Signs that Summer is Over

This has been the best summer musically in my entire life! We were able to go to 8 concerts this year and I loved every one of them. If I had to pick a favorite I would say that Broadway Show Tunes is "it" for me. Each year they feature a selection of show tunes performed by the symphony and three guest singers; usually a man and two women. This year's the concert featured vocalist Capathia Jenkins, who performed "When You're Good To Mama" from Chicago and gave a spectacular performance of "And I am Telling You" from Dream Girls. This song brought the house to their feet and I honestly can not remember the last time that I was so moved by a performance. This was followed by "Don't Cry for me Argentina" from Evita (Rachel York) and then Doug LaBrecque who we have seen several times over the years finished off the evening with Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Music of the Night" from the Phantom. For me this was the best.

My second favorite show is the season finally (which was tonight). It is the 1812 Tchaikovsky Spectacular, which featured principal Cello Yao Zhao performing Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme. This show is the symphony at it's best if you like symphony and I do and Yao Zhao is a show on his own. We are so lucky to have such talent accessible to us here.

But with this last concert, it is a signal that the summer has once again come to an end. I am so grateful for the opportunity of attending the Pops. It would not be possible for us to attend the Pops if it were not for our dear friend Paul. He has been so kind and generous to us.

Daydream Believer

Front row almost center is where we sat. I was giddy with excitement as I had waited for over 40 years for this moment! Then he appeared on stage....Davy Jones! I was completely mesmerized by this man from my past and he did not disappoint. He was just as much the heart throb now as he was in 1966. It wasn't just the way he looked, but the whole package; his British accent, his movements and the twinkle in his eye. I know I was the best chair dancer there!

We listened to him sing and tell stories for almost two hours and then he mentioned that he would be available after the show to sign autographs. Could this get any better? So I patiently waited in line with the other star-struck women to have my moment with him. I told him it was my birthday and he gave me a hug! I think he whispered in my ear something about leaving with him on the last train to Parksville. I am a daydream believer and Mrs. Davy Jones at last.

My "Special" Moment!

Thoughts at 49.99

Wow, where did this come from?

I was just trotting merrily through life and here it is . . . the big birthday! Birthday's do not normally catch my attention, but I must say that this one really has made me pause and think about where I am at in life.

No matter which way you look at it I am most certain that my life is more than half over. Although I have always viewed life like a great novel joyfully moving to the next chapter however this time has been more difficult.

A few things have been weighing heavily on my mind like recent health issues and the letter from the health insurance company telling me that my premium will go up now that I am approaching a "significant" birthday.

Life is a series of choices and I have taken a different path on many occasions, but it has made for an exciting life. Some highlights are:
at age 11 traveled to Scotland alone and stayed with family for a year
at age 12 travelled on a train from Edmonton to Vancouver with my younger sister
at age 13 tried out for the swim club (a major trauma but that is another story)
at age 16 travelled to Edmonton with an girlfriend (hitch hiking some of the way)
at age 30 moving to Mexico to build a new life
at age 42 moving to the U.S. to build a new life

I have been to Europe and major international cities such as London, New York, Paris, Rome and Mexico City. I have been to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building!

I have skied, snorkeled, swam with dolphins and yes, I did the canopy ride!

I have seen the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac (twice), Rod Stewart (twice), Elton John (twice) Yanni and the Gypsy Kings.

I have seen, Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom (twice), Chicago, Beauty and the Beast, Jesus Christ Super Star, Mama Mia, Miss Saigon, South Pacific, Lion King, Stomp and Lord of the Dance (twice).

I have owned a '71 Datsun 510, '89 Honda Accord, Nissan 300z, '90 Ford Thunderbird and a '2000 Ford Expedition.

I cannot play a musical instrument or sing. I have taken windsurfing lessons. I have worked in an operating room and as a waitress. I love to ride my bike. I have been on a road trip from San Diego to Canada and from San Diego to Mazatlan, Mexico.

Favorite food: Presidio Pastsa - Favorite drink: Cosmo

Accomplishments:
Competed in a speech contest at age 11 and won
Member of the Victoria Figure Skating Club and got all badges in one year!
I learned a second language
Was President of the PTO (twice)
Opened my own business
Competed in an on road bicycle race!
Skied Whistler at age 44 with my kids and kept up!

I have many wonderful friends; some I have known forever like Terry, Susan, Daphne, Rolie, Jennifer and some more recently like Julie, Lisa and Gloria.

