Scenery Change

...Well, I hear my mother calling/ But I don't need her as a friend....

This is not what I'd planned as my April post, but this is what I've got and I'm rapidly running out of April.

I'm in favor of outings for Mother, even though they're exhausting, just so she can see something different than four beige walls (We hang art and seasonal decorations, but still) although to take her on an outing anywhere is absolutely exhausting.

Before we even get into the transport.

I receive a phone call from Sequoia, which may be spelled differently, but that's what my ears heard, requesting that I be at the care home before 8 AM. I've arrived at the care home at 7:30. 

Mother isn't in her wheelchair. She's in bed. Dressed, but still in bed. Visit the nurse's station. Enter aides. Conversation with aides. Phone call from Sequoia, wherein I explain the current situation as a response to "The transport is here, waiting for Miss Jackie." Procurement of Hoyer lift. Hoyer sling 404 Not Found. Aides converse with each other, in Tagalog (pronounced Tah-GAH-loh, the final g being swallowed), hunt for sling. Additional Tagalog conversation. Against regulations, the two manually manoever Mother into her chair, attach the leg supports, comb her hair. With snacks and an outer garment for Mother, I accompany one aide to the front of the building. "I'll push her," says the aide. This is a Regulation thing, probably. Terrance The Driver (not his rap name- it's how he answers his phone) greets me and asks where my 'other sister' is. That phrasing has always puzzled me. He lowers the lift apparatus on the transport. I climb in and take a rear seat, to be close to her in her spot. Terrance straps her in and loads in a gentleman who has speech but no feet. We greet each other. 

The aide who is accompanying Mr. Williams to his destination lumbers aboard. She and Terrance have a conversation that indicates a long-time acquaintance. They discuss traffic and routes. I hear Northern Parkway. Soon, we pass the grounds of Pimlico Racetrack, which I had expected to be demolished by now, but I can still see, high in the air, observation towers. I wonder if they will have the Preakness balloon launch there, or from Laurel, (where Preakness will be held this year), which I am told is a fraction of the size.

Mother looks around at the interior of the transport, possibly seeing some scenery through the windows. I do not know what this disease has done to her visual perception.  I speak to her occasionally but she does not respond to me. It's loud inside the transport. She occasionally speaks, but not as a response to me.

We're driving to GBMC, a route I know fairly well, as both of my children were born there. This well-planted, well-heeled area of Baltimore is less subject to change than the more run-down bits. We drop Mr. Williams and his companion at an entrance- he's having 'a procedure,' so needed first drop-off. Our destination is Columbia. We will not be on time. I do not have the bandwidth to find out who to contact to inform them that we are delayed. I do not know for sure what time our appointment is, or the name of the dermatological facility. I'm holding together the scraps of my sanity, concerned now not that I won't make it to Job #4, which I unexpectedly acquired, (I absolutely won't) but that I won't make it to Job #1, which I'm counting on for my main paycheck.

I have snacks for Mother, but I don't offer them. If I am too overstimulated to unwrap them, I imagine she is too overstimulated to consume them. We arrive finally at the facility. To my dismay, it is not a single building, or even part of a one-level strip-shop complex. It is a large four-story brick medical arts building with all the personality of a cinder block. I pop out of the transport to scout where we will go. Elevator required. Terrance has moved Mother out of the transport. I move her into the building, into the elevator, out of the elevator, into the office. The receptionist finds us in her appointment database. We are half an hour late. I apologize, and explain about the transport. They will see us anyway. 

Now is the time to offer snacks to Mother. We share sandwich crackers, and she drinks a whole juice box. I feel a little badly about peanut butter inside a doctor's office, but I didn't think about it when I packed her snacks. Really, I am running on fumes pretty much all the time. 

I discuss the reason for Mother's visit with a nurse practitioner named Mercy. I eventually remember about the packet that came with us from the care home, and hand it over. It is apparantly less than helpful, not listing meds she used to be on, leaving out great swaths of information that would have given these people something to go on as far as health history. I am aware that we are speaking ABOUT Mother rather than TO her, which always made her very angry, and may still do, only she can't say so anymore. I try to include Mother in the conversation. Mercy explains what they will do to determine situation and remedy, how they will communicate, and plans for future action. I find all of it acceptable. I do not know what Mother thinks. 

While phoning Terrance The Driver, I manoever us back to outdoors. Outdoors is pleasant, and I'm pleased Mother has opportunity to sit in the sun. There is no bench anywhere. I park Mother's chair in a protected area of the car park and settle on the curb. Terrance has promised to be "right there" which turns out to be twenty minutes. I fall asleep in the sun more than once. I know, because the paperback in my hand falls to the ground, waking me. I should be interacting with Mother, engaging her. I cannot.

On the journey back, Terrance says that he will pick up "Miss Lady, who just wanna go shopping" after he drops us off. "She wanna go to Walgreens, and the liquor store." He does, however, need to fetch "my bougie lady. She too fancy to wait" before we all go back to the complex. The "bougie" lady who enters the transport doesn't seem all that bougie to me. As we approach the entrance for Mother (the ambulance door), she pulls out a bill for Terrance. I pull out a bill for Terrance. I don't know if this is what my 'other sister' usually does, but probably. 

Through a door, another door, down a hall, up an elevator, to the dining room. I remove Mother's cloak and carry it to the closet in her room. Her breakfast, now stone-cold, is waiting. I bring it out, with additional snacks. She drinks juice and eats bacon, but the eggs and toast she doesn't want at all. Lunch will arrive soon, but not soon enough. I must leave for work. I tell the staff, thank them for caring for her. 

I kiss her goodbye and tell her I'll see her next time. "Good," she says. I don't promise when I'll return. The jobs situation makes discretionary time an uncertain thing. In any case, it's been good to get her out of her boxy warren, which reeks of urine and despair. One of them I feel clinging to me as I exit.

The Police; Mother; Synchronicity, 1983

Baseball Names

...Lincoln, Lincoln, bo-bin-coln/ Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fin-coln/ Fee-fi-mo-min-coln/ Lincoln!...

I met a man yesterday and ordinarily, I wouldn't remember his name, but he was wearing a Baltimore Ravens cap and was called Aaron Jordan. I joked that he'd been named for two sports superstars, neither of whom ever played for the Ravens. He laughed and took his kids into the museum. He noodled on the piano a little bit while his family was there. It's an interesting museum, and not only because it has two pianos. It has almost everything but baseball. Today is not about the museum. Today is about baseball.

Baseball! Full of stories and wonderful names.

The first name I'll mention is Randy Arozarena, who, for unknown reasons, had a history of being especially effective against my home team, the Baltimore Orioles. I like his name as a member of a new team, because I was delighted when he was traded last year from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Seattle Mariners. The Orioles don't face the Mariners often during the season, not like they do the Rays, who are part of the American League East division. Now that every team faces every team for at least one series each season, the Orioles will deal with Arozarena the Mariner 6 times this year, (barring trade or injury), as opposed to 13 games they'll play against Tampa Bay.

It's not that I don't like the Mariners- in fact, in last night's game, one of the Seattle broadcasters demonstrated one of the reasons I love baseball so much- the stories. Here's the scenario: the broadcasters are talking about weather, as they often do and the elder of them- I've looked him up; I'm surmising it's Rick Rizzs- talks about an Opening Day game in Cleveland in 2007 where blizzard conditions made the ump call the game in the 5th inning, everyone went back to their hotels, where the blizzard continued, cancelling the other 3 games in the series as well. This played havoc with the schedule that season, as the Mariners had to make up all four of those games, tacking one game on to the front end of every East Coast road trip, running out of time at the end of the season, so that eventually, Cleveland played that last makeup game in Seattle, where the Mariners were the 'visiting' team in their own stadium. 

