A Week in the Life . . .

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2010

12:00 a.m. – Sleep
1:00 a.m. – Sleep
2:00 a.m. – Sleep
3:00 a.m. – Sleep
4:00 a.m. – Sleep
5:00 a.m. – Sleep. Get up to let the stupid cat out.
6:00 a.m. – Nathan up. Emma up at 6:30 a.m. I’m up at 6:45 a.m. Nathan leaves for work.
7:00 a.m. – Adana up at precisely 7:00. She has a clock in her room and she’s only able to get out of bed if the hour number is “7” or “8”. Some days, I can tell that she’s been awake for a while but just watching the clock until she can come out. I wake the boys up for scripture and prayer. Get Emma to the bus, and then go for my run.
8:00 a.m. – Get back from my run in time to hurry the boys off to school. Feed Adana. I eat a bowl of Toastie Oh’s with walnuts. Not as satisfying as my omelet. Adana plays dress-up. I check email.
9:00 a.m. – Shower. Try to find something to wear tonight, but realize that my wardrobe is very very dull. Do I wear this black t-shirt or that brown t-shirt? Sigh. I finally decide that it doesn’t really matter ‘cuz I’ll probably buy a t-shirt tonight anyways. (Ooooo . . . foreshadowing!) :-)
10:00 a.m. – Adana & I go to Storytime at the library.
11:00 a.m. – Home from Storytime. Reading lesson with Adana. Then paint her nails (and mine) bright ORANGE. I have been trying for months to get her to stop biting her nails. I kept telling her, “When you stop biting your nails, I’ll paint them ORANGE!” But she couldn’t stop. So today I decide to try a different tactic. Maybe if they are painted ORANGE, she won’t want to bite them. Fingers crossed!
12:00 p.m. – Lunch. Pick up Micah at school (‘cuz it is a nasty, dreary, chilly day). Put Adana down for an early nap.
1:00 p.m. – Pick up Jared at school. Get gas. Stop by the store to buy something small so I can get cash back.
2:00 p.m. – Homeschool. Fold my laundry. Emma home. Work on a Top Secret project (for Valentine's).
3:00 p.m. – Finish up chores. Wake up Adana. Drive to Little Dragons.
4:00 p.m. – Little Dragons. Rush home and try to get kids situated/solve disputes/listen to their last minute “urgent” things. (Why is it that I can spend the entire day with them, but the second I’m trying to walk out the door they suddenly have a dozen things that they HAVE to tell me?)
5:00 p.m. – Head to ferry. Get there in plenty of time. Discover that my friend, Mariann, forgot her camera and cell phone in her car. RUN back to get them. Still make it on the ferry.
6:00 p.m. – Arrive in Seattle. Catch a bus up to the Seattle Center. Find a magnificent market and buy some much-needed dinner.
7:00 p.m. – Are you ready for the Big Reveal? What did I do at 7 p.m. last night?!?!
Go to Key Arena for the BILLY JOEL/ELTON JOHN concert!!! Oh man! It was so dang exciting! We have a bit of trouble getting into the concert. At the door, we have to go through a baggage check. Mariann had brought her big, fancy-schmancy camera, but they aren’t allowing them in. They tell us that we will have to just leave it in our car. We explain that our car is parked ON BAINBRIDGE ISLAND. They just shrug with a “sucks to be you” attitude. We ask if we can check it. They say they don’t have that for this concert. We press. They say they will ask someone “higher up” what we should do. . . . . . And while they are going off in search of that “someone,” we quickly get our tickets scanned and sneak inside. Dopey Clever Mariann then goes into the bathroom, takes off her coat and wraps her camera bag in it. I just laugh and say, “Oh yeah! THAT doesn’t make you look like you’re trying to sneak something in!” We find our seats – nosebleed section to the back right of the stage. I’m sitting next to a woman who had clearly drunk waaaay too much Mike’s Lemonade. At 7:30 p.m., the lights dim, and then, rising out of the stage come two black grand pianos. Crowd (including us and my drunk neighbor) goes wild! Elton & Billy start the night off singing a few songs together. They’re both looking a bit older and plumper, but their voices sound GREAT.
8:00 p.m. – Billy’s piano sinks back down and Elton has the stage to himself. He’s pretty good, but I’m not overly impressed. Mariann’s husband, Jimmy, texts that we can join him in his BOX SEAT, right in front of the stage (he’s there with his office; we were just lucky to get some tickets so we could come along too). We don’t have to be asked twice. I ditch my slobbery, wailing neighbor and head off to enjoy the concert in a more refined setting. Or so I think.

9:00 p.m. - The box seats are very nice. A private bathroom. A coat closet. Cushy seats. Bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles of beer and wine. That probably should have been my first red flag. But I was too excited to actually be able to see the front of the stage. They put me right up front, next to Jimmy's boss. Cute little blond thing, sitting so sweetly, sipping her bottle of water. I settle in to immerse myself in what is happening on stage - Elton's piano goes down and HERE COMES BILLY!! I've got to say right up front that, while I enjoy Elton John's music, I was raised on Billy Joel. My mom was a huge fan. I think I learned to sing Uptown Girl before I could sing Old McDonald. Seeing him live was, simply, amazing. I wished my mom could be there with me.

10:00 p.m. - Billy finishes his solo set, and Elton comes back out for their closing songs together. Their voices do sound good together, but I still think it's odd to hear Elton sing Uptown Girl and Billy sing Bennie & the Jets. Our box is also starting to get a bit odd. Well, maybe odd isn't really the word I'm looking for. WACKO is more like it. Most of my box mates have consumed enough alcohol to sterilize a garbage dump. And they're starting to dance. Not just the usual sway-to-the-music-and-clap-with-the-beat that most of the rest of us are doing. And not just the occasional fist pump when the song is really rockin.' No we're talking Steve Martin in The Jerk gyrations! Is that dancing or are you having a seizure!? Quick, get me a helmet 'cuz she keeps whacking me in the head!! I was trapped in a little balcony box full of drunk whirling dervishes. I finally managed to extricate myself from the middle of the fray, and I spent the remainder of the concert sitting behind them, watching their strange tribal movements with alternating amusement and nausea.

11:00 p.m. - Concert over. Say our very polite Good-byes and Thank You's to people who, just mere minutes before, had been bumping and rubbing all over each other. And now we're all smiling sweetly at each other as if we had just come out of church. I find the whole thing strange and hilarious. Mariann, Jimmy & I try in vain to flag down an empty taxi. We give up and decide to just walk back to the ferry. We've got time and it's a nice, dry evening. Plus we're cheap. :-)

Contraband pictures soon to follow (as soon as Mariann emails them to me).