Houston Part II

After our photo class, Lora and I stopped by to visit her "Mormor". What a really neat lady. She's 88 years old and sharp as a tack. She recounted to us a really neat story of her friend Margaret who lives in Florida. I won't go into all the details, but it was funny, loving, and sad all in one. Makes me wish that I had spent more time hearing stories from Papa Sneed when we had the chances to visit. He will be 94 this year, and I am sure he has some great stories to share with us, if we had made an effort to ask and listen. Anyways, I won't go down that path right now.

Lora, Nita and I had tickets to the Hotel Cafe Tour that night, so we had to get home and get ready! It totally happened by accident, but we all ended up in flowered shirts for the night - awwww, how cute, right? :)

We met for some tapas at Mi Luna in Rice Village. I seriously LOVE this place. Everything is made with so much garlic.....I could drink the stuff that comes with the bread with a straw.....the flavors are wonderful. It was a nice night and we were lucky enough to score a table on that patio. Shrimp doused in garlic, mushrooms doused in garlic.....more bread with garlic.....yea, we ate good! If you live in Houston, and haven't been here yet....GO. It's on University in Rice Village....oh, you can go to the website and get directions. I get lost in Houston if it weren't for my locals. :) So, go there, order as many things as you can, and enjoy. Eat lots of the bread sauce....you'll love it.


So, Hotel Cafe Tour. Let me set this up for you. Back when So You Think You Can Dance was still on, Danny did one of his solos to this song that was so beautiful, I had to look it up online immediately. I am pretty sure that this was the first time that I discovered Joshua Radin. I fell in love with his songs, music, voice instantly. Turns out that he's part of a whole community of singer/songwriters that are all equally beautifully talented and amazing. So, it was from here that I learned more about Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers, Schuyler Fisk, William Fitzsimmons, Meiko, and many many more. I'd been stalking their pages to find out when they'd be coming to Austin....and then I discovered the Hotel Cafe Tour. There are a bunch of them that tour together!! This was fantastic news. I noticed that they were headed to Austin and Houston a few months back. When I get ready in the morning, I pull up their page and just let it roll through all the songs - they are all so beautiful! I wasn't able to get into the Austin show because it was part of SXSW, but we had our tickets to this show for a while. I've been so excited for this show, and was so happy that the day finally arrived.

The Houston stop, at Meridian, included JR, Cary Brothers, Greg Laswell, Sara Bareilles, and Ingrid Michaelson. They each played a few times on stage, and collaborated on some songs too - which was SOOOO cool. I am seriously in love with their talents! One of the things that a few of them do, is to take a song that everyone knows and turn it into their own. Ingrid sang Creep by Radiohead, and also The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. I can't remember who it was that sang that awesome song from Say Anything....the one where he's standing outside her window with the boom box, but it was awesome. I was laughing at myself last night because I had no idea that If You Were Here, sung by Cary, was a remake of a song from the movie Sixteen Candles. I've been jamming to it for weeks, and loved it, but had NO clue!!! HA!


Lora and I were in music heaven during the show, and Nita really enjoyed hearing new music. I think we've converted her!! :)

So, after the show, we were on our way out, and there was a huge crowd around the merch booth. Joshua Radin, or JR as I like to call him, was there.....signing stuff, taking pictures, all that jazz. Lora and I jumped up on the small stage that was beside where he was, and totally got busted taking a pic of him. He saw us, and made a funny face just for our picture. The even more funny thing about this is that he's so stoic, and without much movement while he's on stage performing, that it was so funny that he had so much personality off stage. We hung there for a bit, and then decided to go ahead and wait in line to say hi properly. So, we waited with the teenagers for our turn at the front. Of course, Lora and I were our witty selves, and instead of just taking a picture and running off, we chatted JR up for a bit, and then took the cutest self portrait with him before taking off. Nita stood back and watched.....she did get to witness a funny account of an onlooker too. She said that one of the girls that was hanging around, after we were talking to JR, looked at her friend and said "Ugh, figures". We had all sorts of fun trying to determine what that meant, but we ended up deciding that she was jealous because we were so friendly. Hee hee.


JR promises that he's going to be coming back to Texas real soon on his own headlining tour...and that he'll play Lora's (Winter) and my favorite (The Fear You Won't Fall) songs when he does.

One last fun pic with the Hotel Cafe Tour bus and we were on our way home.


Seriously, if these singer/songwriters are coming to a town near you...go see them. You won't be disappointed!!