Hey Pretty Baby With The High Heels On

I've had that in my head since yesterday, a day when we lost a music legend.

Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest yesterday at the age of 50. Thanks to my celebrity gossip blogs (don't judge me) and Twitter, I watched the news of his death unfold in real time. How sad. Sure, in the recent years he was making headlines not for his next great hit but because of his abuse accusations, trial shenanigans, financial woes, plastic surgery disasters, etc. At the very least I think we can call him very eccentric and a troubled soul. But his contributions to music and dance are iconic and enduring, and I hope that is what people will remember about him.

Last night the tributes rolled in his honor. MTV even played videos again in his memory (although still not the full videos - come ON, MTV). The bar across the street from us played his music all night. Cars driving past our windows were blasting his music, too. In Times Square, people were assembled with signs and white gloves. Even Eric and I sat around and listened to his greatest hits and tried to pick our favorite. Mine is "The Way You Make Me Feel" (as you might have guessed from the title of this post), and Eric settled on "Thriller." Do you know that when Eric was in fifth grade, he and a friend joined the school dance team to prove a point (that boys could be on the dance team, too), and they did a dance to "Thriller?" There is a video of this awesomeness, and it is every bit as wonderful as you might imagine.

Farrah Fawcett also died yesterday, and she was an icon to many. For me personally, not as much as MJ, but her struggle with cancer was tragic. Cancer is such an awful, awful disease. I sincerely feel for her loved ones for having to watch her fight it and hope she is at peace.

We also had some excitement yesterday when we took the dog downstairs to go to the dog park, and saw this in front of our building on our street:


There were probably 4 or 5 fire trucks, one of which had its ladder extended up on a building across the street (and we saw a fireman climb up it). They even pulled out the hose and took it into that building. I don't know what was going on, because we did not see (or smell) any smoke, but it made for an exciting walk.

And the excitement continued this morning, when I woke up to realize Achilles had stepped in gum during his morning walk with Eric. So, into the tub we went so I could wash his feet and pull gum out of his foot fur. I'm not sure who was less enthused. Oh, the exciting life I lead.