Free To Be

I don't have to cook dinner tonight and for that I'm thankful. A night off stove duty is just what the doctor ordered. I feel like I have no responsibilities today, no chores that have to be done NOW or any important matter to attend to. It almost feels like the first day that I've been completely free to do what I wanted or felt like at the moment. Kat talks about retirement sometimes and I feel like she enjoys these type of days quite often. Someday....

I painted off and on for a couple of hours but today was dark and raining and it was a bit difficult. I paint only in natural light and when it's really dark and overcast it's too much of an eyestrain. Using the vacuum cleaner doesn't require such extreme visual concentration so I did a bit of that too. Dancing and Oprah were on my list of doing what I wanted, as well as some packing and organization. I made a trip out to the post office and boy the weather has changed; I had to wear a jacket. It has cooled considerably and has rained lightly most of the day.

Today I have a song for the dark and dreary of rain and one for the sunshine dancing brings me. Eleni Mandell has this lovely number, It's Raining and for the dance, It Don't Mean a Thing by Club Des Belugas is fabulous. I love this band. Their song, Skip to the Bip, was one of the songs danced to on So You Think You Can Dance Canada a couple of weeks ago.

Moon Night

Hasn't this build up to the full moon been fantastic? It has been rising in the southeast as the sun is setting in the west. My drive home from Charlottetown on Wednesday night was awesome as I was watching moonrise and sunset at the same time. It's full moon tonight. Will it bring the wildness out? I worked for several years in a mental institution and truly didn't think that there was a difference in mood and excitability at that time but popular lore says there is. I also worked in bars and didn't see a difference. What is your experience?



Peter Mulvey has a moon song, Whole of the Moon. This is listed as being a live subway recording and is on his album, Rapture. The moon was calling Eleni Mandell too. She has Moon Glow, Lamp Low on her album Miracle of Five. Some other moon songs from the past from: Eryka Badu, Carlos Nunez, The Neville Brothers, Blossom Dearie, and Neko Case.

Like The Sky - A Little Blue

March break and Easter will be combined next year on PEI giving students and teachers a longer holiday. From my memory that's what it was always like in the New Brunswick school system when I was a kid. We always had Good Friday off then the whole next week.

I have some pretty awful memories of that time because something always happened that ruined that holiday for me. I had mumps over Easter. I stepped on a nail on Good Friday and got a really deep puncture wound that I could not walk with. One year, I got a haircut so bad I would not leave the house. I couldn't go to my cousin's house in Saint John for the week one year because I got measles. The next year, those same cousins came for Easter. I got really bad hives and spent the whole weekend scratching and covered in calamine lotion. We never figured out what I had the allergic reaction to but again, another Easter break was ruined. I remember crying year after year that it wasn't fair. My mom would be very sweet and somehow make me feel special or at least okay.

My Easters have improved since I became adult but this one seems a bit lonely with no one from my family around. It's something I have been getting used to though. After all, my first son left home in '95.

Music yesterday was for the travellers. Today it's for the other half of the family. My youngest is studying for an exam on Monday. He'd rather be home for Easter. Perhaps an Easter present would be to share more than two songs. Miss Me by Eleni Mandell is first on the list. I love the slow, sexy sound of the sax in this. Speed of the Sound of Loneliness is a wonderful song by Nancy Griffith and John Prine. I'm not sure whose song it is. They're both magnificent writers and it's a great song. A classic Elvis Presley song, Are You Lonesome Tonight is one of my favorites from my childhood. It's fitting today. Lonely Girls is very nice if you're a Lucinda Williams fan.

The following links can all be found on page One. I'm finding them looking for a Bettye LaVette song. Johnny Cash and Nick Cave did a fabulous version of I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. Here's the classic version with Hank Williams Jr. I Still Miss Someone from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash is another song about loneliness.

Lonesome Road by Madeleine Peyroux and Kate Rusby deserve a mention. They are not the same song; they just have the same name. Hah! Just found Bettye LaVette's song. Thinkin' Bout You is wonderful. I really like this artist. She's been around for a long, long time but I only discovered her a couple of years ago. This song, also from Page One, has only been played twelve times. Lets remedy this because it is a great song.

This is turning out to be rather long but I just wanted to say that we are forecasted to have a blizzard tonight with high winds, of course, and 15 - 20 centimeters of snow. Happy Easter!