At any rate, the soon- to- retire Rizzs was talking about Opening Day not just as a phenomenon of weather, but of pitching. He was comparing last night's pitcher, who has a very basebally name- in my opinion, the second baseballest name in the contemporary game- to the Mariners' pitcher on that opening day in 2007. The relevant name is Emmerson Hancock. He threw six no-hit innings last night against the Cleveland Guardians, including a career-high nine strikeouts. Oh, baseball is wonderful- when Hancock got to five strikeouts, the broadcasters started talking about his career high of seven strikeouts in a game, which he'd done three times in previous seasons. Hancock got to six strikeouts in that game, the broadcasters were excited to think he might equal that seven-strikeout high. When he did, they were jubilant. Imagine, then, when he got to EIGHT strikeouts in that game, setting a new career high, how very enthused were the broadcasters in the booth. Hancock getting to nine was just icing. 

Another baseball name I love belongs to relief pitcher Jonathan Loáisiga, formerly of the New York Yankees. What's that? It's pronounced 'Lowizikah,' at least when Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman  says it, and I really got a kick out of hearing her say that name. Something about the syllables combined with her New York accent just tickles my ears. Now that he's with the Diamondbacks, the odds of my hearing that combination again are considerably smaller. 

Detroit Tigers' Ace pitcher Tarik Skubal has a great name, Tigers' First Baseman Spencer Torkelson has another great baseball name, but that name could play hockey as well. Logan Gillaspie, who debuted in the Bigs as an Oriole pitcher, has a very baseball name, and though I couldn't find conformation, he may be related to the owner of the baseballest name I know, Conor Gillaspie.

Though there are multiple baseball players named Jordan and more named Aaron, as first names go, Jackie might be THE name. There have been at least six Major League Jackies, including Jackie Wilson, Jackie Moore, Jackie Bradley Junior and the great Jackie Robinson. I'm rather fond of the name Jackie,  for personal reasons. My mother, Jackie, is named for her mother, also Jackie, who was named for her father, Jake. Of them, only my mother has had even a passing interest in baseball. 

Shirley Ellis, 1964, "The Name Game"

• 
  

Mysterious Tour

...let me take you down coz I'm going to....

Monthly posts being the goal, I'm almost out of February. So I return to a question that has bothered me and BOTHERED me, for decades. I don't know if this question bothers other people the way it bothers me, but I am used to being irritated by things other folk ignore. For example, I spend more time angry about incorrect public punctuation than anyone of my acquaintance. But this isn't about that. This is about the Beatles' short film, Magical Mystery Tour. The obvious question is, does one need to be English for Magical Mystery Tour to make ANY sense? 

Apparently, even the English, watching this bewildering tour-de-force on Boxing Day in the UK, were bewildered. Of course, it was filmed in colour, because it's 1967 and We Have The Technology, brilliant colour, cinematography by none other than Sir Richard Starkey, whom you may know better as Ringo. It was broadcast in black & white, because that's how BBC1 rolled at the time. 

And why not? If you're confident that most of your audience doesn't yet have a colour telly in the parlor, you continue broadcasting in monochrome. This is not something that would have been likely to occur to Sir Ringo, or de facto director Paul McCartney, and if it had, what might, or could, they have done differently? My guess is nothing, as it seems to me that The Beatles spent a significant amount of their careers forging new ground and walking on without looking back, unconcerned who would catch on, catch up, or be left in the dust. 

The premise for Magical Mystery Tour was simple enough: to film about a Mystery Tour that was infused with not just figurative but actual magic, as provided by unseen wizards.

"John and I remembered Mystery Tours, and we always thought this was a fascinating idea: getting on a bus and not knowing where you were going. Rather romantic and slightly surreal! All these old dears with the blue rinses going off to mysterious places. Generally there's a crate of ale in the boot of the coach and you sing lots of songs. It's a charabanc trip. So we took that idea and used it as a basis for a song and the film."  

--Paul McCartney, source undetermined; possibly Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (I found it tucked into a video explaining MMT, with no reference, and in fact needed to pause the video to even READ, never mind capture, the quote.)

And but so the thing is, that is a VERY England-oriented quotation, one that needs unpacking if you're an American born a year before the creation of the cinema monsterpiece in question. Mystery tour. Tour bus. This is a thing tourists do in New York City, or in London. This is not a thing suburban American families do for a casual holiday, nor a day trip, neither. 

I expect most US citizens born before 1973 understand 'dears with blue rinses,' and sure, the elder set congregate at senior centers go places on tour buses, but these people are getting on a bus for some pre-designated show or shopping trip, with pre-determined food stops, and have likely ordered their lunch down to two Splendas with their iced tea months in advance and the only deviation or surprise will be if one of them is dead or hospitalized and unable to make the trip. So much NOT going off adventuring to "mysterious places." 

Now, 'a crate of ale in the boot of the coach' is 100% what I'm talking about when I say this is a very English quotation. A 'crate of ale' might be what I'd call a case or a flat of beer, and the 'boot of the coach' would be the trunk of the bus. I believe. I haven't been to England, and as for going in the '60s, that's a window I was always going to miss.  As for 'a charabanc trip,' the term, from the French char a bancs, "wagon with benches," evolved to mean a hired transport for several to many people at once. Folk of a certain age, in a particularly geography, have fine memories of such trips, but they are not of the US variety. We'd call it a bus trip, and the notion of a group bar-crawl transport is, to us, a more modern notion and called 'party bus' which may include pub crawl, but also substances of many sorts on the bus, and an expectation of rowdy collegiate behavior, not at all the thing we'd associate with 'blue rinse dears' or blue-collar 'beanfeasters' at all.

Of course, by the 1970s, even in England the day-trip coach holiday was becoming an artifact, what with folk having their own cars and whole week-ends or even weeks for leisure outings.

That could (and possibly should) be the end of it, but because it's a rabbit hole, I'm still at it with Magical Mystery Tour. Yet another odd factoid; it's regarding the more contemporary band Death Cab For Cutie.

Gibbard took the band name from the song "Death Cab for Cutie", which was written by Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall and recorded by their group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The song is a track on the Bonzo's 1967 debut album, Gorilla, and was performed by them in the Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour. The title was originally that of a story in an old pulp fiction crime magazine that Innes came across in a street market. In a 2011 interview, Gibbard stated, "The name was never supposed to be something that someone was going to reference 15 years on. So yeah, I would absolutely go back and give it a more obvious name." --Wikipedia

Which reminds me of the Dave Grohl story. After the demise of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Dave Grohl in 1995 released an album under the name of Foo Fighters, called Foo Fighters. The album gained enough traction that he had to actually acquire a band in order to tour. The band (now an actual band) released a song this autumn that my sister (a big FooFan) didn't believe could possibly be on my radar before it was on hers, but yes, by random chance of there not being any baseball on my radio, I did. The song, "Under You," made me question whether I'd been missing out not listening to Foo Fighters for all these... some amount of time. So I listened to a Foo playlist, and determined that the only other song by the Foo that I was familiar with was "Everlong," which I mistakenly had believed to be a Green Day hit. 

Well, if you're a FooFan, you know, of course, that it's not. But while I listened to this Foo playlist, I kept wishing I was listening instead to Green Day. So I think Foo Fighters is fine, and Dave Grohl is (mostly) fine, but I evidently prefer the sound of Green Day. 

