• Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Fun in Chicago,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments,  Shameless Promotion,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Listen To Your Mother Chicago: Countdown To Showtime!

    May 6, 2012

    For the last nine days, Tracey and I have posted countdown pictures on Facebook. I think these pictures both excited and terrified our cast. Today is the big day. More than six months in the making, the very first LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO is finally making its debut, at 7:00 p.m. tonight to be specific. Where am I, mentally? So calm I can’t even express it. If you know me well, you know that “calm” is not a word I EVER use when I’m this heavily involved in a project. (Okay, or, uh, EVER. At all.) I know that I will be nervous as showtime approaches because I am…

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  • Proud Moments

    I Have An Announcement.

    March 2, 2012

    It has been quite the week around here. On Sunday, Tracey and I held auditions for the Listen To Your Mother Chicago show (with some invaluable help from my City Half, Margaret). It was a long day, but it was a fun day. On Monday evening we auditioned a few more on Google+ Hangout, my new favorite technological wonder. We loved everybody’s pieces. We had some tough decisions to make. When Tracey and I tossed our hats into the ring and applied to bring LTYM to Chicago, we really wanted it. We had a few pretty good reasons why we wanted to do it, all of which were outlined in…

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  • Best Thing Ever,  Music,  Too Funny To Ignore

    Lenny Kravitz In Chicago: A Summary In Tweets, Pics, And, Of Course, A Few Words…

    February 2, 2012

    It seems like months ago when I first wrote about the Lenny Kravitz concert in Chicago for which I, at the time, only hoped our family would be able to procure tickets, but it’s been less than a month. In that time, my sister and J got the tickets for us (two in the fifteenth row on the floor and three on the second row of the front balcony) while Jim and I were on our cruise by setting up an elaborate “Lenny Ticket Headquarters” which was made up of several computers, with phones on standby. They worked really, really hard to get those tickets. After they got the tickets,…

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  • Chicken in the Car,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments,  Shameless Promotion

    The Little Author That Could

    January 24, 2012

    “How’s the book going?” It’s a question I get all the time from friends and family. While I appreciate their interest very, very much, I nearly always give the short answer: “Great! Thanks for asking!” The long answer is–frankly–really, really long, and I can’t just say half of it and expect the person I’m answering to fill in the blanks, so the short answer has to suffice under normal circumstances. Here is the long answer, though, in case you’re wondering: My book, considering it was published just last spring and I’m doing the bulk of the marketing for it myself, is doing pretty well for where I’m at on my…

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  • Childhood Memories,  Something That Could Change Your Life,  Travels

    The Love Boat

    January 11, 2012

    Back in the late 70’s through the mid 80’s, my sister and I were always in the same place on Saturday nights: in front of the television, watching “The Love Boat”. The weekly adventures of Captain Merrill Stubing (Your Ship’s Captain), Julie McCoy (Your Cruise Director), Issac Washington (Your Bartender), Doc Brinker (Your Ship’s Doctor), Gopher Smith (Your Yeoman Purser), and the parade of special guest stars that appeared each week (like Charo, Meredith Baxter Birney, Florence Henderson, Sonny Bono, and so many others) kept us glued to our seats from the intro song–which, at nearly two minutes, was clearly created in the days when the powers-that-be weren’t concerned about…

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