Every Moment

Photo courtesy of Amelia Kennedy

Happy Monday, gentle readers. I trust you had a lovely weekend...I know I certainly did.

I sang a few songs after work on Friday, as I am known to do, was home at a decent hour and then indulged in ten hours of sleep. Love that. On Saturday evening, I met my friends Emily and Randy, who were in town from Los Angeles, along with our other friend Kelcey and Randy's friend Cal (got all that?), in North Beach for cocktails and the English Beat show at Bimbo's 365 Club. I have mentioned before that the English Beat now is original singer/guitarist/songwriter Dave Wakeling with a bunch of hired musicians, but the shows still are so much fun. Above is a photo taken of those of us right at the front of the crowd at Bimbo's. If you look closely, you can spot Emily and me looking happy as clams to be mere feet from the band.

Yesterday saw more singing. Emily is a fellow karaoke enthusiast, so she, Randy and Cal met me at my favorite San Francisco karaoke den in the afternoon, and then, after Randy flew back to L.A., Emily and I reconvened last night for more songs at second karaoke bar.

However, Emily also got some terrible news from home last night. Since it is her family's business, I'm not going to go into detail. I will say that Emily, herself, is fine and is headed back to L.A. this afternoon. She still wanted to sing, in part because there was nothing she could do about the awful news and in part as a form of catharsis. So sing we did, along with appreciating the characters who filled this particular bar.

The moral of this tale, my lovelies, is this: live every moment. There is a lot of hurt and tragedy in the world, but there also is abundant joy. Embrace the happiness in your life whenever possible, whether that happiness is produced by a super fun concert on a Saturday night, a hobby you love like singing, friends visiting from out of town, or just warm, sunny weather in January (which we had in the Bay Area all weekend long). Whatever makes you smile and giggle, focus on that every moment you can. Because frankly, you just never know when life will take an unexpected turn.

You don't want to take happiness for granted, do you?