Swing it, baby.

This has been a real humdinger of a week for music in my little world.

First, Sir Paul on Monday. Then last night, Hot Club of Cowtown.

Oh yeah, baby. Ya'll already know how I love me some Hot Club of Cowtown (even if the rest of the world is not fortunate enough to have yet experienced their crazy talents). I got to see them in concert last year, and when I found out they were coming in concert again this year, I bought my tickets that very first day they were available. Little nerd that I am, I noticed that my tickets had the numbers 3 and 4 on them, which I'm thinking means I might have been the second person to buy tickets.

Our little city has an old ballroom which is known around many parts as the birthplace of Western swing. It's a fun little dive with wood floors, a big neon red star up on the center of the ceiling, and huge black and white portraits of all of the royalty of Western Swing looking down on the dance floor. So to get to hear them perform live in such a historically appropriate venue? Heaven, I tell ya'. But not only was the setting perfect for the concert, a little unexpected bonus new friend made it perfectly delightful as well.

As we were standing outside in line waiting to get in (impatiently, I might add, as my biggest concern was going to be trying to snag one of the few tables so we wouldn't be stuck either standing or sitting on the uncomfortable set of bleachers they have set up on either side), there was an older gentleman in front of us, by himself. We exchanged a few words about the weather outside, and once we got in, and I had snagged one of the last remaining tables, I noticed he was wandering around by himself, so my husband and I invited him to join us at our table if he wanted. We had another set of friends that would be coming in to sit there as well.

I am a firm believer that God orchestrates all of these little details in life, and it delights me to no end when things like this happen. Not only was our new friend, Zane, the cutest little man, he was also quite the character. We all were guessing he might have been in his 80's (at least). He was pretty hard of hearing, so many times we had to shout at him and repeat ourselves quite a few times. He had gotten up before it started to go get a drink, and when he did, he left his big stuffed envelope he was carrying in our care, which we would later find out was really quite trusting on his part. When he returned, he pulled out an old hardback book from the folder, like an old library book, with the words "San Antonio Rose" on the spine. When he opened it to show us what was inside, the first few pages were covered in autographs. Covered. He had scads of autographs from many of the great Western swing and country artists, several of which had their pictures on the wall in the very ballroom we were sitting in.

You all know me and how these very type of things just make me giddy. How fun was he?! It wasn't long before he was off on his little quest to get all three of their signatures added to his book, and of course, cute older gentleman that he was, he had no problem getting their attention right off the bat and collecting their signatures. When we were all sitting I was asking him how he heard about Hot Club of Cowtown in the first place, since they are one of the younger, newer Western swing bands. He told me he had seen them on YouTube. Crack me up! Little Mr. Zane, cutest great-grandpa ever, gets on YouTube! (Raise your hand if most of your own parents don't know how to get on YouTube or even know what YouTube is. Ha.) Then he was asking me if I knew how to snatch their songs off the Internet. I launched into my love of iTunes, of course, but he was totally asking how to get them off the Internet for free, if you know what I'm saying. Ha! But dear Zane ended up buying three of their CD's just minutes later.

So I don't know -- my favorite thing about the whole evening would have to be a toss-up between the wicked talent pouring forth from the three musicians that make up one of my favorite bands ever, Hot Club of Cowtown, or dear, sweet Zane, the cutest great-grandpa ever that I totally wanted to put in my pocket and take home with me.

I'll leave you with a video I found (on YouTube, of course -- shout out to Zane!) of Hot Club of Cowtown performing a favorite one of mine, Oklahoma Hills.

Way down yonder on the Indian nation, a cowboy's life is my occupation, on the Oklahoma hills where I was born...