This was not a good weekend. One friend, just turned 50, was transferred to hospice care after a long battle with brain cancer. Her 13 year old son, is my son's best friend; we live half a block away, and the boys have been running up and down our block for years.
This morning, another friend on our block, 55 years old, with an 18 year old son who graduates High School on Wednesday died of a very sudden and unexpected heart attack. He was riding his bike to Mass with his wife.
The mood is very heavy on our block, and in my house.
This song deals with a different kind of death. Yet, the mood fits mine very well. Thank you for posting it, and I hope that you all hold those you love a little closer.
Before we came home to such terrible news, we were at our little no-account cabin, which we love, despite its lack of any amenities, save for a nice position on a little trout stream. To mark Memorial day, we took our boys to the town cemetery and laid flowers of some graves that seemed neglected. One has caught our attention over the years. It is a weathered obelisk. On each of its four sides, there are the names of four children, siblings who never knew each other. One lived only a few days, two a few weeks, and one lived four months. They lived and died between 1898 and 1903. The parents of those kids do not appear in the graveyard. It is my theory that the parents had to move on, and left the best memorial they could for their babies.
We try to honor those children and their parents when we stop by.
@Patrick: Sorry about your neighbors. I spent last night grillin' and swillin' with a couple of my neighbors. They are combat vets (Viet Nam and Iraq) and lost friends but their families were spared. One had three brothers in uniform during Iraq when their father died suddenly in Iowa. He told me of how his dad had four uniformed pallbearers. But that's how people roll in the Midwest and South. My GGGGrandfather had 12 sons (and five daughters). Nine sons enlisted in the Union Army -- all nine came back, including my GGGrandfather. But he lost 3 little ones to disease while he was away -- not that he could have done anything had he been home. In those days people left for years without seeing their families.
Man, am I ever glad I called my bank. I haven't checked the cash account in months and imagined it getting kind of low, on account of getting a traffic ticket and unanticipated truck expense and such plus mad spending I do not usually do, and I want to go on a spending spree tomorrow, and turns out I'M RICH! Much more in there than I thought. So tomorrow I can spend with undisciplined abandon and that fills my heart with glee. \o/
My dreams are becoming super weird and vivid and it's not so much that I remember them, it's that they're impossible to forget. Want to hear the one this morning? Okay, goes like this:
I'm in a forest with friends, we're having some kind of camp out.and it becomes apparent that I am to plan dinner. Everyone agreed on that without discussing it. Right then a Guinea hen comes by, they look like dark blobs with speckles and they're strange noisy birds. I think, "That will do" and I conk it on the head with a wooden mallet but it remains unfazed so I conk it again and it still remains unfazed so I conk it again harder and it dies.
Right then a little black pig comes rooting by and I conk it on the head too but it is unfazed. So I begin to wonder, what is it with these resilient forest creatures? They're starting to piss me off. I produce a larger wooden mallet and give it a good whack on the head and it dies.
It appears dinner is set.
Then the Guinea hen comes back to life and I go, "shit" and smack it on the head with the larger mallet and it dies. So now I really am set for dinner, but it took some doing.
Then three beings appear and create mischief. They vex me about making dinner. Ultimately they're helpful and friendly but vexing throughout. They question me with riddles that I cannot answer, they take control of the situation. I am progressing and the beings are helpful but in their own way. There is nothing human about it. They make me feel inferior. They give me a very hard time.
As the dinner in the forest takes shape, my friends are amused by observing my problems. It's all fun and games to them but very troublesome for me. As the dinner takes shape at a late point it turns out I'm unable to move in sort of sleeping bag hovering above the banquet table that is set very nicely for a forest. One of the beings behind me, both of us hovering, creates a very long black beard on my face that resembles the beards seen in Babylonian carvings. From behind me he strokes my beard and says to the whole group as if he is speaking directly to me, "Do you like your luxuriously soft marshmallowy beard?"
I think, "What an ass hole." Helpless to act I say, "Do I have any choice?"
I obviously do not have a choice, and my friends all laugh at the whole situation, pleased with the dinner taking shape, amused with my troubles. The dinner arrayed is far better than I could have produced on my own. Very classy scene. It's as if the beings were teaching me how to pull off such a magnificent feast without my assent. I am being force-taught and it's turning out great. As the shapes on the table are realized the beings disappear off in the distance behind me one by one until there is only the chief vexer left at the final moment when my friends are ready to dig in, I am released and the last being vanishes. I wake up on the spot and go, "Fuck that was weird. I have to go to the bathroom."
13 comments:
Good sentiment, execution of same not much for me. Opinions can obviously differ.
This was not a good weekend. One friend, just turned 50, was transferred to hospice care after a long battle with brain cancer. Her 13 year old son, is my son's best friend; we live half a block away, and the boys have been running up and down our block for years.
This morning, another friend on our block, 55 years old, with an 18 year old son who graduates High School on Wednesday died of a very sudden and unexpected heart attack. He was riding his bike to Mass with his wife.
The mood is very heavy on our block, and in my house.
