The Beatles, MeetUps and Chocolate Cake

The co-chairmen of the luncheon that I worked on Monday and Tuesday sure knew how to organize and treat their volunteers. After we finished up the first day they treated us to a “Thanks, Volunteers” cake with ice cream and a goody bag to take home. That’s never happened the other times I’ve volunteered at the senior hall. Someone made the comment that they were setting the bar high and “I like it!” she added. It was a pleasure working for people who were so well organized. I could have done without the sinfully delicious chocolate cake and salty caramel ice cream but it’s not their fault that I can’t resist getting a sugar high whenever the opportunity presents itself. I don’t gamble, drink or spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need but I lack self-control when it comes to desserts that got withheld when I was a kid if I didn’t eat my vegetables. Yup, I’m blaming my mother. Isn’t that what we all do when we don’t want to take responsibility for our own actions? 

The "Write and Share” group that I got invited to took place at the library this week and it turned out to have been organized through the MeetUp website. MeetUps in general look interesting. You can organize one (or find one already organized) for just about anything you want to get involved in. Just go to the MeetUp website by typing your city and state into your browser plus ‘+MeetUp’ and a whole new world will open up. Within twenty-five miles from me, for example, are 266 MeetUp groups for things like: mushroom hunters (38 members), Bible study, dancing (269 members), sport fans of every kind, singing, book clubs in various genres, restaurant hoppers, walkers, quilters, women 60+, geeks (188 members), and 63 people are in a MeetUp titled “forage for food”---whatever that is. Since most of these groups meet in public places and you communicate through the MeetUp website, it looks like a safe way to meet like-minded people. 

There were just five people at the Read, Write and Share MeetUp I attended but two more are planning to join us next time. It was fun and a little scary reading an essay I wrote out loud. But it was well received as were the other pieces people wrote and read. One guy, 50 years old and back in college to study photo journalism, said he hasn’t written anything in many years. Two women (40 and 70 I’m guessing) have been writing and submitting things for decades and another woman in her sixties writes memoir stuff similar to what I write and I felt the two of us were well matched. The woman who organized the meet is very knowledgeable, is a skilled facilitator and set a nice tone for critiques. I came home from the session completely happy that I joined. Afterward, several of us got back on the RWS MeetUp web page and made comments. It’s like a mini message board for just our MeetUp group and I can see where that will enrich the group experience. I have the feeling we’re all going to get to know each other well.

Wednesday night I went to see the off-off Broadway production of Rain, a Tribute to the Beatles. It was billed as: “a live multi-media spectacular that takes you on a musical journey through the life and times of the world’s most celebrated band. Going further than before, this new RAIN adds even more hits that you know and love from the vast anthology of Beatles classics such as I Want To Hold Your Hand, Hard Day’s Night, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Let It Be, Come Together and Hey Jude.” I hate going downtown and I just won’t do it on my own, but going on the senior center’s bus sure made attending this event easy. They dropped us off and picked us back up within ten feet of the Performance Arts Center's main door and we had great seats, at a discount rate. And for the first time in my life I was glad I was wearing hearing aids because I was able to take them out. Was that show ever loud! And colorful---like living inside a kaleidoscope. It was surround music and color. 

I haven’t been to a live production of anything in this century and I loved the experience. The jumbotrons sent me into sensory overload. Their content was so artsy-fartsy beautiful, constantly moving and triggering many memories of times gone by---news clips, art, iconic Beatles stuff, audience shots from past Beatles concerts plus our own. The music was like listening to the sound track of my life. The center holds 2,400 people and we were all on our feet several times, singing and swinging the two-fingered peace sign. At one point during the evening I was sitting there completely happy, the whole place washed in bright lights and patterns that floated all over the place, including the audience, and thought to myself, If I knew I was going blind I’d want this to be one of the very last things I see. Needless to say my first experience at the performance center, seeing the Beatles tribute, was one of the coolest things I’ve done in recent memory. ©