Nothing much to report today. After we tracked down a Starbucks with our GPS (we were successful on our third attempt) we loaded up on coffee before heading up to Portland. The guys played at a bar they’d never played at before. It was a pretty cool set up, though it was not written in the paper with the other live music shows for that night. There were more than just the other bands and they’re girlfriends there, so that was good. Still, not a very lucrative show, at the door or the merch table.

The guys got their three free drinks, but as is typical, the bartender loved them, and spotted them a few beers before agreeing to let us all crash at her place. G has an old friend from Arizona that now lives up here in Portland, but his girlfriend had to get up super early for work, so we would’ve had to have been super quiet. Under most circumstances we can… okay, no, we can’t. We’re always loud and dorky and laughing at our own inside jokes. So even with Crazy Poodle Lady from the night before, we agreed to go home with the bartender. She seemed a lot more sane, at least.

She wasn’t closing, and wanted to stop at another bar before going home. There, she bought the boys a couple of rounds, and would have included me, if I hadn’t declined. We hit Taco Bell on the way back to her house, where G and D took the couches, and Future Husband and I made up our sleeping bags on the floor. We watched a little bit of Air Force One before passing out.

This morning we took our time brushing our teeth and packing up our various bedding. Bartender girl turned out to be entirely hospitable, and most importantly, in sound mental health. We left through the sliding glass door in the back again, but this time because of a poorly parked vehicle. Thank goodness.

Both of the previous tours I've been on, I took a spiral notebook with me and every day would jot down a summary of the day's events. Of course, of the few things we forgot to pack, this notebook was one of them. But since I need to get back in the habit of blogging more often, I figured I'd just use my blog as that tour journal. That'll definitely be more interesting for the various cousins and few friends that read this.

We pulled out of town a little after 1:00pm and hit the road yesterday. Future Husband climbed into the back bench right away and fell asleep. I don't think if you added together the amount of time we slept the night before, you'd have five hours. FH had work the night before we left, and so the little bit of sleep which each got was separate. It sounds silly, but we both sleep better when we sleep next to each other. I was a little too excited by the start of tour, but after about twenty minutes of playing Tetris on my phone, I was ready to sleep, too. I woke up in Portland, when we hit rush hour on the I-5.

Eugene is about an hour and a half south of Portland on the I-5. It's a small college town, and just like all of them, is full of High School students racking up debt and DUIs as they rush between the bar and Pita Pit.

The show was more like a practice session for the guys, but that's how every tour I've been on starts out. The first show is usually like practice, but with a bartender watching them. There were a few of the regulars in the bar, and a few people trickled in and watched them play. They all left right after, however, and no one bought merch. The Bartender really enjoyed them, and comped them a few pitchers. Towards the end of the night we were starting to realize that it was looking like a Walmart parking lot kind of night. Then, at the last minute, the crazy looking middle aged lady with a poodle started talking to D.

After a few minutes, he was able to shove her off on G, since he's the singer. A little bit after that, G announced that Crazy Poodle Lady was going to let us stay with her. Crazy, yes. But she was offering us somewhere warm to sleep indoors. Even then, this didn't seem like Indiacrapolis Guy kind of crazy. Yet.

Her apartment was a bit cluttered, but nothing compared to some of the friends we stay with in other cities, which are actually dirty dirty. Her jittery, nervous looking miniture poodle (with it's little red service dog jacket) never barked at us, but never warmed up to us either. There was a mostly empty bedroom upstairs, where FH and I put our sleeping bags down after we moved the black trash bags full of blankets and old toys out of the way. It was pretty creepy, even for us, but we were so tired we ignored the dead plants on the window sill and the 'this kid left abruptly' vibe we got from the room. G and D slept downstairs in the living room.

We have a friend in Reno that when we first met at the bar, thought was a little nuts. He turned out to be one of the funniest, smartest guys we hang out with on tour. I kept reminding myself of that while we navigated Crazy Poodle Lady's apartment. It doesn't sound so bad, except that everything smelled like my late Grandpa's apartment; dust, medicinal creams, and maple sausage. Then there were the dolls. Cloudy eyed, dusty dolls on most flat surfaces. And the stories she would briefly tell about her family (that didn't live there) as she fluttered from topic to topic. Like the Bi-Polar husband she was divorcing after 21 years. Or the son that pounds on the front door in the middle of the night, shouting expletives.

Future Husband and I were pretty tired, so we hit the hay within fifteen minutes of arriving. Not before I checked out the labels on the numerous prescription bottles in the bathroom. There were things like sleeping pills, asthma medication, muscle relaxers. Nothing too out of the ordinary for a baby boomer. Except for the Antipsychotic. That one was a little jarring. But it's also used to treat depression, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, considering the divorce story and the Chicken Soup for the Soul type books all over the apartment.

When we woke many, many hours later, FH and I rolled up our sleeping bags and started to take them out to the van. Crazy Poodle Lady followed us out to the van, and explained that her husband was on the way, and she didn't want him to see us. She also told FH that if anyone asked, he was her stepbrother 'Steve' and said, "I don't want them to watch me any more."

Back inside, G and D were visibly agitated and tired still. They had just started to gather their bags and pillows, when there was a knock on the door. The husband, of course. Poodle Lady promised to make us Eggs and Bacon, since that's what the husband was dropping off. But we had to hide. First we stood off to the side, in the living room, but away from the kitchen window. After the first brief argument with the husband, in which she called me over to prove that she had 'a friend' over, and that was why he couldn't come in, she had us hide upstairs in the empty kid's room. After a few minutes of waiting (and G and D looking more and more unsettled) they decided they wanted to just get out of there. Now, a group of musicians declining free bacon and eggs? You know it's serious when musicians turn down free food.

We ran downstairs. I checked the peephole to see that Poodle Lady and her husband were out front talking, and we snuck out the back sliding door. The four of us made a mad dash for the van, and peeled out of the parking lot.

In the van, G and D related the stories of the night they had. Crazy Poodle Lady stayed up all night doing dishes, muttering to herself, calling people 'assholes' and 'bitches' as she talked to herself, repeatedly telephoning a bar that had kicked her out for bringing her Miniture Service Poodle in, and singing along with CMT. D said he kept expecting to wake up and see her standing over him with a cleaver.

On a happier, funnier note, as Future Husband and I were falling asleep, we briefly discussed the wedding planning. I told him I didn't want to exclude him from any of the plans, but he should tell me if I was over-including him. I just want him to be comfortable and have fun at his own wedding. Still a little drunk from the free pitchers at the bar, he said;

"There are three things that I care about, about the wedding. Number one- I'm marrying you. That's the important part. As long as that gets done I don't care about anything else. Number two- No religion stuff. And Number three- Cheesecake."