And that's all right, to acknowledge one's preferences without confusing them with actual quality, because so much of life is about personal bias. "Is it good?" one might ask. If that one is asking ME, I can say without bias that the Honda CRV in fact IS a good vehicle because I've researched it, driven it, driven other vehicles and done comparisons. The Toyota Rav-4 is also objectively a good vehicle, by and large as a used vehicle significantly harder to find and somewhat pricier than a comparable CRV. I can objectively say that my family doesn't like the sightlines of the CRV, but the sightlines don't seem to bother me, possibly because I'm the shortest member of my family.  Is a Reuben better than a BLT is not a question I would answer directly. Which is to say that I'm not judging Green Day to be BETTER than Foo Fighters, only more to my personal liking. Neither band is the creator of what I consider a musically ideal (I'd say perfect, but ....) song, "Ice", by Crack the Sky, which runs 4 1/2 minutes on vinyl but in live performance can go as long as 12 minutes. 

The Beatles, despite having a skimpy seven-year run of music-making, have it all over all of those bands, musically, in my opinion. Aside from the songwriting, the idea of a concept album, new mixing techniques, the foundation of MTV music videos, even the popularization of classical and 'exotic' instruments in rock music can largely be credited to them. They will, however, never ever make anything new. 

Does that matter, though? They made Magical Mystery Tour - shot in about two weeks- AND Yellow Submarine (okay,  their participation in Yellow Submarine was under duress at first, but then they loved it and threw the entirety of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band at it) and while Submarine was very psychedelic and thus obviously popular, Mystery Tour was very Fellini-esque, and not everyone likes even the real Fellini. MMT is immediately hailed  as a 'flop,'  and even among more contemporary critics, it is regarded as not a good choice. It seems to me, though, that the Beatles did exactly what they planned to do when making it. I think they hit the mark of "rather romantic and slightly surreal" when you see it in color. In black and white, on a 16-inch screen, I imagine it's basically baffling.

Only it wasn't popular with their fans, which at that point, the Beatles weren't used to, and so Paul apologized to the public on the David Frost show. Now, David Frost is a big deal, and everyone sees this  notably for the 1977 interviews with the disgraced Richard Nixon, which led to the 2006 stage show and  2008 film starring Frank Langella (and in the film version, Kevin Bacon- whut?) which you might think could be my favorite film, but it's not. 

My favorite film, (this week, anyway) also Fellini-esque, according to my Dad, who did film stuff when he was in art school and later taught film stuff when he taught art school, is a rather obscure project from the '80s (surprise, surprise) called Bagdad Cafe. 

Maybe I should see some actual Fellini? While I'm at it, I certainly should see Freaks (Tod Browning, not Federico Fellini; 1932, not 2018). It's a mystery why I haven't seen it already.

The Beatles; Strawberry Fields Forever, 1967

Jinnintonnix? YES.

....Some people buy powder, some people buy booze/ Some people use a chainsaw. Which tool is right for you?...

He's teaching me to use massively dangerous power tools. I'm covered in dust I probably shouldn't inhale. I'm wearing clothes I'd be embarrassed to donate to a shelter for the unhoused. I'm having a fabulously terrific time. 

He's exacting about angles, drawing very straight lines for cutting on what is, essentially, a rather imprecise tool, and the lines, once cut, will need to be sanded anyway. 

I wouldn't sand them, myself, except I have a very real and deep-seated terror of splinters. 

Some of the stuff we're working with will never splinter. 

I end up with a splinter in my hand from the backing on a disc of sandpaper designed to be used with a mechanical tool, not held in my wee paw like a coffee mug, making largely masturbatory motions on a meter-long cuboid in an unnatural shade of pink. After painstakingly plucking with my fingernails the nearly invisible fleck of fiberglass (or something like it), I return to the task of rounding corners, up and down, with a twisting spin to keep things even.

I'm learning about materials I never heard of, discovering the difference between five-minute two-part epoxy and thin epoxy resin, which has another purpose. He teaches me a lovely technique for cutting a curve on plywood with a bandsaw, which is largely unlike a table saw, a jigsaw and a hacksaw. When I use the bandsaw, I find it enough like operating a sewing machine to feel familiar, and even soothing. Except for the real possibility of losing digits to the teeth of the blade, it IS soothing- the vibration is regular and smooth, and the saw makes a noise in a key that doesn't raise my hackles. This is different from most common tools that I've banned from my life- hair dryers, vacuums, lawn mowers- in fact, I purchased a battery-powered lawn mower that looks like a toy because its vibration and pitch are tolerable to me. Previously, I purchased a rotary mower, because it had neither vibration or noise unless I actively pushed it. I enjoyed using it, listening to ball games in my earbuds, until the blades dulled and it became ineffective. If I figure out how to sharpen the blades, I may use it again. I certainly did not get rid of it. 

My tasks feel inconsequential: remembering where the safety glasses and pencils are located, reminding him what he went into the basement to fetch, holding open the door while he carries the table saw outside or the giant sander inside, moving things back to their proper places, vacuuming with the enormous ugly shop vac with the condescendingly huge ON/OFF button that I still have difficulty locating, and keeping the parts we're using separate from the scraps that look alarmingly like the parts we're using. 

When he tells me this is a good stopping point and offers Jinnintonnix, there's only one possible answer. I watch him measure carefully, then empty the bottle into the measuring tool and divide the remainder between the two glasses. 

The surprise happens fifty or so minutes later, when I find myself in the parking lot of a McDonalds, trying to absorb alcohol with cheap greasy edible substances. Given my sudden mood swing to maudlin, it's absurd that it's called a Happy Meal. 

Power Tools; The Tubes, 1981

Sold OUT

...Hello, yeah, it's been awhile/ Not much, how about you?....

'Not much' is a lie, though. I'm living too many concurrent lives, with limited discretionary time, which I often spend sleeping. It's the final day of September: just finished with Baseball Season, busy with my day job, Murder Mystery, Mother, writing theatre reviews, and I'm right in the thick of Renaissance Festival  Season. RenFest and its associated activities (costume design, building, repair, washing, mime lunch prep, stilt maintenance, ongoing performer training, logistics, equipment management) occupy the majority of my attention.

Though one of my mimes frequently says, "How do you spell 'actor'? W-H-O-R-E,"  I don't usually feel like a sellout. My niche is weird and tiny. Making people's day in 45 seconds or fewer. Being professionally beautiful. Showing up fabulous. Changing clothes and posing for photographers. Following the Big 3 Rules of Be early,  Be gorgeous, Be easy to work with. (Regular folk accept that as 'talent'. Actual talent seems almost optional.) 

Because people are visual, I designed us to look terrific from every angle, in every condition, including soaking wet with sweat, rain or both. I designed us to be exquisite individually, in pairs, as a group, with or without patrons in the picture. And the picture is the thing, nowadays. "Pictures or it didn't happen" is almost literally true. 

I believe this is what has happened at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. It is "instagrammable" (forgive me if that term has now been replaced by something fresher; I have limited contact with YouthSpeak) to an extreme degree, and content creators adore the opportunity. Outdoors, great lighting, public, costumed event, fanciful food and beverage items, themed weekends, music of all sorts, variety skills stage acts, audience involvement, beautifully handcrafted wearable items from footwear to headgear and all items in between, housewares, craft demonstrations, decorative art, games of skill, dancing, Shakespeare, sideshow acts, a village storyline, participatory activities, beautification services, pretend royalty and a mindbogglingly relaxed dress code. There is a lot of content-able material here. 

By Weekend #2, all the tickets for each day of the rest of the 2025 season had been sold. Some will be returned and resold, which happens nowadays because demand demands it, and the platform making it possible exists. Today, we face a rainy weekend, or at least a rainy Saturday. I judge it to be very little more than aggressive mist.

