Friday I got out of work early, ran to REI for a new tent, and then swung by the water gardening place for some plants for our pond. After a disco nap, that night I went to go see Dubtribe’s farewell performance. My love of Dubtribe goes way back to my rave infancy, and it was great to see them play one last time. It was also great to see the opening set by Matt Corwine, who was my first rave friend.

Saturday Dre and I were up early, packed up our camping gear, and then headed off to … help some friends move. We spent the afternoon shuffling boxes and admiring new apartments and drinking ice tea and enjoying the hot sun. Then we headed over to Bainbridge Island to camp at Sacred Groves and enjoy a potluck with my family and some friends. We lucked out with the Sacred Groves camping: lovely outdoor setting and no crowd! We drank, laughed around the campfire, and even experienced the infamous, mysterious Stallings family tradition known as “The Flaming Groovy.”

Sunday morning I slept in really late snuggled in my comfy sleeping bag. Then it was breakfast and chit chat with my mom and while her girlfriend and Andreas made plans for installing some french doors at our house in a couple weeks. Dre and I headed back into the city, showered, and then headed out to Teatro ZinZanni. I was unable to take off my critique hat, and here are my thoughts: Wow, even with free tickets that was WAY overpriced. The first two hours were basically filler, and while the last hour of performances were amazing, I wished they’d focused more on that level of performance and less on contrived pseudo plots and crowd interaction. That said: it was a decent show, but the constant upselling (”can we take your picture for $10? would you like to buy a rose? can we supply you with a feather boa? all drinks are extra! $10 service fee on dinner!”) got a little exhausting. Plus the food did not quite agree with my intestines.

I spent most of the day Monday at Seattle’s Folklife festival. My parents were performing at 12:30 as part of their band, The People’s Rhythm Party, and then my coworker was performing his brand of “three-minute dork pop” at 4:20. I hung out for both shows, and while I got a little exhausted there for a while around 3pm, it was a fun day. Plus: I ate an amazing apple dumpling ala mode. Downside: I had my eyes peeled for good festival gear and came up empty handed. There’s a thin line between “cool hippy clothes that can be worked into my wardrobe” and “tacky imported shite that shouldn’t be worn by anyone no matter how baked they are.”

You can check out all my photos from this weekend over here.