September 22 Came and Went

If you haven't been able to figure out already by my background music, I'm a Celine Dion fan. Yes, I admit it, I think she's great. There are two artists I'd pay any amount of money to see and they are Celine Dion and, of course, Madonna.

So it should come as no surprise when I tell you that last October, immediately following an episode of Oprah where Celine Dion was the guest, I jumped at the chance to buy tickets to her concert when an advertisement aired on the TV. I called my sister-in-law and mother-in-law and asked that they come with me. My mother-in-law said "absolutely, I'll go and price is no issue". My sister-in-law said okay while making sure I knew that it was only to keep us company and that she would pay any amount of money also to do that (but only to keep us company). In no way did she want to be mistaken for a die-hard fan, but I could tell she was dying to go.

The next morning I was on-line by 10 am sharp, ready to purchase the tickets. Based on the map, it appeared that the tickets offered to us at $176 a piece were good, so I bought them. Price was no concern of mine.

After the excitement of the purchase wore off, I realized that I had to wait 11 months to go. Geesh, I could be dead by then (well, I knew that was unlikely since at the time I was only 33 years old, however, you never know). I thought about everything that would happen during that 11 month wait, the Monkey would come home from Guatemala (I hoped), the Hawk would finish Kindergarten and start first grade, the Kangaroo would start Kindergarten, and the entire winter, spring and summer would pass by. It felt like a lifetime away. So, I tucked the tickets away under a pile on my desk (yes, I agree, very bad place to stick tickets worth almost $600) and forgot about them.

Well, all the things I mentioned above happened plus some and suddenly it was September 22, the day of the concert. Wow, time flies. Soon I will die of natural causes at the age of 88.

So, the three of us hopped in my car and drove down to the arena. As we were walking in,my "too cool" sister-in-law didn't pass up the opportunity to mention that she figured she'd be the youngest one there while looking around and noticing all the more "mature" concert goers, but there were plenty of younger ladies also and even some men (husbands of course being drug in by their wives, but still men).

Then we took our seats and waited anxiously for Celine Dion to come out and start singing. We couldn't wait, even my sister-in-law (she's going to shoot me when she reads this). Finally at 9 pm, she emerged! She's short. Did you know that? I always thought she was really tall and yucky skinny. But she's not. She's short and thin, but not yucky thin. And, she sings perfectly all the time. It's amazing how well she sings, she didn't miss a note the entire night. She was just as amazing as I thought she'd be. She sang for almost two hours and I'm sure by the end, she was exhausted. I wasn't as impressed by the dancing as I thought I'd be, but she was great. She gives her background singers the chance to be front and center, which I thought was great also.

In the end, I'm glad I went. I forgot to mention, our seats were perfect. We were about 20 feet away from her. We could see her great without looking at the giant TV's. The show was well worth the 11 month wait.

Remember how at the beginning of this post I said I'd pay any amount of money to see two people? The other artist I mentioned was Madonna. Well, a few weeks ago my sister-in-law and I purchased tickets to her show in Detroit. We are headed there on November 18. What a year this will be. I brought the monkey home, saw Celine Dion, and am going to see Madonna. Assuming nothing tragic happens, 2008 might go down as one of the best years.

Sorry I have no pictures. Our tickets said no cameras allowed so I didn't bring one and at the concert I discovered we were probably the only ones without cameras. That's the last time I'll follow that rule.