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Dateline: Tuesday February 12, 2002 -- Tin Angel, Tin Angel

One good breakfast deserves another, so I pass along Phil’s karma and cook a frittata feast for my hostesses. Me, I find that smoothie I craved in Boston just up 9th Avenue, and chill out all morning in front of the tube, compelled to compare digital cable to our newly installed DirectTV. I meet the guys and we Turnpike through my former backyard.

Here in Philly yet again with no hotel before the show (always a drag, but sometimes it works that way), we hang at Cosi Cafe yet again, slurping yummy coffee drinks (mint mocha for me) and reading local rags. Looks like Jill Sobule played the Tin Angel just two days ago - what a double bill that would have been, eh? She’s GREAT - check out any of her last three albums: Jill Sobule, Happy Town or Pink Pearl. Plays many instruments. Writes all the tunes. Sings like an angel (from the cool part of heaven). Old school craft with great attitude and really funny.

Back at the Tin Angel, they’ve apparently given up where our picture is concerned - several times running they’ve had what I called the "roller disco era" shot with Gunnar, Janie, Richard and Matthew in full frontal 80’s mode, and despite our sending them new shots for three years, now there’s no shot displayed at all! A fun show for many regulars and a few virgins who had all the CDs but never saw us live. We barrel down to Vienna, VA, getting the usual hellish night clerk routine around 2:30am, but at least we can sleep some tomorrow.

Dateline: Wednesday February 13, 2002 -- NPR, Chili and Le Trap du Wolf I

Chris from Wolf Trap carts us off to WAMU for a live interview on NPR’s Public Interest. Frank Stasio is sitting in for the regular host - I hear him all the time on KPCC in LA! Turns out he’s as much of a fan of us as we are of him (he even came to the Wednesday show!). It’s so great to be interviewed by someone with really interesting questions (which I’ll remember in a few days). Callers dial in from as far away as Phoenix! You can hear the hour-long program here.

Joe, Richard and I meet Fred Parker for lunch at Hard Times again (see the Bob Tale MATO), served up with a helping of terrible dirty jokes as usual! I drool to Fred that friends sent Alex and me a Hard Times care package for the holidays - the chili it yielded was amazing. Would he franchise? We don’t have anything like that in LA... and hey, when Bobs biz is slow, I may need a job and good food!

It’s SO nice to be back in a venue with a great sound system - it’s been a rough tour so far in terms of sound. At Wolf Trap, Bill and Bob set us up again with AKG wireless mikes that rock the known world and we soundcheck in no time (amazing people running sound also helps!). The Reston Chorale joins us afterwards to rehearse "A Cappella Choir in the Sky" - they'll stand up and join us for the tune as an encore. And event coordinator/video guy extraordinaire/atomic FOB James Rosenberger (see Bob Tale Signs on the Tube) is here to video the whole shebang!

The show ROCKS - as does the Chorale. Matthew, preparing to sing bass in "Lonely at the Top," tells us to stop making him laugh because "You can’t smile when you sing bass. Richard doesn’t." To which I quickly add, "But he smiles when you sing bass." And I am given a completely adorable drawing of a cat by six year old Grace (see left) that hangs in my studio as I write this. FLUFFY RULES!! Local Bobs regular Dan Turner tells me the Kennedy Center's Sondheim celebration (six shows in repertory) is selling out fast - do I want to get tickets? HELLO! (Plans are underway!)

Back at the hotel, I call Alex, then head for James’ room to watch some of the footage, but quickly turn around when I open the door and am knocked over by cigar smoke. Apparently, James, Matthew, Paul Wick (our office god) and James’ cameramen are toking it up big time! I thank them but duck back out, coughing. What the hell’s the appeal of that?!?!?! I just washed my hair!

Dateline: Thursday February 14, 2002 -- Le Metro, Le Mall, et Le Trap du Wolf II

Yet another St. Honey’s Day spent mit out mein schatz.....again... But we’ll have a nice dinner at Maria’s once I’m home and recovered from this tour. For this morning, the James gang will have to suffice! Matthew and I chow down with them at a diner across the street before they head to BWI and we buzz the Falls Church Metro station.

It’s a gorgeous, crisp day on the Washington Mall. I was here with Alex in early October before our Iceland trip, when National Airport was still closed; now it just looks freaky when incoming planes look like they’re headed for the Washington Monument. I hate that that thought exists now... We head for the National Galleries where Christo’s projects, Matisse’s cutouts (no, not Matisse, Sheila's cat!) and various Eschers await... for FREE!!! I buy some cool notecards and discover artist Wayne Thiebaud in the gift shop. Matthew buys a cool scarf for Fiona. He tells me the Sculpture Garden is his favorite place on the mall as we head back after a quick lunch at the Gallery Cafe.

The show goes well again as usual here at The Barns of Wolf Trap. I gotta say this is probably my favorite of all the places I’ve Bobbed in the U.S. Great houses, great staff, great sound, and just a great venue. After the show, some Rochester natives ask about my Syracuse shirt and we vocally Central New York out a bit. Bobs/DC regular guests for the evening include Anne Raugh (who helped put together the Bobs Songbooks) and Renee the cool Celtic dancer, neither of whom discourage me from eating the hot dogs and pretzels in the snack bar area - shame on us! Gary of the Reston Chorale tells me about his house in the San Juans (oohhhhhhh) and asks us to play there. Twist my arm!

