My weekend

It’s hard to believe the year is almost half over already! WOW! By this time on Saturday, I’ll be (hopefully) making my final descent into Cancun. Originally, we were scheduled for an early morning something on Tuesday evening, so we were going to have 3 nights and 3½ days, roughly. Once we’d paid our final, nonrefundable payment for our “subject to change until final payment is made” scheduled trip, we were given our schedule. It changed. Now we arrive around 5 pm, and have to leave the hotel for the airport at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, so we have 2 and less than ½ days, for the money we paid. But that’s another blog. This has been a great spring for my music collection…. I’ve already talked about American Highlander, the latest offering from The Rogues. I’ve also added the latest offering from Clandestine, ReD. If you’ve seen them live in the last year, you’ve already heard some of the awesome new stuff. From the first time I heard it, I’ve loved Wobbly Wheel Set, Sexy An Dros, and The Ewe & the Sound. The harmonizing of Emily, EJ & Al, is great. Overall, it’s a toe-tapping, dancing in your seat (or jumping up and dancing), fun and interesting disc to listen to. Early last week, I went to the post office to discover my Box O’ Swag, from my pre-adoption of Marc Gunn’s latest 2, Whiskers in the Jar and Going for Brogue. My swag included not just copies of the cds but also a handful of other discs to share, some bumper stickers and a new t-shirt. I think I’ve still got a copy of Going for Brogue to share, as well as an Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover’s Companion, and a couple of his first cat CD Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. If you’re interested, let me know, or head on over to CD Baby and pick up a copy. Whiskers in the Jar is another fun collection of traditional Irish tunes to which Marc & others have rewritten the words, honoring, playing with, or expressing the loving frustration we cat lovers feel for our feline babies. I SOOO understand Danny Boy… as I have my own obnoxious brat, sweet baby who finds it quite amusing to attack my toes when I am asleep, so as to wake me from deep and blissful slumber. What Shall We Do With a Catnipped Kitty pretty much ensures that I’ll be mixing up the words to Drunken Sailor forever… An absolute must for the cat lover in your world! Going for Brogue is Marc’s offering of traditional Irish songs and sea shanties done with wonderful accents. There’s something for the Irishman in you, something for the pirate in you. At first listen, several of the sea shanties sounded odd to my ear, since I’d really only heard them done in 4 or 5 part harmony by the Corsairs, but by the time the song was over, I was backing up to listen again to Marc’s wonderful rendition. Once again, Marc’s love of music and making music shines through in his voice and music. Order a copy for your pirate, or your irish! In the grand scheme of things, I probably should have spent yesterday doing something totally constructive, like getting laundry done so I could pack for the trip, or cleaning the house because it needs it, or working on the pool, because again, it needs it. The problem with all of those , is that none of those would have distracted me sufficiently to forget that I’ve embarked on what could be a pretty long stretch between live bagpipe shows. I may make it to the Killdares show Friday night, but that’s still very up in the air. Instead of the constructive stuff, I went with Emilee down to Austin so we could make an appearance at Marc Gunn’s CD release party at Things Celtic. Probably 25 or so people were there… got to see a handful of faire folke when Queen Bonnie & Var Grayshadow made it. Marc had a sore throat, but did a great job! Having never been in the shop before, I quite enjoyed looking around and seeing what I could find. Emilee, Marc & I took baby Claire and had an early dinner at a cute little café, Kerbey Lane. I gotta say the French toast was good, and I don’t remember the last time I had bacon cooked just the way I like it… without me even asking! I love it when I have the opportunity to have a nice quiet meal with friends! Marc offered us an opportunity to grow our celtic music libraries that sounds great, and as my library is still fairly small, I’m looking forward to adding new artists to those I already enjoy! On the way home (and down, if we’re going to be honest about it) we stopped in West at the Czech Stop. On the way down we’d stopped for gas and breakfast, and I saw Dr. Pepper cake, but didn’t want to have it sit in the car for who knew how long in the heat. I’ve had a bite or two of it, and it’s definitely yummy, and tastes sort of Dr. Peppery, but also kind of chocolatey. The beer bread I brought home is great too!!! That’s about it for now… gotta go move the laundry now.

A Weekend off

Yep, I finally had a weekend free from commitments. I did managed to get some things accomplished, though not nearly enough. A portion of the around 2000 photos I took at Scarborough are finally edited. Oh, there are plenty more to get done, and hopefully, I'll get a few done each night this week, and before I go to Cancun in a couple of weeks they'll all be done and up. I learned a few things about myself this week:

• I learned that I don't read some people nearly as well as I thought I did. To that end, I'm pulling back out my face reading book, and brushing up on that so that maybe next time, I won't be such a dunce.
• I realized that tapes that I thought were long gone from my head, while not nearly so prominent, are still there, and while they always will be, I know that they were placed there out of love, not malice, and that they are not actually true
• I realized, again, how blessed I am to have the people who are in my world, and how much I have enjoyed adding to my world this year.
• I learned that there is music in all of us, itching to get out, we just have to recognize that music, and let it out, whether it is actually music, or dance, or words, or watercolor, or oils...
• I learned that while, outwardly, I always embrace the person that I have become, I am not always honest with myself, and I don't always believe what I am projecting, though I do believe it is true.

First Post

Ok, here I am with my shiny new blog... I guess the best place to start is an introduction. I've got a couple of blogs a couple of other places, but they are a bit more geared toward specific groups much of the time, and I really sort of want to consolidate. I'm a former Army brat, and by the time I was 10 and we retired from the Army, I'd lived 5 places for at least 6 months, and spent more than a week or two in 5 or 6 others as we transitioned from post to post. I'm my mother's oldest, and my father's 3rd child. I have 4 nephews & a niece that I enjoy immensely. My education is in History with an English minor, but I don't use my degree at all, which is fine, because I love what I do and the people I work with. Musical tastes run the spectrum from classic rock to country, to celtic and other world music. I like pretty much anything except rap, hip hop, and some of the newer 'metal'. My current passion is Celtic. I am totally in love with good piping... great highland pipes, uillean pipes, yep, I am good with pipe music. My favorite bands are The Rogues, Clandestine, and The Killdares. I'm also a big fan of Marc Gunn and the Brobdingnagian Bards. I'm addicted to renfaires and get to as many as I possibly can (especially if I'm going to find some of the bands above there)! I'm owned by a trio of fabulous kitties, who run amok through the house. Yep, when you see me, you're likely to see cat hair on me, or on my furniture, but since I've lived a total of maybe 2 years of my entire life without cats, I don't know what 'hairless' surroundings are. That's prolly enough for now...