[General] To the dogs or whoever

"To the dogs or whoever" is currently my favourite Josh Ritter song.  Previous favourites have been "Snow is gone", "Kathleen", and "Leaves and Kings".  Should it be "To the dogs or whomever"?


To the dogs or whoever
I didn't get to hear "Leaves and Kings" last night, but he did perform both Kathleen at the first close (lots of fan fare) and "To the dogs or whoever" as the final encore, which he sang at double the already fast tempo and it was impossible to sing along as our audience did much of the night.

It was a great performance, and was spared some of the criticisms of past time's I've gone to see him; the first time, with The Frames, the speakers were "maxed out" as I like to think of it, and it sounded terrible, loud, crackly, and flat; that was with Shane, Leanne, and someone else.  The second time, the sound quality was better, but it was so loud I enjoyed it more from the rear of the venue; that was still an amazing surprise night and performance together, though now I wonder whether I seemed ungrateful at the time.  This time was the venue was perfect; the volume and quality and enthusiasm and crowd were all excellent.  I liked that the physical space was smaller and so was the crowd.

I would have had to leave after the first 40 minutes of his performance if I had wanted to catch the last bus home last night, so instead I let myself be stranded in K-W for the night and enjoyed the whole night.  Afterwards was fun; my hat receives lots of compliments and some people pet it without consent, people outside pulled me in to dance on the sidewalk, I saved a foam snowflake from being discarded in the garbage, and an hour later handed it over to revellers who I thought could enjoy it more.

I had briefly intended on a walking adventure from Waterloo to Guelph but cancelled that when the weather forecast hinted at ice rain; I love dry colds, but not wet colds that sink into your clothing (thankfully a regular experience my memory now downplays about my time in NZ and Vancouver).  The walk would only be 5 hours, and I've had longer.  I am in good shape and had water and bagels with me from Tim Hortons, I was well dressed and had sufficient charge on my phone in case of emergencies.  So, it was mildly disappointing not going.  Instead, I rediscovered much of Waterloo; a place I've been avoiding.

Mel's Diner, reborn

These aren't the conditions in which I necessarily wanted to revisit old places; there's a strange, simultaneous discomfort and comfort in them.  Most interesting of all the places I wandered would be Mel's Diner, which actually had burnt down while I was away, and has been rebuilt, much to my satisfaction.  It's known for large burgers, oreo and banana milkshakes, and being open 24-hours for the weekend (it was not open when I came by at 5AM Tuesday morning, unfortunately; but then I probably wouldn't have wanted to eat there right now anyway).

So, hooray for excellent concerts, for adventure, for snow, for life.