...to my pal Jim Barnard (pictured above, in front of his lovely wife Alisha)!!! He was surprised with a birthday bash at a local Chick-Fil-A tonight. I was in attendance along with other family and friends. He's a pretty swell guy, for a Packers fan! : )
Jim produced an awesome movie to recap the events of the evening. View it via his blog here: good o'72 (something very cool happens at the 3:45 mark!)
...that you can use a Q-Tip to clean doggie ears, too??? Chili-dog got to shaking her head and pawing at her ears last night so I knew it was time to clean them. I bought a jar of ear-cleaning pads (which smell suspiciously like those Oxy-Clean pads teens use to obliterate their acne) from Petsmart this afternoon and they did a great job. I got the idea to try a Q-Tip or two to hit the crannies and crevices of her ears and they worked like a charm!
if you're on Facebook, I can provide you a complete performance video that someone posted there.
and it should be noted for the record that this style of performing is not the norm for that church. They worked up this number for competition purposes.
did the emcee at the How Sweet The Sound event at Scottrade Center tonight really announce that Faith Baptist Church's Celebration Choir won the large church choir division? And did that same choir really win the award for best overall choir of the entire competition? And did that same choir really win the people's choice award, voted via text message? This is my parents' church choir, a conservative Southern Baptist church choir from Festus, MO. Competing in a field of mostly black gospel choirs, no less.
Yeah, it really happened that way. The roof at Scottrade Center was raised a few feet tonight due to the massive amount of praise lifted to God tonight. The atmosphere was positively electric all night long. Black gospel music was in full, full effect and it was beyond uplifting.
I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my four eyes. My dad's (all-Caucasian) church choir really took home the gold tonight. God did a miracle right before my very shocked eyes. Just speechless am I tonight. They were the very last choir to perform and when they launched slowly into Andrae Crouch's classic anthem, "Soon And Very Soon," something came over the crowd. That song is practically the black gospel music national anthem, after all! As the song developed into a faster rhythmic tempo, something akin to a moving of the Spirit took over. Director Michael Nickelson ripped off his tailed-tuxedo jacket and the crowd went wild. The choir fed off the crowd and just went for broke. The arrangement of the song included the rarely-performed verses of the song, which moved one of the judges to his feet in appreciation. The audience ate it up and just went wild when the song was done.
I knew they'd done well and would have been pleased if their night ended right there. But then the awards were handed out at the end of the show. When the emcee announced their win of the people's choice award, I really wasn't too surprised. The audience really loved them. But then they were announced as the best large church choir winner for the St. Louis region. And then they were announced as the overall winner of the competition.
And I stood there next to my mom, with my mouth hanging open. I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. Every choir there was outstanding. I've always had a great appreciation for the African-American style of praise singing. My hat is off to the choir for turning in a grand whopper of a performance tonight. Mom and I made our way over the dasher boards to hug my dad afterward And by the way, I'm really, really proud of him right now.
The best part is, God was praised. Loudly and continually throughout the evening. The performing choirs did nothing of their own volition, but all were Spirit-inspired and their praises were directed upwards.
They now will head to Detroit's Joe Louis Arena for the national competition in November.
And I can't believe I just wrote that.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that each choir director was brought, American Idol-style before the 3 judges to have their performance critiqued. This made me very nervous at first, until I saw that the judges only said positive things about each choir.
...who found my cell phone somewhere in the grassy expanse of Forest Park yesterday, you have my most extreme gratitude and thanks for finding it and calling to inform me that you had it.
Chili and I drove up to Forest Park for the annual Great Forest Park Balloon Race yesterday afternoon. The sky was cloudy and generally overcast so my pictures weren't that great, but I enjoyed seeing the balloons nonetheless. Chili's behavior was disappointing, sadly. The lingering scents of the 1,000,000 dogs that have ever visited Forest Park really did a number on her. She was a jumpy and leash-pulling dog the whole time we were there. Several dogs caused her to lunge and bark, which was embarrassing to her owner.
(side note: I am participating in an owner-only "Dogs With Issues" class at HSMO as a prelude to a Reactive Dog class for Chili. She often reacts violently to other dogs that we encounter on our walks and it's getting to be too much.) I also hope we can address the awful noise she makes when we ride in the car together. It's anxiety-related, I think. Weims can have anxiety issues.)
When I packed up my bag and camping chair to leave, somehow my cell phone left my person and hit the ground somewhere. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until I had already started the hike back to my car. I frantically returned to the area where I had been but had no luck finding it in the grass or in my backpack. I resignedly resumed the mile-plus hike back to my car. The periodic sprinkles of rain didn't do much to help my mood. When Chili and I finally made it back to my car, she was hot and tired and thirsty and I was hot, tired, thirsty, and really bummed out. I drove home in a steady rain, hoping and praying that the message light on my home phone would be blinking when I got home. (blinking with a message from someone who found my phone, that is.) To my great relief, it was. Some nice folks had found my phone and had it in their possession. They didn't live too far from me so I drove over and picked it up.
Never in 12 years of cell-phoning have I had that happen to me. I've heard horror stories from other people who've lost phones but didn't think about ever having that problem. You don't realize how much you miss it until you suddenly don't have it (much like Cardinals closer Ryan Franklin's recent control issues.) I was just sick when I realized the gravity of the situation and just as relieved when all's well that ended well. I will back up my contacts ASAP and keep a much better grip on my phone in the future.
............
before that happened, I had contemplated a trip up to the Touhill to catch jazz legend Sonny Rollins in concert. Rollins was on the scene during the golden age of jazz music in the 1950s and 1960s. He is still, at age 79, 'essential,' as Post-Dispatch jazz aficionado Calvin Wilson put it. Alas, I was mentally and physically spent from my afternoon ordeal so I just crashed for the rest of the evening.
Happy Labor Day, folks....hope yours was whatever you wanted it to be!
I labored a bit on Labor Day. It started with me cutting the grass and just ended with a bit of home repair. The metal door guide that the sliding closet doors slide in in my office room came out of the doorframe and I had to re-anchor it into the plaster. Thank goodness Home Depot is nearby and open on Labor Day. I dare say I broke a sweat trying to wrangle the doors back into the guide.
In between those jobs, I spent the day in Festus. My parents cooked up lunch for my me, my bro/sis-in-law/adorable 20-month old niece Lydia, and my visiting cousin J from Malden. Of course, Chili had a happy day just being her doggie self with all of us. The above picture shows her happily en route to Festus in the back seat of my car.
On a side note, I picked up a great new book on Saturday. Grant Wahl's The Beckham Experiment tells the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of soccer player David Beckham's grand entrance into the American soccer scene back in 2007. Oh, my, an obscene amount of money changed hands to get him here. Oh, my.
Since the weather has been decidedly fall-like lately, I picked up this "fall flower hanging planter" at my local Home Depot yesterday. It hangs from the lamp post in my front yard.
