A —
“Amie” (Pure Prairie League) — I remember hearing this song covered by a band playing at the Mine Shaft in Charlottesville, Virginia back in 1984.  I was visiting a friend for spring break and I loved the geeky, intellectual atmosphere … the band did their sound check by reciting Chaucer’s Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

B —
“Baker Street” (Gerry Rafferty) — I think I probably heard this for the first time when we lived in St. Croix in the late 70’s.  I just love this song.

C —
“Classical Gas” (Mason Williams) — Some of the most awesome instrumental work (IMHO).
“Come Monday”(Jimmy Buffett) — Probably my favorite Buffett song of all time.
(I couldn’t make up my mind between these two …)

D —
“December, 1963” (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons) — Just love it, just love it.  No reason.  Just do.

E — 
“Everybody’s Talkin'” (Jimmy Buffett) — Moving where the sun keeps shinin,’ through the pourin’ rain, going where the weather suits my clothes …

F —
“Fire and Rain” (James Taylor) — Great song.  Saw him in concert back in 1988.  A gal at work had won tickets on the radio and didn’t have a CLUE who he was.  I cheerfully took them off her hands … seats on the floor, probably all of 10 or 11 rows back from the stage.  Pretty cool night, it was.

G —
“Give It All You’ve Got” (Chuck Mangione) — He plays an instrument with a weird name (flugelhorn), but dude!  The man can play!

H —
“How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” (James Taylor) — Can you tell I like James Taylor?

I — 
“I Feel For You” (Chaka Khan) — Yeah, I know.  But this song makes me smile for some reason and I remember having a great time dancing with my friends back in college …

J —
“Jungle Love” (Steve Miller Band) — Jungle love, it’s driving me mad, it’s making me crazy, crazy!

K —
“Kyrie” (Mister Mister) — So many of these are from college days — but I’m not sure I think anything worth listening to has come out since then.  😉

L —
“Limelight” (Rush) — Having been involved in theater in high school, and having had a crush on one of the guys in the drama club who was a big Rush fan, it was only natural that I’d have a strong affection for this particular tune.  🙂

M —
“More Than A Feeling” (Boston) — I remember riding over to Clear Lake with some friends to see a performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at the University of Houston.  We rode in my friend’s black ’78 Trans Am and this song came on.  I’ve always loved it.

N —
“Never Been Any Reason” (Head East) — Back before John Schlitt sang for Petra, he was the vocalist for this band.

O —
“One of These Nights” (The Eagles) — I like just about anything sung by The Eagles. 

P —
“Piano Man” (Billy Joel) — I really love his older songs … the ones that tell stories. 

Q —
Can’t find a song that starts with “Q” on any of my music lists … I’m sure after I post this, I will find something. “Que Sera Sera” (Doris Day) — I knew I’d think of something after I posted this.

R —
“Red Barchetta” (Rush) — I LOVE this song’s lyrics … pure poetry.

S —
“Summer Breeze” (Seals & Croft) — I don’t really like summer … it’s so incredibly hot, but this song makes me think that summer could be a good thing.  Maybe in a parallel universe, but it could be a good thing.

T —
“Tangerine” (Harry Connick, Jr.) — We started looking for Harry’s CD’s after falling in love with the “When Harry Met Sally” soundtrack.  Good stuff, good stuff.

U —
“Unchained Melody” (The Righteous Brothers) — I love it when my husband sings this song.

V —
“Valerie” (Steve Winwood) — I’ve liked it ever since the first time it came out in 1982.

W —
“Whenever I Call You Friend” (Kenny Loggins) — Back before he came the King of the Soundtrack (Caddyshack, Top Gun, Footloose, etc.)

X —
See “Q” …  (Still nothin’.)

Y —
“You’ve Got A Friend” (James Taylor) — There’s that name again …

Z —
See “Q” … (Still nothin’.)

Striking Oil
Burt Prelutsky
Monday, June 09, 2008

Sometimes, I swear, when I see what our tax dollars get us in Congress,
I feel like asking for my money back. But, other times, I find myself
thinking that the laughs those clowns provide us nearly, but not quite,
make up for their incompetence, hypocrisy and mendacity. The Marx
Brothers, at their goofiest, couldn’t hold a candle to these
self-important bumblers, although I’m sure that Groucho would have been
sorely tempted to try.

You see nincompoops like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John
Murtha, bloviating on TV and you realize that when poll after poll
indicates that these political hacks have an approval rate only half as
high as George Bush’s and only a point or two higher than measles, they
somehow assume we don’t have them in mind.

Because of their arrogance and pomposity, they can’t help
being amusing, but they are never more hysterical than when they hold
hearings and sit in moral judgment of those they regard as lesser
beings. Which, when you get right down to it, includes virtually
everyone who pays their salaries.

A couple of years ago, we got to watch them chastise baseball
players who’d been accused of using steroids and human growth hormones.
As a lifelong baseball fan, I resented these guys for breaking
long-standing records they never would have approached if they hadn’t
cheated. But I got no satisfaction from watching a bunch of puffed-up
mediocrities, who prostrate themselves to lobbyists on a daily basis,
lording it over a bunch of athletes who, steroids or no steroids, had
spent 15 or 20 years standing in a batter’s box just twenty yards away
from iron-armed freaks hurling baseballs 98 mph in their direction.
What’s more, I knew darn well that after performing for the TV cameras,
these same politicians were lining up to get autographs for their
grandkids.

