July 18 - Despite staying up until 2 a.m, the girls got up and out in good shape, though the desired 8:30 a.m. departure time for home got pushed back by about an hour. After the first time out of the garage, they came back at least once - to pick up Kay's cell phone and charger - and maybe a second time - to give me some cash - I'm not sure if they made it out of the driveway in between. We got a call from Kallie in Alabama at about 7 p.m. telling us that they were safely at Erin's house, where they'll spend the night before continuing on to Baton Rouge on Saturday morning.
Mom and I had a quiet day. After the family left, we watched golf until it was time to leave for her MRI appointment. The imaging center had golf on TV in the waiting room. On the way home we found a couple of locations of interest - the Royal Pacific Resort where the National Scrabble Tournament will be played, and O'Shucks Pub, home of Karaoke every night.
After the gruelling schedule of riding around and watching golf, I took a nap. We ate leftovers for dinner, nicely served at the table. At our house, leftover dinners are often "every man for himself."
We headed back out into the world a little after eight, this time back to O'Shucks for Karaoke. We didn't know what O'Shucks, located in a strip mall off International Drive, would be like, but hoped for the best, and had the backup plan of going to the Rising Star club at Universal, a clear second choice because of the $12 parking fee and long walk from the garage to the club.
O'Shucks turned out to be pretty cool, albeit smoky and eventually crowded with tourists, many from overseas. Buzztime Trivia helped kill the downtime between numbers. There were even a few regular trivia players to compete with. We got there early enough for me to be the second singer after the hostess - I opened with The Beatles "I Saw Her Standing There". Everything clicked and I got a nice hand from the small crowd. More than an hour later I got the call for my second song. I'd submitted "Wonderful World" ('don't know much about history...'), but she lost my slip (but fortunately not my place). She asked me what I wanted to sing. I switched to "Eddie" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", the song I couldn't stay long enough to sing in Savannah. This is such a fun song because you get to sing in about six different voices. I'm not sure how many in the crowd knew it because almost no one joined in on the catchy chorus, "Eddie, when he said he didn't want his teddy / you knew he was a no good kid. / But when he threatened your life with a switchblade knife / What a guy! / Makes me cry / Und I did". The role and appearance of Eddie in the Rocky Horror Picture Show is very poorly explained, even though there's a song about him and he sings a song ("Hot Patootie" - my least favorite song in the show.) In any even, I pulled off "Eddie" pretty well and the crowd seemed to like it.
The wait for song three was long and anxious as the 1 p.m. closing time for Karaoke approached. Finally, at about ten til one, a third rotation began. I went back to "Wonderful World". It took a verse for me to figure out the accompaniment and to sing in the right octave, but the rest of the song was pretty good. Mom said I sang on key, a step up from many other singers, but then again, she's my mom, what's she going to say? I think I'll try for a midweek return to O'Shucks, after we see if our smoke-infested clothes can be reclaimed. I have six request slips already filled out and next time I might even bring a camera with charged batteries.
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