A Night To Remember and A Day To Forget

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to arise" -Paul McCartney/The Beatles

I was on the receiving end of a double dose of bad news today.  One from a dear friend of mine, who was diagnosed with something that may or may not be cancerous.  Her biopsy is scheduled for next week.  She is a bundle of nerves and  I am scared for her.  Then there is my sister.  She is hurting right now.  Not physically, her wounds are emotional.  She is teetering on the brink of despair and I feel so helpless.  I am worried about her, about both of them.  I wish I could take their aches away.  But I can't.  Not these kinds of aches. Life is just unfair sometimes.  I don't get it.  I mean, I try to "get it", and most times, I do, but in instances such as these I just mentioned, I am  at a loss. Today was a sad day.  But I'm certain that tomorrow will be full of hope and new ideas and endless possibilities.  And laughter.  Laughter works miracles.

You know what else works miracles?  Music.  Last night I attended the most amazing concert, EVER.  I was among the forty thousand something fans who braved an open roof stadium, on a crisp, cold, winter night, to witness a legend give a performance of a lifetime.  Paul McCartney came to town!  This was my first time seeing him perform.  The last  time he was here was in 1993, where he played at the Astrodome.  I remember that I had tickets to that show, but my appendix decided I didn't really need to go see some guy from Liverpool, but instead, needed to go to the hospital.  So I missed it.  And now, some twenty years later, I found myself squealing like a school girl, singing along to EVERY.SONG., and witnessing some pretty fierce talent on stage.  In typical celebrity style, Sir Paul McCartney was fashionably late.  Like 45 minutes late.  Which really isn't that bad, considering Madonna made us wait 2 and half hours for her arrival.  Anyway, back to Paul.  He took the stage and immediately started belting out his signature songs, one after another after another.  The guy has this energy and presence that not only entertains you, but mesmerizes you as well.  After his first set, he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves of his white business shirt, and got down to work.  Jokingly, as he removed his jacket, he told us that that would be the one and only wardrobe change for the evening.  Which drew resonating cheers of approval from the crowd.  The evening wore on with hit after hit being sung to us.  At McCartney's insistence, the roof to the stadium was open.  Normally, that would not be a problem, but last night it was freezing cold in H-town.  Ok, maybe it wasn't really freezing, but you have to understand, we don't do cold weather here, anything below 70 degrees is cold to us.  Actually, last night we were hovering at 30 degrees, coupled with the high winds, uh yeah, it was freaking cold!!! Especially since yours truly only wore a very thin turtleneck and no jacket.  What? I had no idea that roof was going to be open!  Paul needed an open sky so he could shoot off pyro during "Live and Let Die"  One of  my dear, but sarcastic friends told me last night, "Wow! There haven't been fireworks in these parts since the Astros won the pennant in 2005!"  Everybody's got jokes.

I thought I'd share some pictures that a friend of mine took at the show.  Enjoy them.  Or not.

Tomorrow is FRIDAY peeps!  Make it count!