K&W at Borders Mission Viejo -- Sat, 14May2011

Best Borders gig in a long time! The place was uncharacteristically full when we got there, stayed that way most of the night, and we managed to rope some people in right away, and had friendly faces to play to all the way through.

But the highlight for me was when a cute little toddler wandered out right in front of us. She seemed to be trying to give Warren a magazine that she'd found somewhere. We all watched her for a little while, and I broke into my new finger-picked and harmony-boxed "Twinkle, Twinkle". She was so tiny, I didn't really expect her to know it. But her little face lit up like a searchlight as it dawned on her that she recognized it. And it got about the biggest round of applause of the night -- more for her than me, no doubt.

We've been making nearly-nothing in tips at these Borders gigs, and since the tables were all full anyway, I couldn't snag one (and didn't really feel like bothering) to put out the usual display of signs, cards, CDs, and tip jar. But I did set the jar over on the windowsill -- not terribly convenient for people to get to, but at least visible and available.

So I was pretty surprised to get anything at all, and more so to find $16 in there -- not a record or anything, but pretty darn good for this place.