I'll Wait

...reach down/ in between my legs/ ease the seat back....

"So, since it's raining, does that mean we can't listen to music?"*

Since I've just spent three days sick, and the rain is very heavy, it's probably a good idea if I concentrate on driving, so we can, but something soothing enough to not jangle me, something peppy enough to not sad me, and something that we can listen to at a volume that won't make me jumpy.

They consult, and conclude.

"How about this?"

I agree, and into the CD deck slides Van Halen's 1984.

The instrumental introduction kicks in, reminding me that this album has less of what we love about Van Halen on it, which is not what most people think of when they think of Van Halen. Diver Down, an earlier release, has the instrumentals Cathedral and Intruder, and an odd assortment of covers, including not only the well-know Where Have All The Good Times Gone(Kinks), Dancing In The Street(Martha and the Vandellas) and Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison), but also a lovely rendition of Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now), featuring father Jan Van Halen on clarinet, and an a capella version of Happy Trails. The Van Halen originals on Diver Down struck us (me, again; the kids for the first time) as incredibly interesting... until the vocals kicked in, at which point they became less so, due largely to the forgettable lyrics of The Full Bug and Little Guitars. Secrets redeems itself, but really, just ONE good original song on an album? According to Eddie, Van Halen's producer Ted Templeman wanted singles, not albums and felt the best way to get them was to cover songs that had been hits already. That's what Diver Down was. 1984 was far more what Alex and Eddie wanted for the band.

But the oddball covers and the obscure instrumentals are one of the things WE love about Van Halen, although Hot For Teacher is probably more 'trademark' VH. We just enjoy demonstrations of superior musicianship. 1984, happily, has plenty of that, despite a shortage of instrumentals and oldies. Hot For Teacher included.

I'll Wait, though it peaked at only #13 on the charts after its initial release, is one of the best examples of the '80s Big Hair Rock genre. The synthesized intro, (a bit like Journey's Separate Ways, written May of 1982, but longer and better), was recorded in what technically qualifies as Eddie Van Halen's "home studio," the new 5150 (so named after the California Welfare code for involuntary institutionalization of a mentally unstable and potentially dangerous individual) studio in 1983 for the upcoming album. The first son recorded there was Jump, which Templeman immediately assessed as "the" hit of the new album. Eddie remembers,

Once Ted heard that song, he was full-hog in. He said, “That’s great! Let’s go to work.” When I first played “Jump” for the band, nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. Dave said that I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards. My response was if I want to play a tuba or Bavarian cheese whistle, I will do it.

 The video for I'll Wait, released back when MTV was MTV and not the weird bastardized version of itself that it became, is also worth a look. It's, at a glance, not very different from Def Leppard's Photograph, and yet... but somehow... well.

*Do I need to explain that Primarily Decorative has trouble focussing when driving, worse when the rain provides distractions like slick roads and mists, moron drivers who drive like the whole sky is falling, other, different moron drivers who drive as if conditions are clear, dry and unworthy of adjustment, beautiful patterns of raindrops on the windshield and, if it's light enough, gorgeous clouds in luscious hues of silver and grey from horizon to horizon? It's not that I have trouble focussing, per se. It's that I have trouble prioritizing.

Now, where I was originally going with this post, begun in 2009 or '10, I couldn't tell you.

But I don't feel like (read: 'am not interested in') writing about braving today's persistent rain to go shopping for trousers with Mother at Target today, which is all that happened, so.

Well, that, and I walked dogs, saw 4 rabbits, photographed 2 of them, then wrote a haiku.

Yeah, it all sounded boring to me, too.

So, Van Halen. Really not boring.


Van Halen; Panama

Virtual Conversation

...leapfrog the dog/ and brush me, Daddy-O....

I could apologize for recycling, but who does that? I've neglected my blog long enough that old posts I considered unworthy to upgrade from 'draft' seem a little bit fun. And "a little bit fun" is recommendation enough, since my main topic of conversation nowadays is My Mother The Horse, whom I love to distraction, quite literally.

I consider starting a cottage industry of creations made from the abundant dog hair in my home, and say so in a semi-public arena.

(I say 'arena' as opposed to 'place', because there is no 'here' here. It is all virtual. Where IS the internet? Zackly.)

Musicweaver and Autumn "like" this.

I feel as if I'm quoting when I say "There is no 'here' here", and I know it isn't Gertrude Stein, because she wrote that there was "no there there" in reference to her childhood home. But if someone said "There is no 'here' here" before me, and I'm quoting, and you know it, let me know; otherwise, I'm taking credit for it.

