Monday morning, I headed over to VVC, with Alex in tow, to get my transcripts only to find the line wrapped around the building in triple-digit weather. Yeah…Nope, I don’t think so. Instead, we made our way down to lower campus and hung out with Kristy in the writing center until Mary's physical therapy appointment was over. I left my mark on the white board: "Sonya was here (I thought the meeting was on Monday)." Part of the plan to crash to meeting on Wednesday, hoping it was enough of a hint.

Alex went to another friend's house that night, so Mary and I dropped her off, then went back to Mary's to watch movies.

At midnight I got a phone call from Alex asking me to come get her. I knew her friend had changed for the worse since we moved and insisted that they have their sleepover at her grandparents' home. I was reassured that it would only be her and her mom at home so I allowed itbut told Alex if she felt uncomfortable in any way to call me no matter what time it was, and I would go get her. As it turns out, another friend came over, the two friends started fighting and Alex didn't like it. After I picked her up, Alex informed me that on top of that, the hosting friend’s boyfriend was there and…well…yeah, you get the picture. So, that didn't go well, and as proud as I was for my daughter’s responsible actions, I felt bad that her plans didn’t go better than she hoped for.

Tuesday we went to the mall so Mary and I could have pictures done together, then we met my adopted daughter and her family for lunch at Chili's. It was good to see them. Alex wasn't feeling well, so we went "home" to find out she was running a low-grade fever. I drugged her up, and put her to bed. Since we really couldn't go anywhere with Alex's minor ailment, we decided to be vegetables in front of the boob tube.

Part Three

After another night bunking at T's, we got on the road to start our weekend in Victorville. We spent our first night, Saturday, with Mary's boyfriend, Blue, since Mary had to work that night. Sunday, Alex spent the day with a friend while I went to a Star Wars movie party with a few friends from the writing center, where I conveniently found out there would be writing center meeting while I was in town. There’s nothing like English nerd commentators during Star Wars! Incidentally, hero or not, Luke Skywalker is a whiny little brat who wasn’t disciplined enough as a child. Man, does he do a lot of complaining in Episodes four and five. First he’s angry that he didn’t get to know his father, and then he’s angry when he finds out who his father really is. And then there's that Skywalker-Solo-Leia triangle-thing going on. Dude! She’s your sister! Get over it! Shouldn’t the all-knowing Force he taps into give him some hint that his feelings for Leia are somehow…oh, I don’t know…wrong? (Stepping down now).

Part Two

Heavenly and I got to Mandalay Bay, picked up our tickets and while we were in line at Will Call, we looked out and could see the guys sound-checking. Unfortunately, I didn't have the digital camera to get a good picture.

Before leaving Memphis, I called to find out if cameras were allowed inside the venue and was told by some noob that only disposables were allowed in. Great! I bought one and was ready. When we finally got into the venue - the beach area - I discovered that many people had their digitals. Enfuriated, it was then that I realized I could have had better pictures of the concert if I had just risked bringing the digital camera instead of the disposal piece of sh** I had. Vegas wasn't as hot this time, but mostly due to the stormy weather, which nearly ruined what ended up being good times.

The top of the stage has a signal light. Green lights, it was all good and we could go into the water surrounding the stage; yellow lights, we couldn't go in the water because getting struck by lighting was a big risk, but the show would go on; and red lights, we were basically S.O.L., but got a refund for our tickets. Yeah...we all looking forward to that refund. What were the event staff thinking?

