wife out of town = PARTY ON GARTH

(clouds and sky by GOD, pitchers by Gary Rith--don't forget, open studio today, 1-5! 540 Main St, Etna, NY, rt 366 the purple house!)
You do see a sky like that and you kinda wait for, as Stevo said, a Monty Python voiced God to pipe in "stop your whining and sniveling!".
Typically, the word gets out that your wife is out of town, and everybody seems to feel bad for you because they know she is the life of your party, so the invitations pour in, the fun begins!

Bethie's husband Curtis Kretz is the drummer for Purple Valley. Purple Valley has this great bluesy-country-rock sound, and EVERY one of their tunes is played perfectly, whether their own songs or the Stones or Tom Petty etc. Anyway, Stevo called up to say he'd give me a ride, and he showed up in his elderly mirthmobile (duct tape where needed) with Judy, Kyle, Allen, and Deidre. And as I say, we met up at The Haunt with Bethie.
The Haunt is not one of my usual haunts, although it is a nice looking place, right on the waterfront with a great deck on the lake, or at least a swampy inlet to the lake. The clientele, though, looks mostly like they could seriously kick my ass. The first dancers were this incredibly tall and skinny dude with no front teeth dancing with his incredibly tall and skinny GF and I clapped for them, sort of like, great dancing guys! and he gave me a look like he was gonna take out MY front teeth....
Seriously! I guess he didn't want me looking at his GF or maybe he thought I was mocking them....but luckily I was wearing my Snoopy the pirate party tee and he seemed to think better of messing with me....

I wish my photos did the band justice. They did a fantastic 2 hour set, even though Curtis has a broken foot. Even with the cast on there he was rocking and rolling those drums. Purple Valley has several members, some of which are family, like the singer is the keyboardist's daughter who is married to the harmonica...something like that, and last night they had someone's 7 year old on the big bass and someone's 13 year old came on and sang some songs...muy perfecto, muy fun.
(below, Judy, Stevo, Bethie)