I Wore Flip Flops To Shirley! The Grand.

The Grand - 1894 Opera House of Galveston.

It survived the great 1900 hurricane and several since.  I believe they said with Ike, there were 6 feet of water in the Opera House.

It has been the location of many amazing productions and appearances over the years, quite historic.

We went there on vacation to see Shirley MacLaine.

This photo is more detailed than any I tried to attempt while I was there.  I got it online.

I was able to take the below photo before Shirley took stage with my cell phone.  It is not very good but you can see the easy chair where she sat when she did arrive.

There were no photos, cameras or videos allowed.

We went to see the actress Shirley MacLaine, not the spiritual advisor Shirley MacLaine.

I love many of the movies she has been in and especially when she played Wheeza in Steel Magnolias and the dysfunctional mom in Terms Of Endearment.

I was wondering what to expect and was pleasantly surprised.  She sat in that easy chair (I had forgotten or not paid attention to how old she is now - 77 I believe.)

What was cool was that once she had talked a bit and sat down, they turned on a huge screen behind her.  She walked us through her actress life in photographs and then in videos of some of the movie scenes with an amazing entourage of other famous people.

From time to time in her speaking on that stage, she "spoke like true smart@ss."  (a quote from Steel Magnolias)

No one could out heckle her, she was very funny.  At one point she told someone to sit down and shut up in a very funny sarcastic fashion.  Classic.

It was very interesting and very cool to hear her tell stories from photos about very many people such as, President Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jack Nicholson, many actors, her various lovers, friends and acquaintances.

One thing that I really liked, is that while she was showing videos, some of her dancing scenes (great legs), she would talk about what she was thinking, how her feet were bleeding in her shoes and tid bits about the others in the video.  But here is what I loved, it was hard for me not to watch the videos, but I kept watching her while she was watching her young life memorialized in film.  She was smiling and most of the time her feet were moving to the steps in the film.  She was wearing some pretty red shoes and she had said she could remember that whole routine and her feet in those pretty red shoes showed just that.

My title, I wore flip flops to Shirley came from my desire to dress up to go to the historic Opera House and when all was said and done, we did not have time, room or energy to do more than a sundress and all I brought were flip flops.  At first I was disappointed in my lack of effort, but later I saw that we were not alone in our relaxed attire.

Take the time to do something different people!  Take a step or two out of your routine, you may be pleasantly surprised!  And you will have added to your own life experiences and shared someone else's life experiences.