Dateline: Friday February 15, 2002 -- Mary(hadalittle)land

We finally dump the gourmet desserts from NYC - there was just too too much, and although it was kept frozen in the trunk all week we sadly know it’s history. (For all of you contemplating bringing us food, please do not be discouraged from doing so - just don’t go overboard or we’ll need another rental car!)

Our promotional appearance at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD yields a frustrated audience question: "How come you have yet another girl Bob?" Oy, this blondness! I explain that rumors of my departure are as false as my new haircolor. A cub reporter for the school paper asks us after the show, "Do other groups do what you do, you know, without music?"

But the best reporter experience of the trip comes on the phone later that day from the Daily Californian of Salinas, CA. "So, your show is at the Bar at Wolf Trap?" "You just know all these people in those cities and they ask you to do shows there?" Particularly striking after talking with Frank Stasio, as well as the San Jose Mercury News guy who were both so into us. I really enjoy doing interviews and feel blessed to get to do something so interesting for a living - but sometimes the urge to hang up on people who haven’t done their homework is mighty!

What do ex-theater folk do on their nights off in a strange city? They seek out theater. After making sure the guys are staying in so I can take the car, I head for a Loyola University production of "City of Angels", a show I’ve never seen but have heard I would enjoy... which is true. A fabulous set and some great student performances. The kids look so incredibly young to me... and it doesn’t help matters when I purchase my ticket that the box office chick asks if I’m faculty!!!! Talk about an anvil to the head! In LA I could have them destroyed for such a remark!

Back in my room, CNN says the Olympic skating controversy is in full swing and they’ve cloned cats (a purrfect addition to Fluffy’s Master Plan...). Alex tells me the moose sheets have arrived!!! Back in Salem, Jim and Maria asked if we had the moose sheets they saw at K-Mart (no, we didn't). They went back, bought them, and sent them the next day!!! (Alex and I are obsessed with moose.)

Dateline: Saturday February 16, 2002 -- Amoss Gathers No Rolling Stones?

Wow - 8 hours of natural sleep. Amazing. Maybe it was hearing about the moose sheets? In any case that’s highly unusual. Usually it’s way less on the road, or I’ve taken any one of several rotating remedies including Tylenol PM, Sleep-Eze or these Chinese herbs from NYC Joe gave me. Melatonin doesn't work on me, so I have to gage the importance of my sleep for the night based on tomorrow’s schedule, see how tired I’m feeling aound midnight, then make a decision. Nothing works twice in a row. Terrible, I know, but it’s always the same story. Except in Europe, where the exhaustion of the trip over is enough to make sleep through on my own and never wears off completely. Anyway, tomorrow we have to be up at 5:30am, so I needed it today!

I’m up at 9:30am, wondering if Matthew wants coffee (usually a slam dunk). We’re at a highway exit off of 95 basically, with only an Italian restaurant, two gas stations and a Denny’s within walking distance. Starbucks is a few miles away. I knock on his door (Matthew is always up early, Richard’s a tossup and Joe is always asleep) and hand him the car keys, heading to Denny’s with a newspaper. It’s surprisingly crowded at 10am, then I realize, "Oh yeah, it’s the weekend," (It’s not uncommon for me to have no clue what day it is.) Matthew and I go for coffee around 11:30am, discussing the pros and cons of cats and dogs, a 10-year old subject chez me. Alex wants a dog, me a cat. We originally decided to get both together, but it’s really not good for a dog to be in a three-story condo in concrete-ville LA - it needs a yard. Alex is weakening... I can smell it! The rest of the day is spent online in my room while weird movies like Island of Dr. Moreau play in the background.

The new Amoss Center at Harford College is really nice. We sound check quickly (unusual) and end up sitting around for 2 hours until showtime... it’s 30 minutes each way back to the hotel so we nap, yak, eat, etc. Joe cracks us up flailing across the room in the swivel/bumper chairs of the green room, ultimately crashing into a sofa. Dinner includes crab cakes (the guys love em, but I say they're one of those "not a food together" things like banana bread or carrot cake, as in crabs OK, cakes OK but not together) and yum salad. Former food guy Evo, my Buffy buddy (See I Bob, Therefore I-95), has been promoted to house manager in the new building - congratulations!

The show is great - and Bach to Bach is back in the set. We gave it a rest since Richard hasn’t been feeling well. Afterwards, little Allison, who I wrote about in the same Bob Tale as Evo (above), comes to say hello, all grown up! She has printed out the Bob Tale and asks me to sign it. What a trip!

Dateline: Sunday February 17, 2002 -- Sunrise Somewhere Else Again, Homeward Bound

What a trip indeed. I am either pretending to be asleep, or dreaming that I am asleep when the alarm goes off at 5:20am. Matthew cruises us to Dulles as the sun rises in the DC burbs. The "MD 495 W" sign is lit up differently at sunrise. Here we are again, bulleting through people’s backyards as they sleep. I always think about that. Who are we passing by? What are their lives like? Hey, there’s Matthew’s favorite building on the Dulles Airport Access Road - the tall, dark reflective one that looks especially cool in the fall when the leaves are mirrored.

I check the now-empty merchandise bag (yippee!), go through the security madness... Riding in Cars With Boys is a terrible movie... I’m boiling hot (usually the case with these early a.m. airport runs) and go in and out of consciousness, slumped over my tray table. Joe and I are supposed to sing with Sixth Wave later today at their show in LA at the Jazz Bakery... will we be able to stay in the upright and locked position at 4:30pm? YOU DECIDE!

©2002 Amy Engelhardt, goofy captions by Alex Stein