Monday, March 21, 2011

03.21.2011 Willie Nelson and Abe Lincoln and Sam

Now that's quite the trifecta of individuals but all were featured this past weekend.  My Roaming Buddy Scott and I headed west to Springfield, Illinois this past Saturday for a Willie Nelson Concert - stopping first in Terre Haute for a brief albeit satisfying visit (and hand-off of a half pan of oatmeal crunch bars)  with son Sam and his girlfiend Jenna, we then headed north to eventually westward ho on 36...

We managed to find a few gems along the way.  One of our first stops was in Dana Indiana, the boyhood home of Ernie Pyle.  He was the journalist who made World War II more personal and heartrending by writing about the guys actually fighting the war.  The Ernie Pyle State Historic Site located on Dana's main street has a great little museum in a Quonset hut, which sits next to Pyle's boyhood home.  The museum displays include some of Pyle's personal belongings (like his Purple Heart, awarded posthumously) and some stuff that was in his pockets the day he was killed by sniper fire. 

West again on 36 - lunch in an inexpensive but really good Chinese buffet (i'll insert the name and location in here later on)  and finally to Springfield.  Got a room on the 28th floor of a 28 floor hotel! right downtown by the convention center.

The concert started right on time - 78 year old Willie Nelson played and sang the familiar tunes non-stop until 9 pm...when he simply walked over, propped his guitar Trigger against the drum stand, put his hat on, smiled, waved and walked off.  Simply 90 minutes of Willie Nelson and his band, playing amazing music!

Next day?  some Abraham Lincoln visitation - including a few pictures of his Springfield Home (which I visited years ago when in 8th grade) and his Tomb. 

And then home we went, EAST on 36!   I'll attach some pictures later on....

a Fun weekend...thanks RB Scott!

Friday, March 18, 2011

03.18.2011 where are the blogs I can read?

this is truly a silly post...but I was just reading Mike Dodaro's blog posts..and thought, huh - i will just click the NEXT blog link up at the top and see what I get!

Well, I clicked NEXT 17 times and each time I did the blog that appeared was in a foreign language. 

Wouldn't be so bad if I could read a foreign language, any foreign language at ALL...but taking one year of LATIN senior year in high school (which was omygoodness 36 years ago) does not in any way, shape or form equate any level of foreign language literacy.

Kind of wish I'd taken Spanish in high school - because it looked like each of those 17 blogs were written in Spanish.  But when I was a freshman in high school, I was given the choice between CHOIR, BAND or a Foreign language.  And I chose BAND.  Wasn't until I was a senior that I had an empty spot for a language - and seeing as Latin is supposed to be the base of so many words, I took that.

But you know, it seems to me really..that choosing BAND wasn't so bad after all.  Because I know people who actually took a foreign language for 4 years in high school, and if I asked them today to speak to me in Spanish or to read to me one of those blogs..they could not.  They've forgotten most of it.

And two nights ago?  I had my flute out, playing piano music written in the early 1900's.  And over the past 36 years, I've played my flute in church, in football AND basketball pep bands, AND I even got to play flute in the pit band for a few high school musicals. 

So actually, I guess I can say that I am fluent in Flute.  And since I started playing in fifth grade, I have been for nearly 45 years!   And I think that gives me more personal satisfaction than being able to figure out those 17 blogs.  :)

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

03.09.2011 The 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century

I came across this link today - and thought huh..wonder how many of those I"ve read?  or rather I should say, how many of those do I remember that I've read?  I have always read mysteries...my Dad was a big reader, and so some of the older books I may have read and just don't remember.   The ones I remember reading I'm going to mark...and then I think I'm going to make reading the ones I haven't a 2011 endeavor.

After marking - I've got 15.  Huh.  I"ve got some reading to do!

http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/links/20th-century-favorites-1 
 
The 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century
(Paperback publisher is noted for titles in print in 2000.  Some have since gone out of print, some publishers have changed, and others formerly unavailable have since been reissued.)
Allingham, Margery. The Tiger in the Smoke (Carroll & Graf)
Ambler, Eric. A Coffin for Dimitrios (Carroll & Graf)
Armstrong, Charlotte. A Dram of Poison
Atherton, Nancy. Aunt Dimity's Death (Penguin)  (READ)
Ball, John. In the Heat of the Night (Carroll & Graf)
Barnard, Robert. Death by Sheer Torture
Barr, Nevada. Track of the Cat (Avon)   (READ)
Blake, Nicholas. The Beast Must Die
Block, Lawrence. When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (Avon)
Brand, Christianna. Green for Danger (Carroll & Graf)
Brown, Frederic. The Fabulous Clipjoint
Buchan, John. The 39 Steps (Dover)
Burke, James Lee. Black Cherry Blues (Avon)
Cain, James M.. The Postman Always Rings Twice (Vintage/Black Lizard)
Cannell, Dorothy. The Thin Woman (Bantam)
Carr, John Dickson. The Three Coffins
Caudwell, Sarah. Thus Was Adonis Murdered (Dell)
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep (Vintage)
Christie, Agatha. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (HarperPBKS) (READ)  Connelley, Michael. The Concrete Blonde (St. Martin's)
Constantine, K.C.. The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes (David R. Godine)
Crais, Robert. The Monkey's Raincoat (Bantam)
Crispin, Edmund. The Moving Toyshop (Penguin)
Crombie, Deborah. Dreaming of the Bones (Bantam)
Crumley, James. The Last Good Kiss (Vintage)
Dickinson, Peter. The Yellow Room Conspiracy
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles (Berkley)(READ)
DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca (Avon) (READ)
Dunning, John. Booked to Die (Avon)
Elkins, Aaron. Old Bones (Mysterious)
Evanovich, Janet. One for the Money (HarperPaperbacks)(READ)

