The Happy Hour Deejay

Time is running faster and faster. How is it that 26 years seems like just yesterday? I met up with two old acquaintances last night. Of course, as it is always said, it seemed like it was yesterday. And you fall back into the old speak, old memories, old stories. And of course new stories as you catch up.


It took a while to pull it all together. If there is one good thing about Facebook, it does give people a chance to find each other and catch up if it is desired. Of course, there are the people from yesteryear that pop up, find you, and create a big whoo ha about finding you. How are you? Where have you been? What are you doing? Remember this? Remember that? Remember that person?



Toga Night!

 So we finally got together. I went home quickly after work and tried searching through old photos to find those from our times together. We were all deejays for Stuart Anderson’s Cattle Company Restaurants back in the 80’s. These restaurants were the first of their kind, with attached bars, open deejay booths, and dance floors.

I was the happy hour deejay, Monday through Friday, 4-8PM. Remember happy hour? It was real back then. Half priced drinks and a full “free” appetizer bar. I would spin records (remember vinyl records?); customers would stop on their way home from work and have a few drinks and a couple of tacos (Wednesday appetizer special). I had my regular customers who eventually would be waiting for me before I even got there. And they would stay till 8pm and then sometimes stay later and have a drink with me at the bar.   There was no running to get here or there in a hurry like today. 

Oh, the parties we would run! When there was a big event, we would fill the place from 4pm till 2AM when the bar would close. There were times when I needed bouncers next to the booth during happy hour!

I have photos of events, videos of productions we staged and filmed. We made our own music videos using deejays from the other Cattle Company locations, some waiters and other staff. Last night’s meeting prompted me to gather up all the videos and restore digitally before the VCR tape disintegrates. Of course, I will watch them over again and reminisce and laugh at our craziness. I showed them to my older son and his girlfriend not too long ago. I was their age when they were created.

And yet, it seems like yesterday. I can still remember the moves. I remember standing in my booth, having the time of my life. It was my family, my stage, my performance each day, my audience. Damn, how lucky can you get to have these memories! Next time, we will ask to be seated at the table that now occupies what used to be my deejay throne. And we will hoot and holler about old times as those around us watch the crazy old folk!

Whack a Mole and Old age

I know, I know, enough about getting older!!!  But please bear with me because all this stuff is kind of new and actually pretty hilarious to me!

I'm in the car today and it's very sunny outside.  My hubby calls me princess and the pea because I was always so sensitive to anything touching my body.  I can feel the stray hairs off my head that fall and get caught in my shirt or worse, between your butt cheeks!  Or getting short sheeted or a crumb that falls into your boot.  I can spot a grey hair a mile away!  (Okay, not really but you get the picture)

I can also feel the little hairs that have been sprouting from my chin, my cheeks, anywhere.  I am in the habit nowadays of constantly rubbing my finger across my cheek or chin for that stray, wiry hair that seems to pop up within minutes of the last hair check!

I am sure now that each time I pluck one of those little devils from my chin, it forces another one up and out of its slumber.  I was frustratingly saying that in the car when my older than his years young son said, "You know, Mom, it's kind of like Whack a Mole."  You know, that kids arcade game where you have to hit the moles on the head as they pop up from their holes. The more you hit the moles, the faster they pop up.

Wise ass son.  Okay, it's true.  The faster you pluck, the faster they pop out.  I guess that's why you sometimes see women with almost full beards and wonder if they realize it's on their face.  Not to mention, I am of Mediterranean descent, so it makes it all one hundred times worse.

Don't you want to have a tweezers handy when you see a long, wiry hair on a friend of yours face?  I do.  I just want to pluck it for them.   Wouldn't that be easier than telling them?  Save them the embarrassment and draw fast with the tweezers.  They wouldn't know what hit them.

How about those hotel bathrooms (I am thinking in particular about The W) where they have dozens and dozens of makeup lights.  I've missed dinners because of those bathroom lights.  "Be right there!  In a minute!  Just plucking a few hairs!"  And then silence when I realize my husband has taken his clothes off and fallen fast asleep.  Good, then I have more time to search and destroy.

So please, I don't want to be a bearded lady.  And I seem to be losing the battle.  So if you find one on my chin, please pluck away.  I won't get mad.  I will probably thank you and then continue my own personal game of Whack a Mole....

Moments of Clarity

A moment of clarity.  Ahhhh.  Aren't they wonderful?  Ever have one?  Or two?  I was blessed this past weekend with one that was so strong, it felt as if the world just opened up and color and sound were brighter and crisper.  For just a moment.   Sometimes that's all we have - a moment.  And many times our eyes are closed and we lose that gift that the universe is giving us.

I went to an Akashic Records workshop with Linda Howe this past weekend.  This woman is amazing, that's all I have to say on that.  Amazing.  And the work we did gifted me some amazing things.

I was driving home from the workshop and headed to a rehearsal after a really crazy and busy weekend.  As I turned the corner I saw a man in his car and he was bopping his head to music in a way that fascinated me.  It was different.  And then I turned my head the other direction and saw a woman walking down the street and her head was bopping in the same way as the mans.  I couldn't see if she had headphones on but she was grooving!  And I had to laugh.  A sign for a musician - me.  It felt good. 

The clarity of purpose, direction, reason, that came after the "bopping" was amazing.  For a short moment, everything was clear.  My path became clear.  Of course, the directions to go on that path were not revealed (darn it!).  All in good time, all in good time.

Another wise woman I know, Nancy Gerenstein, a life coach, said to me, "when you look for clarifying things, they appear just as when we anticipate problems, they appear."  Choosing the positive as opposed to the negative.....hmmmmm......haven't we heard that before again and again and again???

Clear your way is what Linda said to me.  Let go of the past as it just clogs up your vision and path.  Nothing new, right?  For me, the past always calls me back when it is time to move forward.  It says, "Hey, remember me?  Let's do this!  Let's go back and try this again."  And it gives me opportunities to go back and revisit things that were left behind for a reason.

Each time I revisit those "opportunities", I am tempted, but realize in the end that they are dead ends that take me back, not forward.  So I thank them, and move on.  They have molded me and will always be a part of me.

The winds have changed.  They are warm and blowing me to something new.  Can't wait.