No Regular Day
I'm persistent.
I tried for over a week to score tickets to Jim Cuddy's Intimate & Interactive CD Release Party, to no avail. I figured I hadn't shined my horseshoe quite well enough, and consoled myself with the fact my pre-ordered copy of his new album would arrive in my excited little hands by the release date and moved on. Or, I moved on until a friend informed me that Jim would be filming for CTV down the road from me in Westboro.
Westboro? DOWN THE ROAD??!
I started planning the school lunches the night before to make sure I could be out the door in time to get a glimpse and maybe a photo. I've been a Blue Rodeo, nay, Jim Cuddy fan for over 20 years. I loved his music in secret in high school when admitting a passion for steel guitar and twang would have made me a figure of ridicule far beyond admitting I love Brit Pop. The idea of being within 20m of my favorite musician rather blew my mind -- no way was I missing this!
Throwing the lunches together that morning was, in hindsight, a little hilarious as I had a mini-meltdown when the kids decided they didn't want wraps anymore (out of the blue).
"Don't you DARE complain about your lunches! If I'm late because of this and miss seeing Jim Cuddy, so help me hell fire will rain down in this house!"
I made it there with time to spare, though, and was surprised to see how few people turned up. I scored a CTV mug (which the kids found the most exciting part of the whole day), and basically stalked Jim around the field for an hour. Before I left my house, I'd grabbed my copy of his new CD, so I was stunned when I had the chance to get it signed. More stunned with the chance to have my picture taken with him!
I was totally unprepared for that.
You can almost see what I'm thinking:
"Jim. Is. TOUCHING. Me. Dude. Umm.. DUDE. JIM. IS. TOUCHING! ME!!"
Not one of my best moments..
The cherry on the top of my morning was scoring a pair of tickets to his release party.
Intimate! Interactive! JIM!! w00t!
The obvious choice for my date was my childhood friend, Heather. We have a mutual Jim thing. Seriously. It predates my marriage, and I've been hitched 15yrs this Fall.
We're totally going steady when it involves Mr. Cuddy.
Of course, she wasn't home. So I Facebooked her. I phoned her. I tried contacting her in every way I knew how short of smoke signals and Morse Code and, in the end, she only found out by accident as she had someone else's phone. We made plans, we discussed logistics, we debated clothing choices.
I had no idea Jim Cuddy was so funny.
The Release Party itself was a lot of fun. He played tunes from his new album, answered questions from fans, signed autographs, discussed the irony of being a sex god in his mid-50's, and got mobbed by a sea of middle-aged women -- it was a good time!
I had the chance to make up for my photo FAIL earlier in the day:
And Heather and I grabbed another picture to add to our collection of Cuddy Dates:
