Very Happy Birthdays

The railroad is a beast. I learned early on that there are few things that I'll try to miss work for. The hoops you have to jump through to get an unscheduled day off are ridiculous. It's because the nature of the job is slow weekdays and super busy weekends, so it's highly frowned upon by the folks in charge to miss work on the weekends. In fact, most of the time they won't even let you take a weekend day off unless you are sick (or tell them you are sick) and even then it's like pulling teeth. I work 2nd shift starting at 3pm and usually not back in the car on the way home until 10pm or later so making events on time, or at all, is a challenge. But for some reason when I called the railroad to tell them I'd like the day (Saturday) off, they said "ok... " and that was that. My great friend was throwing a celebration for his wife's 30th birthday and I knew that it was going to be very special and something I'd regret missing or evening being late to... and boy was I right. I arrived early to help park cars (which went from a good plan to a good plan and not good execution to a bad plan an still no execution to a total disaster to working out just fine in the end) and as I pulled in so did the jazz band. And it wasn't any jazz band either. It was the Dick Sisto Trio. Tyrone Wheeler on upright bass, Jason Tiemann on drums and the amazing Dick Sisto on the piano. I've listened to these guys for years and last night they were amazing. Hanging out with some of the most special people to me in the world and having the background music not only be live jazz, but the amazing live jazz of the Dick Sisto 3 is something I'll never forget. The house where the party was is a super awesome huge house and everyone came dressed super nice. The dinner was fantastic as well. The band played for about 2 hours, and as they left we went down the stairs into the basement for a time of admonishment of the birthday girl and some fun and games. We did that for quite a while and everyone seemed to be just having a great time. WHAT A NIGHT! I must not get out that much, because I was amazed. Well, I don't get out that much but still... it was a lovely night.