I finally heard from CMT that I was “in” for the taping of Crossroads with Train and Martina McBride.  I must admit, I didn’t know anything about that show, since I’m not a big country music fan, but what a brilliant idea.  It introduces artists to a whole other audience…I didn’t know Martina’s music, even though her daughter goes to school with my daughter, but now I think I’m going to have to start listening…she is amazing!

As I mentioned, I was there because I’m a huge fan of Train (Pat Monahan in particular!), and because I won a facebook drawing for the tickets to the private taping.  (See, Mom, Facebook truly does come in handy!)  I was told they were non-transferable, so even if I had decided to sacrifice seeing the show for H and a friend, they couldn’t get in without me.  (In actuality, they probably could have…I just told them my name and they checked it off and gave me two tickets…didn’t even ask for ID-but don’t tell her!)

Anyway, the doors were supposed to open at 7:00, and close at 7:45 for the 8:00 taping at Rocketown.  J and I headed downtown for a quick bite at Sole Mio (which has incredible homemade pasta and sauces, but since moving from their original location lacks a bit of ambiance).  We parked halfway between the restaurant and Rocketown (about four blocks apart), and rushed our dinner to get there before the doors closed.  We anticipated general standing room only admission, so decided halfway through dinner to try to get there closer to 7:15 so we wouldn’t be stuck in the back.  We checked in, picked up tickets and were shown in to our seats (yay!) about 8th row center.  Not bad!  We chatted with the folks seated around us, and realized they were all there to see Martina, and didn’t know Train’s music.  We told them they were in for a pleasant surprise.

Around 7:55, the director (I guess) walked out on stage, welcomed us, and gave the standard spiel…no videos or flash photography.  Then we recorded three rounds of applause to be used later in the show…light applause, a little more with a few whoops, and all out with screaming and pumping arms.  Then a standing ovation.  But to keep it from looking staged, he would point to sections of the audience during the ovation to stand up in a more natural way.

Then the band tuned up a little, and Pat and Martina walked out on stage.  Applause, applause,  Martina welcomed everyone and they started into her song, “Wrong, Baby Wrong”.  She had on these delightful sequined pants/leggings/spray paint…not sure which, but since she is as big as my little finger, they looked amazing.  Pat had on his typical black sportcoat with a light collared shirt, and not to be outdone by Martina, some kind of jeans that looked amazingly like leggings.  I’m not sure who is smaller, Martina or Pat, but when they opened their mouths to sing, their voices filled up the room.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a little bit prejudiced, and not to take away from Martina, but when Pat sang, his voice was so much more powerful it made her seem even smaller.  About five lines into the song, Martina said, “I’m sorry, I missed it.”…so they walked off and back on again to do it over.

Then Jimmy Staford, Train’s lead guitarist, joined them on stage and they sang “Whatever You Say” and “Broken Wing”, both Martina songs, and both sounded like they’d been singing together for awhile.  They were clearly enjoying themselves.  After those songs, the director returned for another chit chat, and they left the stage to redo the walk on one more time, followed by “Wrong Baby Wrong” again, but this time, Pat did the intro after the song.

Then there was a short break, and we heard more audience members asking questions about Train.  I guess here in Nashville, at a country music singer’s concert, that’s to be expected.  Entering the “Train” portion of the show, they started with “Drops of Jupiter”.  Wow.
After it was over, Pat looked at Martina and said, “I feel like Chris Farley…remember how you sang the shit out of that song?”  It was very cute.  Martina was gracious but didn’t seem as star struck as Pat seemed with her.   They followed that up with “Hey Soul Sister”, and finally the audience seemed to wake up…a genuine standing ovation!

Pat made a comment about Martina dancing more, and an audience member yelled out, “No, Pat YOU need to dance more!”  He quipped back that his dancing somehow seemed to simulate a stripper, and proceeded to turn around and do just that.  Next, they sang “Marry Me”…beautiful duet, and “Calling All Angels”.  Another director tete-a-tete and they redid “Drops of Jupiter”,  and finished up with “Stay with Me”…Rod Stewart’s song.  I’ve seen three Train live performances now, and that seems to be their tradition…to end the show with a Rock and Roll classic.

I left this show and did what has become a tradition for me.  Looked up future concerts to see when I can go see them again!  No matter what kind of show I see, it always leaves me wanting more.  I have a dream that one day we’ll invite them to our house to share a good bottle of cabernet…Dreams are good, right?

I made a decision when I started keeping a blog that it would NOT be a place for my political views. I like to keep them to myself. I don’t feel like espousing my viewpoint would really do much to change anyone else’s, nor do I want to have to argue with anyone about why I believe what I do. I think that’s the beautiful thing about being an American. I pray every day for the upcoming election. And that’s all I’m going to say about my viewpoint. (Unlike my husband!)

