An Aaahhhhhsome Day

Today I start my new work schedule with an additional day off - Mondays!!!! Those exclamation points can hopefully express my excitement. I'm so in need of an extra day off and I'm enjoying it fully. I have friends coming for dinner and have all the salads made, the lemon meringue pie in the fridge, the ribs slow cooking in the oven and the floor swept. I've been very busy but I'm not going to work. Yeah!!!! I don't like being indoors for the dishwasher cycle so took that time out for a visit with two friends so I feel happy all around. An extra day off will do that, much like a long weekend usually does.

I have resident crows. The same ones hang around and keep watch knowing I will often feed them. They are checking it out constantly. There are three in this first photo - one is in the shade to the left of the tree. I like having them around. I've always admired their shiny black feathers, their intelligence and fierce tenacity. They are a bit shy even though they should know after all these years that I'm no harm.



I've been blindly clicking different playlists on the mp3 player every time I sit at the computer. That there is so much great music always amazes me. There is more than any of us could listen to in a lifetime if we played music from this moment on. Like books, where couldn't ever read them all - even a speed reader. Here are two good songs I listened to today that are no longer on the music pages. Baby Please Don't Go is done here by Greg Brown and Bill Morrissey. Here are a couple of other versions too. One from the late, great Dutchie Mason and one by our Harry Manx. I won't play Van's version as was requested a while back by the Net Sheriff.

Oh oh, Dutchie's is no longer here. If I knew how to make the horizontal line through it I would. I'll put it back some other time. Mississippi Fred McDowell's is gone too.

The other choice today is the traditional blues song, Trouble in Mind, by Snooks Eaglin and here's a bonus. It's the song that's playing at the moment. Speed of the Sound of Loneliness by Nancy Griffith and John Prine. This song always reminds me of a friend who sings and does a fine job with both these artists.

My friends are here. I will add music later.

Update: When I look back on this post after a few drinks and a great dinner and visit with dear friends, I see a strange mixture of music from me. It's not related other than the songs were all on playlists I'm listening to and they grabbed my attention. So much more than just these songs has enthralled me. I listened to a live cut from The Waifs live album on one of the playlists and have enjoyed it so much in the mix.

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!