Donde yo frijole

...which, of course, is Spanish for "Where I been." (Well, "bean"....)

My dear wife and I spent the weekend belatedly celebrating our anniversary. Woo hoo!

Friday night we sent to the fabled Squeeze Inn for the first time. We had trouble with directions on the iPhone, so only got there in time to order to-go. Ah, but it was very delicious.

As I shared a couple of H&T's ago, the Squeeze Inn is being threatened by fascist government rules. At present, they are having to give up their signature location unwillingly and relocate.

Think of that. National recession; statewide recession. And here's a successful business being harassed, their productivity harmed, by oppressive regulation and legislation. Multiply this by a factor of 1000 or so and you understand why this bountifully-blessed state is in the trouble it is.

Then we saw the latest Harry Potter movie at the local IMAX theater. It was the missus' first time in an IMAX, and she was impressed. The first ten minutes or so were in very effective 3-D. We wished it had gone longer.

We also wished they'd turned on their air conditioning. We sweated through the 2.5+ hours of the movie in a full theater with, apparently, no air conditioning.

I complained to the young man in the box, and he gave me an explanation I couldn't understand. It sounded as if he was saying they hadn't anticipated so many people (?? - on an opening night for a new movie?). I said, "You have done this before, right? Shown movies with people in the theater? How come theaters that charge half as much for the tickets are able to cool their audiences?"

The next day I emailed a complaint, and the manager nicely is sending a couple of tickets. The A/C timer was off due to varying schedules and audience flow.

Saturday we eventually took off for Lake Tahoe. We took a slightly roundabout route to miss the miserable traffic on US50 from Placerville to Tahoe. It was pretty except for a lot of smoke from fires.

At Tahoe was saw Chicago in concert with Earth, Wind and Fire. Our motel was close enough that we could walk to the amphitheater. I'd seen a DVD from an earlier tour, and it was a great show.

As it had rained/poured/hailed off and on, we were concerned, and took rain gear just in case.

We had poor seats in spite of my grabbing a pair even before they were supposed to be released, but the show was excellent. Both bands played a few songs together, then Chicago left the stage to Earth, Wind and Fire. They put on a very good show. Lead singer Philip Bailey is still in strong voice, with an amazing range all the way from very low to very high. I recall he made some profession of faith in Christ decades ago, and did a Christian album. His web page bio doesn't mention Jesus, Christ or church, and "gospel" is a music style.

But click on Phil's Favorites and you see a study in conflicting messages. On the one hand, he links to Alistair Begg, which is excellent, and the movie Fireproof.

By contrast, what is at the top of the list? A link to Obama.

Then Chicago took the stage and rocked the house. Everyone leapt to their feet again and again without having to be told (as EWF had to do). Terrific musicianship, and an amazing ability to play songs for the 4500th time with freshness and fire. Their newest member is guitarist Keith Howland, who also did some singing. In my opinion, he's the best to fill that slot since the amazing Terry Kath's sad and stupid death. The story of how Howland got the gig makes for some fun reading.

The lovely Mrs. Phillips was on her feet and moving to the music right along with your correspondent. When EWF joined Chicago, it only got better, and ended with roars and cheers and smiles all around.

Very little rain, but one briefly worrisome lightning bolt.

After a nice night in our comfortable (but grossly-overpriced!) room, we headed up the lake to the next night's lodging. Had fun strolling through a couple of arts and crafts fairs, picking up some delicious almonds, some water beads, and a ring with Deuteronomy 6:4 imprinted in Hebrew.

Lunch at a restaurant called Dos Coyotes — which, to my disappointment, did not actually serve coyote — then we found that a rockslide had taken out the route ahead of us. We turned around, slogged through some miserable traffic, and ended up at our absolutely delightful bed and breakfast.

Nice dinner, lovely night, sweet drive home, and here we are.

I'm mainly relaying events, but what filled it all was being able to spend time together, reminiscing, enjoying each other, having some time to ourselves away from it all. Laughing, tearing up, shaking our heads. We missed our children and talked about them a lot, but it is important for them that Mom and Dad spend time together, building and sweetening their own relationship.