What's That You Said? #MusicMovesMe

It's that time to join up with other music bloggers for #MusicMovesMe.

Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only , please!)   First, there is XmasDolly,   Her co-hosts are: Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and me. Xmas Dolly is finally up and running.  It's spring, and it's a good day!

Each month we have a guest host who picks themes for the month, and this month we are featuring our very own founder and head host, Xmas Dolly. 

The theme for today is "You Pick". 

The other day, one of the Music Moves Me blog posts reminded me of a song that was a hit in 1963. This song is in the Grammy Hall of Fame.  It also was famous for its mumbled lyrics.  About all the lyrics many can understand is "Louie Louie" and "oh no".

Perhaps because of that, a lot of people felt that obscene lyrics were hidden in the mumbling - so much so that the FBI ended up doing a three month investigation into the song in 1964.  Their conclusion?  They couldn't find anything wrong.

Here are the Kingsmen with Louie Louie.

When I found Louie Louie on You Tube, You Tube recommended I listen to 1980's"Ah Leah" by Donnie Iris, and, for once, I decided to take its advice.  This is another song I enjoy, so why not?  The two songs did seem to fit together in a way.

"Ah Leah", in turn, led me to Autograph's 1984 top 40 hit "Turn Up The Radio". Coincidentally, it's another song I like.

In 1975, Bruce Springsteen hit the charts with "Born to Run".  You Tube didn't lead me to this song but listening to the other songs did. This live version, I think, has less mumbling than the studio version.  I can still remember Bruce Springsteen making the cover of Time Magazine back when this song came out.

Finally, this wasn't recommended by You Tube, but it popped into my mind.  Such beautiful lyrics, and (sorry Beatles) so superior to their original.  "Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds". I've read that even the Beatles thought Elton John's version was superior to their original.

And that is a wrap!  Next week-same time, same place, and hope you visit me again for more Music!

Forever Young 2021 edition

This, with some edits, is a rerun of a post from 10 years ago.  It's about my spouse's 40th high school reunion.

The Dancing Queen.  No longer 17.

The administrator for a children's hospital on the West Coast.  The merger and acquisitions lawyer up from Washington DC.  The school psychologist practicing in Virginia.  The financial consultant.  The grandmother of three fresh from a trip to Hawaii.  The produce clerk.  The man taking constant phone calls because his father was in the hospital, a thousand miles away.

What did we all have in common?   Six hours of dancing, talking, sharing email addresses, and looking at old photos.

A 40th high school reunion.

Not mine, but my husband's.  One of his friends organized it.  Before last night I had only met one of these people, and to my amazement, I recognized him the minute I saw him.  

My husband was already in college when I met him so his high school years was a part of his life that I was never able to share.

Until now.

There was the woman who, surveying the room, said to me "This is surreal".  Yes it was and I bet everyone who goes to a reunion (especially the 30th, the 40th, and beyond) thinks the same thing.  When you age, the people you knew in your childhood (if you don't see them as adults) are frozen in time.  The people you went to high school with are, in your mind, forever 17 and 18.  Even if they are really 58 or 60.  (Or, 65 or 66).

Until you go to the reunion, that is, and this is the surreal part.  You walk into the room and see a bunch of middle aged people just like you.  Some look like their yearbook photos.  Many do not. Many of us grey, all of us wrinkled, some of us in shape, others not so much.  Some of us have achieved great things.  Some have lived the lives they had planned to live but for many of us our lives have taken many unexpected directions.  Some good, some not.

We are older, wiser.  We accept the class clown, we reminisce about old antics,  we laugh with and hug the classmate who had too much to drink and is now trying to cry on everyone's shoulder.  We know this moment isn't going to be forever.  We know when we have the next reunion we will be near 70.  Maybe we should have these more often.

Will we do that?

Or will we be reabsorbed into our daily lives?  Only time will tell.

 

But for that one night we were....forever young. 

Strawberry Spring

Today, it is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.  Where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State, we had clear blue skies and springlike weather today.  Bulbs are coming up although my crocuses haven't decided to bloom yet.

This year's big surprise:  strawberries.

Last spring, I bought a strawberry plant - although considered an ornamental, it does produce good tasting tiny strawberries.  I planted it in a large hanging basket.  We got a handful of ripe berries from the plant last year. When the cold weather moved in, we moved the plant to our unheated garage, and hoped for the best.

Last week we visited the plant, and it was obviously alive.  We were able to put it outside on a couple of sunny days. We still have to take it in at night.

Today, this is how my plant greeted spring.  It's definitely broken dormancy.  It may have helped that we had a relatively mild (temperature wise) winter - it never got below zero at our house.

We haven't started any seeds yet, but tomorrow, we will go over to our community garden and plant sugar snap peas in my raised bed planter.  The in ground plots don't normally get plowed until May.  We haven't started tomatoes yet - this year decided to start them a little late.  But it will be time really soon.

