Winter's Eve

Sitting in the quiet, having removed the hearing aids
I watch the wind rhythmically push the limbs on the trees outside
As the snow swirls round about.
Will it accumulate? The way it is predicted?
The flickers from the television in the room next door
Tell me the husband is watching sports
Or maybe "This Old House", trying to figure out
How to make this one younger again.
I can barely hear the clicking of the keys on the keyboard
and there is a faint rumble from the furnace or is it the TV?
It's cold out there, winter is whispering
Dancing in the dark with snowflakes the size of postage stamps.
Neath the glow of the streetlight, it comes down horizontally
Glistening and flashing to the ground, sometimes laying there
Sometimes disappearing onto the blacktop.
I have not liked winter this year with its constant cold and snow
And the need to bundle up and walk like penguins to just get to the car.
But the silence of a winter evening is alluring
And pretends to be something that it really isn't.
I'd like winter if it was warmer...

The silence is--well--pretty quiet

I haven't sat down for a whole week at this blog. I've been busy. Busy going to work, busy making dinners, making lunches, breakfasts, shooing the cat out of the way while doing those things and just well, really busy. If I had to point to something, I wouldn't be able to, the days all ran together and now it's Friday. But one thing I've noticed is that I have been writing--just not here.

Because Lent is here, I had gotten into the habit of writing small skits for the church to use on Wednesday evenings during the season. But with the new changing of the guard (read pastor), my services don't seem to be immediately needed. But the call went out at the last church service that if someone wanted to contribute something to the Good Friday service, "have at it." I couldn't resist a challenge and began tooling and nipping and tucking right away. So I've been productive, just not here. But I imagine I'll have to stop working on the Good Friday thing at some point this week coming up. If I stay on task too long with that particular thing, it loses something. So I'll probably flit back and forth.

See ya later.

The Sweet Potatoes of Life

We ventured out of the frozen tundra yesterday for supplies. We were out of the essentials like frozen breakfast sandwiches, kitty litter and "plastic" cheese, which isn't really plastic, nor come to that is it really cheese, but that's for another post. We got to the mega warehouse store and filed in with our cart, following lemming-like the crowds before us. We had a list and a purpose and so we tore ourselves away from the troglodytes staring at the big screen TVs (ohhh, pretty lights!) and wandered up and down the huge racks of things looking for our listed items. Our goal is always to stay on the list, stay on task and for god's sake don't stray to the candy aisle. Our goal never seems to make it. When we stray, the baked good cry out for rescue. The large tubs of frozen cream puffs look longingly-albeit through a frosty lens--at us. But what caught my eye yesterday and unfortunately I couldn't resist were two tubs of a fast food's sweet potatoes. I had seen other offerings from this fast food place before. Nothing enticed me, not the spiced apples, not the mac and cheese. But the sweet potatoes caught me in a vulnerable moment. So I plopped them in the cart. My husband is not a fan of sweet potatoes, really. I meant he could eat them if he had to eat something, but they just aren't his cup of tea-er-um potatoes-well, you know what I mean. He raised his eyebrows at me, I'm usually the one who tells him to put stuff back because a)this place sells stuff by the gallon and we don't need a gallon of whatever-it-was and b)it'll go bad before he decides that he really didn't like it that much before he bought this ginormous size. I understood his look. It was two tubs of the same stuff, it looked to be enormous since there are only two of us now in residence and who was gonna eat all that? I refused to put it back, though. And here's why:

