Cancelled outdoor concerts and neighborhood kids

I decided to take Holden to the First Thursdays show in the park, the monthly free concert series that this month featured Caleb Stine & The Brakemen (Baltimore's best band), as well as Jesse Harris, who is supposed to be pretty good.

Despite the fact that WTMD's website says, "The Concert will only be cancelled if rain is heavy enough to pose an imminent or immediate health threat either to audience or band," the show was cancelled with nary a drop of rain. Apparently, the sound guy was worried about his equipment getting wet, but the night ended up being beautiful and, as aforementioned, it didn't rain at all, except for some sprinkles for a few seconds here and there. I hope WTMD never hires that particular sound guy again, because he certainly made a bad call, and it definitely was against what the website said. Bummer.

Caleb and the Brakemen played a few songs acoustically, and it was reall nice to sit in the warm grass with the dog and listen, and afterwards, I drove him home so we could head inside somewhere.

When I got to the neighborhood, a whole flock of neighborhood children saw me with Holden, and were excited that he had come home. My fliers were the talk of the neighborhood over the last couple days, and everyone knew about Holden's absense. As soon as they petted him a few times, one little girl looked at me with wide eyes and asked, "Does this mean we can take down all the fliers?" and I couldn't believe my ears, and said, "Yes, that's a great idea!" and they all scattered in opposite directions to do just that, racing as quickly as they could to telephone poles and street lampposts. At that moment, I realized once again what a friendly neighborhood I live in. It might be kind of the ghetto, but it's a real friendly one.

Today, I walked around, trying to get the rest of my fliers, and I think I got most of them. It'll be a fun project over the next couple of days to get all of them. When I was putting them up, I actually thought to myself that I hope that good news forces me to take them down in the next couple of days.

In other exciting news, the new bar is in my place of secondary employment, and it looks good. I stopped in last night, and they were staining it, and my boss asked me if I was ready for some bartending shifts, and despite the fact that my knowledge of making drinks is pretty scant, I said that I was. I can learn on the job, right?

In sadder news, though, I learned last night that an acquaintance of mine - and a best friend of one of my best friends - committed suicide a couple of weeks ago. He was a nice guy, a guy who you would never imagine would do that, and the sad news about knocked me over. And then I googled his name when I returned home, and the news gathered online somehow made it all seem worse than it was before. I didn't sleep much last night.