I'm thinking of growing some swiss chard in a large pot again this year. We planted a couple of plants from seed in a pot last year and they did well - "proof of concept". I think we've given up on growing cucumbers in a large planter - we get some but then they get mold, or a weird thing where they grow with one pinched end and the cuke's growth is stunted.  Obviously we are doing something wrong.

The birds in our neighborhood are quite active.  Along the river, we saw the underbelly of what "may" have been a 2nd year juvenile bald eagle in flight - it was large and had a beautiful pattern on the underside of its wings.  It flapped a few times, wings held straight, and then soared a few seconds, then flapped again.  It almost made me gasp.  We saw one adult bald eagle (first time ever) along the river several times in late fall, so, who knows. On the other hand, we are just beginning our birding journey so I'm sure we will make a lot of ID mistakes along the way.

As a bonus, my one blooming African violet is putting up more flower buds.  I killed some house plants over the winter, and wonder if I was giving them too much love, since I'm home most all the time.

So, let's call today "strawberry spring" and see what else the weekend brings.

What about you?

Along the River #SkywatchFriday

This week, I've spent some time with my spouse watching the river near our home in the Southern Tier of New York.  There have been a couple of great sunrises, too, but I wasn't able to catch them in their full glory.

Before I show you the river, how about a couple of those sunrise photos?

The problem was, the beautiful redness was almost totally hidden by houses and I was in my house slippers.  As usual, there are the power lines, too, which I've made my peace with.  

Here's slightly another view.  If only I could briefly remove those trees on the right...you'll just have to take my word for it.  It was so red.  But now, let's move to the river.

Sometimes the skies are dramatic.

It's hard to see but just to the left of center, between two trees, there are two small dots.  Ducks.

Sometimes,it's the reflection of the sky. (yes, the river level is up above some trees, due to spring snow melt.)

Let's try again to see a duck. Again, just left of center, and just a little dot.

As I do each Friday, joining up with Yogi at #SkywatchFriday.  

Tomorrow is officially spring.

Here's hoping it's a good one.

The Last Full Day

I'm posting a bit later than I do on weekdays.  I had a post all ready to go, and put it back in my drafts because I realized what today was.

Last week, I had mentioned NBC News' "Last Day" project, where people sent the network the last pictures they took before the pandemic struck.  These photos documented events in the everyday life that we all took for granted.

I don't quite count photos taken on the day the pandemic was declared as my last photos.  In a way, I count March 19 as the "last day" as it was the day my work life changed.  My work, where I spent over 40 hours each week, was a big part of my waking life.

I would take photos on my lunch hour (and you'll see some of these in April, during the Blogging from A to Z Challenge). Sometimes I would take pictures of sunrises and sunsets on the way to or from work, too.  But, on March 19, 2020, that all changed.  

Tomorrow, it's a year since I was sent home to work.  Today, one year ago, was my last full day at work.

This is a portion of an email I sent to my guest photographer about 10pm the day I was sent home, with some edits.

"At least I feel fine - for now.

[My employer's] plan is to have 80% of people working from home by the end of next week...

I was scheduled for the first wave, to be working from home [Friday, March 20, 2020].  [HR and IT people] were going around the building meeting with each department.  So I got hold of my son  and he got the ethernet wire in his old bedroom hooked up to our router.  I cleaned up his old desk, still in his room. It's in rough shape but it's a desk, and it's on the 2nd floor so I don't get in my spouse's way.

Well, about 9:30 am  today [IT] shows up at my desk and says, "I'm packing your  [equipment] up.  So she's disconnecting me and putting everything into boxes ....taking my computer and related stuff and loading it onto a cart.  I said, give me a half hour to pack up my desk and get my spouse down here.

[Co-worker] helped me take them down (my back wouldn't have survived) to find all my boxed stuff on the floor near the security guard, so [co-worker] picked it up, box by box, and helped me carry it out to my spouse.

And that is how I left [employer].

I opened the back hatch of our vehicle to find the entire back cargo area filled with bags of cow manure (don't ask).  I almost lost it right there, right in front of [co-worker]. We had to put everything on the back seat and I told spouse don't you dare brake hard because this is all going to go flying...

I was back up about noontime.  There were a couple of glitches but actually it went quite well,  It's really weird having my work computer at home."

It's still there.

Meanwhile, everything was closing down around us.  The city I worked in declared a state of emergency on March 16 and our first county case of COVID was announced on March 17, 2020. State mandates were closing businesses, and I was sent home a day earlier than expected because of a state mandate affecting occupancy of office buildings.

 

Many of us at my company are still working from home (and I am grateful I can continue to do so until some unspecified time.)  In fact, I am not permitted into the building.  I haven't been in there since March 19, 2020.

 

Thinking about it still makes me emotional.  Perhaps that day was the moment I realized just how much our lives were about to change.

Taken March 20, 2020 in my front yard

Change happens for many reasons.  When was a moment you realized your life was about to change?

