Moonlight Serenade

Hey, look! It's the middle of the night again and that means its time to update the Bittersweet journal! Hoo boy...

From where I sit I can actually see the moon through the slats of the window blind, at first glance it appears full but I guess it's more a 3/4 moon goin' down. It was high in the sky when I started last night, listing some plastick goods at auction, scheduling them so they start in the evening Monday, not at the crazy hours I'm sitting up pecking and posting pics.

I'm thinking seriously about knocking off here while the rest of the house sleeps soundly and running down to the neighborhood McDonald's to see what time they switch over to the breakfast menu. Probably at four, in just a few minutes...

But it's co-o-o-old out there... Maybe I'll just stay put. Or go to bed! There's a novel idea...

Spent a few hours yesterday afternoon hooking up a new computer for, well, I don't know exactly how to refer to her, a family friend, I suppose. "Effy" was pals with my maternal grandmother before her death and afterward married my widower grandfather. Now they're divorced- a regular golden-age soap opera of sorts -but still keep regular company despite seperate residence.

But anyway(there's that phrase again!), Pap got the idea that I'm some sort of computer whiz, not!, so I was enlisted to set up her new PC. Of course, it's all color coded and easy enough that a twelve year-old could do it right outta the box but I guess when you're eighty-something and remember when electric light and the telephone wire first came to your home-down-in-the-holler that's small comfort.

Meanwhile I'm envious of the memory capacity of their new box, it's CD/DVD burner and so forth and the only thing it'll ever be used for is all manner of games; I spent a larger chunk of time installing a handful of things like bingo, solitaire, gin rummy and making shortcuts so they'd be available at startup. No internet or email, no music, no word functions, nothing like that...! Oh, well, long as everybody's happy and the computer will have a simple life...

As for me I still haven't found a way to open all my old Works files on my computer. PhotoSuite I finally found on what I thought was the software disk for the scanner; turns out the scanner stuff is nowhere to be found. One step forward, two steps back. I'll end up buying Works somewhere, I guess; I'm sure I can download the scanner stuff, I hope.

And that's about all the news thats fit to print for today. Or tomorrow...? No, today, it's well into Monday already.

Monday = 'moon day', lunes, appropriate that the moon should be the subject heading, right? Boy, it's turning a lovely golden yellow color as it dips toward the horizon with some wispy treetops grabbing the edge, makes a great view. 'If you believe... they put a man on the moon... man on the moon...'

And there, friends, is your 'serenade' of the entry heading. See, it all works out, one way or another, despite the lack of real planning or purpose at the start. Suh-weet!

Nightime banter

Why does it seem like I always end up here in the middle of the night? I don't know, I guess every other place I go a-cyber-spacin' takes precedence- check the auctions, check the bank balance, check some more auctions, edit a web page... check some more auctions.

And then, after checking the auctions, I decide to wonder how my blogs are holding up. Or, more to the point, how long it's been since I updated them. To be fair, my toymaking diary gets a good deal more attention because I figure the slavering masses out there in ToyLand need to know what my plastic-coated fingertips are working on in their behalf, what I've sent their way or haven't, what I'm thinking about doing next.

And I do a lot of that. Thinking about what to do next. Mostly while I'm doing the same old thing for somebody. That can be a drag because I know I should be doing something- I'd rather be doing something! -on the sixteen projects I've started and the sixteen I'd like to start and sixteen more I've never put a hand to in any fashion.

But anyway...

One time, has to be ten years ago now, we- myself, my wife and our old-timey bluegrass pals, Berton and Rita and Joanne -went to a bluegrass show at a fire hall in Nashville- No, not that Nashville! Nashville PA, right up the road from Dover and just short of Spring Grove. The show featured two or three bands, one including a fellow, Mark, who used to come around to see my first garage band practice. We thought we were pretty hot stuff and the two brothers in the band gave Mark a hard time because he didn't know any guitar chords. I don't recall them ever mentioning the fact that he played the mandolin but now he's really hot stuff on that little instrument. Really hot stuff. It was quite amazing to hear him that night and I heard later on that he really is quite reknowned in bluegrass circles for his musical prowess.

But anyway... One of the other acts was a family group, their name escapes me at this late date, with two, count 'em, two little girls, accomplished players for their tender years, they might have been ten and twelve, I'd guess, who more or less fronted the band with snappy banter and folksy sayings and so forth while the rest of the family played and sang as well.