This fast food restaurant isn't around as much anymore, but in it's "heyday" if you will, it was everywhere. Our family who was busy almost all the time, made it a practice to eat dinner together every night, no matter what the circumstances--unless the circumstances were too large to overcome--think working late, a basketball game in which one of the children figured in as a player as opposed to just watching, a committee meeting either at school or church that couldn't be accommodated by coming in later. Some of those days, I was just too tired to cook, or too lazy, take your pick. Some days it was a toss up. I was (and still am) the chef in the family, my husband never learned to cook and it usually didn't bother me to do this. But some nights it did and the fast food place that served chicken or turkey dinners with sides to go along was too good to pass up. So we would write down our preferences and the hubby and one of the kids would trek over to this place, get the order and come back. We'd feast on a dinner which though tailored to our specific likes, usually included at least either a fruit or a vegetable and it wasn't just a hamburger. I felt positively virtuous some nights after these dinners. So we fast forward to more recently. The children are no longer in residence and I'm feeling, especially on the weekends, somewhat melancholy about this. You'd think by now I'd be done with particular pity party, but I never was one to follow trends and this obviously isn't one I'm going to go along with either--for a long time. Anyway, I see something that I can do to sort of "relive" the days of having take out around the table with four of us instead of two and it doesn't cost a fortune. I'm not putting it back.

So I got home and when it came time to make dinner, I followed the package directions, put it in one of our own dishes and served it up. And it tasted really good. I remembered how much our son loved these as well and when we visited him out in sunny CA, we stopped at this fast food place and we both indulged in a side of these delicious sweet potatoes, laughing and remembering those dinners. And just for this particular President's Day weekend, I could pretend they were just upstairs in their room getting ready to come down to dinner. It was worth two tubs...

Discontented Winter

Winter is not very forgiving
And winter storms are like the girlfriend
whom you try not to see across the room
But she keeps staring at you with her arms folded
Across her chest, frostily.
It's hard to ignore.

In the grip of the storm
The snow floats noiselessly, relentlessly
Into a sugar coating of all things
nailed and un-nailed down.
Making everything look softer, fluffy, kinder.
But if you go outside, it isn't soft
It's cold and stinging, harsh and hard.
Although it is as quiet as a cemetery
At midnight.
Afterwards, the next day, when the sun is shining,
It stuns your eyes everywhere with it's
bright, brash light.
Then as the ice melts and
Pings softly against the house, it starts to look
Dirty and rumpled, like it was awakened and doesn't like it.
And everywhere the sound of digging, scraping and occasional laughter.
When the sun finally begins to set
All is awash in a subtle yellow light, not as brash
Like a girl just come from her first dance.
But the ice awaits at night and looks for you unawares.
It's evil slyly hidden in the blackly opaque frozen puddles
Of the street.
Not too forgiving, but sometimes beautiful in its aggressive anger.

My Circular Taste

I have to begin this post with a remembrance from my earlier years listening to my dad's preference in music on the radio. Most of the stations that played big bands, also played Easy Listening or Pop as well. This is where I heard Steve and Edie Gormet, Frank Sinatra and Jack Jones among others. As I got older I found I liked listening to this music more than the 70's stuff most of my generation listened to, therefore, I kept it hidden. I played it in the car when no one was watching-er-listening. But I knew the songs so well from having heard them so many times that I would sing along with the singer. Some of the songs were what people term as "standards". Songs like Blue Moon sung by Mel Torme or I've Got You Under My Skin by Frank Sinatra. I say "by" meaning, the vocalizations most identified with the song. They didn't write them, they just made them hugely famous by singing them. So we come to some other songs which entered my brain for one reason or another and stuck there. They weren't wildly popular, probably. Songs like "Who Can I Turn To," with Sammy Davis, Jr. singing it or "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" with Tony Bennett. Something about those songs stayed with me. So, anyways, one of those stayed-with-me-songs was one called "She Loves Me" and I think I originally heard some woman sing it--can't quite recall who--but the lyrics were witty and catchy. They faded into the background and I would it hear it once in a blue moon, but nothing too much on the radar. Then I heard the Jack Jones version and I loved it right away. His voice and the lyrics were great! But of course, no one played it very much, so when it came on the radio I wouldn't remember how much I liked it until I couldn't get it out of my head for three or four days.

