So, karaoke. Jim brought three mikes and a ton of disinfectant wipes and trash cans for everyone to use all night. Smart man.

I texted the group text before leaving, sending Redhead Sarah a specific shoutout saying that I was going to offer her a bribe if she came tonight. I got no responses. I found Ashley and hung out with her alone, talking about knitting stuff and showing her the Stitches pics, etc. Since we are both free Saturday afternoon, we agreed to take her shopping at the yarn store after her Farmers Market shift. Then we told Jim this and he was all, “I’ll drive!” Fine by me, but I hope he brings some entertainment for himself while waiting around the yarn store because I am sure it’s gonna take a while for her to figure out how to pick out her first major project and yarn and needles and whatnot.

Ashley is similarly annoyed at people not showing up, but is specifically annoyed at Scott because last week she saw him walk in and leave and he didn’t wave back at her. I vote that she addresses that with him because if he didn’t even wave, geez. I said that it sounds like he can’t deal with hanging out unless there’s a group around and he said as much over the weekend, but Ashley definitely considers herself part of the group and like I said, was annoyed. I’m adding her to group text the next time I try to reconfigure the damn thing again.

On a related note, we discussed her auditioning for Robin Hood: The Musical, the next dinner theater show. I found some pages of the script online and while I am probably destined to be an extra, I thought the Sheriff’s Wife role sounded sufficiently bimbo enough to have potential for me to get cast for that one. I guess we will see. I actually thought she might be great for the sheriff’s daughter role and encouraged her to go out for it, but who knows if she actually will. She keeps having weird heart issues/medication issues going on right now so I sort of wonder if that might be a factor in her doing a show...but hey, up to her to figure out, I guess.

In singing news:

* Ashley sang “Chain of Fools” again and I was all hey, didn’t you complain about singing this last week?!
* Jim led “Don’t You Forget About Me” as a crowd song. Good move.
* One guy did “Tell Laura I Love Her,” which is literally one of the worst songs in Dave Barry’s Bad Song Book. Oy fucking vey.
* Frank was not there, which I was relieved about. I did “Maps” while he was out, as well as “Against All Odds.”

Around 8:30 (halfway through the night) I got a text from Robert asking if it was worth going this late and were people we knew there. I mentioned this to Ashley and she said the following, which I transcribed and sent to Robert directly: “Yes, it is, because I miss you so much! Yes, because Ashley says GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE.”

About twenty minutes after that, Redhead Sarah and Sarajean showed up, and I got out my bribe for Sarah: a stress unicorn to squeeze. I found the last one at the store, and she said she’d found one at a store and almost bought it for me but she ran out of money. She adored it and played with it all night long. I also texted Robert to say that they showed up.

I guess those two have been having a bit of a rough time--Sarajean’s job ran out because it was seasonal but she is applying for something else, and Sarah is getting tested for autism and taking up EDMR in therapy, and had a meltdown last night that the cops were called about by her neighbors. She was annoyed the neighbors didn’t talk to her about it and I said well, if they don’t know you very well... probably not. Sarah was nervous about returning to karaoke after the last time she was in there in the tube costume, but I pointed out that everyone was fine to have her back, nobody was bothered, Walt and Kathy seem to have no issues whatsoever, etc. Also, as Sarah said herself, “I can be as weird as I want in a room full of drunk people.” I told them both about Pantheacon, Crossroads Occult and how she might want to check that place out, the limpia, etc. so that’s been done. Huzzah.

Robert came in after that, saying he headed over after seeing the Ashley text. GO ASHLEY FOR GETTING RESULTS, Y’ALL. And go me for offering a bribe and getting Sarah to come back again :) Sadly, Scott never showed, because I would have really been curious to see what effect Ashley might have had there. But other than that, I’m really pleased to get some folks back here again. I think next week I’m going to point out that if you want enough cool people to show up, you need to show up yourself. It’s like when I attempted to take improv classes at the college and then nobody showed because they flaked out because of midterms. If you want people to show up, you gotta show up yourself, folks. Also, between Ashley wishing she’d brought yarn to the bar except she has no yarn (hence the shopping) and Sarah playing with the unicorn, I’m thinking maybe we need a basket of toys or something?

In other singing news:

* Jace sang “Bring Him Home” from Les Mis, which blew people away. This was also funny because as Sarah pointed out and Sarajean agreed with, he was dressed “like a trucker pastor.” This made Sarah want to see a production of Les Mis done by truckers.
* After that, Jim sang straight up opera.
* The Sara(h)s sang “Before He Cheats.”
* Sarah also sang “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” but also shared with everyone during a long non-lyric’d point in the song that when she was growing up in Texas, some group did an anti-meth presentation to this song, using strobe lights. I’m amazed she still likes the song after that one.
* The bar also let us go long that night, till about 10:45, and we did some more group numbers (“Shut Up And Dance,” “Build Me Up Buttercup.”) I also did “Toxic” just for kicks.

It was a good night. I’m feeling a bit more hopeful about folks returning.

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