Anyway, there are some interesting things out there that I just have to share. Here’s a link from Howard Stern (audio only), with some clips from voters in Harlem who were Obama supporters, and their understanding of the issues he supports. This is so sad. If you are going to support a candidate, and be vocal about it, at least, understand some of the basic tenets of their campaign! I hear the word “ignorance” being tossed around by both parties, attaching it to their opponent based on various issues, but we as voting citizens must educate ourselves on the issues. There are various websites that show facts and voting records, not opinions and false promises. Some are better than others, but I like factcheck.org and politifact. I believe it is our duty to do research, not blindly go out and vote for any candidate based on race, political party, negative campaigning, and other tenuous reasons. Read, research, and make decisions based on knowledge, not fear or emotion.

Just stumbling around a little bit this morning, and I found a really fun site that I wanted to share.

One word.

You click on “go”, then you have sixty seconds to write about whatever word they give you. Pretty cool. Kind of like word association, except you get to write. Then you enter your name and email address and they post it under results. It’s fun to see what others wrote, too. Check it out.

Summer’s over for us.  H starts school officially next week, but has stuff starting tomorrow, so no more late nights and sleeping in.  She doesn’t drive yet, so unfortunately I have to wake up when she does.  (Although she’ll be 15 next month so those days are numbered…yikes).

I really should get off the computer now.

Seriously.

People keep turning me onto new blogs, or websites, that just feed the addiction.  Here’s the latest.  It’s so cool!

Blip FM!

That link takes you to my “station”. I only have a few songs (so far), but you can add other “DJs” to your station, search for songs, add them to your playlist.

But don’t go there if you need to go do something, or work on something else. I sat down about an hour ago to try to write an actual post…something I’ve been thinking about all week and after playing around with this for far too long I think I just need to give it up.

Hopefully I’ll write something good later.

Until then, I’ve got some more Squeeze to listen to.

I was looking through some old pictures for a slide show of H’s nine years at her current school (she’s changing schools for 9th grade), and I came across this picture of me and my little brother when we were kids. What is it? We’re like giants in a little miniature city. My mom has no idea. Something tells me it was some kind of amusement park or something. Kind of cool. I wonder if the doors and windows worked? It’s like a whole city of playhouses.

When I was a little girl, my Grandma kept 8 little figurines on her windowsill above the kitchen sink. Every day, she would move one over to the other side of the windowsill every time she drank a glass of water. For years, she drank 8 glasses of water every single day, no more, and no less. She lived until she was 92, and as far as I know, other than a few mild strokes, she was very healthy. It could have been the fact that she didn’t drink alcohol, that she lived and worked on a farm for most of her life, or that she had good genes, but it probably had nothing to do with her drinking her eight glasses of water a day.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb and Dr. Dan Negoianu of the University of Pennsylvania debunks the health value of “guzzling glasses of water to flood yourself with good health”.

Goldfarb and Negoianu examined what Goldfarb called “four major myths” regarding claims of a benefit for extra water drinking: that it leads to more toxin excretion, improves skin tone, makes one less hungry and reduces headache frequency.

“Our bottom line was that there was no real good science — or much science at all — behind these claims, that they represent probably folklore,” Goldfarb said.

Even more validation that drinking Diet Coke instead of Water won’t kill me. Well, maybe the aspartame, caffeine, or phosphoric acid will kill me, but not dehydration.

Yesterday afternoon, I was in my office and H was upstairs doing her homework and the doorbell rang. I looked out and there was a young man standing there, no car visible anywhere, and I didn’t recognize him, so we didn’t answer the door. I watched him walk away from our house, up the street and into the neighbor’s driveway to ring their doorbell. Didn’t think much about it.

Then, last night around 8:45 p.m. (wayyyy past dark) the doorbell rang again, so J answered. This young man started out with a nice introduction, selling magazine subscriptions (4-5 year long subscriptions!), blah, blah, blah. J said he wasn’t interested. The guys said, “But it will really help me out, keep me off the streets (where he was, actually), can’t you just help me out a little bit?” J said, “No, I’m not interested”
“Well, your neighbor, Bob, said that at first, too, but then he was kind enough to help me out.” And so on, back and forth, until J almost had to push him away to close the door. J even suggested the young man call him at his office the next day, because he was always looking for salespeople (really just wanted to get him to go away), but the guy didn’t want to do that. Those magazines must really pay a lot of commissions!

I hear stories about these guys all the time. Some company pays them, takes them to neighborhoods, puts them up in cheap hotels and pushes them hard to make sales. Since the “Do Not Call Registry” has taken away one form of revenue for these scumbags, they’re starting to venture back into the neighborhoods. Creeps me out.

FYI: The top five lies told by door to door salespeople (I think our guy told four of them)

Very interesting…take this quiz to see which candidate matches up to your preferences:

Presidential Candidate Quiz

I can’t take credit for the following…it came from someone else, but the part about feeling your heart outside your body…I’ve never heard it expressed that way before…

Before I was a Mom –
didn’t know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn’t know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn’t know that bond between a mother and her child.
I didn’t know that something so small could make me feel so important and happy.
Before I was a Mom –
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn’t want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn’t stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.

I never knew how much my mom loved me, until I was a mom myself.

H is 14 1/2 years old, going on 21, but I still feel the wonder and awe of being her mom.