Saturday, December 3, 2016

Just the Regular Random Stuff. Probably Draft #135.....

Like books, i start many blogs and then just end up quitting them. I should go back and count the drafts in my blogger history. Maybe even try and resurrect one. As usual i have no idea what i am going to write, but here is the mood. I am listening to Joan Baez Pandora and for some inexplicable reason, the Beach Boys showed up playing "Good Vibrations". I am drinking a really really good Italian wine i bought from Trader Joe's and the Christmas lights are making everything cozy, especially my cheesy Smart TV YouTube 4K HD streaming fireplace that sounds like such a real fireplace i keep having this expectant feeling that i need to stoke the fire!

Anyway, here we go.

1. I have never liked the Beach Boys. (I did like the movie about Brian Wilson though). I saw them in concert once because my ex wanted to go. And i thought Mike Love was a douchebag.  Rolling Stone recently had an article that affirmed that.

2. James Taylor just came on and that's more like it for Joan Baez but sometimes i don't like his voice. It's too whiney. I really don't care for his Christmas album that i bought a few years back.

3. My favorite Christmas song is The River by Joni Mitchell, which is not really a Christmas song.

4. I also like O come O come Emmanuel.

5. it is supposed to snow here Monday, but i will believe it when i see it. I am like an 8 year old hoping for a snow day when there is a forecast of snow! To me there is nothing more exciting with our weather than snow! I even get up in the middle of the night to see if it started. I do it every single time there is a threat of snow in the weather forecast.

6. Course i don't have to drive in it. and i never really did since i lived only two miles from home.

7. Jack Johnson is on now. I don't know what it is about that guy, but he doesn't move me with his music. And it's not bad, but i always feel like i want to fast forward. I( feel the same way about Dave Matthews.)

8. It took me over 5 hours to decorate my tree. My niece Kylee (who used to be a fabulous contributor to this blog) for years used to help me (since the age of 10, she is 25 or 26 now).  We  used to watch a movie afterwards. I made her watch Love Story with me once. when she was 15 cause it was MY favorite movie at that age.  We also watched Audrey Hepburn movies (because she loved them) and i think the last time we did this the movie was Annie Hall. We have not done this for two years now, because she lives further away and is married and busy working.  And now I understand how parents must feel when their kids grow up and move apart from the family. I miss this tradition with her. (Maybe Brady when he is older will want to help me. Or Lauren.)

9. For ummagumma, wherever she may be.

9. Something i hate: People who end comments or emails with "just sayin'". it is such a f*cking passive aggressive statement, as if they are being helpful. I also can't stand the dismissive "Whatever". And most times "just kidding" at the end of a sentence means just the opposite.

10. Dammit, just because i said that about Jack Johnson in #7 another stupid song of his comes on. I am playing Joan Baez radio and think i have only heard two songs by her in the last two hours.

11. Oh dear, i have a feeling that this is going to be Draft #136 because The Wedding Song just came on and this reminds me of my first wedding in 1978. I also had that horrible Debbie Boone song You Light Up My Life too. (Such a big hit that year. Such a sucky song. Such a lie.)

12. Obviously I have to change this Pandora channel,  but i'm waiting until i need to refill my wine glass.

13. Who is still reading here? pearl didn't stop by last post even with my shout out. amulbunny i always like seeing you here and thank you. My BFF louielouie quit coming. Equeyaya too. Bethany hasn't changed her own blog since June. And Amanda is pretty busy with her fabulous little boy. I really do sometimes wish Facebook was never invented.

14. The #1 reason i wish FB wasn't invented is all the sharing of the fucking fake news during this election. What an avenue for that shit! Facebook: The Highway to Sharing Shit Because Facts No Longer Matter. I really do kind of want to quit Facebook just over this. It was not hard for me to be gone. But i miss people on there. And since folks no longer email and call or blog anymore there is no way to keep in touch with folks i want to keep in touch with without it. So i just wish it went dark (like Gumbo YaYa, a message board i posted on for 10 years about the Rebecca Wells books) then we would have to find a different way to connect. Maybe blogging again!