Snippet #1: Young lad with adult women wishes to be divested of his tee shirt. First Woman: "Oh, no, honey, I don't think it's okay to..." Second Woman: "Don't worry about it. Plenty of people walk around here wearing almost nothing." First Woman (looking around briefly): "Oh, but- "  I catch her attention with my hand, and, from my stilted position of Inside Front Gate Backdrop Position A, and with both hands give the downwards diagonal wave that indicates, "It's fine. He's fine. Everything's fine," (are you trying it right now?) and in fact Second Woman says, as I do the gesture, "He's fine, it's fine, we're all fine."

Snippet #2: Mome Rath is here! I greet her with great excitement. I don't know where she's been or what she's been doing or why we can't have lunch together sometime but I'm delighted to see her. The mime beside me has no idea who Mome Rath is because I am old and she is less so. 

Snippet #3: I sit briefly at the back of Market Stage (in a former iteration, Chess Stage) on one of the Smith-scale flowerpots from which ivy grows. The ivy, presumably, will eventually cover the lattice built above the audience, which already provides some shade. My two stilt mimes come around the corner and spot me on my little perch, and react with expressions indicating adorableness. I discover later that my pinks against the white pot and tendrils of vine around made an especially cute vision. I am unaware whether anyone captured that moment digitally. 

Snippet #4: Outside Front Gate, a patron approaches. "You've been here for many seasons, I think." I indicate that this is so. He points to a young man. "He was a little kid last time we were here. We saw you then." I indicate the young man has grown. "Yeah, he's 27 now," says the patron, "but you, you don't age, do you?" I grin and make the 'aw, shucks' face. 

The relative brilliance of this post is questionable, but at least I've made one. It's not that I haven't been writing. I haven't been writing here. I've been writing here, and here, and here.  Come see me at the Faire, if you can. Those who haunt the Renaissance Festival website may find tickets available. A green check mark is your friend. 

England Dan and John Ford Coley, I'd Really Love To See You Tonight; 1976

[This is for later but you can look at it now if you want. It's completely unrelated. You've been warned.]

https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jwrobbin/Higgeldy.txt

Stalling Again

...a thousand pages, give or take a few /I'll be writing more in a week or two/ I could make it longer if you like the style...

I'd say sorry for not posting more often, but I wonder, really, is anyone reading? Like, does anyone have the patience for it? It's all doomscrolling, echo chambers, clickbait and headlines.

TikTok has taken over where X, formerly known as Twitter, used to rule, and Twitter, though older, was higher profile than Instagram, all of which have supplanted Facebook, leaving it mostly to grandparently-aged folk, which is okay with me, since that age bracket describes most of my friends and much of my family. I'm guessing the longform of essay writing as a community activity is officially dead, which DanTobin DanTobin proclaimed years and years ago. Vines are also dead, but I'm not sure why they needed to die.

But at any rate, relevancy. Blogging as I understand it seems as if it might be returning, on a mysterious platform known as Substack, which may be different from Wordpress and Live Journal, but I'm not sure in what ways.  Among folk returning to the long form are  childhood pal Tim Kreider, my Blogger pal Dan Tobin, another Blogger pal formerly known as Totsie, and I get email notifications about Substacks I've... followed? I think followed, or maybe subscribed to? ...but not with a paid subscription like NYT or Patreon. I suppose I could ask a Substacker to explain to me what the benefits/ differences are of Substack to Blogger, but I hesitate to waste anyone's time with idle curiosity, because that's all it is. I certainly won't abandon my blog to start a new one; jeeze, this blog is almost as old as my grownass adult offsprings. 

I'm working on a "proper" blog entry, complete with links n stuff, as one does, and obviously I'm also working on (read: dodging completing) another review. The show has closed, but in my defense, I watched it on its final performance and immediately came down with Covid. 

I'm vaccinated, so it's uncomfortable and inconvenient and incapacitating, but not dangerous or likely to result in a hospital stay. I have, however, been knocked on my ass. I've slept on the couch since Monday, October 30th, and yesterday afternoon, had my 2nd shower since October 29th.

Today is the first day since the 30th that I've felt anything close to my normal self, and even so, maybe not, because I'm hoarding my methylphenidate. Our insurance, along with Gomez's job, ended in the middle of October, and I haven't sorted how to get new health coverage because, well, I've been sick. 

And I'm job hunting. Still. 

In other news, I'm worried about Mother, whom I've not seen in a month, as the care home in which she resides is about to be sold to an outfit which doesn't have a stellar reputation and has already notified residents of rate increases. Which won't affect us, because Mother was out of money ages ago, and has been a beneficiary of the Benevolent fund, which, along with Medicare/ Medicaid, pays for her residency. If that fund goes away, I don't know what we'll do. I'm sick at the stomach about it, but talking about it doesn't help. What are we to do with folk who outlive their money? 

But here we are. And here I am, not doing any of the things I'm usually doing, housework, yard work, showing up for any of my joblets... well, except for this one thing, stalling. 

Avoiding writing the thing I'm supposed to be writing, by writing something else entirely.

Seems like I'm ALWAYS doing THAT. 

The Beatles; "Paperback Writer;" Single, released May 1966

Quicksilver Changes

...root yourself to the ground/ capitalize on this good fortune/ one word can bring you round....

I'm back, watching the Olympics.... no, sorry; ya'll who get that reference, thanks for being forever friends with me. In fact, I'm listening to the World Series, Diamondbacks at Rangers for Game 1, specifically. 

I don't know if people without ADD open a tab, think of a thing, open another tab, and then, seven more tabs and $87.54 later, struggle desperately to recall what it is they had INTENDED to do when signing onto the computer three and a half hours ago.

No? Just me?

Okay, so at any rate.....

I'm supposed to be writing a review- which I will finish, eventually- I feel like I have a Yogi Berra-ism in me to the effect that of writing is 70% stalling, 20% facts, and the other half is perspiration-  of something wonderful I watched last night. In fact, I've finished writing it and will shortly be listening to Game 2 of the World Series. The review's now in my editor's hands.

As is my habit, I have several windows open JUST for the thing I'm writing, plus additional ones open because I'm hunting for work (anyone reading this, ya hiring?) so instead of being responsible, limiting myself to just the pertinent ones, or heavens forfend, CLOSING any of them....

...I begin breadcrumb-trailing a song I heard once on The Muppet Show (Episode 310, with Marisa Berenson, original air date December 1978) that I thought thematically fit the show I'd just seen, Cabaret Macabre, which I saw for the first time in 2014 because, primarily, of this song by Tom Waits in the show, which, by the way, is LOADS better when sung by the glorious Sarah Olmsted Thomas of Happenstance Theater.

Now, even though I'd seen the sketch in '78, the song stuck with me. In fact, once, more than a decade later, in the car with my (then) boyfriend and Mother, someone said "our house" and three of us sang a riff from three different songs. Mother sang Crosby, Stills and Nash, Gomez sang the one by Madness, and, well, I've told you mine. 

I find video of the sketch I remember, then, after investigating Marisa Berensen, who was a model and I theoretically saw her in Barry Lyndon, (a movie which I remember as being lyrically beautiful and also scarring) and her sister who died when her plane collided with a famous NYC building, I fall down a rabbit hole regarding Shel Silverstein being the writer of that song (yes, The Giving Tree dude, I KNOW)...

...but then chance upon a summation / interpretation of the song and, well. 

Ya know, when someone on the internet is wrong, Something Must Be Done. 

When I came upon it, the article discussed how the song was about inclusion and acceptance. It included "lyrics" from the song which are not there. It talked about the supportive nature of the sweet song. 

It talked about the song "The Giving Tree" that Silverstein had written- which he hadn't; it's by Plain White Tees, released in 2013, four years after Silverstein's death. The song references the children's book of the same name, but isn't remotely BY Silverstein. Good song, though. 