Graupel #WordlessWednesday

Have you ever heard of (or seen) graupel?

Graupel is a word defined as "precipitation that forms when supercooled water droplets are collected and freeze on falling snowflakes."  It is not the same as hail or sleet.

We see it on occasion where I live in New York State.  Yesterday, it fell during my late afternoon walk.  I was able to take a picture of the graupel around my white Lenten rose blooms.  It's the grainy white stuff on the ground next to my flowers.

I can't wait for spring.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

The Crochet Summit

Crochet has been teaching me lessons for the past 50 plus years.

50 plus years...I wonder at that sentence, and think of the freshman (as we were called back then) girl going to a commuter college who admired a crochet vest made by a fellow student she knew from high school.

S. was talented.  She had taken a denim jacket and embroidered the back into a work of art, complete with an overarching rainbow.  And she crocheted, something that my mother had done once.  She had never taught me before she died when I was in eighth grade, possibly because of her rheumatoid arthritis.

But now, S. was offering to teach me to crochet.  I took her up on her offer, and she taught me the chain stitch and the slip stitch. (No, you don't need to know what these are to enjoy this post, I promise you.)  I self taught myself some other stitches.  

Crochet was love at first chain, and I've been crocheting ever since.

I don't remember my first project, a scarf made with the chain stitch.  It was awful.  Of course it was, no one ever achieves perfection with their first project, or even their 5000th.  

I have to remember that now, because, for the first time ever, I clicked on a Facebook ad. 

I could say The Devil Made Me Do It.  Anyway, the ad was for a Crochet Summit.  And it was FREE.

Yes, I know.  Online nothing is ever free.  But I went ahead and signed up.  It's five days, April 5 through 9th.

This summit is five days of free classes in crochet, some for beginners, some not.  And yes, the summit is free.  But the catch is (drum roll):  each day's classes (which are prerecorded so they are all available the day of the class, starting at 9am Eastern time, are only available (along with any handouts) for 24 hours.

If you don't have time that day, you're out of luck.  Unless....

Unless you pay $59 for a VIP pass.  Then you have a year to watch and you can watch an unlimited number of times.  40 some odd classes (ranging from 30 to 60 minutes in length), plus 19 crochet patterns. That's a lot to absorb, especially if you work part time, which I do. I don't get vacation time, either.

Now, I'm not complaining.  There are a lot of people who have found ways to make things free by offering upgrades for an extra charge.  I have no problem with that. 

I have never taken advantage of You Tube crochet videos and so I don't know what my experience with the classes will be.  I now have the list of classes and patterns and it's not going to be like drinking from a fire hose - a number of the projects don't interest me. 

Right now, I'm not upgrading.  But we'll see.

More about my crocheting later this week. 

Have you ever participated in a hobby "summit"?

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day March 2021

(If you are looking for my Music Moves Me post, please click here.)

Beware the Ides of March.  That's good advice where I garden, in New York's Southern Tier (zone 5b).  The weather can be changeable. Blustery.  Snow squalls, like yesterday.  Or, temperatures near 70F (21 Celsius) just a few days ago.  Take your pick.  I'll pick the warm days, thank you.

The snow cover is gone, revealing....flowers!

White Lenten Rose has been blooming beneath the snow - it was budding back when our continuous snow cover started back in December.  Ta-da!

My purple Lenten Rose is budding.

For good measure, I bought a third Lenten Rose for my table - it was potted up and a good price.  Even if it doesn't survive next winter, I'm still getting pleasure from it now.

No crocus in our yard yet - guess the crocus will be skipping GBBD this year. We have the leaves but not the flowers.  So let's shift to the indoors.

The primrose I bought in a supermarket right after New Years is still blooming.

One of my African violets is blooming, too.

I had taken cuttings of Beacon impatiens, a variety resistant to the wilt that plagued my flower garden for several years, and two of the plants survived.  They've been blooming for a month or so now.

Thanking Carol at May Dreams Gardens for continuing to host this monthly meme.  Please visit some of the other blogs that are linked to her site and enjoy a day full of flowers today.

That Old Time Rock 'N Roll - #MusicMovesMe

 

It's that time to join up with other music bloggers for #MusicMovesMe. I have two posts today; Garden Bloggers Bloom Day will be posted later, but I will include a link to Music Moves Me on that blog (in case you get confused).

Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only , please!)   First, there is XmasDolly,   Her co-hosts are: Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and me. Xmas Dolly is finally up and running (hope I'm not jinxing her) - welcome back!

Each month we have a guest host who picks themes for the month, and this month we are featuring our very own founder and head host, Xmas Dolly. 

The theme for today is "Build a Playlist of Old Rock and Roll songs".

Your wish is my command, and it helps that I am...umm...old.  So let's try these favorites from my childhood. 

We must start with a classic from 1954-The Chords and Sh-Boom.  I suspect The Crew Cuts version is a bit more well known, but I wanted to start with the original.

