A Word from Sam the Eagle

CoCo Update

The month of February draws to a close and Coco is yet to be spade. This has to happen sooner rather than later. She is venturing off the porch quite a lot when it is sunny. I worry.
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Because we certainly don't need more mouths to feed.

Go Ahead and Laugh, It's FRIDAY

I'm Still Here

I'm still here, so it's not like I won the lottery. But I could have. I had the Powerball. But that was the only number I had.



Dreaming of winning the lottery is a big Western PA past-time when the jackpot is big. It was nice to hear what kind of cars people were saying they wanted to buy. I overheard a guy describe in detail the Cadillac Escalade he wanted... first thing on the list if he won. Another said a Viper.


Me? I want a Schinn bike. Yup. The kind you pedal. It's all I will need on my island since it probably won't have more than a couple miles of roads. If that.

The Sunday Morning Muse, February 22, 2009

This is my 80th Sunday Morning Muse. Today it's all about music. Things just coming together. Leonard Cohen was in New York... V*n M&rrison coming next weekend. I won't make either concert...but it doesn't matter. I still can be a part of it. I've watched some of Leonard's tour in snippets on the internet. And I've read about it in Rolling Stone. Thrilled that he is out there... ringing the bells, as he puts it. He is actually singing old stuff like Famous Blue Raincoat, Closing Time, and Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye. It makes me smile. No music like old music.

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Along that vein, everything old is new again for V*n Mor&rison, too. His first album, Astral Weeks, which was deemed so groundbreaking in the 1970s, is back on center stage as V*n releases a "live" version hopefully this week...and I pre-ordered my copy. Astral Weeks was my old boyfriend Joey's favorite...and I struggled so hard back then to find something nice to say about it. I loved everything else Joey and I listened to...and he was patient. Just smiled at me, as if to tell me I just wasn't ready for it yet. He said that about the album Common One, too. I didn't like that one at first either.... then something clicked and I "got it." I'll never part with it,now.

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Music is like that. :)

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Maybe it's the former DJ in me but I love just sitting around playing "do you remember...."

because it is amazing what you forget. And it's fun. There's this guy I know that whenever I see him we try to stump each other. Today it was Black Oak Arkansas. I threw another name right back at him....Spooky Tooth. Last time I saw him he said "It's A Beautiful Day." And I was stumped. Never heard of them. Until he started singing their song, "White Bird..... in a golden cage....."

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I knew the song, of course. But he GOT me. I would have never guessed the name of the group was It's A Beautiful Day."

Black Oak Arkansas...

Something to turn up and PLAY LOUD on a Sunday morning. A real toe tapper.
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It really kicks in about 4 or 5 minutes into the set... with Dixie. First just voices then really cool guitar playing.... stay with it till the big AhhhhhMMENNNNNNNN.
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Love the Washboard.
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Gotta Get one...

Forever Yellow

A few weeks ago my mother's dresser drawer got stuck. After I got it open, I was amazed to see this wrap around yellow skirt with these God-awful white stripes--folded neatly and preserved in a plastic bag. She kept that thing all these years.

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It is the one and only piece of clothing I have ever sewn. It exists as proof that my Home Economics teacher in high school wouldn't let this stubborn girl quit. Let's just say sewing wasn't my strong suit. It wasn't my suit at all. I could NOT SEW. Period. Even a simple wrap around skirt. She made me rip the stitching from that skirt and start again no less than 4 times. I hated that skirt so much I didn't care if I left it laying in shreds on the floor. I vaguely remember swearing at the teacher just to get put out into the hall instead of having to spend another second of my life fighting with that sewing machine.

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All these years later, it still exists, never worn, and hasn't seen the light of day since I brought it home when I was 16 years old. But it serves a great purpose. It is a tangible reminder that though I sometimes think I can do anything if I set my mind to it, there are things in life that will never be easy. The other lesson I learned is.... even if I do manage to finish something I don't like doing, it still ain't gonna be pretty.

Farewell to Socks the Cat

Sweet Pea and I wish to express our sadness at the death of Socks. Sweet Pea felt a particular kinship to Socks, being that they are both Tuxedo Cats.

An Evening with Leonard Cohen

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Hey, look at this. I opened up Yahoo this morning... and right there on a list with Bombs in Pakistan and prostate cancer news, is Leonard Cohen's concert in New York. Well, let's just go ahead and read about it.
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Great article. Love this part:
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His lean, taut songs sounded particularly apt in such a time of economic recession. At one point, Cohen told the crowd he understood that hard times were coming, then drolly adding, "some say even worse than Y2K."
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....and this part:

He both recited the lyrics and sang the song: "Ring the bells that can still ring/ Forget your perfect offering/ There is a crack, a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in."
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and the end...
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. . . Cohen sang "Goodnight my darling/ I hope I leave you satisfied" and shortly thereafter — breaking from his graceful poise — skipped off the stage.

Glory Be... Indulge Me.

Glory Be to the Father...to the Son ...to the Holy Spirit (whatever THAT is), as it was in the beginning and is now...

(almost there...I'm thinking...)

and ...always will be? (maybe) World without end.... AMEN.

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Howzat from memory? (Six more and an Ave Maria to go.)It's been a long time. But it was worth it. I can get a "Get out of Purgatory Free" card someday if I keep it up.The Catlicks are bringing back "indulgences." Since they haven't eliminated Purgatory yet, they can still come up with things for people to do get out of it once they are in there, provided it still exists.

Remember, Limbo is gone now. The Church eliminated it months ago, after teaching about it for 800 years or so. But dead babies couldn't do good deeds or recite Glory Be's to get out of Limbo anyway.






(Photo is from Dante's Purgatory)

from Slate:

An older version of the Enchiridion, known as the Raccolta, did assign lengths of time for each indulgenced act. Reciting seven Gloria Patris and one Ave Maria in a single day, for example, would grant you "an indulgence of 100 days." That didn't mean, however, that the penitent would get 100 days knocked off his purgatorial stay. A 100-day indulgence just earns you the equivalent of 100 days of earthly penance. (In the early and medieval church, penances were extremely arduous; a sinner might be
sentenced to years of nothing but bread and water or months of wearing
sackcloth.)

Looks like there are a few loopholes. But even purgatory sounds better than wearing sackcloth or just eating bread and water. You could get scurvy.