The erroneous article mentioned that Shel Silverstein wrote "A Boy Named Sue," a singular part of the article which was accurate. Now, I went internet hunting, as I was certain that was a Johnny Cash song, and I wasn't entirely wrong about that.  Johnny Cash performed it for the first time at San Quentin in 1969. But no, it was true that Shel Silverstein wrote "A Boy Named Sue," partly due to a conversation he had with Jean Shephard (yes, of A Christmas Story fame, based on In God We Trust- All Others Pay Cash, that looks like a collection of short stories- which he always claimed it wasn't, it was a novel, but it was never his idea to repackage his radio memories anyhow; they were recorded and transcribed by guess who, yep, Shel Silverstein)

 Johnny Cash, on that fateful day in San Quentin, performed the song somewhat differently from how Silverstein imagined and recorded it.  If you're new to "A Boy Named Sue," you're not alone. The Twins hadn't heard it, either.

At any rate, I debated in a comment the author's conclusions. I used the phrase "egregiously, verifiably, factually wrong." I questioned whether the writer was AI. I said that howsomever the author had reached his conclusion, it was obviously not through careful research of the original source material. 

Fewer than 24 hours later, it's as if the original had never existed. Wish I'd screen-shotted that nonsense. My comment, naturally, is also missing. 

YES; "Changes" 1983

Now, Baseball.....

...The crack of the bat, the stadiums roar/We were up on our feet for the tie breaking score....

On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 7:50 PM {Redacted}wrote:

 

Hi Cybele,

Are you available for a possible {Historical Character}gig on 11/30/23 

in Washington, DC from 6:15-8:15pm?

Do you own the costume and what is your rate?

Thank you,  

[Signature]

 

On Tue, Oct 3, 2023 at 3:10 PM Cybele Pomeroy <cybele> wrote:

 

Hi, [Agent's Name]

I do own the {Historical Character} costume you may have seen in my photographs. My rate is {Redacted}

Are you for real asking me about the 30th of November? Or did you mean the 30th of October?

You sent me a text message about October 28th.

If you for real meant the 30th of November, I'm available. Same for the 28th of November. 

If you meant October 30th, now we need to talk about baseball. 

I will be available on the evening of the 30th if the American League Pennant winner is ANY team other than the Orioles.

If the Orioles win the American League Pennant, and if the National League Pennant winner is ANY team other than the Atlanta Braves, I will be available on October 30th. 

But if the World Series is Atlanta vs Baltimore, I will NOT be available on October 30th. 

If the World Series is Atlanta vs Baltimore, I WILL be available October 28th.

If it's the Orioles and  ANY OTHER National League TEAM, I will NOT be available October 28th. 

There's a lot of baseball games between now and then. Either team could be eliminated as soon as October 12th.

Whether or not you root for the Atlanta Braves will depend largely on which date is the one you meant. Rooting for the Orioles is required. 

xox

Cybele

On Tue, Oct 3, 2023 at 4:15 PM {Redacted} wrote:

 

I am laughing so hard reading your email. OMG if the Orioles make the World Series!!!

The event for {Historical Character} is 11/30/28. Please hold the date.

Thank you,  

[Signature]

 

On Tue, Oct 3, 2023 at 5:03 PM Cybele Pomeroy <cybele> wrote:

 

[Agent's Name], my love,

I can hold 11/30/23, and will happily put {Historical Character, Agency Name} on that date, IN INK.

But if you really for realsies meant 2028, I must tell you, I don't yet have a calendar for 2028.

I calculated baseball schedules, and you're asking me about a date five years from now? 

Girl, please. 

xox

C

Still Lol, omg I/m working way too fast plus in college application and pre screen video he** right now.

You make me laugh and I appreciate that. 

It's nice to be appreciated for fun things instead of as a cautionary example. 

Corey Smith, The Baseball Song, 2015

Filtering Artificiality

...I have no privacy (oh, oh)/ I always feel like somebody's watching me....

In an effort to foil Artificial Intelligence taking over the world IMMEDIATELY, the survey/ focus group/ product research company that I've become loosely affiliated with has begun to include an 'essay question' on their qualification surveys. This particular survey was about Narcolepsy, and whether I'm actually chosen or not is entirely immaterial to this post. 

One of the questions has a list of colors as responses, and the "question" is 'Select Orange as a response.' Maybe that's to see if you're a human who is paying attention, because I'm not sure how that would be a difficult one for AI to manage accurately. 

It is true, however, that I know little about AI. I've been deliberately avoiding fiddling with it on my computer, because I have no interest in helping it become smarter. I also refuse to talk to the spy device I carry in my purse or pocket. Google keeps asking me to speak aloud to its "Assistant" but I know if I do that even ONCE, the 'listening' function will wake and never go to sleep again, in order to be alert when I say "Hey, Google...." 

I also don't provide voice responses to the Automated Systems on the telephone. One particularly annoying one says "Oh, you don't have to press buttons. Just tell me how I can help you, by saying 'Customer Service' or 'Make A Payment.' I ignore that and keep touching my 'keypad' numbers. When I get a human being, (eventually), I tell them, "It's my policy to not speak to robots." They almost always say, "That's completely understandable." 

In any case, the "essay" I created has nothing to do with Narcolepsy, nothing to do with AI, and nothing to do with smart device who listen in order to target market to their users, and everything to do with me and my feelings of loss and regret. 

The prompt: If you could have dinner with any three people, past or present, who would you choose and why?

The response:

If I could have dinner with any 3 people, past or present, I'd choose my Mother before she had Alzheimer's disease, and also my Grandmother, before SHE had Alzheimer's disease, and my sister, whom I don't get to see very often. I'd have dinner with my Mom and Grand as they were in 1985, but my sister and I could be ourselves as we are now. I didn't know how much I needed to appreciate their wit and humor. I miss that about them. I miss it even more when I'm with Mother, who hasn't died, but she isn't who I think of as "My Mother" anymore. 

None of that is particularly surprising, I suppose, but the question poked me kind of sideways, and my response surprised me. Like, I was THERE with my sister and mother and Grandmother in 1985, but I wasn't yet who I AM, the person I think of as the "real" me. And "real" me didn't get a chance to enjoy Mother, or Grandmother, as much as I might have wished, because I didn't know. The last time she visited Maryland in 1998, to meet my newest baby, Grandmother was slipping into dementia.

We can create AI and Viagra, but we can't fix Alzheimer's Disease. Sigh.

Rockwell; Somebody's Watching Me (1984)

Automotive Grievances

...here in my car/ I feel safest of all/ I can lock all my doors/ it's the only way to live....

It's my fault. I'll get that out of the way right now. 

Look, he needed a better car, HAS been needing one for several years, but the stupid old Mitsubishi Lancer just refused to flat out die. 

It leaks oil from almost literally everywhere, the engine mounts are cracked, it can't pass emissions inspection... but it still runs. It gets up to speed pretty quickly. The heat and the air conditioner both work GREAT. The radio gets the sports station. 

My mechanic said it would be $5K to fix it "...and that's just what we can see. Once we get into it, it could be more than that. MUCH more than that." It was marked on the paperwork as Unsafe To Drive, and they didn't even deem it worth an oil change. Still, I drove it twice that week to DC and back for gigs, and have been driving it around town carefully since then, with "You're about twelve good potholes away from that engine being on the highway" ringing in my mind as I do so. 

It's a 2006 that his mother bought used, beat to hell because she's a terrible driver, and then gave to him when she moved to Arizona. It continues to get better than 25 miles to the gallon and has 291,000 (and change) miles on it right now, so it doesn't owe us a dime.

So I started shopping. I shopped for the thing he said he wanted. I shopped for things I hoped he would accept as acceptable, or even pleasant. For some reason, he has a bias against Toyotas. He's similarly biased against Hondas, though slightly less so. Never mind, they're running very high right now anyway. Car scarcity, resale value, perceived worth and so on. 