Let's move ahead a year -  Bil Haley and his Comets from 1955 - Rock Around the Clock.

In the Still of the Night - Fred Parris and the Satins, dates from 1956.

No "early rock" playlist can be without Elvis Presley, one of the greatest of all time.  Although Elvis was already making it big earlier, I am picking this song from 1957 - Jailhouse Rock. 

Skipping a couple of years, we arrive in 1959, where a lot of my favorite childhood songs reside.  Let me pick one: it's not technically rock.  In fact, it dates from 1928 and a work called The Threepenny Opera.  The lyrics were originally in German.   Bobby Darin's lyrics do deviate from the first English translation (and the lyrics of the song sung earlier that decade by Louis Armstrong).

Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto in 1936) had what some might call a tragic life. He was raised by his grandmother, whom he thought was his mother. As a child, he survived bouts of rheumatic fever, which damaged his heart and affected his health for the rest of his short life.  He apparently always suspected he would die young and he did (at age 37).  A talented singer and songwriter, Bobby Darin went to my high school (not when I did!) so I wanted to go into some detail about his life.  Now, on to the song.

Bobby Darin and Mack the Knife.

Now, it's nearly time to return to 2021.  For my last song, from 1962, Gene Chandler sings Duke of Earl.

And that's a wrap!

Join us again next Monday for more music.

 

Spinach Pi (With a Recipe)#PiDay

Today is Pi Day, and it's time to make a different spinach pie, one that is one of my son's favorite dishes.

Pi Day, March 14, is a day to celebrate mathematics. In the American method of day numbering, today is 3-14:  March 14.  Or, the first three digits of the mathematical value "Pi".

It also would have been Albert Einstein's birthday.

Pi Day honors the number representing the radio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.  Pi is an infinite number - it goes on indefinitely, but, not only that, it is a non repeating decimal.  No pattern to Pi has ever been found.  This website shows Pi computed to 100,000. digits.

To several decimal points:  3.14159265358979323846....

Now, about that spinach pie.  Or, as we will call it today, Spinach Pi.

Years ago, we lived for several years in rural Northwest Arkansas.  We had gotten into some wild foods, including lambs quarters, and wanted to see if we could make a "spinach" pie out of these nutritious wild greens a pen pal told me about.  But there were no filo leaves to be found anywhere local.

But we could find egg roll wrappers, and that's what we ended up using.

We haven't eaten wild greens in years, but the recipe remains.  Our son grew up on this spinach pie (OK, technically, not a pie) and, as I mentioned, it is one of his favorites.

This makes one eight inch square cake pan's worth.  Yes, a true Pie for Pi Day should be round but...well, this is our tradition.  You should also be able to make this in a pie pan.  One other note, this is so simple a child who enjoys cooking could help with this.

Ingredients

1 1/2 frozen chopped spinach (10 oz each) blocks

About 7 or 8 egg roll wrappers

6 oz feta cheese, crumbled (you can buy a block and crumble it yourself)

1 tbsp light butter style spread such as Olivio

1 tbsp (approximately) of breadcrumbs

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Defrost the spinach.  Melt the spread.  In an 8 inch square cake pan, lay down a wrapper and brush with a small amount of the spread.

 

Spread some spinach, then some crumbled feta cheese, top with another wrapper, and brush with the spread, similar to how you assemble a lasagna.

 

End with a wrapper, brush with spread, sprinkle with small amount of breadcrumbs.
 

Here is the assembled Pi.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

One more note - this 8 inch cake pan belonged to my mother, who passed away back in 1965.  It is one of my most prized possessions.

Do you have any plans for Pi Day?

 

Here's another one of my Pi Day posts, if you need further inspiration.

A to Z 2021 Theme Reveal #AtoZChallenge

Yes, I know.   It isn't March 8.  It isn't even close.

It's been a hard year for a lot of bloggers.  I've plowed on, but I am feeling mentally exhausted.

Every year since 2015 I have joined a wonderful blogging challenge called Blogging from A to Z.  Every April day (excepting Sundays) we blog about something according to the letters of the alphabet - A on April 1, B on April 2, and so forth. 26 days, 26 letters.  The rules are simple - blog about something reflecting the letter of the day.  Photos, artwork, fiction, non fiction, all are welcome.  Just try to come up with 100 words per blog, but there are no word count police out there.

I just wasn't feeling it this year.  But, this morning, I finally made up my mind.  I'm going to join the challenge, and see if I can challenge myself to last the entire month.

For me, the writing isn't the hardest part - I've blogged daily since late April, 2011 (yes, for almost 10 years.)  It's the visiting other blogs.  I've met some bloggers over the years and I still read their blogs.  But it is a strain, visiting blog after blog.  I also admit that I have fallen in love with several blogs over the years, only to find that they rarely blog outside of A to Z.  But that's life.

