An Aries Knows (this site is more fun when people read and comment)
A very sweet friend sent a strand of wooden Whirly Pigs for my birthday. She knew and loved Aaron, making this a perfect addition to Aaron’s Garden.
I forgot to take pictures during the daylight after Tom hung it, so the lighting isn’t great. When the wind blows, the feathers become spinners. I can’t wait to see it in action when we get a good breeze. I’ve collected pigs most of my life, and feathers are a reminder of Aaron that his mother once shared with me.
Thank you so much! ❤️
Here’s a stream of consciousness-style post to show how my brain comes up with a blog post.
Watching an Instagram account where dolls are used to reenact scenes from TV shows and movies. Second customer in a fast food joint is portrayed by a BTS doll, Jimin. I remember the time I blogged a photo of one of my characters in the Neverending Saga as portrayed by a Jimin doll that I found on eBay for a few dollars. The doll came without any of his original clothes or accessories, so I had to make the outfit in the photo.
Sometime after that, I was in a Barnes & Noble close to my doctor’s office after an appointment, and there Jimin was again, all nice in the box, at a deeply discounted price. Even though I already had a Jimin doll, I really love this character, so I bought him.
Then I remembered that I’d since found the BTS dolls at Five Below, which means they were priced at $5 or less, except one of the dolls was missing. I got the ones they had, and Tom was kind enough to go to a couple of more Five Below stores closer to his workplace, but no luck. Sad face. Then I decided I couldn’t have everyone in the group except for one (even if I did have Jimin twins). Back to eBay, and I bought the doll I was missing at a reasonable price. Ordered, delivered, the group was reunited!
But I don’t think I ever blogged a photo of them, I thought. I should do that. But what kind of background would I give them?
I then wondered, as I do from time to time, whatever happened to the smoking jacket given as a gift to my father by his civilian staff, all Korean, after his last tour of duty in Korea. It would be a great background for the dolls but I don’t have it. But what DID ever happen to that smoking jacket…
I texted my brother. Yep, at some point after Daddy died, Mother gave it to David. He still has it. He even had a picture of it on his phone, and here’s a detail of the jacket. Funny that I remembered it as bright blue, but I’ve accumulated a lot more memories since the last time I saw it. Thanks, David! I told him I love that he has it.
[I briefly thought about a nap dream I had the other day that began with me dreaming I was taking a nap, woke up, turned over, and my father was standing in the room. He was in uniform, and he looked like he did when I was about seven, but I was adult me in the dream. The absolute joy I felt when I saw him there. “Daddy!” I said, jumped up, and hugged him. “You’re home!” The dream moved on to other things, but every time I think of it, I remember the happiness of seeing him.]
I told my brother that I, too, once had a sort of pajama jacket that Daddy brought back from Korea, and I had no idea where it went to over the years. Suddenly I was pretty sure I had a picture of one of my nieces wearing it in a silly photo shoot I did of nephews and nieces after they created costumes out of clothes from my closet (probably 1986). Here you see Billy Idol, Prince, and two babes who look like they could have been on “Mod Squad” in the 1970s. That babe on the far right is wearing the red and black PJ jacket I was talking about.
But I still hadn’t photographed the BTS crew. So I did, against some of the fabric Debby gave me at Christmas. The end.
Time to browse the book that inspired this weekly feature, and today I chose this prompt:
I’ve recently taken out my wee keyboard to see if I can still play any of the easy piano music I learned WAY BACK WHEN. Turns out I can (falteringly); it’d probably be a lot easier on an actual piano. The electronic keyboard really is wee, having only 26 white keys (natural music notes) and 18 black keys (sharps and flats). For comparison, a standard piano of 88 keys has 52 white keys and 36 black keys.
Still a lot of fun though, and coincidentally, this favorite old classic my parents liked to dance to is in the music book, so I took a (very slow) run through it.
Sounds better when Ella sings it.
Where would your sentimental journey take you?
I’ll just trot out my old Easter Beagle button that I’ve used before, along with a new photo of the bunny from the last Easter basket my mother ever gave me (it was in the early 2000s so clearly I was an adult, but you can’t be too old for an Easter basket or a parent’s kindness–and speaking of a parent’s kindness, some of these eggs were gifts from my mother-in-law, many of which she made herself).
Today’s song challenge is “a song that breaks your heart.” For me, that song is the Carole King composition “You’ve Got a Friend.” I own it by at least three artists, and I no longer listen to it. There’s nothing at all wrong with the song; it’s as beautiful to me as it ever was. But a moment came in my life when hearing “You’ve Got a Friend” evoked a lyric from a different song, the Jackson Browne composition “These Days”: Please don’t confront me with my failures/I had not forgotten them.