More recently, I got my year’s quota of laughs when Congress
decided to grill oil company executives because, I guess, the price of
gas was higher than it had been in 1958.

There’s nothing that rich, pampered politicians like better
than putting rich, pampered business executives on the hot seat…at
least until they have to go, hat in hand, to grovel for campaign
contributions.

I actually found myself sympathizing with the executives
because they pretty much had to sit there and take it. God forbid they
opened their yaps and pointed out that we’d not only have cheaper gas,
but not have to toady to the Arabs, the Russians and Hugo Chavez, if
these same politicians would quit caving in to the environmental
fascists and allowed American oil companies to drill in Anwar, in the
Dakotas and in the deep blue sea. It would also be a good idea if we
finally began using nuclear power in a big way. Heck, if France can do
it without turning Paris into Chernobyl, it can’t be that hard.

In the meantime, thanks to these buffoons, I’m stuck paying
$4.15-a-gallon for regular. Which is bad enough. But what makes
watching these windbags flap their gums even more disconcerting is the
realization that Washington could easily supply us with energy for the
foreseeable future, if only someone could figure out how to replace
fossil fuels with hot air and snake oil.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

See above for a new quote, and read here for the full article.

It’s a busy week for us … last night was our cast meeting for the summer production and tonight is the set crew meeting for those working on set design and construction.  Tomorrow night is the technical rehearsal for Jami’s dance recital, Thursday is the dress rehearsal and Friday night is the big show.  Then Saturday is the homeschool conference in Houston, where I hope to find exactly what I need to make our little academy work this coming year.  We tried Sonlight this year, but it was just too cumbersome for us … with our crazy schedule, we need individual subjects that we can grab and take with us if we need to hit the road for business or family reasons.

One curriculum that I am sticking with is Saxon math.  Even though it’s fairly “dry” (i.e., not a bunch of fancy illustrations and games), she actually prefers it over some of the more “colorful” curricula out there.  When I suggested we use something different, she said “NO!” rather emphatically.  And imagine my delight when I discovered Saxon now offers computer CD’s that will work on my Mac … since math is NOT my forte, it’s a relief to know I have a resource that will help explain the lessons more clearly than I might do.

Well, I have much to do today, so I’ll be seeing you around —

A friend of my husband’s submitted a photo to the Ron Jon Surf Shop site and they posted it!  Click here if you’d like to see my guy “praying for surf” (second column, fourth picture from top) LOL

I’ve started doing a new little thing some of you may or may not have noticed … when I run across a quote or interesting comment from another source, I’m going to pop it up there in my little header box.  It may or may not get changed everyday, so I’ll try to remember to direct you toward it when it updates.  Enjoy!

Dancing in the Legislative Dark?
Rich Tucker
Friday, May 23, 2008

During
the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Sen.
Dick Durbin of Illinois asked him, “You’re a Bruce Springsteen fan?” An
odd question, to which Alito replied tepidly, “I am to some degree,
yes.”

Durbin had a point to make: “I guess most people in New Jersey
would be.” If not, he opined, “they should be.” That’s far from clear,
but let’s take the senator at his word.

When Durbin announced he’d vote against confirming Alito, he
returned to his earlier theme. “Judge Alito, a New Jersey native,
wouldn’t even say whether he was a Bruce Springsteen fan,” the senator
chided. “Now, he may be one of the few people from New Jersey who has
such cautious fealty to The Boss.”

Or, maybe not.

“Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step
away from partisan politics,” Springsteen wrote in The New York Times
in 2004. That’s a good policy for an entertainer. But that year,
apparently, was special. The Boss leapt into politics with both feet,
campaigning hard for John Kerry.

It’s understandable that Alito, a lifelong conservative, would
oppose Springsteen’s liberal ardor. He was simply too polite to make a
big deal out of that during hearings meant to focus on his
qualifications to sit on the nation’s highest court.

The joke here is on Durbin, in more ways than one. It’s not
merely funny that he claimed to oppose Alito because of the judge’s
taste in music. It’s funny that he even thought he had to explain his
opposition to Alito.

After all, Durbin is a liberal leader of his party’s Senate
contingent. It was clear from the get-go he would vote against Alito, a
conservative nominated by a president from the opposing party. And
that’s the real problem with politics today. It’s predictable and, in
many ways, pointless. The goal isn’t to get things done; it’s to attack
members of the other party.

As another example, consider the embarrassing story on the
front page of the May 17 Washington Post. During a trip to Saudi
Arabia, Bush pleaded with the Saudis to pump more crude. And they said
no. “Not only did the Saudis resist efforts to boost production even
more — as many congressional leaders are demanding — they also
pointedly said that the extra output was a week-old response to
commercial customers, not to the president,” the paper wrote.

Well, that certainly puts us in our place. We’re begging the Saudis to take MORE of our dollars, and they’re refusing.