I am just gonna hit Publish and be done with it! Besides i have to go stoke the fire.

Oh yeah, that's right. It's fake.





16 comments:

jojo cucina cucina said...

And Cat. I just saw you comment on the earlier blog post! Hope you stick around. the best thing about you posting is that you can't post CAT PHOTOS as a commenter... hahahaha.

B said...

Hi Jo! I'm here. :)
You should have called me to decorate. I would love a sister type figure who would show me things, since my own mother is not the type.

pearl said...

Shout outs don't work in blogs. That's just one of 1000 reasons why I like facebook better.

I've now responded to your other post.

Forgot to add that I'm so very sorry to hear about Brian's mom. I've been down that road, and it is a bumpy one that can go on and on. All I can advise is to be patient with her. The paranoia comes with the territory. The best thing I saw on the subject - unfortunately it was after my mom had already passed - was to remember how patient she was with him when he was a little baby, then toddler, then child. She's the child now, and it will take every bit as much patience...and she's earned it. Deep breaths and giver her as much time as you can spare. You won't be sorry.

pearl said...

see...even when I stop by, you don't see me...

Amanda said...

I'm here! I'm here!

• I kinda love the Beach Boys, especially Wouldn't It Be Nice, but it reminds me too much of my dog, Barley, and I can't really listen to it anymore. It just makes me cry too much.

• James Taylor and Jack Johnson bother me, too.

• Other 70s singers that bother me include: The Carpenters (can't stand), John Denver, Emmylou Harris, and Don McLean. I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that fester to the top.

• Pandora is bothering me a bit lately, too. Some days, we just click and I think "Pandora, you get me" and then we have a terrible day when she plays so much crap that we break up and I listen to Spotify instead. At least on Spotify I can listen to whole albums, which is really how I prefer music, anyway.

• I'm in a weird George Harrison phase right now. His album All Things Must Pass might be the most perfect album ever made. I'm smitten. It's just so, so good. Not one bad song.

• I'm also obsessed with Cher's marriage to Gregg Allmann. I don't know why, but I want to know everything. I find it very fascinating and a very safe alternative to reading the real, current news.

• I'm off news for a while. I just can't deal.

• What's an ummagumma?

• My favorite Christmas song right now is Merry Christmas, Alabama by Jimmy Buffett. That song is so good - even though I'm generally opposed to wishing redneck assholes any good cheer. But, it's a good song and kinda sad, and I like Christmas songs that are sad.

jojo cucina cucina said...

I fusually forget to check after the first week and don't often look until i am getting ready to write another one. How fun to see y'all here! Pearl, i will check out the previous blog post too.

We just got back from Brian's side of the family Christmas where we stayed in the log cabin at North Bend. It's was rather chaotic on Sunday when 3 new babies and 3 little boys were there but still fun.

Brian's mom is still fragile but soooo much better than she was when we were there on Thanksgiving. I didn't believe she would make it and honestly wondered if she would be able to leave the nursing home rehab place. But she is back at her assisted living apartment. And so happy. They took her off this one drug she was getting for neuropathy. Some of the side effects were paranoia and worse. We think that was part of the problem. She walks better with her walker and she allowed me to help her change her clothes with out being embarrassed. Her mind is fine, though of course there is some confusion sometimes, like we all seem to get as we get older, but she tracks really well. I was so glad to see her looking better. I still think she will need to be moved out of independent side and into more assisted care but she wants to try it. She's such a sweet uncomplaining lady. It takes her an hour to gets dressed in the morning . This morning we checked out of the cabin and i guess she got up at 1:00 am (not knowing it was THAT early, thinking it was closer to 6 am) and got dressed and packed up her stuff so she wouldn't hold us up. Then she found out how early it was and went back to bed wearing all her clothes. Thanks for the reminder Pearl about the patience. Actually it's not hard for me to be patient with her. With my own mom it will be a different story. I do worry about how much her daughter is having to do since she is the only one on that side of the mountain near her mom and so it's been hard on her doing it all. My husband is very good too, but geography is a problem.

