Be True to the Ghouls #MusicMovesMe

 It's Monday and it's time for music!

Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!)   Our head hostess is Cathy from Curious as a Cathy,  and she is joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and (last but not least) me.

Why not join our music loving folks?  It's so easy. All you have to do is join the linky above with a music post that contains at least one music video (there must be a music video or your post will be subject to removal or labeling "No Music").That's all it takes!

Each month, except December, we have a guest host.  This month, we are following a format that we will most probably be following for next year - we will continue to alternate "free to choose your music" weeks with a theme, but instead of having a guest host picking themes for a full month, we will have a guest host for each week, choosing that theme for the theme week.  The hope is more fun for everyone who participates in this fun musical blog hop.

Today is Halloween and our guest host, Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, invites us to explore the history of All Hallows Eve and put our spin on Halloween inspired songs.

Let's get started!  As many of us may know, Halloween originated with an ancient Celtic observance called Samhein, where people would dress in costumes and light bonfires to scare away ghosts. When the Romans conquered the Celtic lands, some Roman observances were intermixed.  Later, Pope Gregory III declared November 1 as All Saints Day (it was formerly held on May 13).  The day before, October 31, became All Hallows Eve, later shortened to Halloween.  Some of the Samhein observances made their way into Halloween.

The holiday wasn't universally popular in the United States until after the large Irish migration into the United States in the 1850's.  Trick or treating really became popular in the 1950's.

There are many people in the United States that have turned Halloween into a major decorating/party/drinking/watching horror movies/candy eating holiday.  There are also those following various major religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam among them) who will not participate in Halloween for various reasons.  Personally, I am in it for the candy (chocolate only-no candy corn, please!)

Today, I'm going to go a little vintage for these songs.  Some of these were paired with vintage cartoons from the 1920's and beyond, for a double vintage vibe.  Not all are specifically about Halloween, but incorporate some Halloween themes (the Devil, evil, witchcraft).

1954's Spooks, from Louis Armstrong.

Punky Punkin from Rosemary Clooney, one of my Mom's favorite singers.

From 1961 "That Old Black Magic" covered by Frank Sinatra.  This song was originally a hit for Glenn Miller in 1942 and has been covered by countless artists. 

Brian Wilson wrote this 1964 song sung by the Ghouls - Be True to Your Ghoul.

I Want to Be Evil - Eartha Kitt, from 1953.  I love those lyrics!

From 1959, Graveyard Rock - Tarantula Ghoul and Her Gravediggers

One more - I Put a Spell on You, from Credence Clearwater Revival.

And that's a (mummy) wrap!

You know what to do - join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me!

We Are Doing It Yet Again

One week from today our day will be 25 hours long in much of the United States

Wasn't it just yesterday (well, it was March 5, which seems like yesterday) when I blogged this:

"It's almost that time, here in the United States.

It's almost time to "spring ahead".  Almost time for many to suffer a couple of days of disorientation.  (I'm one of them.) Time again for people to beg, "Someone make it stop!"

Yes, it is time to spring ahead an hour to Daylight Saving Time. (Side note, it is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time).

I do a variation of this post twice a year.

Right now, in the United States, it is legal for a state to not implement Daylight Saving Time (which is why Hawaii, and Arizona outside the Navajo Nation can do it), but that is the only deviation that is permitted.

Although most Americans oppose the spring ahead/fall back practice, no one can seem to agree on exactly how it should end. We are split over year round daylight saving time or year round standard time. Or, should we go back a half hour so no one is happy?

So around and around we go. As the saying goes, where it stops, nobody knows. We've been doing it for years.

Now, it is 2022 and we we will do it again at 2am local time on Sunday, March 13.

And we'll be doing it again on November 6, because this all will be forgotten until November."

Guess what.  It's almost November.  Sure enough, we are dusting this topic off.  We will return to Standard Time, most of us in the United States (except the states listed above), on November 6. (And, on March 12, 2023, we will be jumping ahead once again....maybe).

Maybe...maybe this time....maybe we've reached critical mass.

Some things are actually starting to change.

Take the country of Mexico, for example.  They have four time zones, and the country goes back to Standard time today.  But come spring,  they are going to stay on Standard Time, except for some cities along the Mexico/United States border. They will be allowed to return to Daylight Saving Time to be synced with the United States.

Not only that, but in March of this year, the United States Senate passed a bill, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. (The states listed above that currently have year round Standard Time could continue with that.). If passed by both houses and signed into law by the President, the law would be effective in November of 2023.   

There are 19 states that have already passed year round Daylight Saving Time legislation and, if this becomes law, they can implement these state laws immediately.  New York, where I live, is not one of those states.

It doesn't appear the House is going to take up the issue any time soon but, given that the Senate bill was sponsored by a Republican (Marco Rubio), I wonder what will happen if Republicans regain control of Congress.

