My Irish Wife

I found this on The Library of Congress web site and I find it amusing that so many years later "the queen of France" (or at least a recent prime Minister's wife, Carla Bruni) is known to be a beauty of international reknown). Looking up around downtown Boston one can see many markers listing company names imbedded in the stone at about the second story on a lot of buildings. I am endlessly surprised at how many of those companies that built those buildings were music publishers.

   This was a company I hadn't seen on a building or heard of before so I thought it worth sharing. At some point I'll travel down Hanover Street and see if the original building is still there...

It was 20 years ago today...

I was sick and quite suffering this night but determined to go see Joe Satriani at this event, I got dressed up as cute as I could with a red runny nose and wandered over to the Garden with my friend Rebecca.

   It turned out to be one of those nights that I should have known better and just hunkered down with some extra blankets and stayed home.

   The bad vibe that began with my cold continued as some guy got up on stage and proposed to his girlfriend who declined his offer and shortly after the great fan fare with which she was brought up on stage the two of them were quickly hustled off and never heard from again.
  I'd be inclined to think, "Poor Dude!" but c'mon, who does that without being 100% sure the girl is going to say yes. Poor girl being thrust into that uncomfortable position, sheesh...

   We saw Mr. Satriani perform about 4 songs and then it was someone else's turn and with my feeling just awful and the main event over, Rebecca and I started to leave.

  Then I slipped in someone Else's spilled beer and went crashing down into the same wet puddle but not before trying to catch my fall. I missed the railing with my hand and caught my full body weight using just my little pinky finger. I bent it back so far that I could still feel some soreness years later and to this day I still cringe if that finger is bent back even a little.

But at least the worst of the night is over right?

 No such luck...

   We found ourselves slightly turned around on our way back to Jamaica Plain from the Garden and  wound up coming out of a one way street in the middle of the old combat zone. The neighborhood was on it's way to being cleaned up but not quite there yet when at approx midnight as I inched my car forward to see around parked cars, a cab going WAY TOO FAST clipped the front end of my car and dragged up a good block or so before depositing my car in the middle of an intersection.

   My mother's voice cropped up in my head at this time,

 "If you are in an accident, don't move the car until the police get there and take pictures!"

    Good advice I guess but my Mother never imagined that I would be in an accident in the middle of the combat zone at midnight on a friday night. A million (that's an estimate but I think it's about right) cars trying from all 4 angles to get past my car diagonalll in the middle of the intersection, people yelling, a not unmad best friend who had just been given quite a scare, and a cacophony of mayhem surrounded us.          

     I moved the car.

Which probably saved it from A.) being hit again or B.) myself being throttled by a crowd of angry strangers. Mother's advice not with standing still, I did the right thing.

    In the end, the cops did come and help me and the cab driver share insurance info which was nice as I was ranting like a loon and probably looked far less than a fine upstanding citizen with my rage, red eyes, runny nose and askew formerly cute club dress.

Far from looking like a damsel in distress, I am quite sure in hindsight that I looked all for the world like I belonged there smack dab in the middle of the old combat zone...

   All ended well enough I guess as my car had only a chunk of cosmetic damage to the side where as the cab had to be towed away. People over the years have frequently spoken to me about the benefits of heavy ALL AMERICAN cars and how they are so much "safer" than any of the light weight little foreign cars I have had over the years but all I can think about is that night and how we were perfectly safe and just kind of bounced along and then off of the heavy car that clipped us. If we had been in a heavier car the damage would have undoubtedly been far worse. As is was, we were completely unscathed, except for our state of mind of course, and got back home without further fanfare to a well deserved (and probably should have had right from the start) good night sleep.

  Then the next day I had to confess to my Mother what had happened and had to endure the lecture on how I should not have moved the car...

    A couple of months later my friends and I were parked at a fast food joint somewhere in Brighton I think and we spotted a cab with some side damage in the parking lot.

   "Wouldn't it be funny if that was the same cab?" someone said.

Just for giggles we pulled the info from my glove box and sure enough, it was the same cab. No longer as amusing as the coincidence first seemed in theory, we skeedaddled out of there as fast as we could without getting into another accident...

     A lot of  adventure for only a couple of songs which I probably didn't enjoy as much as I could have had I been well but even if it was only briefly, I got to see Joe Satriani play.

   All's well that ends well....