But anyway... The one dear little soul had the annoying habit of injecting 'But anyway...' into every sentence ortwo. And this in a childlike tenor with a twangy nasal edge- it came out sounding like 'But ee-enn-ee way-ee...' -that made it all the more grating after several repetitive interludes, peppering the hillbilly anecdotes and travelin' tales...

But anyway... I'm sure it wasn't stage fright- they apparently made their living at showmanship -but rather an affectation well rehearsed and most likely scripted as well, designed to endear the little waif to audiences anxious for, well, entertainment by waifs, I suppose, with a folksy, twangy delivery.

But anyway... it comes to mind every time I hear that phrase used. And, oooh, I shiver even now to think of it.

Now I gotta go check some auctions.

No, not really. I gotta hit the hay, as they say.

(To be read with a folksy, twangy delivery.)

(Y'all...)

Home sweat home

Yes, I do mean sweat! No, really, the transplantation wasn't all that bad from there to here. I may have broken a sweat once or twice last week as our little blue wagon made like a truck and hauled stuff back and forth day after day from our old address to the new up the lane but even the 'big stuff'- two beds, two bookshelves, two tables, one entertainment center and a washer and a dryer -with the help of a coupla real pals and a good-sized box truck was really a walk in the park compared to some moves we've made. I mean, it was so close, it was just easy as pie. I wouldn't want to have to do it once a month...! But it was pretty low stress. There was no sweatin' this week, lemme tell ya. It got co-o-o-old! But the major portion of the move was complete with only the 'leftovers', stuff in the garden shed and a few trickling items from a cabinet or two that were overlooked in the kitchen. And by today there are maybe only half a dozen boxes to be sorted.

That's not counting my son's room, of course. That natural disaster area will likely be another month in the making. Or un-making as the case may be. His room is probably twice the size and is literally sitting full from floor to ceiling with stuff! Don't ask me where it all was in the last room... I just don't know... But, seriously, he's made some progress and you can actually see the floor already in a path to the bed.

So it's largely back to business as usual. Except the cat has been incarcerated in the bathroom for the month. As the little bugger has grown and entered what I suppose you'd call 'cat puberty' she's twice now... uh, left her mark. And that is a decidedly unpleasant occurrence. Proof that animals are not meant to be indoors if ever I've seen it. Or, more to the point, smelled it. But we're reliably informed that nipping the reproductive process in the bud, so to speak, will cure her of that nasty urge. The local SPCA offers a budget service but the waiting period is a month. So, now... we wait. And, but for short hand-carried excursions throughout the new dwelling, Coco lives a confining existence in the bathroom where there are no shaggy carpets or soft pluffy bedding available for her to douse as advertisement of her pregnability. Eee yew...!

And with the move the dream of cable TV entertainment was >poof!< gone. We signed on with a deal price plus all kinds of extras for the first six months and only were on board for four maybe. Deal was non-transferable and I wasn't gonna cough up the extra cost so bye-bye. I fully expected the guy on the other end of the phone to offer us something as an incentive to stay hooked up but nope. After all, just another two months and we'd have been in for the usual ticket anyway. Oh, well, 'easy come, easy go' they say. I imagine we'll get a call one day ere long and I'll let 'em know, "Sure, I'll sign on again but I have to have that six month deal again for my trouble or forget it." I drive such a hard bargain... not really...

Not much else going on. Mumsy is planning a big family dinner, date still to be determined, getting together cousins on the paternal branch of the family tree. Which should be neat, we never see each other despite protests and promises to make the effort other than when funerals come along. I learned at my aunt's funeral that my cousin's wife and daughter are quite polished singers- despite the emotional circumstances, they did a nice rendition of some memorial standards -I'm not so polished at the guitar but it'd be neat to try a tune or two and have them sing. My predilection for heavy rock aside, I favor female vocalists as a rule- Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Elvis and Chris Isaak being the notable exceptions -and, while I only know one or two of her songs, I'd love to play some Sheryl Crow with them. Who knows, maybe they don't like Sheryl Crow... Then again, maybe they do!

So there you have it. Until something arrestingly new and excitingly mundane comes along to report here...>yawn<...

Abyssinia!