Our citizens, meanwhile, are split on the issue.

So, around and around we go, but we have a better chance of stopping this twice a year madness than ever.

Maybe.

Tenth Anniversary of Sandy and a Music Tribute

A strange combination, Sandy and a musical tribute, but that's the timing of this.

Today for the New Jersey/downstate New York area (and many other communities in the Northeast United States), marks the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. 

At 7:30 pm on October 29, 2012, Sandy hit New Jersey just to the north of Atlantic City.  That night and the following day, the storm slammed this area, including Long Island/New York City.

The storm is long gone, but not forgotten.  

Repairs are still being made, and we don't know if precautions being made will be enough. 

The vulnerability of the New York City mass transit system is just one concern out of many. 

Although I don't live in the area most impacted, Sandy is very much on my mind today.

I was born in the New York City suburb of Queens (which is on Long Island) in the Rockaways, one of the severely damaged area.  My childhood best friend, who lived in Brooklyn, and her husband, took in people who were more severely impacted than they were.

My spouse and I visited Brooklyn the following May, when the damage was still fresh enough for me to smell (yes, floods have a smell.)

Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, May 2013

During that trip, we visited Kingsborough Community College, which lies near the ocean.  My friend's spouse (a senior citizen) was a student at the college.

Trees were waking up after the winter although some had been killed by the storm. Spring is the time of renewal and rebirth, and at the time, I blogged:

"This past Sunday, we visited the campus of Kingsborough County Community College in Manhattan Beach (one of the many neighborhoods in the New York City borough of Brooklyn) for their annual Spring Concert.

Kingsborough County Community College is considered one of the top five community colleges in the United States.  One of the perks springtime students enjoy is the ability to use a private beach on the campus - what could be more perfect than a New York City college campus with its own beach?

Well, not when a Superstorm like Sandy hits.

 Meanwhile, at the concert auditorium, people were arriving, many of them (and many of the musicians) senior citizens.  I heard more than one friend greet another with tales of losing their homes or apartments.  That story is all too familiar to me, in my area of upstate New York, due to our own flooding in September, 2011.  But our flood was river water, not the ocean.

Two choruses performed - the "Day Chorus" of day students and volunteers, and the "Night Chorus" of night students and volunteers.  One of my friends is a member of both choruses.  We were also treated to the Brooklyn Wind Ensemble and Concert Band.

There were a number of songs with a religious theme, or "river" imagery (as in "crossing over to the other side").   One song in particular, Arlo Guthrie's "Valley to Pray", was an absolute pleasure to listen to, as was a medley of song from Les Miserables.

In the aftermath of Sandy, it just seemed surreal to sit in that audience.  But, after all, life doesn't stop after a disaster - nor should it."

In December of 2018, I visited a different section of Brooklyn.  A cousin drove my spouse and I around to different areas of the borough on Christmas Day after we watched a movie in Kings Plaza.

This area, called Geritssen Beach, was not supposed to be greatly impacted by Sandy.  No mandatory evacuation order was issued this area suffered a lot of damage.  By Christmas Day 2018 things looked a lot better.

But, with all disasters, the memories remain, as they will for people who experienced Ida, Ian, and many other storms since Sandy.

Speaking of memories, it's time to pay tribute to the late Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis died yesterday at the age of 87.  A greatly talented man with several hits in 1956-58, he also entered into a controversial (what an understatement) marriage to a cousin who was only 13 years old at the time.  It collapsed his career for years, but it's also true that he was one of the founding parents of rock n'roll music. 

Lewis was also one of the first inductees into the Rock & Hall of fame, in their first year (1986).  On October 16,  he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. 

I decided to post a couple of videos today to acknowledge the passing of this great musical talent of my youth.  First,  "Great Balls of Fire".

Finally, a live performance from 1964 of  "Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On".

RIP.

Colorful October Skies #SkywatchFriday

It's Friday, and it's time for some sky and color.  These are photos taken over the past week or so in the Southern Tier of New York State.

I love these kinds of clouds.

Along the Chenango River.

Our trees are rapidly loosing their leaves.

One more wispy cloud shot.

These blue skies will soon be rare, replaced by the gloom of November.  And December.  And January...

That's why we enjoy what we have now.  Beauty supplied by Nature.

Along the Susquehanna River.

The tiny dots in the middle of this picture are Canada geese flying.

I'll leave you with this picture of a cloud formation.

Joining up with Yogi and other sky watching bloggers today for #SkywatchFriday.

Do Not Forget Us While We Sleep #ThursdayTreeLove

Fall is speeding by.  Soon the color show will be over, and we in the Southern Tier of New York State will be left with bare trees, bitter winds, and snow.

But not yet.

Let's enjoy some of the last of the fall color of our trees, and a memory or two.

