last night on earth

i was planning on being conservative, responsable. reasonable, even.
i knew that i would probably miss the fall leg of the 21st century breakdown tour... the red pants leg of the tour... the cigarettes and valentines leg of the tour...
i know what youre thinking- if you saw the first part of the tour why worry about it? or maybe youre thinking- if you 've seen them more than 20 times why worry about it? well. because. those times he wasnt wearing RED pants. what if everything is different now and i miss it and history remembers the best green day shows ever were the red pants shows... and those are the ones that i missed...??

still, red pants or no red pants, i made my peace with missing the show because i had a good enough reason... birthing a baby is probably one of very few things that would keep me away from a green day concert.

if one is not permitted to vacuum for 6 weeks after having a baby, i think going to the rock show is definitely out.
fair enough. i would miss this one. it was the responsable, reasonable, conservative choice.

turns out, im not responsable, reasonable or conservative. and missing a green day show is not something we lenzes do.

i was feeling the itch a few days before, when my sisters and friends would post things on facebook like "five days to the green day concert, so excited, LOL" and i would have to counter with my own status update "just got pooped on, isnt life prescious. LOL"

still, resolved to be responsable, reasonable and conservative and sit home with my pre-schooler and my newborn and my husband and all my tivoed episodes of 'big bang theory' to keep me from clawing the walls.

then, 10am on monday morning (day of the show) my sister sends over a text that xander, my 6 year old nephew, may not want to go to the concert and that jason, her husband and avid fan of the band Tool, would also probably not go and did we want her extra tickets if they cancelled?

suddenly possibility was alive. suddenly being reasonable, responsable and conservative seemed overwhelmingly stupid and my primary concern became 'how quickly can my mom get here to babysit rocket and zoe?'

of course, sarah (my sister) is at least 50% cold-hearted bitch. because there turned out to only be, say, a 25% chance that xander would not go and we would get to...
however, lest i seem ungrateful (or somehow incur sarah's wrath) just to offer us the tickets, just in case, just on the 25% chance we could use them, was incredibly generous- dont get me wrong- sarah is at least 50% wonderful, kind-hearted and pure.
but she did put us in a situation where we now had to sit and wait for the whim of a first grader to determine whether or not we could go see our favorite band and the man of my dreams in his red pants.

waiting is not something im good at.
but moving forward relentlessly once set in motion is an area at which i excell.
i knew months ago that i would not be going to this show, but now possibility had been introduced. all that reasonable, responsable crap went right out the window and now i had a willing and eager babysitter all set up and all i needed was the means to attend... the tickets.
sarah had given us the potential for tickets, i needed a guarantee.

enter the idiot club.
you may remember that last fall when we saw green day at america west arena we had terrible seats and i found out too late that i could have won floor access tickets from the idiot club if i had only checked my email that day.
well, i learned my lesson. and now that i was fanning the fire of possibility and burning the slaughtered remains of reason and responsability, i was also refreshing my email inbox constantly looking for word from the green day fan club that i have been a paying, card carrying member of for at least 6 years.

and it arrived.
a trivia contest for tickets to the show. and i knew all the answers except one, which i found the answer to easily on the idiot club news page... which i also refresh constantly.

so now, here we were sitting, waiting and wondering if we would either hear back from a sister or win a contest. should we put on pants for the first time in two weeks, or stay comfortable in our 'never leave the house' attire (the uniform of new parents)?
we waited. one leg in a pair of real pants, ready to be seen by other humans, and one leg in a pair of pj pants, ready to expand at the waist and be comfortable. one hand on the breast pump, ready to supply provisions for a temporary substitute mommy, and one hand on the remote control, ready to que up endless hours of sitcoms to pass the long living room hours. one eye on the phone, waiting for a text from sarah, one eye on the computer looking for an email from the idiot club... it was like green day twister.

then the inevitable happened, xander decided he DID want to go to the concert (which ended up being a good choice for him) and then the impossible happened, i won tickets from the fan club.

we stepped into non-pijamma clothes, fired up the pump and got ready to rock... red pants here we come....

to be continued with the story of how it ended up being the second best green day show of all time...
k.

so if you dare to second guess, you can rest
assured that all my love is for you.