This song deals with a different kind of death. Yet, the mood fits mine very well. Thank you for posting it, and I hope that you all hold those you love a little closer.
Before we came home to such terrible news, we were at our little no-account cabin, which we love, despite its lack of any amenities, save for a nice position on a little trout stream. To mark Memorial day, we took our boys to the town cemetery and laid flowers of some graves that seemed neglected. One has caught our attention over the years. It is a weathered obelisk. On each of its four sides, there are the names of four children, siblings who never knew each other. One lived only a few days, two a few weeks, and one lived four months. They lived and died between 1898 and 1903. The parents of those kids do not appear in the graveyard. It is my theory that the parents had to move on, and left the best memorial they could for their babies.
We try to honor those children and their parents when we stop by.
@Patrick: Sorry about your neighbors. I spent last night grillin' and swillin' with a couple of my neighbors. They are combat vets (Viet Nam and Iraq) and lost friends but their families were spared. One had three brothers in uniform during Iraq when their father died suddenly in Iowa. He told me of how his dad had four uniformed pallbearers. But that's how people roll in the Midwest and South. My GGGGrandfather had 12 sons (and five daughters). Nine sons enlisted in the Union Army -- all nine came back, including my GGGrandfather. But he lost 3 little ones to disease while he was away -- not that he could have done anything had he been home. In those days people left for years without seeing their families.
I have a question unrelated to songs.
I planted a bunch of seeds that are old and many did not germinate. I could be too cold at night and it could be seeds are too old.
La pregunta mia es: if seeds get too old to germinate, then what good are seed banks?
Do seed banks keep planting seeds and getting new seeds from plants, or what?
@Chip: angiosperm count may be low, but you have to factor in questions like moisture and time-of-the-year planting.
Just sayin'
Well I'm disgusted with my little plastic greenhouse. It's doing nothing.
Man, am I ever glad I called my bank. I haven't checked the cash account in months and imagined it getting kind of low, on account of getting a traffic ticket and unanticipated truck expense and such plus mad spending I do not usually do, and I want to go on a spending spree tomorrow, and turns out I'M RICH! Much more in there than I thought. So tomorrow I can spend with undisciplined abandon and that fills my heart with glee. \o/
My dreams are becoming super weird and vivid and it's not so much that I remember them, it's that they're impossible to forget. Want to hear the one this morning? Okay, goes like this:
I'm in a forest with friends, we're having some kind of camp out.and it becomes apparent that I am to plan dinner. Everyone agreed on that without discussing it. Right then a Guinea hen comes by, they look like dark blobs with speckles and they're strange noisy birds. I think, "That will do" and I conk it on the head with a wooden mallet but it remains unfazed so I conk it again and it still remains unfazed so I conk it again harder and it dies.
Right then a little black pig comes rooting by and I conk it on the head too but it is unfazed. So I begin to wonder, what is it with these resilient forest creatures? They're starting to piss me off. I produce a larger wooden mallet and give it a good whack on the head and it dies.
It appears dinner is set.
Then the Guinea hen comes back to life and I go, "shit" and smack it on the head with the larger mallet and it dies. So now I really am set for dinner, but it took some doing.
Then three beings appear and create mischief. They vex me about making dinner. Ultimately they're helpful and friendly but vexing throughout. They question me with riddles that I cannot answer, they take control of the situation. I am progressing and the beings are helpful but in their own way. There is nothing human about it. They make me feel inferior. They give me a very hard time.
As the dinner in the forest takes shape, my friends are amused by observing my problems. It's all fun and games to them but very troublesome for me. As the dinner takes shape at a late point it turns out I'm unable to move in sort of sleeping bag hovering above the banquet table that is set very nicely for a forest. One of the beings behind me, both of us hovering, creates a very long black beard on my face that resembles the beards seen in Babylonian carvings. From behind me he strokes my beard and says to the whole group as if he is speaking directly to me, "Do you like your luxuriously soft marshmallowy beard?"
I think, "What an ass hole." Helpless to act I say, "Do I have any choice?"
I obviously do not have a choice, and my friends all laugh at the whole situation, pleased with the dinner taking shape, amused with my troubles. The dinner arrayed is far better than I could have produced on my own. Very classy scene. It's as if the beings were teaching me how to pull off such a magnificent feast without my assent. I am being force-taught and it's turning out great. As the shapes on the table are realized the beings disappear off in the distance behind me one by one until there is only the chief vexer left at the final moment when my friends are ready to dig in, I am released and the last being vanishes. I wake up on the spot and go, "Fuck that was weird. I have to go to the bathroom."
Thanks, chick. Still love this song and the story behind it. I get choked up every time I hear it.
All I can tell you Chip, about your dream, is that dreams are supposedly manifestations of our deep seated desires and fears.
"Do you like your luxuriously soft marshmallowy beard?"
That might be code for: Did you bring the S'mores?
Patrick - Sorry to hear about all of the tragedy on your block. Young children left without a parent is heartbreaking.
Thanks April and Chick
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