House Concert #1, Bozeman, MT

Well, here I am again! I told you guys I would be back!

We’re on the fourth day of our western states tour. Lemme fill you in on what has happened so far.

Monday morning, we left from our house at approximately 11:45 AM
(this is quite funny because the night before, my dad said, “Well guys, I think we should leave at about 7, or at the latest 7:30, that way we can be in Spokane at noon and get to Montana by 7.”)

I made a derisive snorting noise and said, “yeah, RIGHT.”, while thinking, “The only reason my dad and I get up at 7 is to go pee in the middle of the night.”

Only 4 hours 45 minutes late. Not bad. We spent the 10 hour drive to Bozeman, Montana mostly by driving each other batty. It is my opinion, that, if my dad can eat a potato chip loud enough to be heard by someone in the back seat listening to Shostakovich symphonies on an iPod at FULL VOLUME, making me want to grab the chip bag, crush it into a little ball the size of a pea, and throw it violently out the window, then his mouth should be outlawed. Mom thought the most hilarious thing ever to do was to wait for those “how many miles to such-and-such town” signs came by, and if they had Butte, Montana, yell loudly, “NINETY EIGHT MILES TO
BUTT, MONTANA!!!!!!!!!!!! HAR DEE HARR HAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does anyone ELSE’s mom do that??? Noooo, don’t think so. My car entertainment ran out very fast and soon the most exciting thing to do was to pop the top on and off of a Burt’s Beeswax Lip Balm tube and glower out at the signs that told me I had a good few hours left in the car.
Oh, I have a quick suggestion. If you ever go by Missoula, and you stop for a food break, and you see a restaurant called Finnigan’s, and you want to eat there, DON’T. Their food STINKS.
And now back to our show. We reached our friends Bob and Vivian Schaap’s house at about 11:00 and crashed.
The next day was Fourth of July (yay!) which is the awesomest holiday ever. I would like to meet the genius who thought up the concept that exploding things is patriotic. I got a big bag of fireworks and set them all off with Sage, Bob and Vivian’s adorable grandson, who is six. I love those warnings on the firework packages that say things like,

WARNING

DANGEROUS

ADULT SUPERVISION REQUIRED

LIGHT FUSE AND GET AWAY(that’s my personal fave)

Those firecracker things that are illegal in Seattle and have the really short fuses are so fun. I was more adept at using the lighter to light fuses than my dad, who burned his thumb, though luckily not where he plays piano.
Today, we did a house concert at Bob and Viv’s on the keyboard. The funniest thing happened while I was playing one of my pieces. I had just done this big glissando going up the keyboard (a glissando is where you put a finger down and drag) and I had a leetle too much weight going to my right. The piece-of-crap keyboard bench didn’t like this and leaned over and I nearly fell off. My mom got it on video. Everyone, including me, cracked up. I kept the piece going though!

Sage and I in the River at Bob and Vivians house