What I want for him is something safe, with low miles on it, high fuel efficiency, good sightlines, that he won't resent driving, that he feels is NICE. "I'm tired of driving crap cars," he said. Dude, you bought cars without consulting me several times. You bought a Jeep from some shady folk just because the AC ran real cold. And were surprised when it suddenly died. Come ON. 

I researched the HELL out of Honda CRV before choosing one that had a moderate price tag, was seven years old, with only 26K on it. That is a great car. I could find another- but he says he hates the sightlines. So we won't be a 2 CRV family. He doesn't really want an SUV. He wants a sedan. And he wants leather interior. Mine's leather, so I get that. 

He agreed to drive the Mazda CX5 in addition to Mazda 6 that he had decided was the best match. The Mazda CX5 he agreed was solid and not terrible, and also not really so much an SUV as a pregnant hatchback. It was a decent car. We drove a Mazda 6, low miles, leather interior, stickshift. Very nice. But, stickshift. He CAN. But his knees.... he'd rather not.

I surprised him by showing him a Lexus ES 350. I did this because Consumer Reports LOVES the Lexus. Almost every model, almost every year, from 2005 through 2020, almost without exception. They're pricey. Possibly too pricey. But a test drive isn't a commitment, right? RIGHT? 

Well. He flat out LOVES the Lexus ES. The moonroof. The leather seats. The little joystick near the gear shifter that moves the cursor on the interactive screen. He drove also a Lexus RX (another a pregnant hatchback) and likes it fine, only not as much as the sedan. He tried an IS, but it was too small. He bumped his head getting into it, and once he was in, his head touched the ceiling. He's not particularly large, but he's too big for an IS.

We've found a Mazda 6 that checks ALL the boxes, in the price range we were targeting. WITH leather interior, AND a moonroof. He hesitates. He really wants the Lexus ES. Our insurance company was NO help, coming in with similar numbers to insure each of the models he likes best. He's only just barely considering that the Mazda 6 gets nearly 10 miles per gallon more than the ES, because he likes the poshness of the Lexus. He feels he deserves a car with a certain amount of poshness, at his age. I'm not arguing that, not at all.  But ...ten miles. Per gallon. 

Several months ago, he and I jointly managed to talk Pugsley out of a Dodge Charger (not widely available, poor mileage, overpriced and THE most stolen car in the United States right now) and into a Mazda 3. Which Pugsley agreed, after awhile and several test drives of different makes/ models, was a better fit for him, and he kind of fell in love with it. He's very happy with mileage around 28/36, and it has a pretty good sound system.

I felt like we were making headway towards replacing the Mitsu, then early Saturday morning, when I had another gig in DC, the CRV started up with a horrible, no-muffler blast. I went to the gig, did 3 hours on stilts, drove home in DC traffic, and investigated after I parked. 

Someone had cut out my catalytic converter overnight. The police came, made a report. The insurance company said it would be covered, minus my deductible. It's even considered "no fault" since it was vandalism. I hope that means my rates won't go up because of it. 

 In any case, our search is more fraught than it was last week, because not only do we have the deductible to pay, no insurance adjuster is even available to inspect the car and approve the repairs. They'll get back to me with an update within 5 business days. NOT get to the inspection in 5 days, no. Just... an UPDATE. Which, since Honda is running 3 months lead time on parts anyway is a drop in the bucket, right? So Gomez was going to put a temporary pipe on for me, to quiet the noise. 

The thief not only cut but also damaged the pipe, so it's not round anymore. The fix Gomez planned to do won't work. I'll be driving that thing with noise and fumes assaulting me for... well, who even knows how long? 

Our car search now has an edge of desperation- at least for me- while he merrily drives the quiet Mitzu with the wobbly engine, blithely confident that it will hold up for him until the perfect car magically appears and makes everyone happy. It'll be a Lexus that has about 72,000 miles on it, and, by some dark magic, gets 25 miles per gallon. It'll be in his price range, he'll be approved for a loan and can afford the payments. 

Please, I beg you, for the love of everything you and I both hold dear...

...do NOT tell him it's a Toyota.

Gary Numan; Cars

Vintage Sandwich

...I have a pen, I have pineapple/ Uh! Pineapple-pen....[ Now where he at, where he at/ where he at, where he at/ Now there he go, there he go/ there he go, there he go...]

Because I had occasion to be with my Dad recently (he turned 80 and looks GREAT), I also had occasion to nudge him into eating one of 'his' sandwiches with me. This is something I remember from my childhood, like Mother's special instant Tea Mixture, which I recently reintroduced into the life of my friend MonKe. She'd forgotten about the existence of this ambrosia, but was instantly transported at one whiff of the stuff.

Aaaanyway, this story is about my Dad's special sandwich. No one I know has heard of it. 

It's an open-faced grilled peanut butter pineapple and cheddar cheese sandwich, cooked on the Broiler setting in a Toaster Oven.

Flash back to nineteen seventy something, and my Dad, and a Toaster Oven. We have wheat bread in the house, because we are crunchy granola hippies. We have Colby cheese in the house because cheese is a good snack for small children. We have pineapple rings- well, I'm guessing Dad would've needed to purchase these especially for the sandwich. Maybe a dented can at the grocery, I dunno. 

So here's my Dad, spreading all natural peanut butter on whole wheat bread, probably that he or Mother had baked themselves, (they had a bakery for a bit, which is itself a story), topping that with a pineapple ring and slicing cheese on top of it before putting it into the Toaster Oven to bake or grill or whatever. I think I watched him prepare these on several occasions spanning a couple of years, thinking the ingredient combination slightly revolting, before eventually asking whether it was good. "I like them. Do you want me to make one for you?" I think I demurred, worried about wasting food. He probably said something along the lines of finishing it if I didn't like it. 

As I remember, I DID like it. 

Not enough to ask for it, but I'd thereafter have one whenever he was making one.

I liked it enough that I REMEMBER it, remember liking it. Remember sharing them with my Dad.

I've never attempted make it for my own kids. I've described it, and they made faces, so I didn't. It was a Dad thing. 

But jeeze, I don't get to hang with my Dad and have food often. So I hadn't had that sandwich in... well, as long as my offspring have been alive, and probably longer than that. 

And it offended me to think of making one WITHOUT Daddy, so while I was with him in Minneapolis, (recovering from Covid, poor thing, so really not up to a Great Big Birthday Deal for his 80th), I said I wanted to have those sandwiches. I procured pineapple rings when Nance and I went round to shops picking up his cake and scallops and so on for his birthday dinner. The next day, we made sandwiches. Well, HE made sandwiches, as always, and I helped eat them. 

I learned something new about the recipe that I hadn't known before. 

He likes it made with AMERICAN cheese. 

In our house when I was growing up, we had Colby cheese almost exclusively, until us kids were sophisticated enough to prefer cheddar. So I only ever had this sandwich topped with Colby cheese. 

I did not hate it with American cheese, though I expected to. 

Whole grain bread. All natural peanut butter. A pineapple ring. One slice of American cheese. He has a pop up type toaster now, and that obviously won't work for this sort of sandwich. Instead, he put them on a cookie sheet into the preheated oven for no more than five minutes, and probably less. 

Man, it was good. I didn't think to take a picture. 

I don't know if he buttered the bread before spreading peanut butter on, because I was arguing with the can opener while he was spreading stuff. I hope he eats more of them- there were several slices of pineapple in a plastic container when I left last Monday.

But here's the other thing I learned about this sandwich. He didn't invent it.

Dad recalls Grammy making these sandwiches when he was in high school. My guess is that it was possibly a '50s recipe created by a food manufacturer. Could I find this sandwich on the internet, though? It took several tries, over the course of several days.  

