Last Week

Good morning,

Is it possible I forgot to write about our hip and happening last week? June 21, J and I attended the Cheltenham College Junior School ball.  This year’s ball was even more enjoyable than last.  We had what I was lovingly referring to as a Pre Prom Party:  four other couples who were sharing our table joined us for canapés (appetizers) and Cheltenham’s drink of choice, champagne.   We have always had exceptionally fun friends, I must say, so this was just a wonderful evening of dancing and the best of company.   The English have an endearing phrase on ball invitations, ‘Carriages at 1:00 a.m.’.  For some reason, we always seem to be the last to leave and, therefore, our ‘carriage’ didn’t arrive until closer to 2:00 a.m.    As you might imagine, the following day, J’s birthday, was a bit of a gentle affair…

On Tuesday evening, this edgy mum headed into Birmingham for the John Mayer concert.  John Mayer is relatively unknown in this country.  S and a friend, Mary who discovered John Mayer while in the USA this past winter, organized tickets to the concert months ago.  Unfortunately, S was not able to attend because she was participating in the Duke Of Edinburgh Awards.  Currently, she is working towards a bronze award:  out door training, survival skills, orienteering and camping skills. The kids go onto earn silver and gold awards in the following years, the gold award being achieved when you are dropped in the middle of nowhere, survive on your own and manage to find your way home. Isn’t that called hazing?  The best students from school were chosen.  I find it odd that the best and brightest are chosen to survive alone in the dark and wet of Wales. I’ve been a teacher.  I think the pain in the ass kids should be made to survive in the wilderness.

So. Back to young and trendy me going to the concert.  First of all, I wish I could describe the look of horror when I told S that I’d attend the concert without her. Like I was too old to hang with the students.  Please.  Mary and her mother and another lucky girl all went.

Here is the truth:  I am too old to hang with the students.  Although Mary assured us there were seats, there weren’t (she knew we wouldn’t go otherwise).  The venue reminded me SO much of the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago (or ‘brawl’ room as we referred to it).  With me so far, former youth of the greater Chicagoland area?  Sticky floors, no a/c, smelly, lots of bars, one small filthy bathroom.  Wow.  I wanted to go home.  The concert was okay, although John Mayer was not as hot as I thought he ought to have been considering what we paid for the tickets.   I’m just saying, for the price, he could have worked a bit harder on his biceps, that’s all.  And re-thought the black wife beater he was sporting.  So Helen and I left the girls to rock it out, while we hung out towards the back, close to a fire exit.

The thing that really got me about the concert was the fact that he didn’t sing his big hit, the one that made him ‘John Mayer’, Your Body is a Wonderland, because years ago he decided that he was tired of singing it and that he didn’t want to be remembered by that one ‘wedding song’.  First of all, I have to say, whose wedding?  If, at my wedding, I had played a song about not showing up for work so I could suck on someone’s ‘bubble gum tongue’, I don’t think my mother would have ever fully recovered.  No one has ever played that song at a wedding.  Second, get over yourself, John!  It is not like you are ELTON JOHN who has decided, after decades, to no longer sing Candle in the Wind. And, God help me, wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world where we never had to LISTEN to that song again?

With love from England,

T-Ann