What I finally did was look up my themes from 2015, and started to reread some of those posts with pleasure.  Here are my themes, and you can see a pattern here:  I've admitted it before.  I'm a photo hoarder.  I have well over 11,000 photos on my iPhone SE first generation.  This month of April is when I strive to show some of those photos the light of day (or my blog).

2015-America the Beautiful (my travels).

2016 - Days of our Lives (no, not the TV soap opera)

2017 - Traveling Through Time and Space

2018 -  Florida Outside the Theme Parks

2019 -  Finding America Through Photos

2020 - America the Beautiful (I never realized I repeated my 2015 theme!)

In 2020, I made a trip to Florida in January, and then..well we all know what happened in March.  I have not been outside my home New York State since we returned home from the January trip to Florida.  So the theme was easy:

Theme for 2021 - New York State

It actually fits in with one of my pet peeves - people who think New York State and New York City are the same thing.  Trust me, they aren't the same thing.   I won't bore you with my love/hate relationship with my native New York City, but I want to show you some of the beauty of New York State, both outside and inside New York City (mostly outside). 

I left New York State as a young adult, and returned almost 35 years ago.  It's my home.  It has flaws but I love it. 

(Except when it snows)

This is a perfect theme as I continue to stay near home.  Some pictures and topics will be related to the pandemic, and some won't be.  I think this theme is what I need to re-energize myself. 

Now I just need to write the posts.  You really do need to write most of them ahead of time.

I hope you will join me in my leap of faith.

Now and Then Skies #SkywatchFriday #LastPhoto

It's been a year since the world changed.

But, much in our lives has not changed.  The sun rises.  The sun sets.  Birds sing and fly and interact with each other.  Trees leaf out and bloom.  That's the beauty of Skywatch Friday, that we can still mark these occasions.

Sunrise March 3. 

 A walk by the Susquehanna River.  Farewell to the constantly white, dreary skies of winter.

Last week, we watched clouds in the sky.

Wednesday, we took a drive after work to buy some maple syrup.

Yesterday, we went to our local botanical garden.

One final photo.  NBC News has a project called "Last Photo" where they show the last photo people took before the pandemic descended on us (March 11, 2020).  This photo is one of my last photos - a sunrise on my way to work in downtown Binghamton, New York, on March 9, 2020.   Never did I realize it would be one of the last times....

Joining Yogi and other bloggers who watch the sky at #SkywatchFriday.

Blue Sky Tree #ThursdayTreeLove

On the second and fourth Thursday of the month, I participate in #ThursdayTreeLove, with a picture of one or more trees.

Where I live in the Northeast United States, this is the time of year where winter and spring converge.  It is still winter according to the calendar, but we have unseasonably mild weather right now.  Our snow cover, a constant companion since December, is melting and where the ground is bare of snow,  spring bulbs are popping up.

Even the trees are feeling the secret signal to come out of dormancy.  Sap is rising.  Maple farmers are harvesting the sap of sugar maple trees, and boiling to make syrup and other yummies is in progress.

This tree, photographed yesterday at the Broome County library on the edge of downtown Binghamton, New York is showing remnants of tiny fruit from last year- and swelling buds.  It's hard to see the buds with my iPhone SE first generation picture, but they are there.  When the leaf out signal is given, they will be ready.

Yesterday, the sky was clear blue - something we don't get in the heart of winter, hardly ever.

Aaaah.

Joining Parul and other tree loving bloggers for the first March 2021 #ThursdayTreeLove.

P.S. If you've been wondering if I will participate in the Blogging from A to Z April challenge this year, I should have a post up in the next several days discussing that.  I still haven't made my decision as of this morning.

Maple Sweetness #WordlessWednesday

It's maple syrup season where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State.   

Later today, I hope to be going to a sugar house to buy some maple syrup.  The syrup I like is what we call dark amber - it is darker and full of more flavor than what you can buy in the supermarkets.

These are a couple of pictures I took several years ago.  Today, it's supposed to get near 60 degrees (15.6 degrees Celsius) so there may not be any snow.

As you may be aware, maple syrup is made from the sap of the sugar maple tree, which is collected and transported to a sugar house for boiling into syrup.  The "raw" sap doesn't have much of a taste.  Native Americans, years ago, figured out if you condensed the sap, you got yourself a sweet treat.

This is a local sugarhouse.

This sugarhouse, at least in 2013, was still using a wood fired evaporator.   The boiled down syrup has a special flavor if wood is used.

I can't wait for this afternoon.  There won't be any samples this year, I'm sure, due to COVID-19, but I already know what it will taste like.  It will taste like the end of winter.  Sweet.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Postcard from Iceland

I got a wonderful Valentine's Day gift  in the mail last week- a postcard from "new friends in Iceland".

I don't have an official bucket list, but if I did, visiting Iceland would be on the list.  I have discovered, too, that my spouse and my adult son and even a good friend (my "guest photographer") would love to go one year, too.

