lucky perro

So my Valentine had to go out of town, but before he did he presented me with a lovely gift.  There is a wonderful store in Key West called Besame Mucho (their website doesn’t give a sense of their actual inventory), and I had shown him a few things there that I liked.  I received a beautiful necklace and scarf for my birthday and got some amazing earrings this morning before he left for the train station–not the ones below, but those are gorgeous, too, no?  I’m just saying.  They’re by Hortense; check out her shop for more goodies. 

Oh, and I gave up booze for Lent, just because, so I’ve had to find a new nightly vice.  Fortunately, four pints of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream arrived yesterday, because my husband “accidentally” put in an order for someone else twice.  Rather than cancel the second one, he sent it our way, and I’m glad he did, because it is the jam.  I really don’t even care about ice cream all that much (given my choice of desserts, I’d probably pick a brownie), but it is soooo goood and the flavors are insanely creative and vivid.  We got Askinosie Dark Milk Chocolate, Bangkok Peanut (which is coconut-y and spicy), Wildberry Lavender, and Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk.  Hard to say which is my favorite–I think they all are.

I hope you and your Valentine had a lovely and sweet Valentine’s Day!

So my in-laws called me last week and asked if we wanted tickets and backstage passes to see Haim opening for Mumford & Sons.  Um, YES!  My brother-in-law is friends with one of the lovely Haim sisters (performing above), who kindly set us up.  Haim have gotten all kinds of awesome buzz, and I knew their music was great, but they are also amazing performers.  All three sisters are drummers and they did this amazing drum-off at the end of their set.  You can find their music on iTunes, all sorts of great concert video online (I like this one of “Let Me Go”), and see Haim’s Valentine’s Day playlist for The Guardian.

Who’s that, you ask?  Oh, just Ben Howard eating a grilled cheese and chatting with Baby Haim after he opened as well.

You can get a sense of our vantage point for watching Mumford & Sons, who were obviously fantastic.  I especially loved all the lights they had up.

The only sad part is that we missed them all performing “The Weight” (in tribute to Levon Helm) at the end, because it was late and we had a long drive and a babysitter who had class the next day.  Oh well–trucking out there was a small price to pay for a great night.

(Excuse the crappy photos and super-short video; I only had my iPhone and it was dying.)