So when the end of the workaday finally came around on Friday I started the weekend off right by going home to my beloved couch. Seeing as I'd had the sleepies all afternoon, I figured a bit of a catnap was in order to make it through the night without later being made fun of for minor head bobbing action as was the case last week at Flics. I headed out to Sandrini's to meet up with some friends who ended up not showing due to a bowl of some bad fish soup. Not sure where they ate, but my recommendation is to avoid all fish soup.
Eventually another friend made her way over from her yoga instructor class and joined me at the empty table. Near Miss Mallet started the night off with another good set featuring Paul Cartwright on the bass. The next band up was Soulajar, which I didn't catch the start of due to running into a few friends up at the bar as well as finally meeting some internet acquaintances (hello Dalloways) but when I finally returned to the table I liked what I heard in the last few songs which included a jamming cover of Bill Wither's "Use Me" (Better Than Ezra do a rocking cover of this song on their Artifakt album). Definitely a band I wouldn't mind catching again. The night ended about 3 songs into Mission: Tonight's reunion set since there was both packing and sleeping that needed to be done before Saturday morning rolled around.
When the sun did finally rise, I jumped in Greta the Jetta with a friend and headed up north for a little escape. I could say "what happens in Monterey stays in Monterey" especially considering there was a very interesting bus parked down the street from the hotel. Instead of partying it up at some club, we headed south to the sleepy and dimly lit town of Carmel to see the Pacific Repertory Theatre's performance of The Full Monty. And to answer your questions - yes they did and no you couldn't see much with the lighting.
The weekend came to an end with the long drive home on the 101 down to Paso Robles for some Thai food at Basil's (good food even though I misspoke when ordering what I wanted and got chili basil chicken instead of chrispy basil chicken). Of course we also had stop at a couple of wineries...
By the time we got back to Bakersfield, it was still raining and while it didn't snow here, I did get to see some snow on the hills - both on the drive to Gilroy on the 152 and on the way down the 101 to Paso Robles.