It wouldn't have been easy for me prior to COVID-19.  I have had a fear of flying for many years and haven't been on an airplane in nearly 30 years.  But, that's the only way I can get to many places.  A travel agent, right before COVID-19, told me that more people than I might think take anti anxiety medication prior to flights, and that might be an option to consider.

In February, I read an online article in Forbes magazine written by Lois Alter Mark about a luxury hotel in Iceland that was offering to send postcards out to 700 people.  That was my Valentine's Day gift to myself.  My guest photographer also signed up.

Here's the site for the Hotel Rangá announcement. Their employees wanted to brighten the day of people all over the world.  They sure brightened mine.  (They did get requests for all the postcards, in case you were wondering.)

The front said "14 Feb 2021 With love, waiting for the day we can travel once again. (my name and a heart) Hope to see you soon with love from Iceland."  The stamp also was fascinating, with a "utan Evrópu" designation, meaning it was meant for postage outside Europe.  It got even more interesting when I read that Iceland stopped issuing stamps in October of last year.  It's a fascinating thing that should be of interest to anyone watching the woes of our post office system in the United States, but I digress.

The back of the postcard is a picture of the property during a visit of the Northern Lights. (And yes, I thanked them on their Facebook page.)

Before I get too excited, I have to realize that right now, Americans are banned from Iceland.  But there is always "one day".

I looked at their website and quickly realized this hotel is a bit outside my budget, (and their restaurant even more outside my budget) but you know what they say about dreams coming true? (Should I start buying lottery tickets now?) You do get a lot for your money, including access (during the dark part of the year) to an observatory, weather permitting, and a hot tub. 

I had such a good time exploring their website. It has a wealth (and I do mean a wealth) of information.

Here's a recipe for salmon, along with a dining playlist.

Lois Alter Mark, thank you for reopening this dream for me and inspiring me to learn about this country.  Just going through their website from my couch was a vacation.

To my postcard writer from Iceland, with love from the United States.

AM

Remember #MusicMovesMe

It's that time to join up with other music bloggers for #MusicMovesMe.

Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only , please!)   First, there is XmasDolly,   Her co-hosts are: Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and me. Xmas Dolly continues to have issues with her blog, but I hope she is able to join us today.

Each month we have a guest host who picks themes for the month, and this month we are featuring our very own founder and head host, Xmas Dolly. 

The theme for today is "You Pick".

I've been doing so much remembering this month that I decided my theme for today would be songs about remembering.

One of the best remembering songs ever (in my most humble of opinions) comes from my childhood.  

This first song has an interesting origin story.  Originally, it was some seven minutes in length (outtakes are available on You Tube) and a certain then unknown session musician by the name of Billy Joel played the piano in this and another subsequent hit's demo versions.  (In research, I've read that Billy Joel is not sure if his playing made it to the master version of the song.)  The recording had to be cut to under three minutes, per the norms of Top 40 radio at the time, and that is the reason for the fade at the very end.

The Shangri-La's and Remember (Walking in the Sand) from 1964.

This next song was recorded by one of my mother's favorite musicians, Frank Sinatra. It was a cover of a song released in 1961 by Bob Shane with the Kingston Trio.  For Sinatra, it became a hit in 1966.  As it happens, a CBS crew was on the spot when Sinatra recorded this in 1965, and it's a peek back in time - for that reason I am featuring the You Tube video of that recording session.  

Elton John's 1973 hit (released in 1972) "Crocodile Rock".  I found this live performance from some years back at Madison Square Garden in New York City, which is posted as a fundraiser on You Tube right now.  Here are some observations from Elton John in an interview.

 "The Boys of Summer" by former Eagles drummer Don Henley uses, as its theme, a young man remembering a former love that he still has feelings for.

Speaking of summer, my final song is Bryan Adams' "Summer of 69" where we learn that nothing lasts forever.

That's a wrap.

You know how it goes - see you next Monday!

A Cartoon Concerto

For your Sunday pleasure:  with a warning:  Cartoon slapstick violence and lots of laughs!

If cartoon violence bothers you, this post is not for you!

Growing up (or even as adults), did you watch cartoons like Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry?

Years ago, I have a memory of someone giving my spouse a Christmas gift of a cassette tape of cartoon music. He enjoyed it a lot but it's been lost to the ages.  

Recently, my Facebook feed contained a link to an article on "how a whole generation learned classical music from listening to old cartoons." 

Yes, it's true, and here are three examples. Here's a take on music from 1816 and Rossini's Barber of Seville.

Bugs Bunny and the Rabbit of Seville.

It got me to thinking - perhaps this cartoon would be frowned on today, with the shooting and Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny with an axe.

But I laughed and enjoyed it.  On our daily walk, I asked spouse if he remembered "The Rabbit of Seville". He said it was one of his favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon.  He liked the music he heard in the cartoons and never realized, until later, that he was receiving a musical education.

Here's another - Tom and Jerry and Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 in C Sharp Minor".  Moral: never mess with a mouse living in a piano. 

