Rewind

It's been a while since I blogged, for many reasons, but mostly because of the Big Sad. I haven't felt all that great, which is my own fault. I've not been to the gym in quite a few days, and while I have held on to my weight loss/current weight, I have really felt like poop and I think I'm pretty de-conditioned. So that will change! Back to the gym for me tomorrow!

Anyway, in the intervening weeks while I was off dealing with... "stuff"....

There were some high spots. Here's the first of a couple of short posts about some Happy Things!

Karen and I had a concert weekend.... On Friday night, a few weeks ago, she and I went to the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, to see the Bacon Brothers. Michael and Kevin are their first names.

Yes.

That Kevin Bacon!

I first started drooling over this young man in 1984, I think, in the movie Footloose.



















Back when he looked like this:
















Sigh. Anyway, he and his brother have a band, and they travel and perform a couple of times a year. And guess what? They are pretty darn good! I really enjoyed the music, the sense of humor and sibling banter the boyz kicked back and forth in between songs, the way Kevin moved his sexy... I mean, danced (and yes, the man has definitely Still Got It!).... It was a great night for me, Karen and her BFF TiJae.












We were under orders not to take pictures.... And everyone, including me and my dissappointed self, complied.

Until the encore! At that point, this blonde chick in the center of the venue stood up and blatently took a picture. Within seconds, about a hundred cameras came out, including mine, and everybody was taking pictures. The bouncer was eyeing Karen as she snapped away (my camera is new to me and I passed it to her in the hope of actually getting a picture!). He was frowning at her and I looked at him and displayed some really mad parenting skillz..... stating with the attitude of an 8-year-old (while pointing at the aforementioned blonde in the middle of the crowded venue), "SHE did it first!!" He rolled his eyes at me (obviously impressed with my logic and justification) and didn't take my camera.












Karma being what it is, since we were all excited and also somewhat unfamiliar with the camera, the pictures are not real clear, but still....












It was Kevin Bacon, dude.... well, Kevin and his brother Michael. And they were so good I'm already planning to go to the next concert they do in our area!

We recovered on Saturday, and I got my work caught up on Sunday and then, being the party animals that we are (cough!), Karen and I headed for Hollywood! Yes, the Palladium to be exact.... because it was another flashback evening, with one of Karen's favorite groups from her teen years....












The five Backstreet Boys are only the four Backstreet Boys now. Karen's favorite, Kevin, has left the band and is happily living in this area, persuing other interests. But the remaining four put on a heck of a show.













I had a ball singing along with all the songs that we used to play in the car when I was doing chauffeur duty with my teenaged girls.... It was fun watching everyone doing all the handmotions all across the crowd, and listening to everyone react to each old favorite, shrieking like they were STILL teenagers. The boyz sang some of their new stuff too, and I really think they've just gotten even better.

At the end of the concert, they came back for an encore and Karen decided to try to catch it on my camera. She had already gotten a couple of songs using the video option, and she started filming this one.... She was doing fine as first one Backstreet Boy and then another came out and assembled on the stage, singing her all time favorite song by them. Then she was rendered incoherent, because....

Kevin walked out on stage. Her favorite. The one who had left the band.... He came on specifically to sing this song and the place went NUTS. If you feel like watching her youtube post (over 6000 hits so far!) it was pretty neat! She briefly lost her head and her concentration on filming when Kevin walked out (about a third of the way into the film - he's the one in the blue shirt with black thermal long sleeves underneath), but then she managed to continue filming and screaming simultaneously.....

It was a fun, amazing moment, in a great concert.... Such a wide audience, teens, young women like Karen (some making calls to babysitters back home inbetween fits of screaming), and a lot of old farts like myself who were dancing along with the whole thing, and knew every word, every move.... indicative of shared histories of long hours logged in family cars with teenaged girls on the way to soccer practice and football games, I'm sure!

:)