The Strangeness of opposites
This has been a strange day (Saturday, the 28th). It started very early for me, as I usually work evening events. The alarm went off at 7:30AM after we got to bed at almost 3AM after pulling photos for an event that neither Nanci nor myself wanted to attend - another funeral.
This one was for a mutual friend, Patrice Lee, someone I had known casually from back in my days at Gamer's Paradise at Century Mall in the early 1980's, when I was still a part-time professional entertainer (and still making more $$ doing that than working at the full time retail job, that's for sure!) and who Nanci had met through her hairdresser, Mary.
Patrice was a firey ball of energy, a "walking tonic," one of only two people I have ever met who truly fit that description. She worked at the hair salon there and she would constantly come up to the store and buy games from us. She even had her 10 year-old brother come up and beat the store's challenge on the Rubik's Cube - for which he won a prize - and still talks about to this very day.
I lost touch with her when I left that store to assist at the Harlem-Irving Park store and, later, manage the Deerbrook Mall store. Almost 15 years later, we met at a party at Mary's house and almost didn't recognize each other. It was a delightful meeting.
Patrice came to our wedding, helped out with the hair dressing for the fun of it, flirted outrageously with the Knights from Medieval Times, who were our ushers (more on the wedding some other time) and had a great time. She was in a lot of the photos and had a true gift for making friends instantly. Such was the magic of Patrice.
She died of cancer on the 21st at age 49. It was detected too late and she chose to treat it through unconventional means. She died as she lived - on HER terms - and bless her for it in many respects.
The funeral was held in Chinatown at a Christian church there, where, it turns out, that the pastor is related to a girl that I went to high school with. Small world. Lunch was at a Chinatown restaurant and was fabulous. I wound up performing some close up magic for some of the kids there, and some of the adults, at the request of some of her relatives. Patrice loved magic and would have appreciated it, they said. So, since they asked, and since Patrice had been Patrice, I did.
There was laughter. And that, too, was the magic of Patrice. She always brought laughter, even through tears.
And tonight, Saturday night, I finished the night with a hypnosis show in Clarendon Hills, an affluent suburb of Chicago, for a family that had hired me before. This time it was for a multiple birthday event. An Irish Catholic birthday party. For Mike and Kelly Reilly. Complete with flowing Guinness, Harp and Bass ale, good music and lots of people.
So, from a Chinese Christian funeral for a former Miss Chinatown, through traffic from hell on a rainy Chicago Saturday afternoon, to an Irish multiple Birthday Bash hypnosis show in the far western suburbs, I've had quite a day.
But only in America could something like this happen and no one would think much about the diversity of the events.
And that's the magic of America!
This one was for a mutual friend, Patrice Lee, someone I had known casually from back in my days at Gamer's Paradise at Century Mall in the early 1980's, when I was still a part-time professional entertainer (and still making more $$ doing that than working at the full time retail job, that's for sure!) and who Nanci had met through her hairdresser, Mary.
Patrice was a firey ball of energy, a "walking tonic," one of only two people I have ever met who truly fit that description. She worked at the hair salon there and she would constantly come up to the store and buy games from us. She even had her 10 year-old brother come up and beat the store's challenge on the Rubik's Cube - for which he won a prize - and still talks about to this very day.
I lost touch with her when I left that store to assist at the Harlem-Irving Park store and, later, manage the Deerbrook Mall store. Almost 15 years later, we met at a party at Mary's house and almost didn't recognize each other. It was a delightful meeting.
Patrice came to our wedding, helped out with the hair dressing for the fun of it, flirted outrageously with the Knights from Medieval Times, who were our ushers (more on the wedding some other time) and had a great time. She was in a lot of the photos and had a true gift for making friends instantly. Such was the magic of Patrice.
She died of cancer on the 21st at age 49. It was detected too late and she chose to treat it through unconventional means. She died as she lived - on HER terms - and bless her for it in many respects.
The funeral was held in Chinatown at a Christian church there, where, it turns out, that the pastor is related to a girl that I went to high school with. Small world. Lunch was at a Chinatown restaurant and was fabulous. I wound up performing some close up magic for some of the kids there, and some of the adults, at the request of some of her relatives. Patrice loved magic and would have appreciated it, they said. So, since they asked, and since Patrice had been Patrice, I did.
There was laughter. And that, too, was the magic of Patrice. She always brought laughter, even through tears.
And tonight, Saturday night, I finished the night with a hypnosis show in Clarendon Hills, an affluent suburb of Chicago, for a family that had hired me before. This time it was for a multiple birthday event. An Irish Catholic birthday party. For Mike and Kelly Reilly. Complete with flowing Guinness, Harp and Bass ale, good music and lots of people.
So, from a Chinese Christian funeral for a former Miss Chinatown, through traffic from hell on a rainy Chicago Saturday afternoon, to an Irish multiple Birthday Bash hypnosis show in the far western suburbs, I've had quite a day.
But only in America could something like this happen and no one would think much about the diversity of the events.
And that's the magic of America!
posted by Lee Darrow at 1:34 AM