Bonus: short clip of Bug and the William Tell Overture in a chase scene.

If you want more remembering, join me tomorrow for #MusicMovesMe and listen to songs about remembering.

Will We Go to the Dark Side this Year?

I read this on one of our local news websites today:  "Climatologically, Binghamton (New York) hits 50 degrees for the first time each year around January 27th but it has yet to do so this year."

Yes, tell us about it.

But spring is progressing, if you can call being able to see bare ground in some places for the first time since December "progress".

Last month, this was our front yard.  Looks kind of nice in the early morning light.

I know, underneath all that snow lie crocuses, hyacinths, grape hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils, just waiting for the secret signal Nature gives.

I also know that March can sneak in a few snowstorms.  One of our worst since I've lived here was March 13, 1993.

So winter isn't over just yet.

But the birds are singing (no robins yet) and I see tree buds starting to swell. 

And, best of all, it's Maple syrup season.  I wonder, though, if we are going to be able to have a maple festival this year.  They are trying.   Our Maple Weekends (when you can visit producers and see maple syruping in action) are in some doubt but they are also trying.  The official weekend is cancelled but local producers can choose, and we have retail sales available in the two local sites I know of (local meaning 30 miles from Binghamton or less.)

Our local syrup producer started to boil on February 27.  The sap is running.

Oh, those sweet memories of dark maple syrup.  Not the stuff you get in supermarkets, but oh so good.  Well, better than the supermarket type, especially if you have people who boil sap using wood.

Going to the dark side with others may have to wait until next year but we will still have local syrup.

Sweet!

Snow Puddles and Sky #SkywatchFriday

March has arrived in New York State and, as advertised, it has come in like a lion.

It's so unpleasant most days I don't want to be outside for long, so my photography has been limited.  Instead I want to treat you to some views of late February.

The sky is somewhat changeable.

A snow squall on Sunday. These blow up quickly and can reduce visibility to near zero.  You don't want to be out driving when one of these hit.

In this one you can see a small (between the two objects in the bottom middle) snow plume coming from the ground.

From February 24, two puddles reflect the sky.

Another view.

A blend of feathery clouds and a contrail.

Finally, this isn't quite big sky country but tell that to these clouds.

Spring is definitely coming.  I see sap starting to rise, as indicated by reddish upper branches.  In my yard I see the buds swelling on high up tree branches.

Spring can't come soon enough.

For more skies, check out Yogi and the watchers at #SkywatchFriday.

Pen Pals

Yesterday, I  got a postcard from Iceland.  There's a story behind it, which I plan to tell next week.

The person who sent it to me wrote a short message on the card.  It didn't strike me at first, but I realized that it was printed.

It's also the first time I've received a non business letter (handwritten) or a postcard in forever.

Does anyone write in cursive anymore?  For that matter, does anyone reading this blog post have a pen pal?  

With cursive writing, my son (who is 30-something) never learned how, and I wonder if my postcard writer is in his age group.  This postcard project (more on that next week) wasn't to start pen pal relationships, but it made me think about pen pals.

Pen pals were so popular "way back when".  I know the practice has gotten a bit of a resurgence during the pandemic. I suspect a lot of these are young people writing to nursing home residents, or something similar.  But it was different "back then".

I remember my pen pal; in fact, I woke up about 5am today thinking of her.  I am a bit superstitious about when I wake up thinking of someone I haven't thought of in many years.  In more than one case, I look online for an obituary and I find it.  But I digress.

Years ago, when I (born and raised in New York City) got the urge to "go back to the land", spouse and I bought about 34 acres of land in Arkansas.  We lasted only a few years, but during that time, I subscribed to a magazine for like minded people.  They had a section for finding a pen pal.

I wrote to three or four people, and got back a couple of answers.  With one, a woman living in the Midwest, I started up a pen pal relationship that lasted perhaps three years.  Yes, actual letters (this was the early 1980's, prior to the Internet), handwritten, snail mailed back and forth to each other.

She was planning to move to Arkansas and was interested in finding out more about it.  Whatever she found out, she and her family (she, husband, three teens) ended up moving to another part of Arkansas.

We never met.  We never really tried to.  Writing was fine, and she had a busy life, given the three teens.

Eventually, we moved from Arkansas back to New York State, and the letters petered out. 

I don't think I've written a non business letter in years.  The last person I regularly wrote letters to was an aunt who passed away in 2003.

I never thought about becoming a pen pal again during lockdown, but if you do an Internet search you will find a lot of stories about unlikely pen pals.

I hope my pen pal is OK.

Did you ever have a pen pal?

Inside Impatien Impatient #WordlessWednesday

I can never quite let go of summer.

Every fall, before our first frost, I attempt some cuttings.  This past fall, my coleus cuttings failed but I managed to root a couple of impatiens.  These wonderful shade loving blooming plants were a victim of a blight several years back that affected many gardeners (including me) and prevented us from growing this jewel, but we now have a resistant variety called Beacon.  So, impatiens are back in my flower garden.

