Blogger Is Back And So Am I

Thank goodness, I can finally fix that grammatical error on my last post. It has been driving me crazy since yesterday when I found out I could not get into Blogger and do anything about it.   Blogger did  post this on their blog explaining what had happened and for that I am grateful.

Some People Come Into Our Lives And Quickly Go

I like to read obituary obituaries because the good ones are mini-biographies and what you learn from them can be fascinating. People can surprise you. I am very fascinated by the people who were a big part of my life without my knowledge. Last month a man named David Mason died. You may not know his name but you may know his music. Mr. Mason was the trumpet soloist on the Beatles' hit Penny Lane. All you Beatles fans probably have those notes floating through through your minds right now. The man had a beautiful sound.

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to have know
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello

On the corner is a banker with a motor car
The little children laugh at him behind his back
And the banker never wears a "mac" in the pouring rain
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back

In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen
He likes to keep his fire engine clean,
It's clean machine

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Full of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway

Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
And then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes,
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit. and meanwhile back

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
Penny Lane

Read Mr. Mason's obituary here.

Weather Or Not

I wish Mother Nature would make up her mind. The day before yesterday the outside temperature was in the mid-nineties, the wind calm, the sky blue. Today the sky is gray, the wind is blowing, it's raining, and the temperature is only suppose to get up into the mid-fifties. Still, the change is nice.


Maxine Sullivan

Remembrance of Things Past

I have been in email correspondence with a student at Kenyon College in Ohio for the last couple of weeks. The student contacted me because I had blogged about my Camino walk and she was doing a paper on the subject. She wanted me to answer some questions about my experience and I gladly did so. This morning I received an email from her thanking me for taking the time to answer her questions. While going though the rest of my emails, I also went into my saved file and had a email I had saved in 2007 pop up first thing. This one was from a woman who was just getting ready to do the Camino and wrote to ask me how walking the Camino had affected my life. I wrote back the following:

How did walking the Camino affect my life? I haven't really thought about this and can only say ,at this point in time, walking the Camino has helped me to feel more comfortable with who I am and it has opened my heart and soul to what the universe has to offer.

As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy'. The Camino showed me that this statement is true.How could I not be affected by what happened to me on my walk?

It definitely changed me. I did not feel any different when I got home but my family said I had changed. It was a spiritual experience and it helped me see my mother's death as another spiritual experience. I was there when she died and I now know that my being there was a blessing.

But has it changed my life in any major ways? No, I pretty much live the same life I lived before the Camino. The only difference is I am more at peace with myself than I was before the walk.

I had forgotten I had written this but the words are still true. I am certainly more as peace now that I was before I did the walk- just not as at peace as I was when I first wrote those words. A reminder that I need to work on that?

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)

Well, it will but maybe just not as brightly. RIP John Maus, AKA John Walker, lead singer of The Walker Brothers and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) star, Dana Wynter.

After The Storm

All is calm, all is bright.

It's I Hate Blogger Day!

Blogger lets you create a Blogs I Follow list on your Blogger account page. When you add a blog to this list Blogger lets know when the blog has posted something new. Yesterday I found numerous new posts for a blog I do not follow cluttering up my list. This blog seems to have been created the day before and had about seventeen new post on it. I could not find a way to delete it since it is not on my Blogs I Follow list. After going to the Blogger forum and reading some of the questions and answers about deleting blogs you no longer follow from your Blogs I Follow list, I realized none of the answers were any help to me. When I tried to sign into the Google help page I got a message saying I could not use my own user name as it was a domain name! Talk about frustrating.

Any one out there know how to get a blog you do not follow and is not listed on you Blogger Blogs I Follow list off your list?

Life: What I've Learned So Far

Don't be afraid to stand out from the crowd. Be brave, be bold and do things your own way.
-Unknown

Bin Laden Dead

I have mixed emotions about this. When I first heard the news I felt a sense of relief but at the same time I thought, so what?  The death of this man is not going to end terrorism nor does his death balance out the numerous deaths he was responsible for in the world. I do think his death is a good thing because now a great part of  our nation's political and military resources will no longer be focused on finding and destroying him.  This can only lead to a lessening of the blood lust that fueled the hunt and our foreign policy.

My thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of all the victims of that horrific day in 2001. May this news bring some measure of peace to you all.

Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)

Something to get the hear pumping this morning.


Reunion

B.B. Bumble and the Stingers
Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers
Lonnie Mack and Twangin' Eddy
Here's my ring, we're going steady
Take it easy, take me higher
Liar, liar, house on fire
Locomotion, Poco Passion
Deeper Purple, Satisfaction
Baby, baby, gotta, gotta
Gimmee, gimmee, gettin' hotter
Sammy's Cookin', Leslie's Gore
Richie Valens end of story
Maha Vishnu, Fujiama
Kama Sutra, Rama Lama
Richard Perry, Spector, Barry
Rogers, Hart, Nilsson Harry
Shimmy, Shimmy, Koko Boppin'
Fats is back and finger poppin'

Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me

Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me (Life is a rock)
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie.

FM, AM hits are clickin'
While the clock is tocking, ticking
Friends and Romans, salutations
Brenda and the Tabulations
Carly Simon, I behold her
Rolling Stones, center folder
Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers
Can't stop now I've got the shivers
Mungo Jerry, Peter Peter, Paul Paul and Mary Mary
Dr. John, the nightly tripper
Doris Day and Jack the Ripper
Got to go sir, got to swelter
Leon Russell, Gimme Shelter
Miracles in Smokey places
Slide guitarists and Fender basses
Mushroom omelet, Bonnie Bramlett
Wilson Pickett, stomp and kick it.

Life is a rock, but the radio
Life is a rock but the radio

(musical interlude)

Arthur Janov, Primal Scream
Hawkins, Jay and Dale and Ronnie
Kookla, Fran, and Norma Okla
Denver, John, and Osmond, Donnie
JJ Cale and ZZ Top
and LL Bean and DD Dinah
David Bowie, Steely Dan
Sing me proud
Oh, CC Rider
Edgar Winter Joanie Summers
Ides of March and Johnny Thunder
Eric Clapton pedal wah-wah
Steven Foster Do-da, do-da
Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda
Surfer Girl and Little Honda
Tighter, Tighter, Honey, honey
Sugar, Sugar, Yummy, yummy
CBS and Warner Brothers
RCA and all the others

Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me

Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me! (Life is a rock.)
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie.

Spoken: Listen, they're playing our song

Rocket socket, Alan Freed me
Murray Kaufman tried to lead me
Fish and Swim and Boston Monkey
Make it bad and play it FUNKY!

Freddie King and Albert King
B.B. King and frolicking
Get it on and Nat Gerardi,
Papalardi, Hale and Hearty

They are perfect, more than human
Gentle words of Randy Newman
One, two, three, so oh so please
I need a breather!

Tito Puente, Boffalongo,
Cuba, War and even Mungo
Jerry, Peter Dial, Alex Hood, Boogie Brass

(Baby, everything is alright, uptight..)

California, Beatlemania,
New York City, Transylvania
S&G and V&C and
Bobby Vee and SRO