January exudes CULTURE.

Thursday night live:

Two Happy Concert-goers at Somerville Theater 

Davis Square, Somerville.

One AWESOME show, One AWESOME date.

(and a nod to Mr. Dub, who was supposed to bring me to the Punch Brother's, but instead is bringing home the bacon.  From Florida.)

One fun, chatty car ride, a quick trip on the train and a yummy dinner at Chipotle's

The Secret Sisters opened.

TWO angelic voices:

I LOVED hearing them perform this

then

The PUNCH BROTHERS were the real deal.

They also made me resent my violin teacher just a TINY bit, for not having a little more Charlie Daniels in her.  I always did want to fiddle a bit more than my classical training repertoire left room for.

To say the concert was ENTERTAINING would be a gross understatement.  This was pure enjoyment.  I'm not sure what my favorite moment was, but it could have been in the middle of their show when they broke out into "Paper Back Writer" after I had just had the thought that something about their aura reminded me of the Beatles.  It could have been just listening to their banter while they tuned between songs.  It might have been after the standing ovation at the end of the show when the lead singer, Chris Thile returned to the stage with his mandolin, unaided by microphones or hook-ups and played an unearthly Bach prelude... this isn't it, but WOW he has talent.

Heavenly.

Another contender would have been the curtain call by both The Punch Brothers and The Secret Sisters (and a clever nod to being brothers and sisters after all) and the number they performed TOGETHER!! Transcendental.

Of course, key to the entertainment of the evening was not only sitting next to Annie-who's-blog-opened-my-eyes-to-The-Punch-Brothers-in-the-first-place on the train ride back and realizing she's even MORE lovely in person than she is on her blog; but also feeling like the parent who lost her child, when, upon returning to the train station, my date and I parted ways.  I caught a ride home with our fellow-concert goers, who live closer to my neck of the woods.  Dad climbed to level three or four, where we determined he had parked (after realizing we forgot to note at which level he had left the car) while the rest of us got off at level two.  Right in the spot I knew he had parked, on level TWO, I saw his car.  

I panicked, that feeling of a parent who has lost her child welling up in my throat, 

and hollered up to the void above me.

"Dad!"

nothing.

Again, "DA-AD!!"

to which I hear 

"what?!"

I yell up 

"Your car is down HERE!!... on Level TWO!"

I had a feeling he couldn't understand me, so I waited for a response, or to see him come walking down the stairs, and got nothing.  

I told my ride I was going to trot up a level or two, and make sure he knew where his car was.

Nothing.

It was like he had disappeared!

How does a grown man do that? I thought.

I went up, I went down. And again.

Nada.

I hurried back to my friends to let them know I was getting worried, when I thought to myself 

"Maybe I should just check the vehicle.  

Maybe he got there before me.  

Maybe... Maybe it WASN'T his car."

and there you have it.

It wasn't.

Lost child way ahead of me, probably paying his way out of the garage by the time I realized he wasn't misplaced at all.

the end.