Looking Back

I'm a sucker for ideas like this. Questions get me thinking, but like any query trying to rein me in, I have to tweak it also. Not surprisingly, taken from my turn to country music, these aren't really my soundtrack and there's five not three, but my favorite songs.

Number one: You Look Like You Love Me. It's a song that reminds me of being young. Certainly it's not of my youth - shy and with no confidence, I never would have been able to do what she does in the song - but my hope is that there are young women today who would. A song of empowerment, with a twist of so much fun, I love it. And on another note, months after, it won best song of the year! Yeah, I can pick them, and better yet, I know the guy, Aaron Raitiere. We've seen and talked to him at festivals. I have his artwork, his cd and his number (a Cornell alum, offered him a room if he ever visited). Can't get much closer to the stars than that, not for me, at least.

From fun to sorrow, from youth to death, number two, Pink Skies (featuring Watchhouse). This came on one night while I was in the basement doing my puzzle. I fell for it, about a woman mourned and loved, what's not to like? It also reminded me of my late mother-in-law, who knows why, but it did. If the last one was my youth, this might be my future, at least I can hope. We all die, but the lucky ones have people who miss them. If we do right (enough) in our lives, that'll happen. Another footnote: Watchhouse is a band we've seen a number of times at festivals also.

Number three, People Are Crazy: I love a good story. The setting a bar, the drink a beer. Two men, one young, one old shooting the breeze, whiling away the hours. Of course, a twist too. And while I'm not a fan of religion anymore, I sure love bars, beer and talking. A story with a theme - we should look out past our own selves and connect - makes this a great song.

Two Honorable Mentions, Get Along and It Won't Be Long: An overview of life, one on how to live it and the other on how quick it is, keeps me grounded. So often we lose sight of what really matters, these songs remind me.

There they are, top five, my year of country music. The conversation only between me and myself, but fun none the less. 

Musing to the Music

Walking the Line

How I feel at times with others' preparations. But then, truth be told, how others sometimes feel about mine. 

Live and Let Live

Stop and Smell the Roses

Sitting at the kitchen table yesterday morning, having breakfast and going through my emails and reading the NYT, I marveled at what $7.99 can do. Bought the other day at Aldi's, I'd switched the last sink rug, of the same motif of coffee pots but with a brownish-gray background and polyester fabric, to this new one: light and bright and easy to clean. The rug brings out the wood of the cabinet and floor and has shades of green and gold in it, the colors of the kitchen. I love it. Silly to say, but true.

The moral of the story (if there is one)? 

Stop and See the Beauty 

Me, Sometimes, Often

 

Photo by RKB

 

 ... at the end of the day.

Leave Me Be

Give Love

All year round, let's think of others. 

Love Comes Back

7:29 am

Red sun at morning, sailors take warning. 

Interesting, though. That streak of pink I saw (just a for a moment before it was gone) wasn't where the sun comes up. That was almost colorless. 

Telling? Tomorrow's the answer.

6" Predicted

Yesterday's Quote

                                                        Habit with him was all the test of truth,                                                            It must be right: I've done it from my youth. 

                                                  ~ George Crabbe (24 Dec 1754-1832)

The notion behind the quote struck me as something I hear over and over: What was, will be and should be and rightfully so be. What really makes me laugh (or shudder and swear) is that it comes from the generation that made such a hubbub of disowning their parents' thinking. And yes, it's mostly men I hear it from.

 

Last week at Glenwood, I was telling someone about a young friend and saying he's one of the nicest people I know. A gentleman of my generation asked if he was on that list. I paused, and said no. Not many are. While our men are wonderful and so much more evolved than our parents' generation, so too I say with the next generation. 

Many young men I know today are, especially if I'm using the criteria from this movie review.  The phrase resonates with me. The "generation of self-unsure men whose acceptance of weakness is their strength." What a wonderful way to say it, and this old feminist loves those men who are!

Yesterday's Read

Ps: Today's Word

Here's to juvenescence, a gift for all who are open to the wonder and joy of life in its changes and growth!

Twleve Minutes Standiing

Performance Art

 

In the Bag; On the Rug

Home from errands, I left an empty bag at the top of the stairs. Within minutes Biggie was jumping in and staring out. Gus, the timid guy, could only sit near it. Getting in would have been too risky. 

With a Christmas gift from a wonderful friend, a beautiful hand-braided rug and a 'snake' to go with it, Gus later found a new, warm resting place, not on the fence but on the rug. Biggie found the toy, the only snake I want in my house!

Felines, Friends and Fun.

To Give

.

..the ending is to ruin the book.

So I won't give it all.

Katabasis

Sad To Say

True.

But, for how long?

Stores close for want of business. 

Which, then, creates a downward spiral.

Sadder Still

Substitute Teaching

Only once in a while. 

I work for a variety of reasons but yes, one is to continue my goal of serenity, otherwise known as patience. When I lose it, I regroup, contemplate and continue on. 

Goals. We should all have them. I'm still working on mine.

Me

December Second

 

No School

First Storm

Blast From the Past

One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years

 is that there's always some reason to live another year. 

And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. 

If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years. 

                                         ~ Rex Stout, novelist (1 Dec 1886-1975) 

                                                                                         [Nixon resigned in 1974.]

On yesterday's walk.Winter yet there was a bit of summer.

Since the first four years of hell, I've been saying this: I want to live til history brings the idiot (and his minions) down. Today's quote from Word.A.Day, while not exactly the same, is close enough, and it does remind me that what we have has been before. When living through the time of Nixon, I remembered* the Teapot Dome Scandal and even Tammany Hall. There truly is not much new in the world, only people who think so.

For Today

*and wished more had done so. Instead of wasting the last 50 years being scarred from that time, they could have moved on. But hey, have the boomers ever moved on from being the center of the universe? Of course, some have, but many haven't trusted the government since.

Afterword: a day later. 

Always nice to see others are thinking much the same.