You Won't 'Believe' This

My sister and I went in on Cher tickets for my mom's birthday in November. Mom had recently been to only her second concert in her life -- Rod Stewart with Stevie Nicks, the long-overdue followup to a 1973 Neil Diamond show -- and was just giddy telling me about it afterwards, so Jennifer and I decided to go all out and spent 500 bucks on two better-than-decent seats to see Mrs. Bono, whom my mother has always adored. The Phoenix show was the first stop on Cher's latest (non-farewell) tour -- "Dressed to Kill" -- and since I hadn't spoken to my mom since my book came out a couple weeks ago, I was hoping it would be a joyous occasion that might help wash away any residual bad taste in her mouth. I love my mom and consider the book a dysfunctional love letter to her, but I know how difficult it can be reading about yourself, so hoped this would be a nice happy diversion, knowing that she was already slowly "coming around" as my brother described it. Well, as all my Arizona friends tweeted and Facebooked from US Airways Arena last night, I grew ever-hopeful about a nice thank-you phone call from Mom today, in which we would finally talk about the book and have a few laughs -- and a cry -- about our shared history. When I didn't hear anything by 1 p.m., I texted my sister to see if she'd heard "any Cher news" from the homefront. She texted back: "It's next week." I immediately had a sinking feeling, as I knew if my sister had the date wrong she must be getting the misinformation from the actual ticketholders. Sure enough when I told Jennifer that it was last night, she called our parents and was told that they'd gotten the date wrong and had indeed missed the show. While some have speculated that this was some "payback" of sorts for the book, I really don't think so. (My stepfather's response to my sister didn't do much in the way of making either of us feel any better: "We feel really bad about it. Just don't buy us anything.") But it is yet another classic example of their general apathy about things that has kind of haunted me my whole life, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. The good news, however, is that they are all caught up on their "Castle" reruns.

Love the queen in the audience "doing" Cher all through the song!

Set List: "Woman's World" "Strong Enough" "Dressed to Kill" "The Beat Goes On" "I Got You Babe" "Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves" "Dark Lady" "Half Breed" "Welcome to Burlesque" "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" "Take It Like a Man" "Walking in Memphis" "Just Like Jesse James" "Heart of Stone" "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" "Bang-Bang" "I Found Someone" "If I Could Turn Back Time" "Believe" "I Hope You Find It"