My weather order

I love the rain.

The back yard is all nicely mown and the back beds weeded and it just looks really lovely out there. What I’m hoping for is that it will be nice weather Saturday through, say, Tuesday so we can get more yard work done. Then, I’d like some nice showers Wednesday to freshen everything up, then nice weather for the next week.

See, Daughter Two comes home from school Wednesday night. Then, we’re attending Daughter One’s college commencement on Saturday. So, we’d really like fine (but not hot) weather at least Thursday through Sunday.

Personally, I don’t believe this is too much to ask.

What do you think?

Why I'm happy

Much yard work done, home with Mary, dogs (somewhat) brushed, and...wait for it...
Bjornbecue!!!

It’s list time!

Things that hurt when you suddenly get active after sitting on your caboose for months:

1.       The caboose

2.       Left knee

3.       Also, right knee

4.       The shoulder with the injured rotator cuff

5.       The shoulder without the injured rotator cuff

6.       Lower back

7.       Upper back

8.       Both feet (listed together to save space)

9.       Hands

10.   Right elbow

11.   Sunburned facial dermis

12.   That thing in one’s neck that suddenly twinges every now and again when you turn your head too quickly only now, it doesn’t require a head turn to spasm

13.   The ends of my hair (really!)

People who are to blame for the sudden spurt of exercise (and not in a nice way):

Mary

The homestead in the Spring

We’re having Papa Murphy’s pizza for dinner tonight. I know, it’s neither elegant nor particularly healthful. What it is, is go-o-o-o-d.

I’m finished with six weeks of heavy travel and budget constraints will keep me home for most of June and July. Mary and I have big plans for getting our landscaping work finally done. Or at least, advanced. Of course, our progress will depend on our ability to disabuse Odin of the opinion that each new planting represents the opportunity for a snout-burying adventure. The jury is still out on whether Big Dawg will survive until Rachel makes it home to protect him from Mary’s wrath.

Mary is cleaning up her car to prepare it to trade in for a more fuel-efficient model. I’m cleaning up the truck so she can stand to drive it while she’s between cars, if she is.

I’ll be out in the yard over the three-day weekend, weather permitting. And if not, I’ll be cleaning the garage. It’s time.

We’re going to try to migrate to better dietary habits, after the pizza, that is.

It’s springtime at the McDermotts’.

I'm ba-a-a-a-ck!

Okay, so I just competed a five-out-of-the-last-six-weeks travel rotation. Lots of good teaching and networking but not a lot of time to just sit and ponder. I promise more blog entries soonest.

Meanwhile, does anyone know a good cure for an airline-seat-shaped butt? Will it resume its normal shape on its own or will I need surgery?

Karaoke... or not

As I was eating my soup and Caesar salad at Applebee’s this evening, I noticed a DJ starting to set up for Karaoke Night. I started eating a bit more quickly, intending to be out of there before the festivities began.  And I was, paying the check and scooting out the front door just as the bass began to thump.

For those who knew me a lifetime ago, that might seem odd. I spent a good deal of my young adult life singing for audiences in one venue or another and I used to sing in piano bars before Karaoke. I would go with friends from the theatre but wouldn’t get up and sing by myself. But then, I would go back the next night without Tuthill and the others, and sing my heart out.

It might seem out of character for a singer not to want to perform at the drop of a hat, but I always saw the singing me as occupying two different sides of the coin. I’ve never had a problem with crooning in front of audiences when it was on my own terms. In scripted shows, in scheduled sets in a bar, for weddings and church services, I opened my mouth and the dulcet tones issued forth.

I’ve never known why karaoke should be different, but it is. There was a piano bar in San Jose years ago where I would regularly sing the same few songs, so long as I was comfortable with the crowd. Then one night, I was there with theatre friends, It was near closing time and I hadn’t performed, but thenout of nowhere the accompanist announced me to sing Lush Life.  It has always been one of my favorite songs to sing. I love the mood of it, the tone and timbre and how it felt , how it rested in the pipes. And that night I rocked the house with it.

And I never sang it again. And never again went to that piano bar.

I love to sing. I got out of the habit while distracted with little things like raising a family. But recently, I had the old Martin reset and tempered. And I’m feeling the old yearning again. I’ll sing again for Mary soon. There’s nothing quite like singing.

So long as the audience is right.

Bucket listing

Mary and I were discussing our bucket lists the other day during a drive through some of the most beautiful country I’d ever seen. It should have been easy in such a setting to imagine where I’d like to go, what I’d like to see and do.

