Category Archives: music

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Difficult?

With Cee’s Flower of the Day on hiatus, I am casting around. Here, a weekly prompt: divorce.

My ex and I did a year of couples counseling and then another year of hammering out the details. I felt like a terrible failure and did simultaneous solo counseling to figure out why I was failing. It took me two years to make the decision and I was anxious the entire time. And then once I decided, the anxiety evaporated like morning mist.

One thing that I realized is that we each had a blind spot. I love working and am a hard worker and even to the point of working until I get sick. My ex did not want to work, partly because his father seemed to hate it so much. My ex was dedicated to doing something fun every day and that was a revelation to me: were we allowed to have fun? So it was all lots of fun for a decade. He was in charge of play: bicycling, swing dance, going to music, golf (golf did not take with me), tennis. I was in charge of work and practical things. This started to fall apart with kids, because I wanted to have fun with the kids and he said, “Kids aren’t fun.” As I moved into defining fun, he refused to move into work.

At some point during the prolonged divorce process, I realized that some of it was not about me at all. He knew at some level that he had to go work, because his son was reaching his teens. My ex looked at me one day and said, “I’m going to have to thank you for this, aren’t I?” “Damn straight,” I replied. I wished he could deal with the work thing in the marriage, but he couldn’t. He went off and went to nursing school and has an RN. I talked to him yesterday on the phone. He said, “I decided when I was young that I was going to do tons outdoors until I got old and then I would work. And look how it’s working out!” A little hard on me, I think. Meanwhile the kids got bored with the whole thing so they were reassured that it was not about them.

Anyhow, I think it was the right thing to do though difficult. During one argument my ex said, “I have avoided doing anything hard.” I was annoyed and said, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” “Marry YOU.” That made me laugh: a perfect snappy comeback and probably true.

This is The Yes Yes Boys, doing Make it Easy. I bought the CD when they played live at the Upstage here. I love this song. It’s not on You tube, but you can download the music for free here: https://hobemianrecords.com/product/why-say-no/.

“If you still can’t make it easy, get you a job and go to work
Don’t be hanging round here and there, miss your meals, wear a raggedy shirt
Cause when you’re missing your meals and you’re missing your bed
That’ll give you the pneumonia that will kill you dead
If you can’t make it easy, get you a job and go to work“

Highly recommended and very funny!

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Knit one pearl two

“Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver but the other gold.” My parents taught me that round. We sang lots of rounds growing up.

What does the picture have to do with knitting? I knit the hat! I got to hike with old friends from the 1980s last week. They are old friends, not old! Well, we might be getting a little grey.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: knit.

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Winter flowers

On the Solstice, friends took me to the Glenstone Museum. They combine art, architecture and nature. They have planted over 7000 native trees and have planted over 10,000 native grasses. We can photographs inside but not outside. There are winding paths and sculptures and buildings, both big and small. ‘

In one of the museums, there is a walled outdoor installation called Collapse. It is rusting beams in a 16 foot deep hole surrounded by a 16 foot wall. Moss is starting to grow a little as it weathers. Only three people can go out at a time, with a guide. I asked if anyone had sung into the space, since the metal would bounce the sound around. The guide said he did not think so. I sang part of Faure’s Pie Jesu in to it. The guide said that the installation makes him think of the twin towers and he thanked me.

https://www.glenstone.org/art/exhibition/michael-heizer/

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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Instrument tetris

Both of my children play violin and I play flute and then my daughter starts viola in ninth grade and you start with a small one. We had multiple cases that were falling hazards and tripping hazards. What to do with them?

Our solution years ago: my daughter and I take a violin in its’ case to the Antique Company in Hadlock. The owners import furniture from England. We walk around and try fitting the violin case in to the tall cases until we find the right one. Hooray! The violins and small violas and flutes and quena and ocarinas and dulcimer are contained! And now my office medical books that I kept reside on the lowest shelf and I still pull them out.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt yesterday: tetris.

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Advent of lights

On Saturday, Wild Rose Chorale caroled downtown and I took pictures.

At four pm people started to gather at the tree for the lighting ceremony and the train.

Santa arrives on the Kiwanis Train and then we count down to the tree lighting!

And we have the advent of the lights.

Wild Rose has a concert this Friday in Port Townsend! Here: https://www.wildrosechorale.org/upcoming-concerts/

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: advent.

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Showmen

The word showy makes me think of horses and the Lipizzaner horses doing their shows. I did go through a phase of reading all the Walter Farley horse books as a kid, but my sister was the one who loved to ride them. I didn’t care very much.

But here are three showmen. Jonathan Doyle, Casey MacGill and Jonathan Greene, playing at the Bishop Hotel and Bottle Shop, back on November 14th. A fabulous show!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: showy.

Links: Jonathan Doyle
Casey MacGill
Jonathan Greene
Bishop Hotel


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Holiday songs

This my current favorite new holiday song. I didn’t get it until halfway through, because I wasn’t listening quite hard enough. And then! So, is this a carol? Hmmmm. Doesn’t quite meet the definition but it’s still a fabulous and creative song. I got to hear Vance Gilbert at the Nowhereelse Festival in Ohio two years ago. I did get this CD and really really like it.

I have not heard this one in the grocery stores yet. Maybe I should encourage them?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: carol.

The photograph is from 2012. This is the last bonsai that survived both my mother’s death in 2000 and my father’s in 2013.