I would be nothing without the love of my family; Mother, Father, Sister and Cliff. My happiest times are with my loving husband and two wonderful sons. P.S. I love my dog Baxter.

Facebook . . . here I come!

I have just discovered Facebook. Who knew that this is where all my old friends are hanging out? I have been trying to "socially network" in all the wrong places. Of course, I love it and see why kids get addicted to MYSPACE and FACEBOOK. Since signing up I too have been obsessively checking my account to see what messages may have been sent my way. When I am not doing that I am aimlessly searching up peoples names that randomly come to mind. Who knows who I will find and if they will want to be my friend.

When I was socially networking one of my friends told me to watch out for stalkers! Yikes, that's all I need some stalker wierdo checking me out . . . I have enough of that in real life without getting "cyber stalkers" after me. But what she actually was referring to was "old friend stalkers" who once they find you won't leave you alone! Hmmm, I wonder if she was giving me the heads up on what I might become! How horrible would it be to be ignored by my cyber friends because I have become too friendly and they just want to shake me off! I guess I will have to pace myself and set some ground rules. I may need to search up "social network etiquette" just to be sure that I do not cross the line. At any rate, I am excited about this new outlet and hope to find lots of cyber friends. Hopefully, this will make up for my lack of "real" friends.

I saw the light

I started my blog to chronicle my life, the good bad and the weird. So far everything on my blog has been on the "good" side, because life is basically good right now, however that is about to change with the following. I will say that if I heard this from someone else, I probably would take it with a grain of salt, but since this happened to me I wanted to blog about it and see what you think. I will classify that as weird . . .

I really did not want my Mother thinking that all you had to do was "meditate" and you could communicate with the dead, so I immediately discredited the recent news that my aunt had "heard" from my deceased dad. The story goes that she had been in deep meditation and that she heard my dad talking to her. As much as I would have loved that to be true, common sense would not allow me to buy into the idea and especially not my mother. After all, she was just putting her life back together after my father's passing and I did not want her to relapse, especially since we had focused on the wonderful years of living she had ahead. Taking up meditation so that she could communicate with dear ol' dad was not what we wanted for her.

With this in mind, you can imagine how surprised I was at the sequence of events that happened just a couple of days later. It was Friday night and my husband, 13 year old son and myself were watching TV. Our older son was out for the evening and I was anxious about him coming home on time, so I glanced at the clock and it happened to be 11:11. I have no idea where this came from, but our boys have a thing that if you glance at the clock and it is 11:11 you get to make a wish. I made my wish and finished it off with a comment to my dad that went something like, "I don't need wishes with you watching over us". I often speak to my dad in my head of course so there was nothing strange about that, however exactly seven minutes later the ceiling light above where we were sitting turned on by itself. Yes, turned on by itself! As we were looking around at each other in surprise and wondering how this happened, my son's phone began to ring. The ring tone was a laughing tone, so it made it sound like someone was laughing. So the light turned on by itself and the laughter broke the silence . . . ! WEIRD !

I do not know how this happened as there is no explanation of how a light turns on by itself or a phone rings (laughing) with no one on the other end. But somehow I think that my Dad might be closer than we think. Perhaps by turning on the light he was telling me to "see the light". Then he was laughing like hell as we sat there looking like scardy cats trying to figure it out.

Phantom of the Opera

As parents we are charged with educating our children in all aspects of life including cultural education. Although they had just seen "Chicago" on Broadway last month, yes in New York, we felt that the Phantom of the Opera is the finest production of our time, so they should see it with us.

The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the 1976 musical, which in turn was based on the book written by the French novelist Gaston Leroux. The musical focuses on a beautiful soprano, Christine Daae, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius known as "The Phantom of the Opera", who terrorizes the Paris Opera House.

It is now the second-longest-running West End musical of all time, behind Les Miserables and the longest-running Broadway musical of all time, breaking the record held by Lloyd Webber's Cats on January 9, 2006. The musical won both the Olivier Award and Tony Award as the best musical in its debut years on the West End and Broadway.

We figured seeing this would give them an idea of what a "great" show looked like. So last night we headed off to see the Phantom and we were not disappointed. We sat mesmerized as the story unfolded. For me personally I enjoyed it even more this time (2nd time) as I already knew the plot and most of the songs.

We left the theater feeling very satisfied and as a parent, I felt we had educated them well in musical theater.