Now we fast forward to a few months ago. I was purchasing a CD of Jack Jones songs because I still do like his voice, his phrasing and his eyes are really great, too! And on the CD I purchased was a song called, "She Loves Me." I have pretty good recall on those older songs, but I thought this one was some smarmy something or other and ignored it until I was tooling along in the car listening when it came on and I felt like I found an old friend. I played it numerous times in a row after that to refresh my memory of the lyrics I found so enchanting. Unfortunately, whilst refreshing my memory, it stayed running through my head repeatedly, so I needed to do something with it to make it go away. I decided that I would look up the lyricist for the song--not really something you can do on internet too well if someone recently released a song of the same or very similar name and all it wants to do is give you hits on the newer versions. I typed and retyped and revised and circumvented as best I could and finally found what I was looking for on Wikipedia--sort of. I found the guys' name, but the entry mentioned that the song actually came from a musical done in 1963 from a book entitled, Parfumerie written in Hungary.

I need to digress a moment here and tell you something else. I like old movies, too. And I watched one entitled, "In The Good Old Summertime" with Van Johnson and Judy Garland and was instantly entranced. I found out it was a remake of the movie, "Shop Around the Corner." I have since learned that "You've Got Mail" with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks is a remake of that film essentially. I watched "Shop Around the Corner," one Saturday when it was on some obscure movie channel. I decided that I would like to have the whole trilogy as it were: I now own the Judy Garland/Van Johnson and the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan one. I just need to purchase the other one.

So we come back to my looking at the Wikipedia write up of "She Loves Me" and what I find out is that the Hungarian play turned into the musical is the same story line as the above movies. All the same. And the music is from the musical.

I think this proves that I really don't have taste all over the map, I have really only one thing I love and that is this story, told over and over and over again. How depressing. I thought I was discerning. Here I find out, I'm not so much.

The words to the song, by the way are this (the song has kind of a bossa nova beat the Jones sings it):

Well! Well! Well! Well! Well!
Well! Well! Well! Well! Well!
Will wonders never cease?
I didn't like her!
I didn't like her!
I couldn't stand her
I couldn't stand her!
I wouldn't have her!
I never knew her,
But now I do!
And I could...
And I would...
And I know...

She loves me
And to my amazement
I love it knowing that she loves me
She loves me,
True, she doesn't show it
How could she,
When she doesn't know it.
Yesterday she loathed me, bah!
Now today she likes me, ah!
And tomorrow, tomorrow...
AAAAAAAAAAAh!

My teeth ache from the urge to kiss her
I'm speechless for I mustn't tell her
It's wrong now, but it won't be long now
Before my love discovers
That she and I are lovers
Imagine how surprised she's bound to be,
She loves meeeeeeeeeee!

I love her, isn't that a wonder?
I wonder why I didn't want her.
I want her, that's the thing that matters,
And matters are improving daily.

Yesterday I loathed her, bah!
Now today I love her, ah!
And tomorrow, tomorrow...
AAAAAAAAAAAh!

I'm tingling such delicious tingle,
I'm trembling, what the hell does that mean?
I'm freezing that's because it's cold out.
But still I'm incandescent
And like some adolescent
I'd like to stroll on ev'ry wall I see
She loves me!
She loves meeeeeeeee!

Just as a sidelight, another song in that musical (which had a revival in 1993, I think) is the song, "Will He Like Me," which Barbra Steisand made so wonderfully. See? I just like the same thing, I just didn't know it!

Music For Me

I am writing about music I like today because my children and husband don't like the same stuff I do and I feel left out. What I really feel though, is superior. Because what I like are things with melodies, and strings and flow and balance. What I do not like are things that are either screaming or incoherent babble. And screeching guitars, gotta say, I really detest screeching guitars. Actually screeching anything are pretty much something I don't like. The word makes my hearing aids tingle. The actual sound is much, too much for me.

