Living Happily Ever After

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On Stage

“You are never so alone as when you are ill on stage. The most nightmarish feeling in the world is suddenly to feel like throwing up in front of four thousand people.”  (Judy Garland)

The next adventure of my business trip occurred shortly after my impressive vocal solo performed backstage for Donny Osmond. It actually took place while he was onstage. When I joined him in the spotlight! (Unfortunately, it wasn’t because of what you might think.)

In the middle of his performance, a few women from the audience joined him onstage. When the first few made it to him, I watched light dawn in the minds of many women in the auditorium. The room began to look like one of those gopher arcade games—where creatures pop up at various intervals, at various locations, and you have to bop them on the head to score. Each woman appeared to be heading to the stage to get close to Donny! I looked around me and started feeling sick to my stomach. I’d been to an autograph signing with Donny and I’d seen firsthand not only how much women love him but how out-of-hand things can get without the proper control (and security.) I knew somebody had to do something. I sat there for a few seconds more, observing women here and there, leaving their seats and heading for the stage and not really sure of what to do, but frantic to prevent a situation that could become out of control. So…I joined them!

As I climbed the steps to the stage and walked out into the spotlight, I felt sick. “I am NOT doing this. I cannot believe I have to do this. What am I doing? Why in the world am I going onstage in the middle of a Donny Osmond performance?” But I did it anyway (someone had to) and began directing the adoring female fans back to their seats. Donny was attempting to do the same and must have seen me out of the corner of his eye and thought I was one of the fans because as I directed the last one back toward her seat and prepared to follow her back to mine, he grabbed my arm, looked like he was ready to tell me to take my seat, but instead realized who I was and said, “Oh, it’s YOU!” and with relief, continued the show.

I returned to my seat and cringed at the unexpected adventure I’d just had. Disaster averted. The story of the time I joined Donny Osmond onstage—in the middle of a performance—and lived to tell about it. (I’m sure if I’d had to sing, the outcome would have been drastically different. I’ll leave the performing to Donny…and Marie.)

“If you take my performance or my understanding of the role and my appreciation for story…I guess becomes an action film.” (Vin Diesel)

It’s A Lot Of Fun

“I can rock out anything. I mean, I can rock out a little ‘Time After Time’. I can do a little ‘Greased Lightning’. It depends on the mood…and it’s a lot of fun.” (Kristen Bell)

The extent of anything even approaching rocking out in my life took place, for the first and last time, during high school. I was the lead “singer” in an airband. I imitated Kim Wilde, we rocked “We’re The Kids In America,” and I have the pictures to prove it. Cut to 2011.

In honor of my husband’s 50th birthday, we went on a leaf peeping cruise with some of his family and friends. I wasn’t sure what to expect. We’d only been married 7 months, I didn’t know some of the people we were cruising with at all and I was nervous about leaving my children for 10 days. (In my entire 20 year marriage, all 7,300 nights of it if I’ve done the math correctly, I left my children a total of 16 nights–discounting hospitalizations, but those are another story! In fact, to avoid that very dilemma of leaving my children and for the sake of creating family memories, I’d taken my children to Africa, New Zealand, Turkey, Russia and many other places so that I could see the world and share it with my children without having to leave them. ) But my new husband is a big believer in couples’ “getaways.” So although wary about the whole thing, I agreed to go.

The closer we got to our departure, the more nervous I was, to which my husband would reassure me, “This is going to be great! Traveling without children is a WHOLE new world! You’ll be amazed at how fun it is, all the fun you can have, staying out late, dancing and socializing with adults!” So we went.

And the first night on the cruise ship, wouldn’t you know, we ended up in a karaoke lounge? I’m married to a performer, so it’s something he apparently is familiar with and participates in on occasion, however, my only brush with karaoke in my entire life was the karaoke scene in “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” when an apparently intoxicated Cameron Diaz belts out an awful performance and everyone claps and cheers her on anyway. But here’s what I learned that night in the Carnival karaoke lounge: I was surprised to discover how true-to-life that movie scene was.

Good, bad, or really terrible…anybody stood and sang for the room. The audience listened politely every time, cheered the singers on and actually clapped for them at the end! The really good performers got a louder show of appreciation, but everyone received pretty generous applause. I actually became a little more impressed at my fellow man after seeing them participate, on stage or in the audience, of karaoke! And I sat there innocently watching, not feeling threatened in the least by what was going on around me–it wasn’t my business or my world, at all, after all–until my husband said to me, “Ok, it’s your turn. What are you going to sing?”

NO.

I don’t “do” karaoke.

Never.

No way.

My husband wasn’t about to let me off easy, he insisted I participate, so I finally said, “I’ll only do it if they have ABBA,” knowing they’d never have music like that at karaoke. (I TOLD you I didn’t know anything about karaoke!) They had it. And before I knew what was happening, I found myself heading to the stage. Alone. Head spinning. All I could think was, “This is not me. This is not my life. This is not what I do. If someone had told me two years ago I’d EVER be doing karaoke…” Just the usual disbelief my old self has for the new me living the unexpected life.

I ended up singing a duet with the karaoke hostess who guided me through the whole experience because it was my first time. We even harmonized. Our own little version doing what Anni-Frid and Agnetha did best—”Dancing Queen.”

I don’t drink, so I can’t be sure, but I think it may not have been QUITE as bad as the movies.

“Everybody’s a filmmaker today.” (John Milius)

I wish I could say that was my last foray into film, but it wasn’t. It gets worse. Much worse.