Viva la Vida Bueno con mi Esposo Bueno!

About a month ago Russ came home in a dither. He had something up his sleeve.

"I've been thinking about your birthday..."
"What about it?"
"I wanna give you your present now."
"But you don't even know what I want yet!" (This is classic me. I'm a pain in the ass to shop for.)
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you'll like this." (My brain: he bought me a car?)

Not a car, but 4 tickets to Coldplay in the Premier Club section of the American Airlines Center, complete with parking passes. AND, he told me he wanted me to take 3 girlfriends and he would stay home and babysit. Ohmigosh. The Viva La Vida tour was something I thought I wouldn't see due to the fact that decent seats started at $150. Russ had found amazing seats through his company.

And Russ is a good man, y'all. Last night as I was getting ready (a tough task considering my uniform of yoga pants and old sorority tees has been my wardrobe staple), I said, "babe, I'm excited to hang out with the girls but I'm gonna miss you being there." He replied, "I know you well enough: you'd worry the whole time about me and whether I was having fun or not. You'll be way more relaxed with the girls."

He knows me almost as well as he knows the lines to every eighties movie with the plot line: underdog boy finds the passion/talent/supernatural werewolf powers to overcome the rich kid/karate challenger/basketball hero and get both the girl of his dreams AND his sidekick-cum-soulmate-girl-who-exuded-lesbian-vibes.

We went to Strong's Tavern for dinner and drinks before heading over to the AAC. ("We" being Wendy, Emily, and Emily.)
"When are they gonna play Strawberry Swing?!" (Emily Loerke, who will love me for this photo...did I mention she brought dinner for Russ just to thank him, too?)One of two cameras that Emily McKeaigg used to take photos with. Needless to say, hers will be better than my iPhone pics.
My favorite part of the night was when the entire band walked off stage, through the AAC, to the back of the venue and up into the stands where they sang an acoustic version of "The Scientist." They just wanted to give everyone in the back seats a little treat. Very humble and generous of them! It was a fun night, though to be totally honest I found myself thinking at 9:10pm, "if they don't come on soon, I'm gonna be asleep." Also, Wendy and I screamed to each other above the din of the noise, "really wish I had earplugs!" Yep, we're old.

Thanks for the early b-day, Rusty!