...LA is a great big freeway, put a hundred thousand miles on...

(if you can tell me the name of the song that line comes from then you win a prize!)
So much freaking fun. Let me just say that my friend Rossi is one of those people that you wish had been born into your family just so that you could spend more time with them. We don't get to hang out a whole lot, but when we do I am so in love with her and I wonder why we don't do it more often. Anyway, we went to LA last Friday. We had amazing food. We saw Maroon 5 and Counting Crows & Augustana. We sang duets in the car at the top of our lungs. We yelled at the navigation system together. We talked to random people and saw really cool street performers. We saw Wicked! We had life-changing cupcakes. And then we went back & bought more. We had good talks. Then we came home. And there, my friends, is a quick summary of the weekend. Maroon 5 was pretty much exactly what you'd expect; Adam was sexy, the music was great and all in all it was a great performance. But they totally got upstaged a bit by the AMAZING Adam Duritz of Counting Crows. I wasn't even really that excited to see them, it's been so long since I've liked anything they've put out, but holy cow, his stage presence is riveting! He's just so stinking emotional and he sucks you in and you find yourself holding your breath & hoping that things are going to be okay. He's kind of crazy, I'm not going to lie, but I LOVED it. They brought Augustana back out for their last few songs and they all sang together and it was awesome. It's awesome to see people who are so good at what they do, just enjoying it and each other. I guess it's particularly amazing to me because I am so NOT musical. Then Maroon 5 came out and just performed and didn't really enteract with anyone, but it was good, just not as good as their openers.
Rossi & I went to the 3rd street promenade and there were these amazing guys doing all sorts of stunts and break-dancing. I took more pictures of them than really anything else (for obvious reasons.) They were very fun to watch. That bottom picture is kinda hard to understand, but the guy in the black pants is just chillin' there in this diagonal push up position, while the cute frizzy headed guy locked his legs around his waist and leans back until the back of his head rests on the Mexican kids back who also is in a funky handstand/push up position. And this conglomeration of bodies becomes a bridge for the other guy to do a flip/turny/twisty thing over. It was pretty amazing. Kind of like their abs. Wicked was awesome, go see it if you haven't yet. I took pictures of the stage after the show and got thoroughly yelled at by an usher, but that stinkin' dragon was too cool. I'm just glad he didn't take my fancy new camera away. Not that I used it near enough, I feel like a dork about that. Anyway, it is good to be home, where there are a normal number of people on the freeway, and where you can actually see the sky before 3 pm. I don't know if this is normal or not, but every day we were there, it was completely overcast & smoggy until the afternoon & then it was beautiful. I kind of wish I had followed through on my plans to go to makeup school out there, I think I would have loved it. At least it would have gotten me away from Jared. But my life would probably be quite a different story now & that would not be cool at all.
I was kind of hoping that Matt would have a hard time being a single dad for the weekend, and would just wonder how I did it everyday, but not so much. He got more done in 2 days than I get done in a week. Nice. Not only did he organize the basement and the garage, he cleaned the house like crazy, did the dishes, but he also took Sawyer to the state fair on Friday and took her to hang out with his friends on Saturday night. Lovely. Apparently I need to step it up.