Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro concluded the performing portion of their musical partnership of more than 25 years this weekend with concerts in Annapolis and Alexandria. Lowen was diagnosed with ALS five years ago and this year he decided the disease had compromised his ability to sing and play too much to want to continue.

This is the encore at the Ram’s Head Friday night, Lowen and Navarro‘s penultimate performance. You might recognize the song, “We Belong,” which they wrote and which Pat Benatar made a hit (and a Grammy nominee) of in 1984:

Even though Navarro will continue to tour solo, the loss of their fine harmonies when performed together will be felt across the musical community.

Thank you, Lowen and Navarro. We have enjoyed your music immensely.

Can someone please explain to me the evolutionary purpose of PMS?

I understand childbirth pain and cramps from a biological perspective, even if I fail to appreciate the latter on a personal level. But what, oh what, could be the point of making me sad and cranky and paranoid and generally down in the dumps on a monthly basis? I mean there has to be some hormonal justification for this, right?

Here’s the lemonade version of my weekend:

• Jazz being cancelled allowed Rudi and me to have a lovely Friday dinner out with Michael and Julia at a British pub we’ve been meaning to try for more than a year.
• My Saturday bike ride not happening meant that my knee did not scream with pain for the whole day. And biking to and from the ball game (which I wouldn’t have been able to do with the gimpy knee) was pleasant and quick and allowed us to miss the Red Line delays and the crowds and to stop by the World War II Memorial on the 65th anniversary of D Day on a beautiful moonlit night.
• The Mets being blown out of the water at the one game in the series we saw in person meant the Nats won a game in front of a large crowd. And it gave John Lannan the first complete game of his career.
• Not successfully finding a vegetarian-friendly dinner at the ballpark (okay, I could have had pizza, but that’s really just overpriced cardboard and there’s no shiny way of rethinking it) meant that I found a $2 juice made with real fruit (it had strawberry bits in it!) at the coffee stand just above our seats. Cheap deals (particularly for something healthy) are hard to come by at the ballpark.
• Going back to bed this morning instead of getting dressed and heading to the farmers’ market might have resulted in us missing the milk supply and shelling peas, but it netted me three more hours of sleep, which I clearly needed.
• A lazy but enjoyable evening of Tony’s watching (even with its abysmal sound and video work) submarined my plan to make strawberry shortcake but it meant I had only half the dishes to wash and that we had strawberry-laden ice cream sundaes instead.

Okay, okay. I admit that Pollyanna may have had something here. I do feel better thinking about the positives that came out of this weekend rather than the things that didn’t end up working out. Normally I can do this automatically, but, as I wrote above, PMS makes me a little crazier than normal.

Which brings us back to my original question: What’s the point for PMS? Anyone?