Timpani mallets? Priceless.

We’re home from a mini-vacation of four Styx shows, visiting with friends, and seeing The Da Vinci Experience exhibit at the Air & Space Museum in San Diego. Woo!

Highlights:

• Lawrence taking my hands and saying “Dayle, hello,” and later remembering how to spell my name when he signed my promotional plastic “A Criminal Mind” handcuffs.
  
• Chatting with Taylor Mills, Todd Sucherman’s wife, about her CD and all manner of other things for half an hour or so.
  
• Seeing the twins get their poster signed by Lawrence and Chuck.
  
• Making Fran laugh so hard I thought she was going to hyperventilate.
  
• Learning that Keith (the stage manager) bitched about the security guards at the Harrah’s Casino show on his Facebook account during the concert.
  
• Discovering my inner “protect the band” beast. I scared a couple of idiots who did something supremely stupid. I scared Ken. I scared myself. Bottom line: Nobody gets at my boys!
  
• Coming up with a great t-shirt slogan that I might just be able to convince the merch guy to make.
  
• Reading stories for this week’s writing workshop in Oregon on my iPhone while sitting in line waiting for a show.
  
• And the pièce de la résistance: Todd tossing Ken two broken timpani mallets. He uses the mallets for “Suite Madame Blue,” and last year Ken held up a sign asking for one. Of course, mallets are reusable, and I thought that would never happen. The night after he threw them to Ken, Ken held up a sign thanking him, and Todd pointed and mouthed “Those were for you!” meaning he remembered the request and must have saved the ones he’d broken at some point. Ken is as giddy as a schoolgirl, and rightly so! Dude!
  

Now it’s heads-down working until Wed when I get on a plane to Oregon for a workshop. Can’t wait! I have a bunch of awesome stories to finish reading, and I get to hang out with some amazing writers I’m privileged to call friends.