Red...

 Yellow...

Majestic.   The color has been the best we've seen in several years.

Memories of an apple tree (Taken October 12).
 

Trees reach for the sky with the last of their leaves.  This was taken Tuesday; most of those leaves have blown off in the wind.

Fallen maple leaves litter the ground, waiting to be raked up.  The trees have given us their all.  Now, they stretch, yawn, and enter their winter sleep.

"Do not forget our beauty while we sleep through the next several months", they seem to say.

No, we won't forget.  We will count the months and days until we see them awaken.

Joining Parul at Happiness and Food for #ThursdayTreeLove.

Tomato Face and other Fall Delights #WordlessWednesday

Who would think of a tomato jack o'lantern?

Nature would.  We picked this unripe tomato just before the frost, hoping to pickle it.  We looked at these marks - peck marks from a bird?

Doesn't it look like a face to you?

Maybe I can start a new trend. But perhaps you want something red.

How about this burning bush?

Green or red, I wish you (if you celebrate) a Happy Halloween.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

2022 Scarecrows Part III

Welcome, once again, to a scarecrow competition where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State. 

(For details, please see part 1).   

This was a free contest open to anyone.  Park goers would vote for their favorite.

Voting ended Sunday, and the winners will be announced on Friday.

Here are some more of the 50 some entries.  I had so many (and I'm not even going to show all of them) I had to split this into several posts.  Enjoy!

The minions were featured in a couple of the scarecrow entries.  My autistic brother in law gets services from ACHIEVE. 

Animal Adventure Park, which went viral in 2017 over a webcam they installed to track the pregnancy of the late April the Giraffe, enters every year.   Here's one angle of their entry for 2022.

Another angle.

Family Enrichment, with an important message.

I hope the crocheted blanket on the table of Broome County senior centers survived the weather.

These last two might be the most scary one of all.  First, I may need to explain that this entry was submitted by an income tax preparer.

Finally...clowns.

The one thing that saddens me is that some of these entries have become so elaborate, that entries that are plainer (for whatever reason) have no chance to win.  That's one reason why I wanted to include some plainer ones, like the Broome County Senior Center entry a few photos above.  All of these take time, effort, and resources, and I applaud them all.

Do you have a favorite?

Ever Songs #MusicMovesMe

It's Monday and you know what time it is:  time for Music Moves Me!

Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!)   Our head hostess is Cathy from Curious as a Cathy,  and she is joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and (last but not least) me.

Why not join our music loving folks?  It's so easy. All you have to do is join the linky above with a music post that contains at least one music video (there must be a music video or your post will be subject to removal or labeling "No Music").That's all it takes!

Each month, except December, we have a guest host.  This month, we are following a format that we will most probably be following for next year - we will continue to alternate "free to choose your music" weeks with a theme, but instead of having a guest host picking themes for a full month, we will have a guest host for each week, choosing that theme for the theme week.  The hope is more fun for everyone who participates in this fun musical blog hop.

Today is a "free to choose" week, and I am choosing song with "Ever" (or Forever) in their titles.

Evergreen, a 1976 hit from Barbra Streisand. 

Everlong from the Foo Fighters; a song that has become bittersweet listening for Foo Fighters fans.

Two beautiful song from the 1980's with the same title  Forever Young.    First,  Alphaville and their 1984 hit, Forever Young. 

Rod Stewart and his song, from 1988.

I would be remiss if I don't include Bob Dylan's 1973/74 recording of "Forever Young", which was originally written in 1966 as a lullaby for his young son.  He recorded two versions in 1973, a slow version and a fast version.  

I like the slow version better, so here it is.  You may find similarities in this song and Rod Stewart's song above.  Rod Stewart's version is not a true cover but was similar enough that Stewart contacted Bob Dylan and agreed to share the royalties from his song with Dylan.  

Best Song Ever - One Direction.   This song is so catchy and the video is funny.  I would have hated to be the person who cleaned up the mess, though.

How about a song with both words? Let's wrap up with  Perry Como, and Forever and Ever, from 1949.

And that's an ever-wrap. 

Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me!

Sunday Scarecrows - 2022 Scarecrows Part II

Welcome to a scarecrow competition where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State. 

(For details, please see part 1). 

Voting ends today, and the winners will be announced on Friday.

Here are some more of the 50 some entries.

I can't find a list of numbers and their corresponding names online, alas, but many of the entries are from non profits.

Fun with your guitar?

Become a foster parent!

When holidays collide.

Gru and some of his minions. 

If you live in the United States, we are coming up on election day (and there may already be early voting where you live - for us, not yet). So, get out and VOTE!

It's more important than ever.

More scarecrows (possibly!) on Tuesday.

Textures and Colors of Fall Foods

Some pictures from today's farmers market in Binghamton, New York.

