1. Seeing Neko Case twice, on two different stages and within two different sets of chemical parameters. I've been a fan of Case's for years but somehow I guess I've never seen her; that she is totally hilarious should come as no surprise to anyone who follows her on Twitter. At last night's show, she announced that she'll be spending the next six weeks in Portland to record with Tucker Martine, and joked about needing to pick up side gigs as a grouter. (I wonder if she does extermination work? My household is 97% ants at this point.)

2. This sandwich:

The food at Pickathon is one of the (many) things that distinguishes our friendly local music fest from the big-box fests you couldn't pay me to attend at this point in my life. In addition to that possibly life-saving sandwich from Bunk, there's ice cream from 50 Licks, burgers from Violetta, pizza from Al Forno Ferruzza, coffee from Spunky Monkey... great local vendors, no jacked-up prices.

All this Pickathon love is a little belated, I know—if you missed it this year, you missed it. But, like we say every year, it's really worth checking out. (You live in the Pacific Northwest now! You gotta get your feet dirty once in a while.) This year seemed more crowded than years past, but my festival experience was as great as ever.