This past weekend a bunch of our Dallas friends got together to help me surprise Josh for his 30th (!!) birthday party. Liz and Edgar hosted at their new house, and best of all, they wrangled up a speaker and microphone. We did karaoke in their yet-to-be-decorated-or-furnished living room.
May I recommend doing karaoke on YouTube? You can sing to the actual track, not some janky karaoke rendition. Plus, you have the help of the actual artist and sometimes extra tidbits on screen i.e. RIP Paul Walker. YouTube has everything, not just the karaoke classics.
Josh kicked off with Bob Seger since we were supposed to be at his concert that night. We then took turns passing around the microphone singing our hearts out. We covered everything from Despacito to the Fresh Prince and Arthur themes, with classic rock and just enough Les Mis.
Unlike at a karaoke bar, we didn’t have to wait on people we didn’t know or feel weird about singing badly in front of an audience. It was just our strange friends singing songs in the Mesta’s living room. Just us.
Maybe it was the wood paneling, but it felt really homey. We were surrounded by our people and music- not to mention some excellent brisket.
When my Southwest buddies sang Time of Your Life by Green Day I almost cried. In some sense, it was a graduation party for Josh leaving his 20s, but also my last hurrah in Dallas. Hearing the graduation song was sad, but mostly sweet. This is the end of some thing, some place, some people who were so good to us. While we’re excited to move on, we hope we can keep these friends and their songs in our life. Is that cheesey? I don’t really care.
