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Thursday, December 31, 2009

My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Photo credit: T. Harris

My last journal post was about gratitude. Little did I know then, but some immense good luck was about to come my way...

For the past few months, I've been planning a reunion for an old Orlando nightclub for punks, wavers, goths, mods, skaters, surfers, etc... y'know... freaks. Anyway, it had been 25 years since I stepped foot in the place at the tender age of 13 and the club closed it's doors just 3 years later, when it opened as a new venue in a different location. I decided it was time to pay homage.

With the help of a friend who was still in Orlando, I managed to wrangle her into landing a venue for the event (the old club was long since torn down) for FREE and the original DJ even contacted me about coming out of retirement to spin for the night... also for FREE! I proceeded to design the poster, put out Facebook alerts and an event page, and invite the old gang. The event was on December 26th, the Saturday after Xmas, so it was guaranteed to have some old faces in town who were visiting for the holidays.

Yet with all this planning, I honestly never thought I'd be able to make it to the event. The only problem for me was that I was completely broke and didn't have a means to get down to Orlando at all. I wasn't sure how I'd pay for food and drinks once I got there, but I knew that if I could just get there, everything else would all fall into place. Friends were chomping at the bit, offering their places for me to stay, so that was more than covered. But how to get there? At the 11th hour, an old friend and former band mate of mine told me that he wanted to drive his little girls down to visit his family there and offered me a ride. And yes, it too was FREE.

We rolled into town just a couple hours before the event... just enough time to shower, change, grab a bit to eat, and rush over to the venue. I knew it was going to be a great night, but I never counted on 500+ people coming out to our little night of mayhem (we stopped counting before 1am and it stayed open another 2 hours). It was a bigger hit than anyone had prepared for... even the venue wasn't prepared, and they'd thought they'd maybe pull in $2000 in bar sales. Instead, they pulled in $6000!

As an unexpected cherry on top of the night, we were taking a small door fee of just $3, in case the bar didn't make it's needed sales... but because they went way over, we split the door 3-ways and I took home a couple hundred dollar bonus that I never expected. Sweet!

The original nightclub owner was in attendance and he was even teary-eyed as he thanked me for planning the event and I thanked him for giving us all a second home to grow up in and a soundtrack to our youth. I got to see friends that I haven't seen in 20 years, received more deep-squeezing bear hugs than I've gotten in my life to date, and got to witness the best love-fest this side of Woodstock. It was an amazing night and everyone came away with some wonderful memories... especially me. And to think, all of this came out of the brain of a struggling single-parent living nearly 500 miles away. Dream big, people!

Once again, thank you from the depths of my soul, you strange, wonderful universe, you!


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Addendum: I almost forgot another great detail! My old digital camera managed to take a permanent dirt nap at the end of the event night. I mean it completely tanked. Very sad, although to be expected with old technology. The next day, my friend and co-hostess gave me one of her old digital cameras, because she'd happened to have recently bought herself a new point-n-shoot, leaving the old one just lying around anyway. It may not be slim and it's a few years old, but it turns out to be waaaaay better than mine was. The generosity and giving that keeps happening on a daily basis leaves me speechless... and occasionally even a bit weepy :)

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Gratitude: A Way of Life


My birthday was last Saturday ... nothing significant, not even a major turn-over (that's next year) ... just a quiet Saturday that also happened to be a birthday. And I was grateful for that peace, especially in comparison to less-quiet birthdays past. I received literally hundreds of birthday wishes on Facebook that day. It was amazing. And I made sure that I thanked each person individually; not just a generic "thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone" status statement ... but real, individual thank yous to each person. It took up a big chunk of the day, but it was worth it. I felt really good about that.
The day after my birthday is actually when the "12 Days of Christmas" starts. It was that day -- Sunday -- that I learned that I finally have a ride to Orlando with an old friend for a rather big reunion event that I actually planned and am supposed to host. Since it was just 2 weeks away, I was a little worried that I might not be making it to my own creation! But now, I'll be there. Whew!
Then I opened my mail on Monday to discover that "I won" a new book -- that's in quotes, because although the book was delivered to the right address, the name on the address label was to one "Sherry Chandler." None of my neighbors have that name, so it wasn't an address typo. There was no invoice, just a stamp on the box that said: You won! What is the book, you ask? It's "Gratitude: A Way of Life" by Louise Hay of Hay House. Hay House is the same publishing company that puts out Wayne Dyer's books and many other spiritual, personal, psychic development books. The curious arrival of this book into my life is an obvious sign, so the lesson started that very day: Thank you, strange, wonderful universe.
Then on Wednesday, another friend called and said, "What are you doing Friday night? I just won tickets to see Billy Crystal and I want to take you!" I jumped at it, mostly because I don't get out much these days, but also because I'd heard rave reviews about that Broadway show of his... something like it being the highest grossing, non-musical in Broadway history.
On Thursday night, my mother showed up at my door unannounced with a bunch of cash in hand, saying to me: "Go buy yourself something nice for that Orlando event. Consider it a late birthday present!" Wow, very cool! Especially since the shoes that I was going to wear to the event literally fell apart in my hands earlier that day as I tried to polish them.
On a rainy, Friday rush hour evening, it ended up taking us 2.5 hours to get to the venue (in "good" traffic, it's supposed to be 42 minutes), with my generous friend and I fretting that we might not make it there in one piece, or if we did, that they were going to lock the doors and not let us in ... plays are like that. The venue was much more gracious and understanding, however. Well, first off, the parking deck attendant let us park in one of the reserved spots right up front ... very awesome. Then, the usher ladies were extremely sweet and even let us bring food in! We were both starving, but the venue only had snack things, so we feasted on mini ice cream sundaes and M&Ms like we were 5-year-olds.
We ended up missing the first 30 minutes or so, but the show has a running time of 3 hours, with an intermission, so we really weren't lost. And the laughs started immediately and never stopped (except when there were tears). It's an amazing one-man show, really. The time just flew by and was full of information about Mr. Crystal that most folks never knew. Did you know about his family's little record label that played a huge role in the history of jazz? Did you know that he sat on Billie Holiday's lap while watching his first big screen movie, SHANE? Did you know that he was on his high school basketball team and that they played Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's high school team once? Crazy! If you get the chance to see him perform "700 Sundays," you'll hear those stories and so many more. His life wasn't always good, but it was always amazing.
So now I sit here wondering what other "gifts" the universe might have in store for me. Honestly, it's been a great week and I could never have imagined last Saturday that it would end up the way it did. Good surprises are the best! You know what else is the best? Thank yous, so I'll say it again:
Thank you, strange, wonderful universe!
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UPDATE! Just a few hours after this post, my Saturday gratitude gift came in the form of the only thing that was in my mailbox today: a belated birthday card from my father with some not-too-shabby birthday money inside. Wow! If you knew my dad, you'd know how rare and generally unlikely that would be for me. THANK YOU AGAIN, STRANGE, WONDERFUL UNIVERSE!
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