Birthdays, Quiet Moments and Karaoke

Saturday was Tender Heart's birthday and she had various celebrations throughout the day.  I cannot believe I have a daughter that is 28 years old already!  (You may have seen the National Enquirer edition that announced when I gave birth to her at the tender age of seven.)  She is a delight in my life and I am so grateful to be back in the same community as her again.  We have always been close but the six years we lived miles apart seems to have drawn us even closer now. 

I took Tender Heart and her husband, HummerGuy, to lunch as we had planned, but we were all a little distracted.  Tender Heart is the director of a private school and one of her young teachers and her four year old son were in a serious car accident Friday night.  The police could not find any way to contact the family but they did find my daughter's number in her purse.  TH spent most of Friday night at the hospital and did not get home or to sleep until the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Our lunch conversation focused primarily around the condition of the two patients and the very timely conversation my daughter had with this teacher on Friday.  In the hustle and bustle of work, thoughtful conversations are rare but TH and this teacher had had just such a discussion that day at school.  HummerGuy and I did our best to keep the conversation lively but often we saw her drift away.  Bless her heart.  My daughter has had to experience far more of life's adventures than the average young woman her age. But that is another entry.  [Note:  The four year old only had to have a few stitches but the mother was ejected from the car and, sadly, is still in a coma.]

After lunch HummerGuy took her shopping.  They had dinner with some other couples that night and then everyone got together at The British Rose to indulge our personal "American Idol" fantasies with some karaoke.  When I say "everyone" I am referencing a very eclectic crowd.  My daughter has two close friends from childhood and so those three couples had dinner together.  Then, as they frequently do, they include parents, siblings, former teachers, other friends and their parents for an evening of fun and singing.  I have gone out with them on occasion when there were three generations represented and everyone has a great time.  Saturday night was no exception!

TenderHeart was part of a song and dance troup in high school and that very talented group even cut a CD at one point with dreams of Broadway productions dancing in their heads.  The producer of this venture acted as though they could all get "deals" for their own recordings but ultimately only one of the young men was highlighted.  It was fine.  They had a lot of fun along the way. 

Another member of that high school group, whom I will call Talent here, did go on to New York and appeared in some Broadway and off Broadway shows.  His most notable gig was in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."  Talent did some other summer stock productions and is now back working in Dallas. Talent is one of the extended group of my daughter's high school friends that still stay in touch. I love it when Talent joins us for karaoke. As you can imagine, he sings very well and when Talent and TH do duets, I get goosebumps!

The problem with karaoke, other than the obvious flinching moments when wanna-be singers strain too hard, is that a good karaoke place can have a long rotation.  It makes for a long evening if you have to sit through 25 songs to get to your turn again.  Saturday night was fun since so many in our party chose to sing.  About every third song was someone we knew.  Lots of cheers and whistles and the occasional song accompanied by an interpretive dance to try and throw off the singer.  It is tough not to laugh when someone we know is belting out Prince's "Purple Rain" and my daughter and one of her girlfriends decide to play ballerina in front of the "stage."

HummerGuy sang a Brad Paisley song "Little Moments". Talent and TH sang"The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. Talent sang Lionel Richie's "Truly" at my request. Others with our group sang some songs I cannot recall and then TH belted out "Red Neck Woman" which always makes me so proud (NOT!).  As for me, I sang Norah Jones' "Lonestar."  Not my usual but still fun.

All in all it was a great evening and we kept my little girl's attention on more pleasant thoughts for a few hours.