I’m not linking to either song. I had a great birthday yesterday, and today I’d like to pick up where I was in my manuscript. I don’t want to be derailed by melancholy.
On a lighter note, in February, I received “The Beatles Coloring Book” from Nurse Lisa in Iowa. Below are a series of photos showing the evolution of the first picture I colored from it and finally finished this week (working on it sporadically for the last five-plus weeks).
The cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album.
The cover of the coloring book Lisa sent.
My first coloring included the title and the Volkswagen.
Finished page!
Framed and hanging on the wall in the writing sanctuary, a little birthday gift to myself yesterday.
When I wrote A Coventry Wedding, I scattered Easter eggs (an “Easter egg” is defined as “a little extra something that authors hide in their books for readers to find”) throughout the book. In A Coventry Wedding, the Easter eggs were allusions to Beatles’ lyrics meant as gifts for Riley to find when he read the novel. Sadly, Riley died before the book’s release, five months before my mother died in 2008. The novel came out later than scheduled because the editor gave me an extension so I could focus on Mother during her final months while I was also grieving Riley’s loss. It doesn’t require a therapist to recognize that I haven’t tried to get another full-length work of fiction published since 2009 or that it took me ten years to even begin writing novels again.
Some of the Easter eggs in A Coventry Wedding alluded to songs on Abbey Road. Off the top of my head, those include “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” and “Mean Mr. Mustard.” From that album, here’s my deliberately-chosen song “Carry That Weight” (in which the Beatles sample another song from Abbey Road, “You Never Give Me Your Money”). All kinds of writers have a little fun with their work sometimes. In fact, I’ve just written a scene with a character analyzing Easter eggs in a screenwriter’s music video.
Today’s challenge is “a song that’s a favorite from any genre.” R.E.M. is one of my top bands. I respect them for disbanding when they thought it was time, but I miss them. They have so many songs I never get tired of listening to. Though “Losing My Religion” was probably overplayed on music television, both the song and the video are classic.
Jim arrived here around noon today after Tim picked him up at the airport. We haven’t seen him since the month before the flood in 2017, so this visit is long overdue. Just as always, it’s like those years never happened. As the four of us sat at the table and talked, it was easy to remember why we started writing together. Just missing Timmy from the group!
Today’s challenge is “a song you like from the ’70s.” That’s the decade with the shifting variety of music that probably most influenced me, so where would I begin? I reached back to 1971 for a song that in my soul remains larger than a single artist, time, or place.
Wikipedia provides an an interesting account of the history of “What’s Going On” and Marvin Gaye.
Hope everyone remembered to set their clocks forward last night before bed. Today’s song challenge is “a song that makes you sad.” For me, “Time in a Bottle” is a song many people call romantic, but I’ve always heard it as sad, so that’s how it makes me feel.
Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to Debby’s Stewie, who just a few days ago celebrated his seventeenth birthday. He’s had health issues the last few months and among other things, struggled with his appetite. Today, the staff at Gulf Coast offered him a little feast of birthday cake and ice cream, among other goodies, and he loved the bacon. It was already gone from his tray in this photo! He also enjoyed a bit of the birthday cake and ice cream and ate all the Cheetos before his gentle, loving goodbye. Debby’s going to miss the dog she called “the little Frenchman” so much.
Stewie was originally her grandchildren’s dog. When they had to give him up, she invited him to live with her. He and her big black lab Harley became good friends. Harley died in 2019, also on March 9. Now they’re together again.
We may not be able to save time in a bottle, but it has no power over the bonds of love.
Yes, it’s been two weeks since Valentine’s Day. Yes, I understand the perspective that it’s a manufactured holiday meant to make people spend money on flowers and candy and jewelry and dining out and trips, etc. And it makes some people feel lonely and alone, or resentful for being expected to feel lonely and alone, when they are actually quite content with their lives. So here’s a message from the bottom of my heart–or the bottom of my Hershey’s Kisses.
Love is love. Celebrate it any day or every day with friends, family members, family pets, and romantic partners. Or just celebrate because Snoopy was created, and he’s amazing.
Debby’s birthday is tomorrow, and that’s the photo of past birthday celebrations at Houndstooth Hall I’ll post on Instagram tomorrow morning. Getting this in because tomorrow’s post will be the Photo Friday theme.
We’ll be celebrating on Sunday Monday night with dinner and cake, because that’s when everyone’s more available. Right now, pollen allergies are kicking my butt. Hopefully, Sunday Monday will be a low pollen day!