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Sunday, June 05, 2005

A valiant attempt...

I'm a bit sad tonight. After weeks of anticipation (and a very nice afternoon drinking with Zoe and Harry), tonight was the night for taking Bumblebee to his first Rock Concert, of sorts... The Queen tribute show, It's a Kind of Magic, billed to be as good as the real thing. Bumblebee really likes Queen, especially the grunty songs like 'We are the Champions' and 'Another One Bites the Dust', and he loves headbanging a-la Wayne's World to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. In fact, the first time he ever shed a tear that wasn't pain- or tantrum-related was to 'Bohemian Rhapsody', listening to it in the car. I asked him what was wrong and he said, It's so sad, he's going to die...

How could I not take him?

But... tonight he arrived home from his dad's place feeling a bit ill. He rallied to the cause, and we went to the concert, but we only lasted about half of it before he started feeling REALLY ill, and I took him home. Poor kid. When I inspected him in the comfort of his own bed, he had a slight fever, a stiff neck, stomach cramps and a headache. note the slight fever. If it had been higher I would have been really scared, because they're classic meningitis symptoms. I will be keeping a close eye on him all night, but in retrospect I'm touched by how much he tried to enjoy the Queen show. I'm guessing the lights and the music would actually have been quite nightmarish for him, and maybe Queen won't be as much fun anymore. Oh well. Could be a good thing.

The show was actually quite good. The lead guy did Freddie really well, but the bass player.. get this Harry... wore BOAT SHOES. Frigging ruined the first few songs for me, but they were crappy 80s numbers anyway. When they warmed into the 70s songs I was feeling happier and forgave his bad shoe taste. Poor Bumblebee. The tickets cost a bomb, but we saw enough to make the most of them, and now Barnaby knows what I'm doing when I strut the loungeroom with my vacuum-cleaner singing 'I want to break free...' (which I only do occasionally; most of the time I'm howling 'The Immigrant Song' and 'Black Dog'. Led has the energy I need to do horrible housewifely tasks.)

Postscript
After a really crappy night's sleep, B woke up screaming and groaning and burning up, to the extent that I took him to A&E at Canberra Hospital. Lucky us! He has a virulent virus, which, after ringing his school, many others have as well. So I'm now playing nurse for a few days, which so far involves making jelly to rehydrate, soothing hot brow, holding vomit-bucket, and trying not to get cranky at yet another rendition of Stephen Fry reading the entire Harry Potter series while I sit in the next room working on all the various jobs that have to be done by yesterday. Sigh.

5 comments:

Zoe said...

Weird. I'm pretty sure that frigging's NEVER failed to improve a song for me.

harry said...

I always thought Frigging had a good voice, but he does tend to push it a little bit early on in the set.

harry said...

Queen were a lot of things but one thing they weren't was boatshoes.

Someone on stage with boatshoes means only one thing: Karaoke for college kids.
And you know what that means: Khe San and plenty of it.

Boatshoes aren't even remotely sexually ambiguous. Boatshoes say "I am sexually insecure to the point that if a bloke even looks at me in the wrong way I'm gonna punch him out to protect my precious and all too overt heterosexuality. I am a man. And men like chikcs.". I thought it was meant to be a tribute show?!
The mind boggles.

Ampersand Duck said...

Well, friggin is certainly something that man in boat shoes hadn't done for a while.

Mindy said...

I've got lots of sympathy for your Ms Duck. I have been spending my nights with two males in my bed. Unfortunately one of them snores, loudly and likes to sleep right next to my ear. I forgive him this because he is two and unwell. The other male would like to sleep closer but is blocked by sick 2yo. My joke about 'we should have named him Highlander' is not funny anymore. I hope that virulent virus doesn't attack you and BB as well. There is nothing worse than a sick hubby and a sick child. I have discovered that I only have enough patience for one.