Dwight Yoak-whom?

This was the third year in a row that Beth and I made our way out to the desert for the Stagecoach Country Music Festival. It is one our favorite times ever and this year was no different. Although it was the hottest weather we have ever experienced, we still braved the climate, slathered head to toe in sunscreen, intricately placed our Shark Skin flasks in our pants and/or bras and headed to the Empire Polo Club in Indio. Besides tailgating in the parking lot, trying to stay hydrated while sweating to death and finally crossing through the security checkpoint with our free booze in our pants, we ultimately love to see the bands. This year on the Toyota Mane stage we saw Toby Keith, Lady Antebellum, Thompson Square and Dierks Bentley to name a few. Between the big acts and our annoying trips to the steaming hot and smelly port-a-potty’s, we did make our way over to the side stages to see a few other acts. Like Dwight Yoakam. Or at least who we thought was Dwight Yoakam…

We were a little drunk when we made our way over to the stage to see Dwight and when we got there, he was already performing. We joined the rest of the crowd, singing and dancing along to his legendary music. We kept commenting on his tight, black leather pants, his dapper ascot and his slicked back poofy helmet hair and wondered if he had any plastic surgery. What did it matter, though? This was Dwight Yoakam and we certainly were enjoying it.

The next day, while we were eating at Subway, we decided to ‘Google’ Dwight Yoakam just to see how old he actually was and if he had gone under the knife. We were surprised when the numerous pictures that came up looked absolutely nothing like the Dwight we had seen. We were confused. Did we see Dwight Yoheim? Yight Doakam? Shmight Schmoakam? We looked at the lineup again and saw that Dwight did in fact play from 5:30-6:30 on one of the side stages. Huh. But we also noticed that Marty Stuart played from 5:30-6:30 on one of the side stages as well. We ‘Googled’ Marty Stuart and to our surprise we saw that shiny haired, ascot loving smile glaring back at us. Dammit.

Say Cheese!

I am usually a very outgoing person and don’t mind small talking with strangers but sometimes I just need ‘Erin time.’ Like today, when I was enjoying my salad outside Trader Joe’s in the warm sunlight. Just as I took a bite of my grilled chicken salad with rice noodles, a guy sat down on the bench next to me. This was completely normal at this hour, as many people frequent the benches outside Trader Joe’s for lunch. I didn’t think anything of it, until he asked me how the salad was. I quickly responded (mid chew) that it was good, hoping that our brief conversation was over. Nope! He then proceeded to tell me about all the different salads that he has tried from Trader Joe’s and began to embellish on his vegetarian lifestyle. He asked me if I ever tried to be a vegetarian and I told him I was a vegan momentarily but missed cheese too much. Well, I must have been talking to a cheese connoisseur because it was as if I was talking about shrimp with Bubba from Forrest Gump the way he responded to my comment.  

The guy starts asking me what my favorite cheeses were, told me which ones he preferred, how blue cheese contained penicillin, how parmesan was surprisingly easy to cook with and how swiss was not…blah blah blah blah….I thought someone was playing a trick on me. As he got more and more excited on the cheese topic, I just nodded in disbelief that I was actually “having a conversation” with this guy during my ‘Erin time’ and wished I could just walk away. But oh no, Erin is too nice and sat and listed to every last minute of Cheesy McCheddarson’s speech until my lunch break was over. As I was walking back to my office I surprisingly had a craving for a mozzarella cheese stick….