Autumn and the First Day of Summer

So picking up where I left off from the last blog, my sister was finally coming out for a visit. After months of coordinating and looking for dates and flights, what happens? I have to go out of town for a business trip. So, I arranged to fly back on a god awful early flight so I could try and get home at around the same time she was flying out. Turns out my flight was delayed a bit, but it all worked out fine. She ended up waiting on me at the airport.

Our itinerary was very easy-breezy. We only had a couple of events actually scheduled for the 4 days she was going to be here, so it left a lot of time to just sit and visit. I have far too many pictures for this one blog, so I will pick and choose just a couple. First up, the webcam. Autumn brought a webcam with her so she could call home and see the kids. To make it more fun, we put on my fun Halloween wigs before we called them. Here is how that turned out. Actually, after the kids’ initial reaction, Autumn had to take the wig off so the kids would do more than just stare at her. It was kind of funny.

Autumn also brought me a birthday present. She made me a fun little doll which I named Pepper. We decided to take Pepper to the Strip and take some fun pictures of her. Here are a couple of the better ones. I think her favorite stop was Sephora, naturally.

On Saturday night, we headed over to the MGM Grand to see George Michael in concert. Ok, let me just take a moment here and tell you what a big deal this was for me. I LOVE HIM!!!! The very first cassette tape I ever purchased was Wham! Make it Big. George Michael is the only celebrity to whom I have ever penned a fan letter. The first time I saw him in concert was back in 1991. It’s been 17 long years of no US tours. Finally, the wait was over!!!! Here is a picture from the first concert.

For this concert, Autumn and I ended up being reseated to better, closer seats. Not sure why, but it was great. We got all dolled up and I basically dipped her in glitter because we both needed to sparkle. Getting ready was a fun process and reminded me of all the times growing up when I would experiment on both of my sisters with hair and make up. They were like my living Barbies.

Sorry sis, but I think the rest of the blog is going to be about the concert. So, let’s talk about the stage. For this, I will quote directly from the program since it describes it better than I could. “The centerpiece is a curved, armchair-shaped video screen that stretches forward and merges with the floor of the stage.” And speaking of the program, I tried to grab a couple of pictures from it so I could show you what I mean. This first picture is when he first appears on stage. I’ll show you the set list in a minute, but basically he starts singing the song Waiting from the Listen Without Prejudice album. The last line of the song is “Here I am.” It was at that point that the screen slid open to reveal him. And as they say “The crowd went wild….”

So here is the set list. I loved everything except his version of Roxanne. It came from an album titled Songs from the Last Century. I owned it, I hated it, and I got rid of it. Some songs just shouldn’t be remade. Roxanne just isn’t a torch song to me.

First Half

Waiting (Reprise)

Fast Love/I’m Your Man

Father Figure

Hard Day

Everything She Wants

One More Try

Different Corner

Easier Affair

Too Funky

Star People

Interval

John & Elvis video

Second Half

Faith

Spinning The Wheel

Feeling Good

Roxanne

Kissing A Fool

Amazing

Flawless

Outside

Praying For Time

Careless Whisper

Freedom 90

He had 2 encores. He ended the second half with the song Outside. He even came out dressed as a police officer. It was fantastic. The first encore was for Praying for Time and Careless Whisper. After that, he left again, but since the lights stayed off and he had never acknowledged the band, I knew it couldn’t be over yet. Sure enough, he came back out and said that the audience was going to pick the last song. Honestly, it was amazing the hear everyone on the same page with this. Right on cue, we all shouted Freedom.

Throughout the concert I would say there were 3 distinct times that the audience sang so loud that he never had to sing a note. Those songs were Faith, Careless Whisper and Freedom. It wasn’t until the end of the show that I realized he never sang I want your sex. Honestly, I never even missed it. I am so glad I had the opportunity to see him again. I hope he doesn’t wait so long next time.

New Jersey

So last week I headed out of town for a business trip to New Jersey. I took off a couple of days early so I could hang out with ThreeL. We headed out to Virgil’s for lunch and so I could get my peanut butter pie fix for the year. Wow, that stuff is so good. We followed that up with a trip around the corner to Sephora. From my perspective it was a pretty awesome weekend.

During the week, I had to deal with boring business meetings and torturous shoes. I swear I went through almost 4 boxes of band aids before the end of the week. The shoes I was wearing weren’t even new; it’s just been a long time since I had to wear any of them.

On Wednesday, the group decided to go out for a bonding activity and headed to the Liberty Science Center. It really was a lot of fun. We started off with a trip in to the IMAX theater to see some story about mummies. Those kinds of things always mess with my head, so from the moment I walked in to the place, I was having trouble with my eyes and then my stomach. Once the movie started, I kept having to find a fixed point to stare at otherwise I would have been in really bad shape.

From there, it was off to see the different exhibits. In one area they housed a bunch of insects and lizards and snakes. I think the title of the exhibit was “Eat or be Eaten.” One of the girls in my group called me over to see an exhibit of gigantic cockroaches and asked me if they got that big in the desert. I took one look and told her, “those are Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.” She looked over that the little plaque on the wall and saw that I was right. She asked how I knew what they were. TV. What else? There was an episode of CSI New York that had them on. These are the bugs that people glue jewels on the back, stick a tiny gold leash on them and them pin them to their jackets. Ugh!! So disgusting! It makes my skin crawl to think about it. Try and Google them and you’ll see what I mean.

The poor kid that was there to answer questions tried to defend them and tell me how clean they were. Yeah, whatever. I still don’t want one as a pet let alone walking around on my chest. Jesus, I want to go take a shower right now.

So after that we headed upstairs to another move theater, this time for a 3-D movie about the Sun. Ho-Hum. I think I saw it on the Discovery Channel (although without the 3-D effects.) We moved on to another exhibit, this one about different types of Fear. It was really fun. There was a booth where you could get strapped to this gurney looking thing while standing and then it falls back and catches you on a mat. There is a camera that records your expression the entire time you are falling.

Next to that was a booth set up for fear of loud noises. Again, there was a recording device to record your startle response. For this one, you just sat on a stool in front of a mirror and waited. At some point a noise that sounds like a gun shot goes off. After that, the mirror that you are facing turns into a screen that allows you to see your startle response.
We spent a couple of hours there and it really was a lot of fun once my stomach started to settle down. The last stop was the gift shop, of course. I ended up with a coffee mug. I think I have decided to try and stay away from t-shirts and hats from now on. I never seem to wear either one, and I don’t plan on giving up coffee any time soon, so it makes more sense to stick with the mugs.

I left town on Thursday super early so I get home in time to meet my sister Autumn at the airport. This was her first visit to see me since I moved. We were both beyond excited. But that’s for the next blog.