How much can you cram into 36 hours?

Note:  This post is more for me than it is for anyone who might ever read it.  But then again, most of my posts are.  I just want to remember all the stuff that happened between Friday evening and Saturday night.  What a ride.

Friday, April 27

6:00 pm - Finally went to The Hill in STL - the Italian neighborhood known for it's wonderful restaurants.   John and I both loved the veal parmesan at Charlie Gitto's.  We thought we would start with the more well known restaurants there and work our way to the lesser known but highly recommended places.
http://charliegittos.com/locations/on-the-hill/

8:00 pm - Black Keys concert.  The Arctic Monkeys backed them up,  played too long and (yes, I know I'll sound like an old fart when I say this) too loud.  I liked a couple of their songs, but I'm not a fan.  The Black Keys however, were awesome.  The sound that can be produced from only a drum set and a guitar is amazing.  Sadly, I will never get a good concert photo from my phone.  

Hannah having a lot of friends who are theater majors has made me more aware of staging.  The Black Keys could not afford the elaborate staging that someone like the Foo Fighters could, but they made the most of their money.  I was impressed. Cameras on both guys with a red and black filter can say a lot.

Saturday, April 28

11:00 - I attended my very first Cardinal game.  We met friends at the Stan "The Man" Musial statue outside Busch Stadium, and had a lovely afternoon watching the Cardinals beat the Brewers.

John had a customer who was throwing out the first pitch at the game, so he had to leave for a while to make sure all went well there.  He got tickets to the Champion Club, which meant we could go there for real food and free drinks.   It was just a great, low key afternoon.  Good company, good game, good food and drink - an afternoon trifecta.

And John was interviewed.

4:00 - Our friends left and we stuck around for a beer or three.  We walked around Busch Stadium until we found Paddy O's, and we sat at a table outside.  We made a few new friends under our table umbrella after it started to rain.  Then the weather started to get really nasty.  After 20 minutes of "Oh, it's going to go around us - no worries" we dashed inside just in time to avoid a huge downpour.  After reading the Sunday morning newspaper, we found out there was a whole lot more going on outside.
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2012/04/28/breaking-tent-collapses-near-busch-stadium-one-killed/
Wow.  It was right next door and we had no idea.
5:30 - we walked down to the rally for the Blues game.

We had tickets to the second round of the playoffs.  The sales rep from Fox Sports, Tim O, made sure we got into the party tent, and the band was good - sounded like Kid Rock in a way-back machine (i.e. they played a funky version of Footloose.)

From there, we had a ring side view of everything.  John got to meet another Polack fan...

And I ran into a Purdue football player.

His dad had a Purdue jacket on, and there are so few Purdue people down here (EVERYONE is a Mizzou fan) I had to tap on his shoulder and introduce myself.  I talked with him and met his son who is a senior next year.  I told him to "DO GOOD!" next season and wished him all the best. 

6:00 - We got to our box seats and the only other people in the place was John's arch nemesis and his wife.  I think everyone who has ever been in business for any length of time has an arch enemy, and this guy was John's.  I've heard about what a pain in the butt this guy has been for years.  He's always trying to scam someone, always trying to cut corners on a deal and has always been an overall jackass.  John's company told this guy a few months ago that they would no longer do business with him. so imagine how lovely it was to bump up against him - and only him - at the game.  (I have to say though, his wife was very nice.)  We were relieved when other people arrived and diluted the situation.

6:45 - The Blues did not play well and eventually lost, but of course we found entertainment elsewhere.  We were all grated "thunder sticks" upon entering the stadium, and the few children we had in the sky box are still lucky to be alive after the noise they subjected us to by slapping those damn things together.  Then we discovered that a slew of Cardinal players were in the sky box next to us.  Without being obnoxious about it, we saw Mott, Westbrook, Beltran and Cruz were next door.  They were the players we could easily recognize.  This is Cruz's World Series bling.

Good grief.  That could be a belt buckle, for crying out loud!

12:00 midnight - we arrived back at home.  The pugs were real troopers for "holding onto things" for 12 straight hours, and you can't imagine how grateful I was for that.  

On Sunday, we skipped church, John went back to Busch Stadium to babysit a customer who was throwing out the first pitch, and I packed for an overnight stay in Bloomington.

Whew.