A little muzak

Great Pumpkin Waltz

The page it comes from is http://mp3.rhapsody.com/vinceguaraldi/ohgoodgrief

Halloween

I went out today to run to the bank and grab some lunch and it’s just absolutely beautiful out!  It’s been a long time since I’ve been somewhere where it actually looks like Halloween on the day.  The trees are just on fire and everyone’s walking around dressed like witches, cats, and in the case of the hotdog joint I went to, bottles of mustard and ketchup. 

There are people out there that are adamantly opposed to this day and I understand why, but maybe I really don’t.  If everyone that was dressing up was actually going out killing a goat in the middle of a pentagram, I would be up in arms too.  But for as long as I can remember, this is one of the greatest days of the year for kids.  Not because of the evil aspect of it, but because you get to act like you’re someone else and above all you get free candy.  Kids like getting presents on Christmas, food and parades on Thanksgiving and fireworks on the 4th.  We do a good job of teaching the kids around us about the meaning of Christmas, but for all the other holidays, what’s the point??  Wait until their adults to ruin it for them!  I enjoy the 4th for much more than the fireworks and the average adult doesn’t even think twice about that.  The average adult wants a break from the normal grind of their weeks and lives.  We need days where we can forget about the crappiness around us and just enjoy ourselves.  So, tonight, have fun!

Go out and enjoy seeing big groups of kids dressing up like Indiana Jones or Hannah Montana and getting buzzed on Pixie Sticks, Snickers and Apple Cider!

Cool

I was looking through my friend Audrey’s blog and at some of her photography.  I was remembering Jo and I going to see her in an art festival on Front St. and that I had bought one of her photos that she shot in Paris.  She’s super-talented and I love her sense of taste.  I will eventually put some of her stuff on here, but I recalled us looking through the exhibits and this one girl’s art just stood out!  The pictures were great, but what she did with the pictures was just the coolest!  She took the base layer of the picture off and laid the top layer onto an old plank from a house or boat.  Then she placed them the way she wanted and laminated it to the wood.  Incredibly creative!  She said that she had learned this in a class, so I assume that others out there know how to do this, but I haven’t see theirs.  Her name is Mara Strayer and here is some of her work.

Comment

I know you’re out there!  I see your numbers on my page when I log in.  Maybe a one-line comment from time to time.  Believe me, it won’t break your fingers.

Voting

I fulfilled my civic duty on Wednesday of this past week and made my voice heard.  Or whatever.  I noticed when I went in that I was the only person under the age of about 60.  Maybe younger people don’t realize that you can vote early.  I normally like to vote on Election Day because that’s the day that you are supposed to do it, much like opening presents on Christmas or eating turkey on Thanksgiving or even drinking Guiness on St. Patrick’s Day.  Well, maybe not the last one.  That’s ok any day.

But, this year I decided maybe I’ll go another route and skip the long lines and just sit back and enjoy the furor of it all from a distance on Election Day.  So, the lines were definitely shorter.  The trade-off was a permeating smell of Ben-Gay and lots of canes and walkers.  Interestingly enough, I saw one of our drivers there.  The guy’s like 80-something, but works like a mule.  It’s ridiculous.  I talked to him and it took my mind off the ailments and sickness around me.  I voted and did so responsibly by having done my research online with a sample ballot for my district.  As I was leaving, and watching someone trying to get into a parking space that was too small for a ‘75 Imapala, I realized that when I had voted before on Election Day the people at the poll were mostly comprised of career and middle-aged people.

So, when you go to your local polling station this year and maybe notice that there aren’t as many bluehairs as you would expect, remember.  They went two weeks ago.  Just after their doctor’s appointment and just before having dinner at 4.

Let Go

I spent more than 20 years living next door to my grandma.  She knew when I left and when I got home.  You could always see her looking out of her glass door of her living room to see who pulled up or who had just started their vehicle.  She kept tabs!

She passed away in the spring and it was really hard on me.  You complain when someone is there doing something that drives you nuts like always wanting to know what you’re doing, but that pales in comparison to not having them there to do that same thing.  It’s amazing how the idea of not having someone in your life at all can really change your perspective.  It changed my perspective on my own marriage.

So, she’s gone and now comes the thing that’s somehow almost harder.  Cleaning out her house.  I had no choice in the matter of her leaving, but it’s our decision whether her stuff stays or not.  You’d love for it to stay the way it always was, but you have no choice in that either.  It will collect dust or turn yellow.  It will fade away.  You can’t stop that.  You’d love to be able to keep it all, but that’s not feasible.  So, everyone in the family comes and begins to scour through the remains of everything she owned and see if something seems worthwhile enough to take a place in their house amongst their own junk.

I’ve seen her wear “that jacket” so many times.  Or we used to eat at “that table” 3 or 4 nights a week.  We drank milk out of “those glasses” more times than I can remember.  Now those things that meant so much have no home.  The thing that made them most special is gone.  Would she want them now?  No.  I know that.  But having a yard sale of things that comprise a majority of my childhood is a tough pill to swallow.

The Way I Dress

I once heard Jerry Seinfeld say that from what he had observed there is a line that a person crosses where they never really change up the way they dress.  He said it seems that a person dresses pretty closely to the last period in their life that they were really happy.

Obviously there are people who have to dress up for work and we all have weddings and funerals and the like.  I look at myself and say, “Absolutely”!  It’s a tough thing to look at yourself and say, “Maybe I need to change it up from time to time”.  But who really wants to do that?  It’s like having another job!

Can anyone else see themselves here??

Music That Makes More Than Money

My friend James sent out an email to a few friends this morning and it took me a little while to respond to it because it hits a nerve for me.  James articulates this point well, so there was no sense in me revamping it for you.  I’ll just paste it and let you have the real thing………

“I guess I am one of the many people who think “Christian” music pretty much sucks.  There are a few exceptions…Caedmon’s, Andrew Peterson, those other two artists that don’t suck. 

Eerie and great

For those of you who don’t know him, this is Ray Lamontagne.

Reading

We have a guy that drives for us that I’ve known since ‘94 when I first started driving.  He worked for the company that we hauled for and when they let their drivers go he was the first person we wanted to hire.  He’s a super-nice, down-to-earth guy and just looks the part of a truck driver.

Times have been hard for us lately and due to a shortage of work he had to go look for another job and that’s fine.  I hope he does well.  He had found a company that was going to hire him and when he went in to take a test of some sort for them the examiner noticed that he was taking a while and lagging far behind everyone else in the room.  The examiner looked at him and said, “you can’t read can you”?  He tried to explain to him that he could, but he was much slower at it than most people.  The examiner helped him finish the test, took him to HR and they told him they wouldn’t be able to use him due to this.

I knew that he had little education, but nothing about that has hindered him from doing his job and honestly doing it better than anyone else that we’ve hired.  He fills out all of his paperwork every day and is good with numbers, but when he has to fill out an application or anything like that he has to take it home for his wife to help him with it.  I never really thought twice about it!  Obviously someone else did.

My biggest thing is that I’m really baffled by the idea that there are actual, ordinary people out there that can’t read at all.  What must that be like?  How humiliating must it be when someone finds out? 

It broke my heart for the guy.