Wild About Omaha

There was a boy I liked. I named him Mat Kawakami. I saw him years ago open for another boy I liked, who I named Jason Kawakami. He was in Omaha for his own show now, but alas, he didn’t remember me. Go figure. That’s okay, to be honest, I didn’t even know he had a new album out. We’re even. And he has gone back to his former name of Mat Kearney. The venue was great though, and we even got to snag a few chairs in the mad rush of the opening doors. That makes any person who happens to be carrying around an extra 30 pounds very happy. Pathetic highlight? Perhaps.

Happy Birthday Carol! It was a surprise 50th, that was actually a real surprise – you’d know it by the look on her face and the words she mouthed in the car. Fremont is only a 40 minute drive from Omaha for us, but Papa Joe and YuYong came from St Louis to celebrate as well. A very nice weekend with the family, t’was. A huge thanks to Nikki for throwing the shindig and all of us over.

Omaha is actually a very groovy city. They always have shit to do and things to see, places to eat and people to watch. This weekend was an event called Wild About Omaha. Albeit a once-every-hundred-years event, it was wicked cool. I haven’t used that phrase in a while, I’m bringing it back. Anyway, it was a party put on by the Mutual of Omaha company (what do they do exactly anyway, sell insurance and have the nature show?) that made a shit ton of venues free plus more. So free is obvious – you get in free to a bunch of museums, galleries, performing arts, a baseball game and the zoo. The plus was even better – when you get into the said venue – they give you more – food, beer, wine, water, pop. What could be better? We didn’t go to everything, but what we went to was great – there is a museum here that is located in the old Union Station of Omaha (beautiful) that has a temporary exhibit about the history of hockey in Omaha, which we had planned on going to anyway. But we went this weekend instead and got a root beer float with it too.

At a gallery, they had creativity oozing from the doorjams – this dragon is actually a keg holder – the draws are hiding in the rib cage! And yes, they were tapping it. There were really random studios in this building with incredible artists of all different mediums.

There were a bunch of venues with outdoor entertainment like bands and plays.

A new exhibit was very interesting – it was a cave – where inside they had a band (more beer) playing LOUD music in the dark surrounded by candles. I can still hear the song - something about spinning, spin spin spin spin spin. Definitely not mainstream. I’m not sure they are even in a stream at all, gotta love that. Apparently all the construction materials used were eco/recycled materials – a treehuggers paradise.

Charlie hasn’t been out to a lake since we were in Minneapolis, (at least that’s the excuse we used) so we took Mike and Kristen up on the invite to stop by their camp in Waverly. Not really a campsite, but even better – friends of theirs have a house on a private lake.

We find a sport we love, and guess what happens? The season ends. So we wait with anticipation until next year. The first game we went to was so overboard, we were sure it had to be because it was the final game that dictated playoff status. Not so, little one – it was like that again – but this was now a playoff game. Guess I’ll have to wait until next year to see if they are always as psycho as the past two games. This is passion with a capital P. Indoor football = cheap, fun, laid back, and noisy. Never before have I heard hundreds of cowbells clanging at the same time, seen the announcer more into a game than any player, witnessed a good bunch of the crowd jump on the field to take part in the halftime entertainment, or man-fans like no others with at least three wardrobe changes per game.

We hit Fun Plex again – both of Cujo’s work summer parties have been held there, and it’s a good time. Both days were great days to be outside or in the pool. This is a fun little amusement park right in town with a dry side and a wet side. The dry side is pretty young targeted rides and the wet side has slides and pools and a lazy river. Perfect for the lazy waddler that is me.