WHAT MADE YOU GRIMACE & GRIT YOUR TEETH TODAY?

Ah, Letty. That's wonderful. I hope he gets well soon. It's been a long haul, hasn't it?

Definitely a long hall, Swimp.

hamburger, a lovely picture of butterfly's and flowers. I was going to do this one on the radio thread, but decided to do it here.




Yikes. Sorry if it stretches..well, let's just say "stretches the imagination."

letty :
reading music is one of my weaker points - VERY weak indeed !
love music , but can't do anything with notes !
music was a required subject when i graduared from middle-school - the music teacher took pity on me and let me pass - forever grateful to him !
luckily it was not required for high-school graduation

in school choir i was in the last row , so i wouldn't be a disturbing influence !
i do hum nicely , though , does that count ?
hbg

Hum this one, honey, 'cause you'll get it immediately, and the meter gets tricky at one point.

Joyful, joyful we adore thee
God of glory, Lord of love;
hearts unfold like flowers before thee,
opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
drive the dark of doubt away.
Giver of immortal gladness,
fill us with the light of day!

All thy works with joy surround thee,
earth and heaven reflect thy rays,
stars and angels sing around thee,
center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
flowery meadow, flashing sea,
chanting bird and flowing fountain,
call us to rejoice in thee.

Thou art giving and forgiving,
ever blessing, ever blest,
well-spring of the joy of living,
ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our brother,
all who live in love are thine;
teach us how to love each other,
lift us to the joy divine.
Mortals, join the mighty chorus
which the morning stars began;
love divine is reigning o'er us,
binding all within its span.
Ever singing, march we onward,
victors in the midst of strife;
joyful music leads us sunward,
in the triumph song of life.

letty :
i can sing in church just fine
btw i worked with a woman in germany who had been a cabaret-singer in younger years - she became an accountant
she taught me to sing "green herring , green herring " in a low voice ; she claimed it could be used for any text !
haven't ben doing it for years now .
hbg

Deb querida, I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I know you wish you could do more for her. I also know that she appreciates whatever you can do.

Letty, What could be more joyous than Ludwig's Ode to Joy? Glad your son is doing well.

Did you know that your car has something called a shifter cable? Did you know that when your shifter cable "goes" your car doesn't? I didn't, but I do now.
Interesting scenario: as the auto club guy is about to crawl under the front end of the car and manually put the car into drive he says: "whatever you do, don't take your foot off the brake...". Then he tells me to drive straight to my mechanic and whatever I do "don't get yourself into a situation where you have to reverse"...um...okay.

Bad news -- we're supposed to leave on vacation bright and early Friday morning and I had a whole list of last-minute errands to run this afternoon.

Good news -- I'd managed to cross one item off my list. The car broke down in the liquor store parking lot. Cheers!

Sorry about that Chai. Have a cocktail.

I've got a presentation in Chicago tomorrow and my printer just went on the ******* blink. I'm blessed to have access to another printer but DAAAAMMMMMNNN. Now the layouts won't have the same flow, because of the use of two different printers. Kind of like being forced to use two different type faces in a multi-page proposal. Maybe the client will notice, maybe not, but YOU know and that's almost as bad.

Printers always crap out just before a deadline eoe, it's some kind of law

(Psst, I'm Tai -- if the same thing had happened to Chai she'd have used her collar to fix the cable )

Ooops! Sorry for the mixup. Have TWO cocktails. On me.

Hope I don't start to slur my words

Sympathy re presentation, eoe - believe me.

Re grimacing, I've been weeding, in the drizzle of dusk, my totally lame parkway, as they call it in CA, the space between the sidewalk and the street.

Whoever did this illbegotten development, not ill begotten solely re parkways, just in general, probably put down black plastic and then a bunch of fat stones, as in 1 - 3". Oh so nice to step into. Plus the black plastic, killing natural soil organisms..

So, now I'm picking out the stones (perhaps 'dry river bed' material, or to give away), and the gdamned plastic, and the volunteer weeds, and, aaaaaaaack, the goathead - http://texnat.tamu.edu/cmplants/toxic/plants/goathead.html. Damned burr thingies......

Osso--

I knew your "goatweed" as "puncture weed". The seed pods were sharp enough to punch holes in old bicycle tires.

Stubborn stuff, suited for survival in harsh conditions.

grrr....
Landed at O'Hara Airport in Chicago today two hours before my presentation. I had a little breakfast and then got into a cab. He asked ME for directions to where I was headed. Ooooo, that pisses me off so! And it always has. I used to take alot of taxis when i lived there and I can't tell you how many taxis I've gotten out of for that very reason. It just grates at my last nerve. If you don't know the area, why in the hell are you driving a cab?

I called my clients' company and got directions which were very simple. The cab driver seemed to get his bearings then so I relaxed. While riding, I began to notice that the street names were the same as in the city and I was figuring things out when it struck me that, if the street names were the same, and in the same order, we had passed the street we were to turn on. After driving another mile, without saying a word, he did a u-turn and it was clear then. He'd missed his turn. I was seething. If I ended up late for this meeting, after getting in two hours early, you would have heard about it on the news tonight. Irate women strangles cab driver with bare hands.

When we finally made it to my destination, would you believe that he wanted me to pay the full amount on the meter? I told him that he must be out of his mind, it was obvious that he'd gotten lost, and gave him what I thought the fare would have been if he'd known the way. I was so outraged by his gaul that I had to take a few deep breaths and clear my head before entering the building. Can you believe it? People are a trip!

grimace and grit....... yep...... had many.

I hear you on the local cabbies, eoe. How'd the presentation go?

I took the train downtown last Friday for Blues Fest. I was on a later train than than I'd hoped and the act I wanted to catch was already on stage so I jumped in a cab at Union Station and said I wanted to go to Grant Park. It's a straight shot down Jackson and I'd come out the Jackson St exit for that very reason.

We start heading east down Jackson and the cabbie pulls into the left turn lane on Wacker. I figure I'm about to get the grand tour of the south loop and come in via Lake Shore Drive. Friday evening at 4:30 and he thinks he's got a tourist. Nuh uh, I tell him to go down Jackson and I'll walk over the bridge at Michigan Ave because Columbus Drive is closed off for blues fest. It still took 20 minutes to go about 8 blocks -- shoulda walked.

While in the cab I was treated to a tape of chants during his afternoon prayers. He was fingering a set of prayer beads and I sat quietly in the back so as not to disturb him. Then, between prayers he starts ranting about Americans, Chicago city government, cabbie rights, license fees, and yada, yada, yada. Traffic was going nowhere. I told him we were close enough and I walked the last block or so.

The presentation went very, very well by the way. Thanks for asking JPB. And how was the BluesFest? Geez, how I miss those great evenings in Grant Park.

It was great ~~ the weather was gorgeous and the music was good. The food was horrible, but I'm spoiled from going to New Orleans for jazzfest where the food is as good as the music.

My current sweetie left today for an extended trip Down Under. Yep. All the way to OZ.

There's only one thing he forgot to pack. Me!

But I have an exciting weekend planned (mainly involving drinking wine and watching lotsa movies).