February 7th, 2023. rob Day at the Spark.

Nothing to do with my birthday. Probably older than me. A cool art-deco fire hydrant in Silver Spring, MD.

Today I’m 48. What a strange concept. There were days, years and decades I didn’t think I’d make it this far. I guess now it’s my responsibility to make it to my NEXT “real” milestone, “as old as my Dad got”.

Well, probably one of the best ways to assure that is to fill my days with joy, right? And so rob Day was celebrated at the Takoma Spark because it was a Tuesday (flavour text re : “we do this every Tuesday at the Takoma Spark in Takoma Park, MD, signup at 6.30, music at 7, webcast Live on FB, YT and Twitch, etc”) and as I’d dared hope, there were a lot of local performers who’d come out to hang out, to play and embrace and rage and sing – and it was a really Lovely night.

Heather said she thought the bird’s nest was going to be a bit more “metaphor” and less structural.

But as I told Juels – it was exactly the kind of joy that’s going to give me a deep, dark, dank depression later – and I know myself pretty well. So by the time we’d gotten home, full of chocolate cup cake, and the echoes of songs, I was ready to dissolve into a puddle of non-existence.

Good thing we’ve got such a great cat.

HOWEVER – the night itself was filled with glee.

Freshly filled with stunning Vietnamese food from the Lotus Cafe in Silver Spring, MD, we took a nice, leisurely couple of hours to set things up at the Spark, and welcomed various humans as they wandered in. I was overjoyed to see a couple of people that had been egregiously MIA over the past several months, including Marc Evans who had been secretly texting with Kristen in order to surprise me.

It fell to him to actually perpetrate the Birthday Song and… it might EVEN be better than the version WE do.

A fantastic evening with the following miscreants (I’ll not out the people who just HAPPENED to be there – for ME they were ALL there for my birthday!!!)