll end there. Oh and the squash bugs have killed a pumpkin, a zuke and a cuke plant. Fucking things.

PS– I just, um, got a job. Just like that. Yeah. Weird. But hey, thanks for zooming through my words a bit today.

August Can Go Away Now

It’s way too hot here in Eastern Oregon. Triple digit hell. Just send winter now, thanks. I’d rather have to hunt down my socks and dig out the extra blankets than stay awake all night waiting for it to cool down enough to sort of sleep. Air conditioning? No. No, I have none of that. No.

My country. Yeah. Why even bother at this point? Except there are GLIMMERS of HOPE.

Like when Kansas rejected an abortion ban measure that would have changed their state constitution. I do mean an overwhelming FUCK YOU to the forced pro-birthers throbbing to turn quite a lot of Americans into livestock. Who are quite happy to have ten year rape victims give birth no matter what and people in medical distress due to pregnancy complications just die. Just die already if you can’t produce some livestock, bitches. Yeah. I think that’s the new GOP slogan. I swear I saw that flashing under Tucker Carlson’s made up story on [pick a subject here].

Or that Alex Jones, possibly an actual monster in a human skin, is getting his monster ass handed to him in a court trial as if written by sadistic monkeys on meth. There’s conjectures that Alex and his seemingly incompetent lawyer are trying to get a mistrial declared. This, of course, would benefit Monster Jones. The plaintiffs would have to start all over again– that’s the parents of a child murdered at Sandy Hook, by the way.

This is the how much should Jones pay out trial, as he was found guilty already of turning Sandy Hook into one of the biggest conspiracy theories out there. Jones’s followers also turned the lives of Sandy Hook parents into living nightmares, and one parent even took their own life over the accusations that the rampage was staged, that no children died, that…yeah.

If you want a truly deep dive into Alex Jones and Sandy Hook, I’d start with Jordan and Dan of the Knowledge Fight podcast. You can go back through their back catalog, after listening to the present day updates on the trial, etc and get a grasp on the genesis of the Alex Jones Sandy Hook ghastliness.

One of my fave podcasts, by the way, and really entertaining as well as infuriating on how awful Alex Jones truly is.

Trying to find a job. I won’t go into that, it would just be me screaming and staring at my phone.

The squash bugs have killed my zuke plant. God damn it! I got three zukes and then the poor plant got overwhelmed. Apparently, you need to tackle these bugs in early spring/late fall. As when they’re adults, you might as well burn your squash patch and sob uncontrollably over the nastiness of nature.

Oh!

I tried my hand at horror erotica. I used a fake name to submit it. I had one rejected– to be fair, it was over the top graphic, extreme and involved fisting and an extra long tongue. Yeah. Mm. But my second attempt is a bit more mild. A threesome, some murderous, horny ghosts…yeah. Hope it’s better received or at least not rejected so quickly. Bwahahahahaha.

I also attempted a horror gothic romance. I really like how it turned out, even if they don’t like it. A lighthouse, a sexy hero who needed some saving himself, a capable heroine…fun stuff. I kept the sex and gore to a minimum. Which is so unlike me! I’ll be here all week, try the chicken. Oh, it’s called the Blackburne Lighthouse. That is a title to excite the most quiet of bosoms, eh?

I tried watching Persuasion over on Netflix. I got five minutes in. WTF is this fuckery? I did like the rabbit. I might try again. Does she talk to the camera the whole movie?

The whole movie???!!!

I had no overall theme in hand. Just rambling on a very hot August morning. Thunderstorms supposed to float in later today and tonight. We did have an actual rainy day to break up the triple digit kill me now heat. You expect 108 F in Las Vegas, after all. Not in Eastern Oregon. That temp or higher used to be a rarity. Used to be. Ahem.

To sum up– go listen to Knowledge Fight if you want to satisfy your Alex Jones itch. [Ooooh! Gross!] If you have no idea who Alex Jones is, bless you and hope it stays that way. No, seriously. He’s a toxic vat of poison with no redeeming social values. He spits out whatever he can think of to sell dick pills. And if you need a new podcast, try KF. You might hate it, but you might discover you, too, wish to worship Selene and wonder what Dan’s bright spot will be this time around.

My squash plants are under attack. I’ve been trying some sort of new forms of horror writing. Jane Austen should probably leave her grave and sue whoever made Persuasion with the lady from 50 Shades. She’s not a bad actress, so maybe she needs some help picking scripts.

Need to get some submissions out, water the lawn, mourn my squash plants and stare off into the middle distance with an expression of real dread on my sweaty, red face. Fun day coming up!