Of course, any political failure gives the other party a chance
to pounce, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was ready as always. “The
president seems to value his friendship with the Saudis more than his
obligation to help the American people with gas prices,” he declared.
Nice soundbite, but it would be difficult to find an attack more
disconnected from reality.

What, after all, does Schumer think Bush should have done?

The president asked, politely, for more production and was
turned down. Now, some might advocate invading Saudi Arabia, annexing
the oil fields and taking all the crude we want. But that’s certainly
not what Schumer’s calling for.

As an alternative, our country could increase domestic
production by drilling in Alaska and off the coast. Yet it’s Schumer’s
party that defeats drilling every time the idea comes up. So what’s
their plan?

“We’ve been pushing for a long time for energy efficiency,”
Schumer told reporters in April. “We believe in a price-gouging bill so
that the big oil companies can’t collude. We believe that there’s too
much speculation in the markets, and we believe that ought to be reined
in.” Again, nice soundbites, but nothing there to “help the American
people with gas prices.”

The same thing happens from the other side. Republican House
leader John Boehner recently wrote in the Washington Times that,
“Americans are paying nearly $1.50 more per gallon at the pump than
when Mrs. Pelosi became speaker.”

But it’s not Democratic control of Congress that’s the
problem; it’s that Congress refuses to, say, eliminate ethanol
mandates, drill for oil off our coasts or make it easier for companies
to build refineries. These steps might, indeed, lower prices.

Barack Obama seems to understand that people are fed up with
empty attacks, which is why he champions “change.” But his record as a
liberal legislator certainly hints he’d be as divisive from the left as
President Bush has supposedly been from the right these last seven
years. The non-partisan National Journal ranked Obama “the most liberal
senator in 2007” based on his congressional votes.

We’ve had enough attacks. It’s time for plans. Let’s hope this
year some politicians surprise us by designing approaches to fix Social
Security, education and energy. If they think they were “born to run”
— for office, anyway — they ought to at least try.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

I spoke with our director a few minutes ago … and I’ve been cast in the part of the Mother!  It’s a small role, just the last two or three pages of the script and the character is described as “jovial” — I think I can do “jovial” … LOL

My character says the very last line in the play!  Ack!  What if I flub it?  Scary!  We have to have our lines memorized by the first of July … you can imagine that I’ll be working very hard.  Fortunately, each “line” is only one or two sentences long … no major monologues.  Whew!

No major announcements have been made regarding the cast, but since my Xanga is on Friends Lock and I doubt any of you will be calling the AP Wire, I felt like it would be okay to share my news with you. 

so when you try out, you are given a cutting?  Or do you get to choose the part yourself that you want to try out with?

Well, SarahsD It’s been my experience that when people go to audition, they
have a rough idea of the part they would like to play — so they will
put that down on their audition sheet.  They may be very specific in
that they are not interested in playing any other parts.  OR they may
be so determined to be cast that they will play ANY part.  So when the
director starts having them read, he’ll call for all the women who are
interested in playing the part of, say “Tessie,” to go on stage, as
well as whatever other parts are in the “cutting” that is being read. 
And he’ll try different combinations of actors reading that short bit
to see who can nail the characters the best and what combination of
actors produces the best overall scene.  It’s really not an easy job,
and I don’t envy directors one bit … we had some FABULOUS people read
last night and he’s going to have a tough time figuring out who will be
best in each role.

I’ll be seeing ya’ll around later — my girl has her piano recital this evening and so I’ll be getting her ready for that and squeezing a window blind consultation in the middle of it all.  No rest for the weary!

We had our first round of auditions last night … I think they went well.  I just wish we could get more MEN to show up for auditions.  We always have plenty of women, teenagers, and kids … but not so many men.  I think there were four there last night.  Hopefully tonight (the last night) will bring some around.  It’s always so much fun, and thus far our shows have turned a profit, which makes the BHF (Brazoria Heritage Foundation) quite happy.  We exist under their umbrella, and all our proceeds above production costs go towards BHF projects.  If you’d like to check some of it out, here’s the link:  Brazoria Heritage Foundation

AJ actually talked me into auditioning … there is one role that would be quite fun to play, but is relatively small … the role of Harold’s wife, Tessie.  I think she’s a bit of a shrew (!).  I’m okay with whichever way it goes.  I’m hoping my girl gets the one part there is for a girl her age … she did a great job last night.  There was another younger girl that did well, too, but I’m thinking Jami’s projection is much better and of course, I just think she’s cute as a bug.  Ha!  Two women that auditioned were pains in the backside, as they managed to get a copy of EVERY cutting and held on to them for dear life.  My friend, L, and I were talking amongst ourselves and we’re not sure that indicates “team player” mentality, as they did not offer to share any of them when others were in need.  We had quite a few printed out, but you know … for the convenience of those auditioning and in the interest of moving things along so we weren’t there until midnight it would have been nice if they’d said, “Oh, you need Cutting 5?  Here, I have a copy …”

Well, enough of that … today’s a busy day:  orthodontist appointment this morning, last piano class before Thursday’s recital this afternoon and ballet class this evening, plus the last night of auditions.  I’d better get on with the day!