Just a few minutes ago I was standing in my kitchen, putting away a few clean dishes, when I heard my cellphone ringing from my bedroom at the other end of the apartment. I dashed for it, but didn’t get to it before the caller was sent to the land of voicemail. Checking the missed calls log, I saw that it was my sister who had called (last summer she programmed her name in phone to read ‘Raina Loves You’).
I called her back and she picked up on the first ring.
“Hey Meece. We’re outside of Washington, D.C. The clutch went on the bus.”
“Rain, I think that bus is cursed, first the alternator, now the clutch.”
“It’s not cursed, it’s just that they bought it a week before the tour and didn’t have it checked out real well before we left.”
“Uh-huh. So here’s what I think you should do. I think you should get on a train and come to Philly. You could be here in two hours.”
She laughed. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it. Although I was thinking of something more along the lines of ‘Meecie, come get me.’ But we’re supposed to be in Boston tomorrow night, so I don’t think that will work.”
“Oh well, it was a nice thought.”
“Yeah, it was.”
We chatted a little more about how she could spend a couple of unanticipated hours in D.C., before hanging up. The backstory to this conversation is that right now Raina is on tour with a bluegrass band called Green Mountain Grass. And they bought a big old 1977 MCI Crusader to travel in. Only it keeps breaking down and they keep missing gigs.
A note for the Philly folks–If you happen to look at the calendar of performance dates on my sister’s website, you will notice that she has her Philly gig listed as starting at 1 pm. That is incorrect. It will be starting at 5 pm. I recommend arriving a little early for that show, but four hours might be a little excessive.
Yo! You gotta give the Boston fans advanced notice when you know that Raina is going to be in town!