The trouble is, I was already doing it.

We were on our twenty-fifth anniversary outing to Leavenworth, WA. It’s a faux Bavarian town and I have to admit I find it highly hokey. But I was there with Mary on a glorious weekend for walking and talking.  The Bernese Mountain Dog folks were having a big meeting and after the parade – they seem to really like parades in Leavenworth – I hung out with the dogs and their owners while Mary shopped.

We walked along the river and poked into the shops. Chose a dozen chocolates one by one and ate breakfast in a place where they really care about your dining experience.

We passed between ridgelines covered with windmills and past valleys populated by fattening ruminants. And saw Daughter One’s last ever college musical. Twice.

It was a good weekend all told, but I didn’t have much to add to the bucket list. I’ll think about it. But not when I’m this contented.

Heard on TV this evening

“..my exclusive collection, only available at K-Mart.”
 

Naw, too easy.

A book recommendation, sort of

I’m almost through reading Marlee Matlin’s I’ll Scream Later and for the most part, enjoying it. In my field, it’s really important to try to understand the folks I serve and I thought a deaf actor’s autobiography would offer a number of important insights. I was right.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not the best book or even the best autobiography I’ve ever read. Ole Marlee’s pretty taken with herself, offering up uncountable long-winded, sycophantic rants from friends and colleagues about how beautiful, charming, genuine, and professional she is. I’ll give her those, since she’s not a writer by trade (and sorry to say, neither apparently is Betsy Sharkey, her ghost on this project). She jumps back and forth without regard to continuity or flow. I could do without the frequent detailed references to her sex life, too, but that might just be me.

My point here is that it’s not a book I would recommend as a good read. But I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to understand a bit about living with limitations in general and the deaf world, in particular.

Just don’t cherry-pick. If you pick up this book, read the whole thing. Her efforts to build a life that includes being deaf in a hearing world aren’t confined to a special chapter or occasional footnotes, because they’re not so confined in her life. Her deafness is part of the fabric and flavor of her life and in the book as in her life, it’s inextricable.

Ironically, I suppose it’s the fact that Marlee and her collaborator didn’t create great  literature here that makes it a valuable read. It’s honest, if frequently overblown, and it offers a window into a life well lived in spite of obstacles.  Marlee Matlin is a force of nature who has alternately  inspired and outraged both the deaf community and the hearing world. For reasons that frequently say more about the world than about Marlee.

I usually only recommend books that stand on their own as… well, books. So let me be clear, here. I recommend you read this book simply because you’ll learn from it. I know I did.

Our 25th anniversary

Things that have happened in the past twenty-five years:

1.       Twenty-four anniversaries;

2.       Two trips to labor and delivery;

3.       5,723 bricks laid by hand, one-by-one, in landscaping for the house which we then sold;

4.       And a next house which we still haven’t finished, going on twenty years later;

5.       Uncounted trips to choir practice;

6.       Four dogs;

7.       Two cats;

8.       Three hamsters;

9.       One parachute man;

10.   The Merman Zone;

11.   Hieroglyphics behind the old kitchen cabinets;

12.   Too many funerals;

13.   Six Cookiethons;

14.   Twenty-two Christmas trees (a couple years we traveled for the holidays);

15.   Speaking of Christmas, Blue Moon;

16.   Mary’s fortieth tapes;

17.   Old friends rediscovered;

18.   Ball Of Twine Tour;

19.   “It’s earrings!”

20.   Cheesy potatoes;

21.   She cooks, I clean, and we both weed;

22.   Me, lots of writing; her, lots of editing;

23.   Trips to the locks;

24.   And Denny Creek;

25.   And Clemmy’s  Pond;

26.   Sam’s last night;

27.   Watching two beautiful girls become stellar adults;

28.   Walking Right Down the Middle of Main Street USA an estimated 4,000 times;

29.   Bjornbecue;

30.   Reading in bed;

31.   33,000 plus moos;

32.   Memorizing Nick At Night sitting up in the wing chair holding sick babies;

33.   Six Whoopee Cushions;

34.   Shicken;

35.   Girl Scout cookie managers;

36.   Uncounted PTA volunteer activities;

37.   Very little money;

38.   Very much love;

39.   And never a backward glance.

Happy anniversary to me and my best friend!

May Day vandalism in Seattle

Dear media folks:

Kindly stop referring to the ones breaking windows as protesters.

They are criminals.

That is all.