RoYo: Knit a doggy sweater! Full circle!

Kimby: oh, I got lots of dog hair to add to your project.

Lovi: - sends a link -

(Pretty cool- also there are people who will spin your pet hair into yarn for you. )

Mich: I got this little Swiffer thingie that sucks it up; it's made life so much better. I'd be happy to drop off the buckets of hair I have here!

Primarily Decorative: Oh, sure, but you gotta spin it first...and the staple length even of Golden Retriever hair makes that prohibitively time-consuming. You don't think anyone would like Dust Funnies? With little pipe-cleaner ears and noses?
Becca: I can teach you how to spin it. :)
(I learned to spindle spin at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this past year.)

(Instructions on how to spin pet hair yerowndamnself. Warning: abundance of vocabulary words; eg: whorl, short-staple, carder, flyer, bobbin, take-up speed, tension, draft, and rolag.)

RoYo Stuffed animals! Little doggies, stuffed with doggie!

CelioGrin We have an abundance of black dog hair if you need another color. ·
KJunk: @Mich, I have that Swiffer thing too, and you know how you are supposed to throw it away and buy a new one when it's full? I used an Exacto knife to slice through the clear section, cutting three sides of the rectangle, so now it opens and I can 'empty' it and reuse it over and over. Now, for Cybele's issue with the length of GR hair...can't help that...
(Good on ya for using it to its fullest, KJunk. Even better-greener- are reusable Swiffer cloths, which don't address the plastic-ness of the Swiffer itself, but it's a step in the right direction.)

Peach: I have an abundance of cat hair if you need any help...

AmLaughing: I see a line in feline fashion. A pink poodle sweater for a prissy Persian who has everything. Or possibly pussycat toupees. You can see from my profile photo that my Pennycat loves her platinum extensions. An Afghan hound had to die for those. Do you think my cat cares?

(Fiber artist Nancy Paap creates PETA-friendly fur coats by warping her loom with cotton and using spun pet fur as weft. Your pet cuddles you!)

Primarily Decorative: You guys mock me now, but when I am a bazillionaire, creating hand-spun retrieverino yarn, and selling it, or scarves knit from it, you will wish to come out on my gigantic boat and attend my fawncey parties. I will instruct my butler to sniff at each of you, because I will be far too wealthy and important to do it myself.

Mom: and your butler will, naturally, be a golden retriever... what with all that sniffing, eh?

(I'm not sure how I'd keep my Golden Retriever's black tuxedo hair-free... maybe my butler should be a Black Lab, and I'll just sew a shirt and cuffs for him. Using an old sheet that my Golden Retrievers have chewed.)

Kate: But it has to be dry clean only, or we'll smell like wet dog. :P

(Why, then, doesn't your wool sweater smell like wet sheep? Or your acrylic sweater smell like wet acryl?)

KrackyWhoorzl: i'm in!!

(One woman's pet-to-product stories.)


AnneF: I used to say that I could knit a companion animal out of what Merlin sheds...

(I sweep up a small Cocker Spaniel every_single_day.)


RoYo: Cybele, does the scarf come with a flea collar?

I'm thinking if I "treat" the yarn, the scarf could BE a flea collar. Maybe I'll send one to the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Flea Collar indeed.

(Dog Eat Dog; Adam and the Ants)

Monagamy? No.

...It's a thousand pages, give or take a few/ I'll be writing more in a week or two....

"The book I'm reading..." is a mystery sentence to me.

It's not that I don't read; that's just ridiculous. It's the "the" part of that which is foreign to me.

Current bookpile:

Thom Hartmann, Cracking the Code
This is about the co-opting of language as a shortcut to our emotional reaction. This is how 3-second soundbytes control a presidential election. It's about how language is managed in such a way that it bypasses our intellectual processing, and goes directly for a visceral response, like flinching from a punch.

Oliver Sacks, Awakenings
You saw the movie. Oh, you didn't? Neither did I. This is a series of documented case studies, and Oliver Sachs, purportedly the 'rock star of psychology', (he wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, a series of essays about brain-injured patients), has continued, over the years, to add additional forwards to his work, until the forwards compirse about half the book's contents. I was telling a pal about starting this book, and how it was heavy going because I couldn't find the beginning due to the temporally backwards-moving series of forwards. He said, "I'd want to read all the forwards. Because, you know, it's OLIVER SACHS." I took his point, but didn't read all the forwards. I have other stuff to do. Like read all these other books.

