Happy Birthday Shameless!

This weekend was a lot of fun. The kids and I spent most of it with our good friend Shameless and her family to celebrate her 40th birthday! It was fun to see so many old friends and spend time with some new ones, too. We had a lot of laughs, relived some pretty good memories, and wondered where the time goes. (Shannon retells the story of the birth of my daughter better than anybody and we always end up howling.) And to top it all off, there was unexpected live music from a very fine group of musicians known as the Bell Brothers.

As I sat with Mr. and Mrs. Ipsissimus and Janice our conversation was occasionally broken by little squeals of delight as this mystery band broke out different instruments one by one. "OOH, what's THAT?... O man, check it out, they have a a diggerydoo..... No way, there's a banjo! THREE mandolins? Do we have time to go for a walk?....I have not had enough to drink to go up and play those drums, JimBob..." It was awesome.

I heartily endorse celebrating with friends and family (we all went back to the house afterwards and were treated to a video presentation our kids had worked on in our absence -- and I mean everybody, from age 16 down to age 3) as often as possible, and not waiting for birthdays. Tell the universe you want to invite a little unplanned live music to mix in with the celebration, and the evening will be complete.

One word on Ms. Shameless: she is one of the smartest, funniest, warmest, coolest people I've had the pleasure of knowing almost half my life (and just about exactly half hers). I am enormously grateful for her friendship, which came to me because she was a friend of X and I had been a friend of Mr. Shameless. Looking at our children this morning so incredibly grown, it's just almost impossible to believe how we managed to get through some pretty incredible times, all measurably intact. We were all once so green.

Visit Bell Acoustic at their MySpace page and check out the tune by that title, as well as another, "Always Mistaken," which opened their show last night. It was a gorgeous piece that brought together drums, banjo, diggerydoo, and some traditional East Indian chanting. Kind of like the mix among Shameless's guests. Surprising, yet, perfect.