Weekend in New England

This weekend, Rosie and I took a celebratory trip to New England in response to my job offer. I wanted to catch a few Elipsus shows, see the Atlantic Ocean, and enjoy Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. We flew into Providence Friday, scurried around Mass and CT Saturday, and flew back to Detroit on Sunday morning.

In Chestnut Hill, MA, we found this lovely Irish cemetery. I hope to come back and explore it with Cola next week.

This is the cemetery chapel. It's up on a hill overlooking the sacred grounds.

Driving down Commonwealth en route to Boston Common

After a crazy city drive, 20 minutes of walking, and a temperamental parking meter, we arrived at Boston Common. Rosie wanted to get a picture next to the sign.

Walking up the hill to the war monument. Rosie got tired!

View of the Massachusetts State House

Going up to enjoy the bandstand

Impromtptu performances by mother...

and daughter!

Below this defaced peace monument, we found a few dirty hyperdermics

and decapitated heads on the relief sculptures.

And then the rain started like crazy. This church was for sale in Wellesley. Got an extra $4m?

We drove down to New Haven to Fox's concert at the Borders in Milford.

Taking Rosie to all these concerts makes her more like me each day

We pulled faces at Fox all through the concert to distract him

Post-show, right before he drove to his show in Stamford and Rosie and I drove back to Providence. It was a great 36 hour getaway!

And might I add...

Only eight more days till my St. Patrick's Day trip to Boston with Cola! I'm excited! However, I actually might find myself in the Boston area briefly on Saturday. Rosie and I are thinking about a quick trip to New England to enjoy a few Elipsus performances. We'd fly into Providence after school Friday, catch the downtown Providence, RI show Friday night, sleep, drive an hour or so to Boston for a noon show, and immediately turn around and hit the New Haven, CT show, sight-see a bit, and sleep again. We'd fly home Sunday morning just in time to make it to church.

I figure with work-life coming up pretty shortly, I'd better take advantage of a random, spontaneous mother-daughter trip to New England before it's too late.

Also, I got another email for an interview at the UofM residency office, but I turned it down. I have enough on my plate this week for interviews.

Why it pays to be a fan of live music...

From the time I saw New Kids on the Block in concert in 1990, I've been a huge live music fan. I like the big shows...the massive, glittering production numbers that are all over the globe, to the little unknown coffeehouse troubadours. I love to support new acts, as I've found that the ones that you support from the beginning are going to always be grateful as they progress in their careers.

Last week, I attended two shows at Borders (Ann Arbor and Brighton) for an up-and-coming pop/rock/new wave artist named Fox, of the band Elipsus. He is out promoting his is double-disc album, "Changing History," and will be performing at 150 gigs across the U.S. while he relocates from Buffalo, NY to LA. He found me on Facebook, and I agreed to support him at his shows because he didn't have any other confirmed fans in Michigan. The played mostly his original stuff and covers of some of my favorite songs:

Starlight - Muse
Sign my Name - Terrence Trent D'Arby
The Luckiest - Ben Folds
Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode
Losing my Religion - REM
In My Place - Coldplay
Take on Me - A-Ha
Somewhere only We Know and This is the Last Time - Keane

During the show, I was telling Rosie how fun it would be to sing along, since he was doing so many of my favorite songs. She went up to Fox during applause and told him I wanted to sing. So I got to sing along to Keane, which meant I had my Borders debut at the Ann Arbor flagship store. After buying one CD, he signed it for Rosie and pulled out another for me for free for my birthday. He was a wonderful performer, and I hope to help promote him at some west coast shows in Utah and California this spring.

On his Myspace bulletin, summarizing the shows of the last week, he posted this...

DETROIT... the downtown show was saved by you, Nicole. The night show in Brighton was just sweet. A wonderful, wonderful memory. Lots of album sales, the store was awesome and bought a ton of them... thanks to my dearest Nicole, way way way too attractive to handle, and such a dear supporter of my music. Thanks! And to Rosie, my youngest and most adorable fan, thanks so much! I love both of you, and Brighton in general!

So here I am...about to promote the next big thing...who thinks I'm "way too attractive to handle." Not bad to be unattainably adored by a rockstar. He he he.