Got To Give It Up

There should never be any argument about the greatness of Marvin Gaye. So many tremendous songs, iconic for decades to come despite the tragic end of his life. For me, Got To Give It Up is his best, at least my favorite! It hits right in my personal sweet spot, 1977. It’s soulful, has that disco vibe, but is just perfect.

I used to go out to parties
And stand around
‘Cause I was too nervous, baby
To really get down

But my body
Yearned to be free
I got up on the floor and thought
Somebody could choose me

June 12, 2026, might be one of my favorite days of the year. 1,000% mainstream. Probably the one day I am prominently involved with what is probably the highest net worth charitable event in town. I have been remembered at other venues and events from working this one. I clearly am an outlier, and it clearly does not matter a bit. The way the world should be, and I am blessed to be a grain of sand on the beach that is this event. And the emcees, both local TV anchors know me by name (and are dolls)!

The Heart & Stroke Ball is the American Heart Association’s premier annual fundraising gala. For more than 100 years, the American Heart Association has hosted these balls nationwide to celebrate collective community progress, honor healthcare heroes, and fund scientific breakthroughs to combat heart disease and stroke.

Got to give it up at www.heart.org (if you can afford a few dollars, women are most likely to have a heart event).

If it could go wrong on this day, it did. It started good, playing pickleball with a particularly good group of people. A day on the courts can often be ruined by playing with some a-hole. But as a precursor to things to come, it started just misting. But that made the courts very slippery and old people should not play in those conditions, so what was fun ended prematurely. No big deal, so I run a few errands head home and hit the garage door opener. I then pull the car in the garage. This is an absolute must for any Kandi outing. I have zero fear of being anywhere in public, except my driveway. Even down our street in my car doesn’t bother me. Go to close the garage door, nothing… Time and again, nothing… Damn! I just spent money to drop three trees and am having our deck redone. No extra cash flow and now I have to deal with this.

Now remember, I do need to get dressed and out for the event later in the afternoon. So while I am waiting on the repairman, I do anything and everything I can to prepare to go out except obviously dressing and makeup. The guy shows up and does a fabulous job. We run the door up and down easily 10 times, problem solved! I pay him, he leaves, I go to get the mail, come back, hit the NEW button to close the door…nothing… You have to be shitting me. I still had plenty of time and now I have to get the guy back. No garage door opener, no going anywhere dressed. He circles back and solves the problem, but now I have a tight timeframe. Long story short, I get to the event late, but not too late to actually do my job.

All I can say is there is nothing like being me and these events. I saw my two TV anchor friends and they both lit up when they saw me!! I do believe the evening was an enormous success, and I am very proud to have been that grain of sand on the beach. A contributor, but in a very small way.

My day of things going wrong though never stopped. Despite the fact that I loved being at the event, I had easily the worst job. I was running the BE FAST exhibit (an anacronym for the signs of a stroke), which included a camera that showed what your face would look like if you were having a stroke. What fun for a cocktail party! I may as well have been a leper, no one stopped to check it out.

Fast forward to the end of the evening and I head home. I did have a few but was in solid shape (don’t preach one is one too many, I am deeply flawed). I get off the highway and see a police car. No big deal, I am driving well under the speed limit. The sirens go on and I get stopped. For some reason, I am so calm in a crisis. Now remember, I am also dressed, looking nothing like my license. The officer asks me if I knew my headlights were not on. [Side story, I HATE this car, but my Dad gave it to me just before he passed. It is literally haunted, so many technical things have gone wrong time and again. The car has an auto headlight setting, which turns them on when it gets dark. I literally have never touched the light switch in well over three years. But this day, the day from Hell, the lights fail.] I said they were set on auto and was unaware they did not operate. He looked at the setting, I was correct, he ran my license and asked that I turn them on and drive safely. The perfect end to an imperfect day. But I went to bed a happy girl, that’s for sure, having had the experience that I did.

These pictures are from the one exhibit that was fun! You could “be” whatever you wanted to be, and I selected a ballerina and a bride. The bride doesn’t look like a bride, and I resent the double chin! Only your face was taken in the picture and the rest was AI’d, I reckon. Then a robot sketched an actual picture and digital copies were sent.

There are many days it’s good to be me and many more that is blows. This was both, although I am not foolish enough to know things happen to all of us.

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Smile at someone or compliment them today.   Hold open a door.

Any simple act of kindness could make someone’s day.

Keep on dancin’, oh (baby, dancing lady)
You got to give it up (you got to get it)