Steady as she goes

August 16th, 2009

Everything’s going steadily with my Mom as she makes her recovery in the neurology department’s intensive care unit. I spent the afternoon with her and she’s much more awake than she was on Friday. My sister and I are going to have brunch at the Alibi Room this morning and then I’m going to head back to the hospital to visit again. My sister’s come down with a cold so she doesn’t want to infect anyone at the hospital (especially my Mom!) so she’s staying back at the house for now. She’ll have plenty of time to visit over the coming weeks anyway.

Last night Shan (the singer in our band) and I hit the Kings of Leon show at GM Place. The band called The Whigs opened and they were very, very good. They have a “rock” sound so I could see them getting radio play but they aren’t big (yet). They said they’re playing the Media Club in November and, if it’s not a night when I’m in Seattle for the Pixies, I’ll go down to see them again.

Kings of Leon are a band I haven’t listened to much. For whatever reason they never really interested me aside from a couple of the singles off the new album. When we saw them at Sasquatch earlier this year it was a pretty good show but I was kinda tired from standing in the sun all day to see the day’s bands and didn’t get into the KoL show that much. Last night they were fantastic! I didn’t realize how many hits they had until they ran down the list and by the end of the show I was saying, “how did I not totally get into this band sooner?” So next week it’ll be time to go through their albums again to see what I like.

Almost as fun as the band’s performance was the frat boy crowd that was partying in the row in front of us. There was a neverending scene of beer drinking, pot smoking, and hi-fives to everyone nearby. I was surprised to see these people being able to stand on their feet for the whole show. Next to us was another pack of equally rowdy girls who’d made the Kings of Leon concert their pre-Roxy stop. They even left before the last song so they could beat the rush to the Granville clubs for a “Girls Gone Wild” night of drunken photos and jagerbombs. I was surprised the frat boy crowd didn’t follow them out like a pack of hungry dogs.

Friday night I took my sister out to the Black Frog for a beer to celebrate my Mom’s successful operation. After the Frog we wandered up Robson to Konbiniya where my sister, missing all the cool foods she experienced while in Japan, loaded up on seaweed paper (for sushi) and mochi. Mochi are rice balls that you coat in different toppings and then eat. I haven’t tried one yet, but I’m sure I will soon.

Finally, after Konbiniya, we went to DQ to satisfy my sister’s blizzard fix. When she lived in Yellowknife she got an addiction to DQ along with all her co-workers but then the DQ closed and they could only get blizzards when they went out of town! So anytime she’s in Vancouver our first stop is to DQ.

Now we’re going to get some cough and cold medicine for my sister and then head to the Alibi Room for brunch. I need to find out what that delicious peppercorn-flavored wheat ale I had last night was called too!