According to Vintage Food Disaster  from November of 2010, this sandwich was supposed to have been made with Velveeta cheese product. Described by the intrepid blogger, Adrienne in Wisconsin, as

"...a Hawaiian open faced sandwich that was born in the depths of hell,"

 it was peanut butter on halves of hamburger bun, spread with peanut butter, crowned with pineapple rings, covered with a slice of Velveeta Cheese Food, and topped with half a maraschino cherry each.

AHA. This sounds like something my Grammy would have made to use up the rest of the hamburger buns before they got too stale. I don't know if she'd've kept maraschino cherries in her house on the regular. I remember them on her hams, but for Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving was a Happening. Daddy never mentioned cherries, and I think would balk at them.  

 The Vintage Food Disasters blogger Adrienne says nothing of the time it took to bake or broil this sandwich, but here was her reaction:

"...although they certainly had the look of something indigestible, they turned out to be a complete let down.  I was shocked to watch more than one guest willingly take multiple bites." 

There's no date given, (though after the invention of Velveeta in 1930something) that particular ersatz Hawaiian Velveeta sandwich earned a mention in this history of Velveeta. 

Grammy may have found the recipe in McCall's. The timeline puzzles me, though, since that McCall's page seems to be dated May 1962, and Daddy would've been 20, or nearly 20, in '62. At any rate, probably not in high school. Maybe college?

Timeline aside, should you doubt the edibility of such a creation, I refer you again to Adrienne's blog:

"My friend Laura described it in the most glowing terms, praising it for "juiciness" and making an argument for it as a passable snack."

 It absolutely is a passable snack, or light lunch. 

Hmm, I think I have pineapple rings in the kitchen right now.

Piko-Taro; Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen [ Buckwheat Boyz; It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time]

Cool Cats

...Indians send signals from the rocks above the pass...

I haven't stopped writing. I've just been writing elsewhere, sometimes even for money.

It became less fun when my friends stopped blogging sometime between 2010 and 2012, some of them sooner than that. I was screaming, whispering, sobbing into a void, mostly capturing my mother's descent into madness, or amusing myself with how clever I think I sometimes am. 

So here I am, and already complaining. What is it now, you may ask. (Let's pretend you did.)

Blogger refuses to tell me how to add new links to my sidebar, and it's been so long I can't remember how to do it from memory. Popular wisdom is to play around and figure it out, which I guess I will do, eventually. I thought, though, that I would do that with my new laptop (in July; it's still NEW, seriously) which came with no Owner's Manual or User Guide, and I went online, looking for a video or PDF or something, ANYthing, which would tell me how to use this nice new Pavilion 360, but all I got was unboxing videos and and advertising trailer. And I so far haven't. Played around and figured it out, that is. Only, just the other day, I noticed, right beneath my left wrist, a sticker with one of those QVR thingies and in tiny letters beneath that it says "Scan for reviews, videos, features, specs, support**" which clearly I haven't done yet, (I refuse to count that as a failing on my part, as my phone doesn't have the QVR scanny function; I need to download A Dreaded App), because I'm complaining about this shiny new gadget that I'm underusing, I suspect, fairly significantly. 

And that's not particularly cute anymore. Even though I still think of myself as Primarily Decorative, the mirror tells me that really, I'm NOT. Which forces me to become, I suppose, a Woman Of Substance. Which, you know, I've always been, but that wasn't what people saw first. Remind me to write a post about people confusing beauty with talent, which happens to me pretty regularly, but it's a whole separate thing than this here. 

The point being that at least some of my cool blog friends (Dan Tobin, Totcetera) from the peak of blogginess have returned to blogging- though not on Blogger, on another platform, substack, which someone will need to explain to me why I should be there instead of here- and I'd love to link to their new sites and stop getting the 404 Not Found on my screen.  

All this to say, now I have a bit more impetus to write regularly, which is good for me, and also now I've just uncovered the secret of why it takes me a coon's age (what is that, exactly?) to write my reviews. I've been approaching them like a blog post, with research and links, except no links, so I need to explain everything. 

Anyway, if you've made it this far, and I don't blame you if you haven't, thank you for reading. It's more fun for me to do if I think it amuses someone else as well. 

You can pretend to be amused. Humor me.

Squeeze; Cool For Cats

Ear Memory

...I shall never see/a poem lovely as a tree....

Oscar Rasbach is a name I've hunted for quite some time, though I didn't know it. 

How do you find a thing if you don't know its name?

Right, you describe it. That's hard to do for music on YouTube, and just as hard on eBay. I had this music box, you see. It had a strange rattle inside as though there was a bit of the mechanism that was loose or had broken off. But the tune was lovely, and I've never forgotten it. I can hear it in my head, complete with the tik-tik-tik noise that wasn't really part of the song.

It was a brown plastic box, a little smaller than a Brownie Box camera. It had a picture on it of a little girl holding perhaps a pussy willow branch. There was a gold-wrapped hanging cord at the top, and a round plastic ball attached to a pull-string at the bottom. On the back, at the bottom, was the word Japan in raised letters. My sister's music box was more or less identical to mine, but it played a different tune and had a different picture. The sticker on my sister's music box said Talk To The Animals. I recognized the tune my sister's music box played, but I liked my tune better. My sticker said Trees, but was a little bit torn, so the song could have been '_____ Trees'.

I remember all of these details, but can't recall if I took my pills or not. Memory is such a bastard.

A YouTube hunt of 'tune Trees' turned up Marty Casey & Lovehammers, 21 Pilots, a woman playing a Koto in what turns out to be a clip from a Netflix movie called Our Shining Days, Flatbush Zombies, Senbonzakura (One Thousand Cherry Trees) and Hatsune Miku, who seems to be a pop star and also a Vocaloid, and Rush. But not my music box. It also turned up videos demonstrating many music box songs which were promotional material for music box makers, and synthesized "music box" covers of 21 Pilots' Trees. But not my music box.

Off to eBay, then, entering 'music box trees.' That got me Christmas music boxes, musical stuffed Christmas trees, musical porcelain Christmas trees, musical china Christmas trees and music boxes playing 'O Christmas Tree.' I added 'Japan' and then, though I wasn't sure, I added 'Hummel'.

I was never really a fan of the Hummel figurines which were cloyingly ubiquitous in the late '70s, but also got them confused with the Love Is naked cartoon people and the W R Berries big eyed statuettes. Not to be confused with the Keane paintings of big eyed sad children, which is a Whole 'Nother Story But Hummel drawings are a different thing. I'm never going to be a collector of Hummel anything, okay? but Hummel drawings are quite nice, really. And that, along with "pull string," turned out to be the right keyword.

The things eBay showed me were either "i dont know what tune it play but its pritty" or Eidlewiese, Brahms' Lullaby, Hi Lily Hi Lo, Lara's Theme (also listed as Dr Zhivago), It's A Small World, Smile Make Someone Happy, and a whole bunch of listings where the tune wasn't specified. I used the Ask Seller A Question function and inquired of a few sellers. I took a chance buying one that the seller responded that they didn't recognize the tune. It turned out to be "It's A Small World."

Back to YouTube, searching for 'Song Trees' and this time, there were useful subtitles on some of the results. This result, featuring Patty Page, sounded ALMOST like what I was seeking, but so drawn out and kind of pompous. But okay, it was based on a 1913 Joyce Kilmer poem. Which I hunted awhile, discovering that Kilmer was killed 5 years later in WWII. It was THIS tune, featuring vocalist Bob McGrath, that provided the very important name of Oscar Rasbach, who set the poem to music in 1922. 