Isaac Asimov, On The Bible
My cousin and I share a curious fascination with the history and development of Judeo-Christian literature and culture. She lent books to me from her extensive collection, and I told her about the Asimov discussion of The Bible. I ordered it online for her. When she came, she thought it was a bomb. The story bears repeating, but I'll need to edit a bit to protect... well, everyone.

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope
If you haven't read this, I don't understand why. I don't understand why I haven't finished it yet. Actually, the 'why' is easy: I'm reading a couple pages from a bunch of different books, so it slows me down. Also, there's not a discernible plotline, so there's no sense of urgency.

Nimoy, I Am Spock
I think I have two copies of this at the moment.

CJ Crowe, Phillip Pomeroy, Murder at the Oh No! Corral
This is a rather elderly show, written pre-offspring, which makes it 25 or so years old. It's still good, and we're performing it at the Sunset Restaurant in Glen Burnie on September 11th and September 18th, both of which are Monday evenings.

Nora Roberts, or maybe Jude Deveraux, and the title hardly matters
Just a fluff romance novel with murder mystery thrown in for grins. I began it in the bathtub. Bathtub reading is the main reason I believe I'm permanantly unlikely to own an electronic reading device. Imagine: I could lose my entire library falling asleep in the tub. A paperback romance, retail price $6.00, not only represents a smallish investment, but also will eventually recover and be readable after an unplanned dip in the bubbles. Ditto for sand at the beach, water at the pool, not to mention being jumbled in a totebag, left for actual years untouched, stepped upon or dropped accidentally from the car.

Nate Birkham, Home Rules
Home decorating advice. Of course, to 'decorate', you must first have a 'home' instead of a 'pathway through the clutter'. I'm working on it. Not quite TV-worthy yet (like Hoarders), but certainly not Home And Garden either. It's sort of sad, but I've bought books on how to get rid of/organize/sort/keep up, including a book with the title How To Get Organized When You Don't Have The Time, but I never finish THOSE books, either, and they become more clutter.

Stephanie Pearl-Mcfee, Knitting Rules
This is a good reference book. I have been using basic technique while learning fiddly refinements working on more complicated projects. After a couple of beer cozies and three unsuccessful projects, I finally turned out a pair of socks for The Man. He values them enough that he handwashed them hissownself. Reading Mcfee's book while knitting socks gave me confidence that I wasn't doing it ENTIRELY wrong, and left me with a sense that I finally understand how to build a sock. This may be an incorrect perception on my part, naturally, but it was a curiously satisfying feeling at the time.

William Shatner, Shatner Rules
Shatner, on Shatner. Better than Shatner on Conan.


http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2009/06/shatner-rules/shatner-conan



I'm kidding about the last one, of course.

Shatner's newest is called Leonard, and I haven't read it yet.



The Beatles; Paperback Writer

Everyday Exchange

...even though you're crazy you will never be a bother....


She returns from the MRI, smiling. I hand her pocketbook to her.

How was it?

"It was fine. I guess. It's like being in a coffin."

I don't ask how she would know.

I made sure you were dressed warmly this time. Last time, you were cold and squirmed a lot. 

She sits and begins rummaging in her bag.

Whatcha looking for, Mama?

"Hair brush. I don't know if I have one, though."

You do. I saw it when I moved it from your winter purse.

"Why did you have my winter purse?"

You were carrying it this afternoon when we came here today. I transferred the things from your winter purse to the summer one.

"So you weren't totally idle."

Yes, I amused myself moving your things from one purse to another. Well, most of the things.

She looks alarmed.

"What do you mean, most of them?"

Well, I threw away all the used tissues.

She feigns irritation. "Hmph. I was saving those."

And dumped the crumbs.

"Poor ducks will starve."

But your hairbrush and your lipsticks are there.

"So I can be beautiful. I just don't know for who. You, I guess."

You do clean up nicely, I must say. 



Red Hot Chili Peppers; The Hunter

Biscuit, Please?

...you may not like/ the things we do/ only idiots/ ignore the truth....


We enter though the gate, returning from an outing. She holds it open for me, turns around to make sure it closes behind.

"Good girl," she murmurs, "good dog, good doggies."

Mother. Did you just say 'Good Dog' to me?

"Of course not."

Of course not.



Dog Eat Dog; Adam and the Ants

One Direction

...I would walk through the desert/ I would walk down the aisle/ I would swim all the oceans....


