Ye Gods, Woman!

Do ya ever feel like the gods are tryin’ to tell you something? You know how that is: no matter what you do to try to push the river, the river pushes back and, there you are tryin’ and tryin’ only to be treading in place so you might as well just go with the flow.

That happened to me yesterday. No matter what I did or what happened that seemed to allow for what I wanted; it just wasn’t going to happen.

This all started on Thursday when I made the mistake of reading the local paper and discovering that Roseanne Cash, one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, was going to be performing (FOR FREE) at Albuquerque’s Summerfest in downtown Albuquerque. Oh! Oh! Oh! I was SO excited!

And then the river-roll started…

Our, ahem, “babysitter” bagged on S, at the last damned minute, and I ended up having to change my schedule at work to be home in time for S to drive up into the Sandia mountains for a wedding that was taking place on 07/07/07, at 7:07PM. Roll the dice! I was able to get my schedule changed and would be home in time to be with the boys.

Then I read the paper. Oh! Oh! Roseanne Cash!!! And it went like this:

(Sheepishly) “Hon? When do you think you’ll be done with your wedding shoot?”

“Oh, sometime around 9-ish and I should be home by ten. Why?”

“Well, I just read that Roseanne Cash will be performing at Summerfest and I’d really, really like to go. I mean, when was the last time you saw me this excited about any ol’ singer/band? I don’t think I’ve ever… well, wait, there was that time in Chicago and I wanted to see Etta James and then there was Henry Rollins, in Springfield, remember that? Freakin’ Springfield. But, you know, anyway, I really, really love Roseanne Cash…” And then I went into her professional and personal lineage and how I’d gone to one of her songwriting workshops and how she was married to Rodney Crowell, you know, one of Emmylou Harris’ original Hot Band members, how she has had her nose fixed, because, really, if you had Johnny Cash’s nose, wouldn’t you get a bob? And I love her Seven Year Ache album and she’s really nice, even though she kinda looks mean but that may be because of the bobbed nose… yadda, yadda…

So, anyway, it would seem ye gods would cooperate as S got done early and was headed back down the mountain at around 8:15 and, yep, we could go to the 9:00 o’clock concert. I was very excited, so much so that I actually changed out of my work clothes, got the boys ready, and was impatiently waiting for S to roll into the driveway.

Oh, man, it’s really blowin’ outside. Wow, check that lightening! Holy Mother! Wow, it’s really raining, I mean, pouring in the northeast area of ABQ. Check it. Hmmm… Which way is the wind blowin’? Geez, it’s blowing south. I wonder if this huge storm is going to come our way. Well, it seems to be pretty far away (we live up on the mesa and can see across the city, into the valley, and well to the north and south of us) so, I don’t think it’ll actually come into the city because, well, every other monsoonal storm has missed us and, sure we really need the rain but, I’ll bet it just rolls on up into the mountains.

S got home, we piled into the Rodeo, I drove (’cause I knew EXACTLY where I was going) and we jammed onto the freeway.

Wow… check out that lightening. God, will you look at that? Holy Brother!

“Miss Natalie? Could you turn on some tunes? I’m scared and don’t want to hear the thunder.” came a small voice from the backseat.

Man, check all the crap blowing on the freeway. Holy Cow this wind is strong. Geez, do you think it’s really going to rain downtown? Crap. It’s starting to rain. Tsk… Well, we’ll be in the shelter of the buildings downtown; I think we’ll be okay. (The entire time I’m talking, S is nodding her head and not saying much. Finally, she pipes up with, “It’s your decision, hon. I’m just a little concerned about this lightening. It’s pretty bad.” And it is and I start to mutter under my breath, “Damn ye gods…”)

We got all the way downtown and started the whole, drive-around-the-block-and-try-to-determine-whether-we-should-park-or-not-deal. We pulled-up next to the Civic Plaza and were stuck in traffic. I could hear the announcer. It was now 9:01PM. I know this because some skater-kids were sitting on the wall and asked me what time it was and when I answered them, I realized she was just about to come on. Then I heard,

“Ladies and gentleman… It is my distinct pleasure to present to you, Grammy Award Winner, ROSEANNE CASH!”

And then the skies opened and it began to pour buckets of rain and I couldn’t hear anything except for the loud, grating, irritating, wanna-ram-you, BASS-BOOMS, of the car next to me. I wanted to take all of my frustrations out on Mr. Blacktruckwithreallybadbuzzingspeakersboomingatdeafeningdecibels and just rage at him. Yeah, road-rage, or more appropriately, side-street-rage.

Instead, I gave up. I threw my hands in the air (and drove with my knees) while muttering, “Damn it. Damn IT. DAMN it. DAMN IT!” all the way to the freeway access. It was raining so hard that, as we sat under the overpass, we noticed the water was streaming off the freeway gutters in river-like proportions. Someone actually said, “If you don’t like the weather in Albuquerque, wait a minute and it’ll change.” Not so for about an hour and a half later, it was still pouring rain.

We were all hungry so we went through the drive-thru at McDonald’s and had cheeseburgers at 10:00 o’clock at night.

Yeah; I went to see Roseanne Cash and all I got was this danged cheeseburger.

It was quite the bonding experience as all of us were scared to death from the incredible lightening. Have you ever been driving and wondered what would happen if lightening was striking, would you actually be able to drive through it and survive? Or would you be electrocuted? Or would your rubber tires ground you? Or would the odds of actually being hit be offset by ye gods of chance?

S, always trying to make me feel better, (and never quite achieving the effect of “feel better”) says to me, “Well, she’s a Grammy Award Winner. Do you really think the show went on?”

I don’t care if the show went on. I only wanted the show to happen. The real tease was hearing her introduction which, apparently, was as close as I was gonna get.

Dear Roseanne,
I love you. Wish I could have seen/heard you. Please come back because…
“If you don’t like the weather in Albuquerque, wait a minute and it will change.”

I’ll be patiently waiting and, well, praying…

Oh, well… there’s always Queen Ida and the Bon Temp Zydeco Band… in the middle of monsoon, downtown, same damned time, same damned place…