Good Times, Great Friends, No Oland Export

OK, it's really not Hallowe'en anymore. Somehow I keep forgetting to update this thing. Must be having too much fun. There's been a lot of music and socializing around here.

Johanna did come to visit us and we had a great time with her. The seventies version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was still not in at the video store, so we didn't get to watch it with her. We did get it later and it was very very creepy and made us rethink just how good the Nicole Kidman one was. But the weekend Johanna was here, we went for a hike around Blomidon with her, which was really cool and in some ways a more scenic trail than Cape Split. More variety, I guess. There were some really steep hills and some meadows and a waterfall. And we were only there for an hour! We also got to go down to the beach and see the spectacular red cliffs.











And speaking of spectacular Cliffs, there've been two The Lodge shows since my last post, both well-attended, -received, and -played, if I may say so. One was in Charlottetown at a funny student pickup bar with trivia games and an unraised stage, called Hunter's Alehouse. Alison and I were driven down by the dynamic duo of Johanna and Cliff, and then Johanna did all the driving on the way back. She's been getting lots of good practice in. And while we were there, we got to stay with Joan and Jason in their sweet island pad. As a surprise early birthday present, Joan knitted me a hat with Space Invaders guys all around the edge. Now I'm the coolest nerd ever.

The other show was last week at the infamous Gus' Pub in Halifax, where we got to see lots of our friends and have a really nice time. The Lodge opened for Smothered In Hugs, who put on a terrific show, despite some crappy muffled sound out of the Gussertronic™ PA. Those guys are fantastic. I can't stop listening to their CD. And we kind of kicked a** too. Meg put me and Ali up for that one. Her roommate, Carina, served us some exotic snacks at three in the morning like some kind of awesome Portuguese grandmother.

And then, last night, our friend Dusty came to Wolfville to host an open mic night at legendary local Irish pub, Paddy's. We went over to be entertained by his strummin' and croonin', and then he stayed over at our place.

This Friday we'll witness the unveiling of Acadia's latest musical acquisition, a full set of Javanese gamelan instruments, facilitated by Ken Shorley, exotic music afficianado extraordinaire. And the following weekend is Neil Young and Wilco in Halifax. Can't wait!

In the meantime, here's some more of Ali's awesome photos, from an evening walk we took a couple of weeks ago.




- Andrew