We exit the gate, dogs in tow. We all walk down the driveway. She heads left with Winnie, the way she always does. I and the dog with the stupidest name in the world move a bit to the right.

Why don't we go this way for a change? Change the scenery around a little.

She shakes her head. "Too much traffic on Maple."

Mother. It's exactly the same as we usually do, just around the block this way instead of that way.

She sighs. "Fine. We'll do it YOUR way. But I still say there's too much traffic in that direction."


One Direction; Stand Up

Door, Ajar

...no one remembers your name/ when you're strange....

Clever and Athletic Sister put a spring thing on the gate, so it closes itself.

This did not solve the problem of Mother leaving the back door wide open while she walked the dogs, allowing insect access, escape of air-conditioned coolness or furnace-generated heat.

It also didn't solve the horrorshow of back door madness that resulted when she allowed some unqualified hucksters to put an addition onto the side of her house. Aside from the 'powder room' that's completely non-functional due to uninsulated pipes that we turn off in the winter time, the inner door opened outward, and the outer door, one step away, opened inward. It also was crooked and wouldn't lock properly.

CAS thought a new outer door would be a good idea. I shopped at Lowe's for a hot minute, sent photographs of things I thought were nice and the price range they were. CAS's contractor husband ordered a thing called a "left hand outswing steel door".

Wes The Handyman came to install the door, which was a big hairy deal. Pugsley helped, because installing a door is really a two-person job, but Mother was so put out, hovering and disagreeable that CAS finally took her away to do some shopping and have lunch. Don't move Mother's water dish. Or, if you must, do it when she's not looking.

It became a two day job. On the second day, Wes put the old wooden outer door back on the inner door, where it always had used to be. It swings inward, and has a lovely old glass doorknob. The hooks for the dog leashes are embedded in it. But the hucksters had chopped it so it no longer fills the doorframe, leaving a four-inch gap at the bottom. The steel door helps keep the cold out, but the pipes in the "addition" aren't all that is uninsulated. Wes said he'd put a two-by on the bottom or something like that. I suggested "mudflap" because that's the sort of brain I have. He said he'd look when he went to get supplies to finish the cosmetic interior of the outer doorframe. CAS had purchased a programmable door lock, so that keys wouldn't be an issue. Pugsley did the programming. We all learned to use the fancy lock, including Lucy, so that she could teach Mother when Mother was calm.

Wes came back with some rubber stair treads, one for each side of the door. He cut them to fit, mounted them at the bottom and they work beautifully.

So. Mother has two doors that work, are no longer a booby trap because the inner one opens outward and the outer one opens inward and there's no space between them. Egress is smooth and easy. The cold mostly stays outside and the warmth inside, which I imagine will reverse when summer comes.

Except.

The gate shuts by itself, but the door hangs open again. Because Mother walks out with the dogs, leaving the door open. Both doors, actually.

When Lucy or I are with her, not so much. But she's still by herself for a significant portion of each day, for the time being.  This is worrisome if she's going to walk the dogs and leave the door open, notice she's low on dog food and decide to walk the mile or so to the grocery at 5pm on a windy evening, say Yes to various contractors who knock on her door... but she wants to retain her independence. Or her illusion thereof, which, between CAS, Lucy and me, we manage to permit.

So CAS orders a pump to make the outer door close automatically, just as the gate does. It solves the problem, mostly. The door doesn't actually latch unless it's pushed into place. However, it appears closed and it keeps the cold and the bugs on the outside.

We've showed her how to operate the lock. She understands it, mostly. It is a myth that Alzheimer's patients can't learn new things. It just takes repetition and mimicry. I've asked Lucy to implement the phrase, "Let's turn around and close the door," so that it will sink in, but with the new pump, that's not as important.

Yesterday, I took down three (well, two and a half; she came back into the room before I could finish) weird little contraptions that she's put on the inside of the inside door, to lock it. "For protection. I'm a woman living alone," she explained to Lucy on Monday, when she put up two different such mechanisms.

Never mind that the open doors left routinely by this woman living alone are much more of a hazard. That sort of logic doesn't apply.  I show Mother how to operate the lock mechanism from the inside of the outer door, so she won't need a hook and eye on the inside of the inside door, which will mostly just keep out people who come to help her.

Look. If you lock this one, you're safe, and only people who love you can come inside. She agrees that this is secure. But that was yesterday. She may have put up a new, poorly executed latch by this morning.

Daily entertainment. Never a dull moment.


The Doors; People Are Strange