Summer

The clothes on this line show the Island weather perfectly; spaghetti strap tank tops hanging next to big bulky sweaters. Yesterday looked cold and I hesitated to go out to transplant flowers but it only looked cold. The temperature was 20 degrees and the sun came out while I was outside and it turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day. Summer starts today at 8:59 ADT. If I was not working I would have planned a little celebration on the deck.

Summertime is tourist season on PEI and all forecasts point to a slow year overall with one exception. It is one hundred years today that Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous novel Anne of Green Gables was accepted for publication. This is The Year of Anne and tourists are coming from far and wide to take part in year-long festivities. Japanese tourists, who have always flocked to see everything 'Anne' are supposedly breaking all records this year with Japanese tour companies booking more tours than ever before. I heard this morning that Chinese girls have found that Ann books touch a chord as with the one child families where girls are not as accepted, they see hope with the feisty orphan who can overcome just this obstacle. Her adoptive parents were expecting a boy. Canada Post is issuing a new stamp today depicting Anne. Ben Stahl, who's wife Pat was a good friend of mine, was the artist chosen to depict Anne. He illustrated several of her books years ago and portrays this imaginary girl very beautifully.

Summertime is one beautiful song. Let me link a few versions. Here are versions by Molly Johnson, Sam Cooke, and an instrumental by guitarist Gabor Szabo. Several have disappeared from the pages. Here's Susana Baca with a nice version and I'm replacing Seasons Change by Corinne Bailey Rae.

Now, I've got to run to work.

Music Makes The Day Go Round

Let Me In!

The best thing about not having to go to work each day is that you don't have to stick to scripted out days. You can do something entirely different than you had planned. For instance, I had planned to put the beads away and start painting. The beads beckoned me again while I was packing them up so I said the heck with it and sat down and made a ton of earrings today. Maybe tomorrow I'll put them away. Maybe not.

I find out tomorrow the status of my glaucoma. I have to undergo a visual field test where drops are put in my eyes and a baseline measurement is taken. Fun, fun. I guess I won't change that plan and go with the flow like I can with beads and paint.

I listened to cds today while into the beads, not my own playlists. It was fun playing albums that bring back a time or incident. I listened to The Waifs, Joni, Diana Krall, Mana and Stan Rogers. Nothing similar in any of it but all good; all excellent to me, actually.

I have only one Stan song on my computer, one Mana song and a small number of the Waifs, Joni or Diana compared to the number of albums I have of each. The British woman I talked about the other day, Corinne Bailey Rae, has a song about "your records" that is appropriate to the feelings you get playing those records. Have a listen to Put Your Records On. I sure do like her sound. One from the above mentioned group should go up today too so here's Service Fee by The Waifs, my favorite Waifs song. It's a very serious song and should. be. listened. to. in. a. serious. way.

Nothing to Thaw

Our temperatures today are in the double digits and there is light rain. Certainly unusual but there is snow in the forecast for Monday.

What a busy birthday! I truly had no time to blog. I had visitors all afternoon right till supper time and the phone never stopped all day or evening. It's nice to feel loved.

I got a couple of new cd's for a gift. JJ Cale and Eric Clapton put out a new album recently. I love the title, Road to Escondido, as I'm always "on the road to Escondido." The other was Colin James' new album, Colin James and the Little Big Band 3. Both are good and when I get them onto the computer I will share them.

I promised new music for today. It may not be brand new but it's new to me. I just discovered British singer, Corinne Baily Rae and I love her old soul sound. This song, Season's Change reminds me of so many old songs and was released in June. She has a female Stevie Wonder sound. I don't know anything about her so maybe she is the female version of Stevie. Others compare her to Bill Withers, Zero 7, and Alicia Keys.

Something a bit newer is from a Canadian Band, Patrick Watson. I put up their song Giver a while back when it was first released and today I give you Luscious Life.

Yikes! There are now 390 songs on the music page for your listening (and now downloading) pleasure.