Amanda, I think we talked about this before. George Harrison is my favorite Beatle! While My Guitar Gently Weeps is my favorite song.

Ummagumma is the Gumbo name for a woman that used to post on a message board about the Divine YaYa Sisterhood - Pearl was on it and equeyaya too and a few others who have come and gone. We were on that board about ten years and posted about the books and a bunch of other stuff , and definitely politics, which in the end was i believe the real cause of the demise. I used to post Random Musings while drinking wine and was famous for misnumbering my lists. Ummagumma caught it and so i dedicated #9 to her from then on and always wrote out the list with two #9s.

jojo cucina cucina said...

When i first started this blog, ummagumma did post on it occasionally. So every once in awhile i throw it out there in case she might randomly read it.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Amulbunny and Cat (who just recently posted in the past month) are also from the Gumbo board!

Cat said...

Aw, so glad to see the #9 post!!! I have barely had time to get to Facebook or keep up with email! This is a busy season plus work has been so hectic - and then I got sick on top of that (but since we were so short at work I did not take any sick days, just crashed immediately after work). Anyway, first a Merry Christmas to you and yours and hello to my Gumbo family on this blog!

Second, did you just CHALLENGE me to cat bomb you on here? Do you know not who you tempt with comments like this? That's the dumbest thing since the GOP said, "Hey, let's just put Trump in the race as a placeholder until we find the right guy since it's obvious he has no chance."

https://youtu.be/tGTe6rnvWF4

Moving on, I'm laughing that the song at your first wedding was "You Light Up My Life!" That's one of the pop songs I can play on my piano. You must tell me the anniversary so I can live feed you a video of me doing it to commemorate it! (Sidenote: that song would doom any marriage).

I added Joan Baez to my Pandora station and it's pretty chill! I like it! Lately I've been doing the Rockin Holidays Radio to stay awake at work though.

That's pretty cool that you used to watch movies with Kylie. I got my Godchildren into Harry Potter and then my Richard Chamberlain movies like The Slipper and the Rose (Cinderella musical from 1976, which they loved). Because they have no gay uncle to provide them with culture, so it falls to me. I ALSO loved Love Story. I saw an article once with everyone hating on it. HOW could anyone get through that without a box of Kleenex? Loved Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal. It's a shame it became so public about what a dirtbag he was in real life, but I LOVED the movie and he was perfect in the part. Certain movies just affect me that way. This time of year it's Sound of Music or Love Actually I like to watch. Miracle on 34th, Scrooge, and It's a Wonderful Life I've simply watched TOO many times. But on the other hand, I was in a store last week and we were walking past a toy rifle (or not a toy; you know where I live), and I heard the guy in front of me say, "you're gonna shoot your eye out" and I burst out laughing. Movie references are so fun! It's sad that people don't watch certain cultural zeitgeist films like Office Space. My coworker has no idea what I mean when I reference something dumb our company has done and then use a phrase like Milton's, "I'm going to set the place on fire" or "did you take my Red Swingline Stapler?"

Now I can't backpage to remember what else you talked about, so I will see if my catbombing worked for now....

Cat said...

Hmmph. Obviously this will take practice....

To Be Continued!!!

Amanda said...

Ummagumma is a Pink Floyd album!

jojo cucina cucina said...

Yes Amanda, I think she named herself after that! CAT!!!!!!!!!

I loved Office Space!

Cat said...

YOU NEED TO UPDATE YOUR BLOG!!!!!!

louielouie said...

I have nothing to add because I didn't read the whole post.
I am too distracted to stay current
Am only here today because I was looking for something else on my favorites and saw it
mostly I'm avoiding going to the grocery store

jojo cucina cucina said...

I had not idea Cat and louie were reading here until i updated.

jojo cucina cucina said...

I just noticed that i wrote in #6 "I lived two miles from home"...hahahaha.