Red Elvises and Ride the S.L.U.T

Yesterday was a busy day. I was tasked by my husband to acquire Ride the S.L.U.T shirt for a holiday gift.

My friend Jason accompanied me through the first half of the days activities. A trip to the coffee store selling them, to find out that they had already sold out, but would have more the next day at 10 am. We also stopped by the Schmancy store, a store of homemade plush toys and other various odd items, located next to the Moore Theatre. It is a store I had been meaning to visit since August. Definitely a neat store. Gives me food for thought on what I can make on the sewing machine.

A trip to Kent to go to Jason's tea store was next. I picked up a gift there as well. The owner was a nice Chinese woman, that spoke Mandarin and English. It was an interesting experience. A wood table designed for tea sampling, with several levels, so that when you poured the leftover tea in it, it cascades to the bottom, where there was a drain. We sampled the High Mountain green tea, and another sweeter tea. I also sampled some relaxing evening teas, in which she had me guess what was in them. These were too Americanized for me, with orange peel, cloves, rosemary, and cinnamon.

Later, I met Marisa, her brother Joe, and her friend Gretchen, to see the Red Elvises at the Tractor. What an incredible show. They were incredibly high energy, and it was just as much fun as I expected. There were a couple of oddities. The male to female ratio was much more skewed that I expected, and there was an overabundance of really tall people. With a black and tan and a shot of Jager to fortify me, I danced my short legs off.

The highlight of the evening was grabbing the attention of the balaika player, Oleg during the break. He walked past us, and I said Zdrasvitya! He came back to say hello. I got a chance why there weren't more of the albums in Russian. I got a hug. Marisa joked about never washing the shirt I was wearing again.

Two minutes later, I was hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand. Idiot!! Marisa and Gretchen were looking at me like I was crazy. I have a degree in Russian Language and Literature, and I only said hello in Russian. I could have been at least mildly impressive, by saying that I love the Red Elvises in Russian. I had my chance and blew it. Doh! Needless to say, Marisa and Gretchen were amused.