THIS will NEVER get old and boring!!! JUNO AWARDS!!!!!!!

Just when our beleaguered family needed some good news...

HE'S IN!  FOURTH YEAR IN A ROW!  Every year he says he won't get nominated, there are so many guys making good sounding records, blah blah blah, and then he sounds all sheepish when he gets the call.

Ha!  Amazing how a guy so arrogant wise-ass can sound so humbled/giggly when he's proven wrong and gets himself another nomination!

We're going to the Juno Awards! 

So now he says he won't win and dude, so what.  He's won it once already.  I'm good with that.  I love it that he gets some recognition for the work he does.  The music industry is brutal, folks.  The hours are long, the dues are never fully paid, and the pay is just not as good as it should be.  Add to that the fact that most recording engineers are self employed, either freelance or on contract to a studio, and that means you pay your own taxes and get no employee benefits program.  This job can be hell on your health, not to mention the stress it can put on a marriage and family.

The only comparison I can make is farming.  In order to do the work, a huge amount of assets are required.  Land, giant tractors, livestock quota, feed, seed... and long hours... really not enough pay if you take all the labour into consideration... yet the average person looks at the situation and goes, "Wow, you guys got some bigass tractors and a couple hundred acres, you must be all fulla scratch!" Or, the average person assumes, "OMG your dad owns a recording studio?!?!  You guys must be loaded!"  Meanwhile the child is growing out of her sweater and her jeans are too short.  Oh, and the whole concept of "ownership" is fuzzy when it comes to farming or recording studios.  It should be called "bankership" or "deepindebtorship"

So yesterday morning I called my man about three times, what with us currently sort of not exactly living full time in the same house.  A buddy was at the press conference texting him the nominees as they were announced.  I had work to do, which is why I was standing in the corral with a manure rake in one hand and the iGadget in the other, grinning and laughing.

Mr I'm Pretty Sure I Won't Get Nominated This Year assured me that somehow we will find a way to pay for plane tickets to get to Newfoundland.  Nominees get free tickets to the three events but have to find their own way there.  Our attitude is, if you get the call, you go.  Show up.  Support.  Wear last year's suit jacket, borrow a dress, sweet talk the hotel into a discount on the room whatever, just find a way.

It's Canada's biggest entertainment celebration and it ends up being just a big giant rock concert. Love it.

I am SO excited!  In case you don't know, NOOF-enland is the party capital of Canada.  All Newfies are awesome people. This is documented proven truth.  It just IS.

Also???  This is a once a year treat for us.  As much as we love our younguns (and it would be fun to bring them some day!) this is the only time we get to spend a whole weekend together.  Don't kid yourself, it is a work trip, but at least we get to hang and have fun.  Yes, even work trips can be fun!

We can get all dressed up and purty.

He gets to sleep without worrying about who's waiting for him at the studio.  I get to sleep without worrying about letting the dog out for a whiz or making sure the kids get to school on time or getting the horses out of the barn before they start chewing it apart.

(Plus I get to stay in a room that gets magically cleaned while we're out for the day!)

If I'm really lucky there will be cut flowers at the fancy dinner, which I can't be trusted with, because I will take them and it can lead to goofy things like, Zoolander faces.

That's my Le Tigre.

This is my Blue Steel.

I'm still working on my Magnum.

Or wait, is it the other way around???  I think I've got time to work on it.

They let us go on the red carpet!!!!  With Mounties!!

And sometimes, the crowd gets so excited and hyped, they think we must be Somebody Famous and they scream and yell and it's hilarious!!

LOOK!  It's Brangelina!  No it's not!  Bwa ha ha ha ha!  Silly breathless fans!

We are allowed to have fun!  One word: AFTERPARTY!

We get to sweet talk our way past the bouncers because we are actually allowed to be there!  Us two hicks, in the same building with rock stars and lots of people we don't recognize and might actually be nobodies like us!!!

Hey, Nobodies?  I think not!

Getting to the awards event requires a form of travel that I am generally NOT HAPPY ABOUT.

We do it like the Ramones.  I wanna be sedated.  By the time the Ativan sinks in, he pushes me into the plane and when I wake up we're there!  He's kind enough to take pictures while we're up there so I don't miss anything, like last year, flying over the Rockies.

Oh my gosh, we are so lucky.

I mean, I grew up on a pig farm and he grew up in the big house in town behind the feed mill.  I'm pretty sure I could attend these things for the next twenty years and never get over it.