For the second year, I grew Beacon, and for the first time, I was successful in rooting two cuttings in water.

Here they are, in bloom in a north facing window. waiting patiently for the last frost.  In our area, that won't be until some time in May.

I can't wait.

Joining up with Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Natural Lessons

I don't know if it is because of the pandemic, but I've seen a lot of hawks in my neighborhood in the past year.

I first noticed one last March, and it could be that I had just never noticed them before.  But I have seen them in trees since then (in what I would call a semi-urban area) and even sitting on a fence post in a field near where I exercise walked this summer.  The field was, of all places, behind a major home improvement store.

Then, there was this.

Yesterday just before lunch, a co worker texted me and a couple of other co workers a picture.  "Look what is in my backyard!" she texted. "Do you know what that is?"  Without the pandemic, we would have been working in a downtown office.

It was (I think) a hawk.  Her picture was a lot better than the one I'm about to show you. (I'm not going to ask her for permission to show hers).

After consulting a guide (Kaufman's Field Guide to Birds of North America), I was thinking her hawk was a Cooper's Hawk.  

As for my hawk, it was in the back of our house, some distance away, so my iPhone couldn't get it well.  That's a hint that a video for beginning birders gave me - try to take a picture, or at least write down the details, before you grab a field guide.

Here is "my hawk".  Kind of blurry.  I assure you, this photo is a color photo.  My phone took a color picture but the drab white sky drained the colors from the bird.  So, no one is going to make an ID from this.  I couldn't even tell you the colors my naked (so to speak) eye saw.

I was beginning to think I'm not cut out for this birding thing.  It seems there is so much to learn.  I know experienced birders will say "don't stress, it will come to you."  But the amount of detail is overwhelming.  You have males, females and juveniles.  There are flying patterns, songs and calls, and other behavior.

There are birds that are year round, and birds that just pass through town for a day or two on the way to or from somewhere else.

How do you learn this stuff?  But, on the other hand, it isn't a competition.  Is it? 

How do you learn all the things you need to know?

I want the birds to become a type of companion.  I want to be outdoors to be with them.  I want to hear their songs.

Today, I won't be because when I woke up, it was 14 degrees F, with a howling wind.  But the hawks are still out there, doing what they need to do.

So these are the lessons Nature has taught through these two hawks:

1.  Spring is almost here, but it's March.  The warm weather will come.  But not today.

2.  My life is on a different track (along with the rest of us) so make the best of it.

3.  Patience is the best strategy.   The learning will come in its own time.

Chances Are It's the Twelfth of Never #MusicMovesMe

 

Welcome to another edition of Music Moves Me!

Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only , please!)   First, there is XmasDolly,   Her co-hosts are: Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and me. Xmas Dolly has had some issues with her blog, but I hope she is able to join us today.

Each month we have a guest co-hosts who picks themes for the month, and this month we are featuring our very own founder and head host, Xmas Dolly.  Applause!

The theme for today is "Build a Johnny Mathis playlist".  I am going to do that, but I have a secondary theme today, for a reason I will make clear a little later.

Johnny Mathis was (and is, as he is still with us at age 85) a favorite singer of many in the 1950's. I remember some of his song from my childhood.  Mathis was still touring at the time the pandemic hit last February.  Incidentally, he prefers being called "John" to being called "Johnny".

So let's take a short trip back to the 1950's.

What a smooth voice.  Johnny Mathis never (to the best of my knowledge) wrote any of his hit songs, but he sure knew how to pick them.

One of Johnny Mathis' biggest hits is my personal favorite of his. "Chances Are", from 1957, and his first #1 hit.

"Wonderful, Wonderful", also from 1957,  "only" went to #14 on the Billboard 100.

"The Twelfth of Never" from 1956 and that harp at the beginning....This was the B side of "Chances Are".  This song has been covered by several artists since Johnny Mathis, including Elvis, Tammy Wynette, and Olivia Newton-John.

Now, I want to skip ahead a couple of  decades and play something from a 1973 performance on the TV show "Soul Train".  Here is Mathis covering the Stylistic's 1972 hit "I'm Stone In Love with You".

I want to change direction for my final two songs.

On March 1, 2020, New York State, where I was born and have spent much of my life, recorded its first case of COVID-19.  We had no idea what would be happening here, and in much of the world, just mere weeks later.  I want to take a moment to remember when life was...well, the way it was.

In 2017, Johnny Mathis recorded an album of songs from the Great American Book.  Here is one of them:  "Remember When".  It's not quite on topic, but it expresses my mood today.

Here's the final song in today's Johnny Mathis playlist, from the Broadway musical "Cats", Johnny Mathis covers "Memory".

To the 46,970 plus New Yorkers who have died from COVID-19 since March 1, 2020, including over 29,000 in the city of my birth, you are not forgotten.

And that's a wrap.