Largest local cauliflower I've seen in a long time. 

Carrots and beets.  I'm not a fan of most beets but I could eat carrots every day.

Celeriac is a root veggie I have never grown or purchased, but I've read these are delicious "fried" in an air fryer.

Brussel sprouts.  Unlike many supermarkets, the local farm markets sell the plant, stalk and all.

Leeks, celery, and fennel.  We used to grow leeks years ago but don't have the room to grow it any more in our community garden (we downsized the plots spouse maintains).  I love a soup spouse makes with fennel, white beans, and some other veggies and veggie stock, blended in the pot with a hand blender.

And now, although I normally want to make my blog a haven of calm and peace...

I am thinking of the people of Ukraine as I blog this.  We have bounty here; they have war there. Our children enjoy the fall fruits and vegtables.  Their children drill to survive a worst case scenario.   Winter is coming.  

May our country and other countries continue to support them in their fight for freedom.💙💛

Susquehanna Autumn Sunset #SkywatchFriday

It's been a while since I watched a sunset along the Susquehanna River.  Why not join me for this October 15 sunset?

We decided to take a walk along a path and watch the sunset in progress.
 

The sun had already gone down and we were hoping for some nice color.

The river, now that our drought seems to have ended, is filling up again.

The upright poles are protective plastic tubes for young trees that were planted in the spring as part of a restoration project.

We've made a circle and it's time for us to leave.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers each Friday for #SkywatchFriday.

The Autumn of Things

The growing season is over.

Sage with a hint of light frost

Yesterday morning, the frost kissed my flower garden and our community garden.   For some plants, it was a deadly kiss.

It was just cold enough to end the lives of our most tender plants - our tomatoes, impatiens, zinnias, and what was left of our basil.  

Asters still standing after yesterday morning's frost

Other plants that are just a tiny bit less sensitive - peppers, pineapple sage (not what is pictured above), my domesticated asters - made it through, although some bear the scars of the light frost.

Our plants that will take some frost - Swiss chard, Asian greens, geraniums, pansies - stood tall and proud.  For now. In our climate, the weather gets too cold for any of these to survive the winter outdoors.

It's time to switch my attention to two things:  which container plants will I save and try to overwinter, and what will I do about houseplants.

To everything, there is a season, and we humans are no different.

In some way, we are different from our plants.  In some ways, we are the same.

We are born, grow, flower.  Call this the spring and summer of our lives.

Then comes the autumn of our lives, if we are fortunate enough to make it that far (not all my friends/family have, and, I'm willing to bet, not all of yours have, either.)  One day, the human equivalent of frost will come to each of us.  For most of us, we don't know when or where.  We can't look at a calendar and say, oh, we are coming up on the frost or freeze date.

We do the best we can with the time we have remaining.

We plant the garden of our lives.  We learn new things.  We read new books.  We try new activities. 

For me, it's houseplants and trying to overwinter outdoor plants.  Why not?  In a way, they have become my children.

In the last two months I have purchased several new houseplants:  two ferns (a bit out of my comfort zone), a hoya (out of my comfort zone), another snake plant (I have three types now) and another pothos, this time one with silver in the leaves. 

Crispy wave fern (from Trader Joe's) and hoya Australis "Lisa"

It makes me happy (except, of course, when I kill one of them).

My spouse has turned to birding.  Why not?  I can enjoy that with him, although I'm not into it as much as he is.

We try to age with grace.  I have examples in my life, people I know or knew, who showed me what aging can be like if we do it right.  

What do those people have in common?  Several things: a zest for learning.  A desire to stay active, not to sit in front of the television all day.  A willingness to try new things.  And, taking care of someone and something.

The graceful part is the hard part, though.  I catch myself complaining too much.  I don't practice gratitude enough.

I do have that zest for learning, though.  I want to keep my mind active, to appreciate sunsets, to see new things. 

I hope I can keep that up for my remaining years.

Chipmunks #WordlessWednesday

We have at least two (probably more) chipmunks living in our small back yard this year.

I can't help but not upset it.  The cuteness factor is too strong.  They like chasing each other, but I am not happy when they disturb my plantings.

Here, an Eastern chipmunk is exploring one of my plant containers.  These pictures were taken on October 14.

 

Hey! Get out of my planter!

Resistance is futile.  Instead, I sit in the chair where I am blogging, wrestle my iPhone out of my pocket, and start making Mr. or Ms. Chipmunk famous.

The upright plant, incidentally, is called a Persian shield.  Unfortunately, it will die with the frost.

Here he or she is.  This is the only chipmunk we have in the East, so ID is easy.

Jumping out in one fluid, blurry, motion.

I haven't been sitting out there recently, as it is too cool, but it's supposed to warm up again this weekend.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for #WordlessWednesday.