We were ecstatic to see green lights upon entering, but after Alex took a short dip in the deeper part of the pool, the lights went yellow and we were ordered out of the water. Many downhearted fans slogged our way out of the pool and up onto the "beach" area, waiting anxiously for green lights as we watched the clouds overhead dissipate. For a while it was like playing Red Light, Green Light. The boys were due to start at 9 p.m., but the minutes ticked by, passing the scheduled start time. They must love us as much as we love them; they seemed to be holding the show for green lights...and their own safety, I'm sure. Around 9:15, it was a go and a herd of fans stampeded back into the water. I took Alex's hand and dragged her to the front where I was right below Roland Orzabal's side of the stage. Everything went smoothly; green lights throughout the show, and a few smiles from Roland, made us completely forget the stress of just getting to Vegas. It was the "Closest Thing to Heaven." Alex had a blast and commented that it wasn't what she expected. She thought it would be boring because “they’re older.” Boy, did she get a rude awakening! Her favorite parts were the beginning -- they opened with "Mad World," which included an orchestral intro before Curt Smith took the stage to finish singing the song, followed by Roland -- and the encore -- "Woman in Chains" and "Shout" -- which is when it started to rain and made the evening seem even more perfect. One of Curt's daughter's came out to sing Shout with everyone, and that was awesome for Alex to see. When the show ended, we drove up and down the strip so Alex could see it lit up: her favorite is the Luxor. Should I be concerned? Then, we ended our perfect evening with a 1:30 a.m. breakfast at Denny's.

Part One
I topped off a long and virtually-but-not-quite-stress-free summer with a trip to Vegas and California. Around May, the month of my birthday, I found out that Tears for Fears would be performing at a handful of gigs between late June and late July. So for my birthday, I talked my parents and Michael into getting me tickets to the Vegas show. Before that, Alex, my 15-year-old, wanted to take a trip back to California to visit with the friends she left behind; except she wanted to go in June, and since I wouldn’t let her travel that far alone - being the paranoid parent that I am - I told her the only way she could go was if she went at the end of July with me because I refused to make two trips back to the High Desert. I left the desert for a reason. While in California, we were also supposed to go to San Diego and visit with some friends there.

One of my best friends, Mary, was supposed to attend the concert with me, but for personal reasons, was unable to make it. Since I’d previously taken my two oldest daughters to see TFF, I thought, since Mary couldn’t make it, that it might be fun to take Alex to her first concert. Fantastic! We planned our trip, flying into Vegas the night before the show, staying a couple of nights with another one of my long-time best friends, Tina, then heading to the High Desert in sunny Southern California. But to get there, we had to fly, and to fly cheap, we had flew standby.

It’s great that we can fly for free through Michael’s benefit package at Pinnacle Airline. Yay, right? Not so much. The downside is that we have to fly standby and we have to fly via Pinnacle or Northwest. So there’s this nifty little airfare called ZED Fare or Flat fare that allows us to fly standby using any carrier – for a nominal fee. So, if you’re current on your airline news, you know that Northwest Airline is having issues. One of the bigger one's being a lack of crew members to fly the planes. This has resulted in numerous cancelled flights. On top of that, current crew members have “phoned in sick” (yeah, right), resulting in even more cancelled flights. Paying passengers on those cancelled flights are rerouted to other carriers and generally take priority over regular standby passengers like myself. This is where my adventures began -- and ended.

I usually get a little nervous before flying, but I’ve never had the experience I had on 26 July. I’m convinced it was an anxiety attack of some form. Before we left, a couple of things were brought to our attention. First, there was the guy in Seattle who missed his flight to Memphis and made a bomb threat. Yep! He was flying Northwest. I didn't worry too much about that; he was angry and said something stupid in front of TSA and now he'll probably go to jail. However, what did have a direct effect on us was the lack of pilots Northwest currently has to fly the planes. I didn't think we'd get a flight out, let alone together. I worried myself into an anxiety attack the likes of which I've never had before and ran to the bathroom across from our terminal where the contents of what I’d recently eaten came back to haunt me.

I'm convinced it was Michael's presence (he can get past security with his badges) in his Pinnacle work shirt that got our seats...together in fact...and we made it to Vegas, got our rental car, and headed to Tina's. We got lost a block away from her apartment, and she had to come rescue us. While I didn't get much sleep that night, my nerves had time to settle before the next evening's concert festivities...