After listening to several vocal renditions of the song, including this illustrated one, which probably inspired the tune's inclusion in the line of music boxes, I concluded that I didn't like the vocals. Searching 'Instrumental Trees' unveiled this pretty little song, and other weirder results, and it was only by adding the name Rasbach that I finally found Phillip Sear on piano and that was what I'd wanted all along.

Did this prevent me from continuing to hunt for my Hummel music box on eBay? One would think.

Alas, it did not. 

Haven't found it yet. 

(Trees, poem by Joyce Kilmer, 1913)

Yesterday's Lemons

...When life gives you lemons/ You don't make lemonade/ You use them to make girls cry/ You take those lemons/ No sugar at all/ And you squirt it right into our eyes...

It's not a metaphor. 

Okay, of course it is, but it's not only a metaphor. 

I've been squeezing a lemon most mornings and adding hot water, then steeping the rind in more hot water for a beverage all day. I have been finding the leftover rinds really useful for scrubbing greasy surfaces, or lifting nasty odors. It takes awhile for the rinds to be "used up" because they're sturdy and long-lasting, several days beyond when I consumed the juice. 

And but so not that I'm in the habit of taking health advice from Hollywood celebrities, but I've been rather a fan of Drew Barrymore since she was a little kid in ET, and especially loved her in 50 First Dates which I saw finally a couple of months ago (I've recently discovered that I have an affinity for Adam Sandler movies; the hell, man?) but she's awfully cute in this video about lemon water. Oh, hey, Primarily Decorative is back; look at her adding a superfluous sentence because she hates one-sentence paragraphs, no matter how long the sentence is. Immaterial that it's been three years (really? yeah, really) since she's updated this once-upon-a-time daily blog- Blogworld doesn't judge (hush) and so I'mma switch from Third Person back to First and pick up as if there's been No Interruption Whatsoever. 

My blog, I do what I want. 

MomLife has been many iterations of surreality. During increasing levels of intervention at her home, EAS and I took her "shopping" for care homes, and all three of us had a preference for the same place, which is a 35 minute drive from my home instead of 11 minutes driveway to driveway, and re-homed her after a month or so of weekly visits there to join (ideally) or observe (less so) group activities in a well-intentioned attempt to acclimate her to her new home before the move. It still did not go well. 

I had begged EAS to schedule the move for November, when I DON'T have baseball or RenFest going on, but she does things when they are convenient for her, and damn the torpedoes. "You won't need to do anything; I'll take care of moving her. " I don't know whether she believed that or only told me that. It's hard to know. At some point in the last 5 years (and I've known her for 50) I made myself face the fact that she lies to me to get me to cooperate, or at least stop arguing with her. 

Anyway. Future posts may include The Three Day Turkey Dinner, A Great Disturbance In The Force, Turducken vs Churkendoose, Four Days In New Orleans, Train Museums And When To Find Them, How To Travel With Your Addled Elder, Kindness Of Strangers, Soft And Fuzzy Things, The Library and Playing Ball. 

Actual titles may vary.

Brye; Lemons

Post Seedlings

...it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in bacon...mmmmmmm....

Reciprocity in relationships being an unattainable and possibly imaginary ideal, one is more enlightened when one realizes that there is never a reciprocal relationship. They're all uneven, one way or another.

Remind me to tell you the Joe Walsh story, Audience of One

Complex feelings about one of the many Michaels I know: I am a canvas on which he paints. Thinking what he liked about me was that I liked him and thought he was okay no matter what.

The Prince and how he felt all was not right in the universe when Coco and I weren't speaking

All the stories about Mother. Chronologicality is irrelevant.

Make me an offer I mustn't refuse. Most of the time a mobile home is more trouble than it's worth to maintain. Home on the range, safe with a flange Myopic microcosm of macaroni and mollycoddled macaroons

Now I'm just playing with the M and the O keys because they started off sticky and that worried me for a bit. Now they seem to operate fairly well or else my fingers have adjusted.

It's my new/old laptop, yet another sturdy, hard-to-kill used HP, bought from Cellphone Doctors in beautiful downtown Glen Burnie, with birthday money from Daddy.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. We hold these truths to be self evident.

Truth? You can't handle the truth. 

But I will tell you it anyway.

Passing Thought

...I don't wanna live like this, but I don't wanna die....


When I cut myself while
I'm cooking, I'm careful
to not bleed into the food because
what if
my family likes it?



Vampire Weekend; Finger Back

Hello, Honville

...it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in bacon...mmmmmmm....

She: Riding on a Lark style-scooter, steering one-handed, rounding the corner of an obscured street onto Ritchie Highway.

He: Perched on a shelf on the back of the scooter, hands braced on her shoulders, toes of his dirty sneakers tucked under a grey plastic shopping bag full of... something.

It: Sitting, held on her lap like a toddler in need of an allover haircut, tail draped trailing over one ample thigh.

Could've been kids. Should've been, probably.

But they were all over 40.

Well, I don't know about the dog.

Archaeological Unearthing

...learn to work the saxophone/ I play just what I feel/ drink Scotch whiskey all night long....

This from my Yes, It's True That I Never Get Rid Of Anything, Not Ever file, otherwise known as my email inbox. It's my third or fourth one so far. Third or fourth email inbox, not YITTINGROANE file, as that's simply theoretical, and if I'd thought about it longer, I'd've come up with a name for it that results in a better anagram. I haven't gotten rid of anything in the three previous email inboxes, either.

Probably. I think.

Cue low sultry saxophone music.

I was meditating on the veranda... I call it a veranda, but it was actually more of a fire escape. I call it meditating, but it was really more relaxing than meditating, though smoking a cigar can, I suppose, be said to be meditative. In fact, here goes: Smoking a cigar can be meditative. I said it. 

At any rate, I was on the fire escape, smoking a cigar, the New York Times crossword half-finished on the coffee table inside the window... I say half finished, though it was somewhat less than half finished; considerably less, in fact; the fact is, it was barely begun, which would have been fine had it been from today's New York Times, but it was last week's, which, if you care to know the actual facts of the matter, was by this time, in fact, last month. 

I was meditating on the veranda, the New York Times crossword unfinished on the table when She walked in. I say walked, but it was really more of a glide, if it can be said that a wiggle is glide-like. 

So there was nothing to be done but step in through the window to greet my unexpected guest- or perhaps client- and carefully stub my cigar in the ashtray- I call it an ashtray, though it was actually a china cup with no handle from my great-Aunt Florence's second-best china service. I looked at her. She looked at me. It was in that moment wherein something perhaps magical was about to begin, that I suddenly remembered I was not wearing pants.

Once I realized I wasn't wearing pants, it became imperative that I pretend I hadn't realized I wasn't wearing pants. I say 'imperative' when what I actually mean is 'preferable' or 'inconspicuous', though neither of these are synonymous with 'imperative', as any idiot who'd actually finished a crossword puzzle would know. 

Rather than shamefacedly admit to Her that I'd forgotten, omitted, left out or realized I had no clean laundry during an important step in dressing myself this morning, I behaved as though I were wearing pants, or as though no one went round anymore bothering with the silly, passe trousers of yore. And whether She was pretending to not notice that I was pretending to have not noticed that I was not wearing trousers, or whether she in fact did not notice that I was not wearing trousers is a mystery that puzzles me even today.

 

"You have to help me, Mr. Dresden," she said, in that high-pitched breathless baby Marilyn Monroe voice that gets all men like a sucker punch to the breadbasket. I say sucker punch to the breadbasket, when what I mean is aphrodisiac, or headrush, or mind erasure. I struggled for something clever to say. If only I'd finished the crossword, I might've been able to think of something.....

Fade mournful sax.

To Be Continued....


...or maybe better left alone.



Steely Dan; Deacon Blues