My crazy former life was returned to me for an all-too-brief evening of mayhem and merriment

BlueFish is a master of grill and stovetop. He marinated some chicken and some flank steak for a whole day in a miraculous concoction containing Worcestershire and brown ale and a few other choice ingredients, then grilled said meat products to perfection:


RedFish made some yummy fresh limeade and served it up for all of us:


Whenever RedFish has even a speck of time on her hands, she knits:


After supper, RedFish kept the kiddos at home and sent Blue & me off to play:

BlueFish, along with SK

J the bass player and Animal the drummer

I have to say here that I had never really met a drummer I could truly compare with Animal until now. The dude really IS Animal. I do not kid.

After a couple of hours, we packed up the gear and headed downtown to Big Tomato, the hip hangout for whoever happens to be stumbling around down on Ingersoll around midnight:




Big Tomato is a small room with a plywood backdrop, which has a window through which patrons may order from the hastily-scrawled menu of the day's offerings. Generally said offerings include the usual suspects (pepperoni, cheese, sausage) as well as a few oddities here and there.

In line at Big Tomato, one might just as easily find oneself standing next to a crackwhore, a middle-aged lesbian couple, six cube-rats in their mid-twenties fresh from the local bar scene, or a church youth minister. In fact, I'm certain that's who actually was in line with me there on Tuesday night. You're all on equal footing in Big Tomato.

Since it was already shaping up to be a night to remember (the jam session was EXTRAORDINAIRE, I have to say -- maybe not for the guys, but for a chick who's been starved of real live blues for THREE YEARS, let me tell you that it was like being seated before a feast), I decided to live dangerously and order a slice of the Beef & Sauerkraut with Alfredo. It was St. Patrick's Day, you see, and why not celebrate it by consuming something odd? I didn't really want to go into the bar next door and get loaded, anyway. So I got my slice of pizza. Heck, if it was awful, I could just toss it, no harm done.

Ohhhhh, no, honey. You could not have expressed to me fully the extent of tastiness of this slice of heaven in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. DAYUM, people. I'm not sure I've ever tasted a piece of pizza that I liked more, and that's saying something. The kraut was very gentle and unobtrusive, not at all acidic and bite-y, and the beef was meltingly tender. The Alfredo was exactly right to blend the mozzarella with the other flavors.

Afterwards we hopped back into Blue's vehicle, and Blue looked over his right shoulder to begin the backing-out process... at which point, the very large and gender-nonspecific person on the sidewalk right in front of us who was obviously over-celebrating St. Patrick's Day decided to prove to us once and for all that she was, indeed, a SHE. Or at least a dude with ta-tas. Because she stood in front of the vehicle, hiked up her bright green sweatshirt, and flashed them for us.

Blue had his head turned the entire time and saw absolutely nothing. I was speechless for a couple of moments. We pulled out onto Ingersoll and I said, "Um, it was a chick. And she just flashed us. How funny that it was only me who ended up seeing her. Unless perhaps that was what she wanted..." then I shivered involuntarily.

Surrealism seems to follow me like a lost puppy, y'all.