A First

Hello to All,

Yes I am still around.  I have been asked to blog about a first that I’ve just experienced.  I think they feel that at my age there aren’t many more firsts for me to experience so we better document it while I still remember it.    Last week was my 37th birthday but this blogs starts all the way back in the first week in December 2008.  While I was driving to work one morning my favorite radio station announced that my all time favorite band was coming to the area for two dates and one of them was on my very birthday.  I almost drove off the road.  I had never been to a real concert before so I decided I had to go to this.  I knew I wouldn’t be available to be on the phone the day the tickets went on sale so I called my sister and asked if I provided her all of my details if she would help me out and buy me two tickets to either location.  Her response…..and you’ve got to love this…..”Well thank you very much.  I had no idea what to get you for Christmas so Merry Christmas.  We bantered back and forth about nose bleed seats, etc. but she just kept saying that it was like it was meant to be.  That Christmas I opened a card from my sister and brother-in-law and saw a noted saying Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday.  When I unfolded the tickets I found that I would be sitting 14 little rows from the floor for the Cleveland show of the Eagles on my very birthday!  I cried – I had never been to a concert in my life and I was given some of the best seats possible by my sister.  I told her she had to work it out to go with me and so began our adventure.  I spent the next couple of months preparing for my first real concert.  I kept hoping that it would live up to all of my expectations.  Boy did it!

So the day started quietly while I waited for my sister to drive in.  She works in Indiana at Purdue University and lives in western Ohio.  She got to spend a fun filled five hours driving in to take me. 

My Aamazing Sis! Dr. K.

Once there we took off for some good food, my treat of course, and steak is always good.  Then it was off to the show.  We hit the last couple of miles and ended up in a parking lot on the interstate.  Needless to say I thought we would never get there.  Well, we did and then the fun began. 

I was a total kid about the whole thing.  I decided we had to get souvenirs before we even found our seats.  There I was buying almost one of everything.  In a matter of 5 minutes I had dropped more for souvenirs than I’ve spent on a weeks worth of groceries!  For anyone that knows me they know that I rarely drop that kind of cash on anything for myself.  Then it was off to the seats.  Throughout our walk I had begun to register the concept that there were people of all ages here to hear this band which I found totally cool!  I hadn’t yet seen the humor of the site.  We found our seats and I immediately started taking pictures of the empty stage with my cell phone.  I don’t think any of them really turned out but I know what they are and I know I love them.  Then my sister and I started to people watch.  That was when we saw the foamy white wave crests of white hair in the audience.  And you should have seen those little ole folks work those walkers down the steps.  I don’t think any of them should say they have trouble balancing when I saw the majority of them balancing a walker and a beer in each hand as they walked down the steps to their seats!  Then there were the, “I’m living my second childhood” crowd.  You know the ones who tan WAY too much, think they can still go bra-less, wear fur year round, and broke out the Harley Gold Wing for the special occasion.     My sister and I swear we saw Jerry Garcia there.  If it wasn’t him he had a twin!  There were kids, teens, you name it and it was there that night.  It was actually an amazing sight!  the venue holds 20,500.  Allowing for the one section to be shut off as it was behind the stage I estimate at least 16,000 people were there.  There was not an empty seat to be found. 

Our seats versus the stage

The concert started right at 8PM with no opening act.  It was all Eagles, all night for almost 4 hours.  The music was amazing, the seats were excellent (despite the few drunken derrieres -butts- that were shook in my face by the people who stopped to dance on the way for another beer), the night could have gone on forever.  They opened by saying, “Hello Cleveland! Welcome to the Eagles Assisted Living!”  We laughed and cheered at the same time. 

And so it begins!

They played the old, the new, the remixes.  I’ve never seen so many guitars and so many amazingly talented men.  For having been making music together since 1971 they look amazing.  They have the middle aged paunch and one had little man breasts but they could have been hunch backs playing like that and my sister and I would still have been in seventh heaven. 

Four Amazingly Talented Men!

We sang the words to every single song which shocked me that my sister still remembered all of them.  I listen to them everyday but my sister hasn’t really listened to them in years.  I surprised myself by not crying through the whole experience – instead I screamed like a a banshee and sang like a total nut.  They had two jumbo screens next to the stage so my sister and I became fixated whenever they showed a close up of Joe Walsh playing guitar.  They played an encore that we stayed for.  We were going to make a run for the parking deck after the first song of the encore but as the second one started my sister grabbed my sleeve and said, “We are absolutely not leaving yet – this is my all time favorite from them!”  I giggled and happily stayed on.  On the way out of the concert my sister turned to me and said, “I know Joe Walsh is crispy from all of the drugs but I would totally do him!”  I almost fell over from the shock of it all and then I decided that if he plays a woman like he plays any one of those guitars I would totally do him too!

Joe Walsh with a Hat Cam on.

We got home way late and both were going to have to get up WAY early for work the next day but it was so worth it.  I stayed up most of the night wearing my new T-Shirt and listening to my new CD,  just sitting and thinking about an amazing first.

A Walton’s Holiday…..Really Now!

Every year at this time I talk to my staff and clients about The Walton’s Holiday Experience.  For those of you under the age of 30 you probably have no clue of whom I am speaking so take a sec and go Google “The Waltons”.    For the rest of us, you know who and what I’m talking about – Mom, Dad, kids, Grandma, Grandpa, pets, perfect food and a lot of magically perfected TV relationships.  We all grew up watching “The Ideal”.  We saw people love and help one another; celebrate, dance, and sing.  I don’t know about you but every holiday I would imagine that perfect day occurring in my family and that it would end with Momma and Daddy dancing in the living room while Mary Ellen (played by my sister) and Elizabeth (played by me) would peek out from under the bedroom door to watch.  Our hearts would have been as stuffed with love, laughter, and music, as our bellies would have been stuffed with good ole fashioned comfort food.   Good Lord I wanted that every holiday and for a long time thought it really would happen.  What a goof!  Who I really sat down with at every holiday were “The Simpsons”.   No one should have trouble identifying them but just in case, think of the antithesis of The Walton’s.  The folks were always bickering throughout the day, someone was yelling to shut the TV off, some “essential” food item was always ruined or forgotten and Grandma and Grandpa always went home too soon.  There was always a sense of disappointment that it didn’t live up to my dream.  To put it bluntly – I was pissed that people didn’t do what I had expected them to do.   What a rip off – why couldn’t they be the Waltons?

I like to believe that I’ve learned a lot since then and that I understand a great deal more.  Part of me will always wish for a Walton’s Holiday.  That part of me still thinks that having it will somehow make me whole (there’s some stinkin thinkin).  However, all of me knows that we are just unpolished, imperfect, souls who are trying to reach for better but will never reach perfection.  We don’t have writers, directors, make-up artists, set designers, or camera men to make it all TV ready.  What am I saying with all of this?  I will never meet the expectations of others nor will they be able to meet mine.  Expectations are the landmines of the heart and I will never know that there is one ahead until it is too late.  Let the expectations be the item that is forgotten this holiday season.  Just be gentle by accepting ourselves and others for who we are, ugly warts and all.  We love the best that we can and thank goodness we do.  I know that everyday can be a new season in the series that is my life and not just an instant replay.  Peace.