Finney, Jack. Time and Again (Scribner)
Ford, G.M.. Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? (Avon)
Francis, Dick. Whip Hand (Jove)
Fremlin, Celia. The Hours Before Dawn (Academy Chicago)
George, Elizabeth. A Great Deliverance (Bantam)
Gilbert, Michael. Smallbone Deceased 
Grafton, Sue. "A" is for Alibi (Bantam) (READ)
Graham, Caroline. The Killings at Badger's Drift 
Grimes, Martha. The Man With the Load of Mischief 
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon (Vintage)
Hare, Cyril. An English Murder
Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs (St. Martin's) (READ)
Hiaasen, Carl. Tourist Season (Warner)
Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley (Vintage)
Hill, Reginald. On Beulah Height (Dell)
Hillerman, Tony. A Thief of Time (HarperPaperbacks) (READ)
Himes, Chester. Cotton Comes to Harlem (Vintage)
Innes, Michael. Hamlet, Revenge
James, P.D.. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Warner)
Kellerman, Faye. The Ritual Bath (Avon)
Kellerman, Jonathan. When the Bough Breaks (Bantam)
King, Laurie. The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Bantam) (READ)
Langton, Jane. Dark Nantucket Noon (Penguin)
le Carre, John. The Spy Who Came in From The Cold (Ballantine)
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird (Warner) (READ)
Lehane, Dennie. Darkness, Take My Hand (Avon)
Leonard, Elmore. Get Shorty (Delta)
Lochte, Dick. Sleeping Dog (Poisoned Pen Press)
Lovesey, Peter. Rough Cider
MacDonald, John D.. The Deep Blue Good-by (Fawcett) (READ)
MacDonald, Philip. The List of Adrian Messenger 
Macdonald, Ross. The Chill (Vintage/Black Lizard)
Maron, Margaret. Bootlegger's Daughter (Mysterious)(READ)
Marsh, Ngaio. Death of a Peer (St. Martin's)
McBain, Ed. Sadie When She Died
McClure, James. The Sunday Hangman 
McCrumb, Sharyn. If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O (Ballantine)
Millar, Margaret. Stranger in My Grave
Mosley, Walter. Devil in a Blue Dress (Pocket)
Muller, Marcia. Edwin of the Iron Shoes
Neel, Janet. Death's Bright Angel
O'Connell, Carol. Mallory's Oracle (Jove)
Padgett, Abigail. Child of Silence
Paretsky, Sara. Deadlock (Dell)
Parker, Robert. Looking for Rachel Wallace (Dell)
Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Club Dumas (Vintage)
Perry, Thomas. Vanishing Act (Ivy)
Peters, Elizabeth. Crocodile on the Sandbank (Warner)
Peters, Ellis. One Corpse Too Many (Mysterious)
Pronzini, Bill. Blue Lonesome (Walker)
Queen, Ellery. Cat of Many Tails 
Rendell, Ruth. No More Dying Then (Vintage)
Rice, Craig. The Wrong Murder (International Polygonics)
Rinehart, Mary Roberts. The Circular Staircase (Kensington) (READ)
Robinson, Peter. Blood at the Root (Avon)
Rosen, Richard. Strike Three You're Dead
Ross, Kate. A Broken Vessel (Penguin)
Rozan, S.J.. Concourse (St. Martin's)
Sayers, Dorothy. Murder Must Advertise (HarperPaperbacks)
Sjowall & Wahloo. The Laughing Policeman
Stout, Rex. Some Buried Caesar 
Tey, Josephine. Brat Farrar (Scribner)
Thomas, Ross. Chinaman's Chance 
Todd, Charles. A Test of Wills (Bantam)
Turow, Scott. Presumed Innocent (Warner) (READ)
Upfield, Arthur. The Sands of Windee 
Walters, Minette. The Ice House (St. Martin's)
White, Randy Wayne. Sanibel Flats (St. Martin's)
Woolrich, Cornell. I Married a Dead Man (Penguin)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

03.08.2011 Photography Scavenger Hunts

So I'm a member of a photography group on Facebook - there was a February Scavenger Hunt posted so of course, I wanted to do it.  There were 25 items on the list to find and take a picture of...and hey presto!  I won! And much to my dismay, oh sure, I won, but not many people had much time to devote to this scavenger hunt, and i think i kind of won just because I had so many pictures.
But oh well - i WON DARNIT!  heres a link to the FB album...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=115537&id=1384077819&l=a20fa3f7d9
And what did i win?  The priviledge to create the next scavenger hunt list!
Here's the list for the March list...it's an Alphabetical Scavenger Hunt.
Some items are specific..some are open to interpretation.