But to continue. I went to visit my mother and stepdad today. We went out to breakfast, a very unusual event. I am still working and they aren't. But I have some days to burn before I lose them, so I took off and went to see them for a couple of hours. In the process of getting to their house I have noticed that the music that accompanies me is music that I can't hear on the radio anymore. Of course, if I had that satellite radio thingee, I might still be able to find a station, but I don't want to listen to all that talking and commercials and things. I want to hear what I like. And what I like isn't played anymore on the stations in my area. I like Sammy Davis, Jr. and Steve and Edie Gormet, Jack Jones and Frank Sinatra. I have a pretty good catalog of Gershwin, Porter and Berlin in my head. Lots of lyrics, too. Sung by those guys and some gals who used to perform on my father's radio stations. I have CDs, too. Lots of Frank. Just a few of the others. I put on whatever my particular favorite is for the day, and drive the next 45 minutes or so either listening or singing along--depending on my mood. Sometimes I skip around on an album, sometimes I play 'em straight through.

Some of the songs I realize are real relics of the past. Some of them make me cringe in their "political uncorrectness" these days. But hey, when they came out, they were very popular. And singable. And I got to thinking--what will my generation dance to at their children's weddings? If they take dancing lessons, they aren't learning to dance to "My Sweet Embraceable You" are they? Or are they? The music of the 70's was a rebellion of their parents music. I understand. But their parents music--okay--my parent's music is good for what it's called, "Easy Listening." There isn't any subliminal message underneath. It smooth and easy and not too demanding. Will I dance to Inna Gotta Davita or however it's spelled at my daughter's wedding? Geez! I hope not. And if that means I have to take dancing lessons with the hubby while listening to Frank or Sammy, then bring it on! He won't be thrilled, I'm sure, but I will be.

I remember reading a book one time and it said that this music I am referring to is, "the music of the ages." Like it lasts forever. It feels that way to me. Like it lasts forever. It brings me back to childhood and makes me wish that some of that "rosy glow" still existed. And so I listen to that music most of the time. I like the Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys and lots of other bands from the 70's. but I love those crooners of the past more than any other kind of music.

I intend to blog more about this kind of music and the songs. But I'm gonna go do the dishes now and get ready for my husband to come home from work. The dinner will be on the table (or at least the table will be set) and I'm glad that I can re-create that little bit of time in our house this evening.

Schools

The insistent ringing
The bleating bell
The constant chatter of the office.

The unfinished story, anecdote, sentence
Hangs for hours in the air
To be snagged in the off moment and half-finished
While the parents parade on and on.

With the snacks and lunches and the backpacks
Forgotten in the car, on the bench, in the front room
With stories of their delightful children and their
Endearing ways too numerous to mention.
Or their sad lamentations of forgetfulness
Of the parents of course, never the children.
Ruefully smiling, acknowledging that of course, it was
The children, but they're not to blame.

And the phone again rings and rings
Of children sick, or just simply staying home
Or the questions of safety duty, lunch duty, lunch selections,
Time of after school activities, during lunch activities and
The amount of time needed to get them to CCD.

The teachers are asking for their renewed schedule
their forgotten duties, their students home phone numbers.
And are we ordering out today? How much is that? What time will it arrive?
And are the pickles on the side?

The children stream into the nurses' office with
Lost and loose teeth, bloody noses, bruised skin and egos.
Parading past with assistants who need copies and schedules, too.

Did I miss this? Yes, surprisingly I did. As I trudge
Up the steps once again, as I did 7 plus years ago
Carrying papers, news, help and a smile or two.
But I will be denied it once again apparently.
Moving on to older students who don't need you to care
Just to make sure you don't get in their way.
Who will mow you down with a brief nod in your direction
Which is supposed to suffice for an apology.
They won't need the parents satellites as much, but they will
Need texting priviledges. They won't need a hug, but they
Would like it if you knew the answer to number 4 on the Math Quiz.

How different will it be, I wonder.
How much will be the same? Starting again and yet not.
I wonder. I wonder.