A Abandoned House

B Blue

C Covered Bridge

D Deadly

E Elegant

F Fire truck

G Gates

H Hands

I Icky

J Junk

K Knives

L Lethargy

M Movie House Marquee

N Nine

O Ooops

P Paint

Q Quaint

R Relaxation

S Strings

T Toy

U Underneath

V Veteran

W Wood

X X marks the Spot

Y Yarn

Z Zany

Saturday, February 5, 2011

24 hour blog - hour 13 irrational fears

i have 2 irrational fears...probablt you could consider them very closely related.  i have an irrational fear of papercuts.  I also have this fear of someone standing in front of me, whilst folding paper.  you know where a person is STANDING RIGHT THERE AND HE FOLDS A PIECE OF PAPER IN HALF AND THEN VERY SLOWLY PRESSES DOWN THE FOLD!

omigod.  its gross just typing it.

shudder

i also kind of fear clowns, but really...who doesn't?

24 hour blog - hour 6 7 8 9 10

#6: Friends (4-5)
#7: Write a review of your favorite movie/book/TV Show/Music (5-6)
#8: Theme Songs for Different Moods/Moments (6-7)
#9: Utopias (7-8)
#10: Where is one place you've always wanted to go, discuss the benefits of this place,

Favorite 3rd son Sam and Jenna are visiting .. so Ive been away from the computer. we went to Iaria's Italian restaurant for pizza and then to the greenwood mall for walkabout.  i bought a great pair of new walking shoes while sam got his boots resoled.  There's a cobbler type store - the guy who did the work grew up working for his dad there...he knows shoes!

anywhoo im back and to catch up im gonna combine 5 topics into one...gonna try anyway...lets see.

friends - my oldest best friend is one i rarely talk to and see even less...Laura Michalik moved into the house behind mine in Mokena when we both were 5.  instant buddies, we had sleep overs, and sat with each other on the bus, and were each others maid of honor.  she's the friend in my life where a year can go by without talking,yet when we do talk, its like we'd just talked yesterday.

music - certain songs mean different times in my life...i grew up listening to show tunes...the king and i, south pacific, mary poppins..and Frank Sinatra, Henson Cargill, and Hern Albert and the Tiajuana Brass...the stuff my parents listened to by playing thick records on this old white and tan record player. 

the first two records of my very own were carole king's Tapestry and Elton John's Caribou.  i still know all the words to all those songs...and when i hear one on the radio, i can smell the warm weird odor of my first record player. 

Songs bring to mind events, people, places...Bruce Springsteen's Born to run will forever mean the first year of my marriage and driving in Dan's VW...Twist and Shout will always mean laughing at the boys as they watched ferris bueller sing "shakin' the baby now", all 3 butts twisting and hands waving.  any elton john song means college and walking down to the record store to hand over my 4 bucks for the latest record.  Harry Chapin means my time in Sacramento...Johnny Cash means my Dad singing along in his low voice and the Beatles?  watching them perform on the Ed Sullivan show at my Grannie's.

Maybe my utopia would be a place where I could visit now and again with all the people of my life who are gone, where i could now and again have dinner with my Grannie or put together a jigsaw with my Dad  or be 14 again, playing cards with my little brother.    Utopia means an ideally perfect place and usually people are living in that type of place, but don't realize it until things change and you think...huh...how wonderful that was.

we've got Some Like it Hot on the tv... a wonderful movie with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, one of my favorites of all time.  Tony and Jack are wanted by the mob..so they go undercover as members of an all girl's band...Tony does a great impression of Cary Grant when he's trying to impress Marilyn by masquerading as a rich yacht owner...and Jack is pursued by a rich playboy who wants to bring him home to meet his mother.  Rent it soon if you've never seen it before!

24 hour blog - hour 5 alter egos

as a Mom...i have many alter egos .. or roles as it were..when they were little, i was mommy.. the one who could fix just about anything.  as the kids got older, that changed...i was simply MOM...i no longer could fix everything but i usually could make things a little better with a hug or a pan of cookies...or twenty bucks.

now?  as a divorced woman...things are changing again.  the kids are no longer kids...and twenty bucks doesnt go very far.  plus each boy has another source for hugs...pandas...no, not pandas...GIRLFIENDS OF VARYING STATI...

so what am i now?  today im the idiot who lives by herself , who went for a walk on a sheet of ice and fractured my elbow...and could still be lying in the middle of the road...