Happy Xmas - Silent Night - A Mid Summer Night Dream
It's finally getting green and warm and sunny and breezy and light-rainy all around the NE part of this here country.
'Bout freakin' time. I was beginning to think we'd just all suffer through a weird global warming crisis and never be in the same weather/time/life zone, and forever wander without knowing what season it is, other than silly season.
I also keep up with the rest of you, cuz US weather maps keep me interested. It's always nice to know what's happening with a) friends and relatives in other states, b) weather that is gonna hit you in your ass the next day, and c) the overall feeling of how everyone's feeling.
I had a conversation in chat this week with a very lovely lady who hails from the NE but moved to CA three years ago, and she misses New England big-time. I did too, when I lived there in California.
Same with Florida. After living in the New England area all my life, and walking through woods that were dark and damp and lovely and sweet-smelling and my own personal playground, it was hard to live in area with no trees.....no hills......
After watching fall leaves change color and fall to the welcoming dying grass lawns and folding-up flower beds, it was hard to make the adjustment to Southern California (I still to this day capitalize that term, because so many Southern California residents stil want to secede from the State of California........and so many Northern California residents wouldn't care, lol,), yet I just remember living out there in the early 90's and seeing Orange County go bankrupt and the dot.com bubble burst.....
Keeping up with what's going on in other parts of our country help keep us united as a whole country....I don't think anyone could argue with that.
Katrina, Mt. St. Helens, the Earthquake that killed the Nimitz Freeway as we all know it, or knew it, or both.....
What goes around comes around.
So now this is Summer
and what have we gleaned?
Have we moved any closer
to just going green?
So now this is Summer
a mid-summer night's dream
the Smetana's is in Russia
and the Danube is clean
And so happy Summer
to the new and the old
I hope your lives are all happy
and you learn to type in bold
Music is a gift from our Creator
whatever the heck that is...
Happy 2009 to all of you
from your good friend Lis (rhymes with is)
Music tells a story, and so do we all.
xoxoxo,
Lis
'Bout freakin' time. I was beginning to think we'd just all suffer through a weird global warming crisis and never be in the same weather/time/life zone, and forever wander without knowing what season it is, other than silly season.
I also keep up with the rest of you, cuz US weather maps keep me interested. It's always nice to know what's happening with a) friends and relatives in other states, b) weather that is gonna hit you in your ass the next day, and c) the overall feeling of how everyone's feeling.
I had a conversation in chat this week with a very lovely lady who hails from the NE but moved to CA three years ago, and she misses New England big-time. I did too, when I lived there in California.
Same with Florida. After living in the New England area all my life, and walking through woods that were dark and damp and lovely and sweet-smelling and my own personal playground, it was hard to live in area with no trees.....no hills......
After watching fall leaves change color and fall to the welcoming dying grass lawns and folding-up flower beds, it was hard to make the adjustment to Southern California (I still to this day capitalize that term, because so many Southern California residents stil want to secede from the State of California........and so many Northern California residents wouldn't care, lol,), yet I just remember living out there in the early 90's and seeing Orange County go bankrupt and the dot.com bubble burst.....
Keeping up with what's going on in other parts of our country help keep us united as a whole country....I don't think anyone could argue with that.
Katrina, Mt. St. Helens, the Earthquake that killed the Nimitz Freeway as we all know it, or knew it, or both.....
What goes around comes around.
So now this is Summer
and what have we gleaned?
Have we moved any closer
to just going green?
So now this is Summer
a mid-summer night's dream
the Smetana's is in Russia
and the Danube is clean
And so happy Summer
to the new and the old
I hope your lives are all happy
and you learn to type in bold
Music is a gift from our Creator
whatever the heck that is...
Happy 2009 to all of you
from your good friend Lis (rhymes with is)
Music tells a story, and so do we all.
xoxoxo,
Lis
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Music tells a story and so does LisB. ha
May 25, 2009 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Liz, thanks for the link to John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
It moves me, every time I hear it and see the images.
The pain of losing him and the gifts he offered.
What can we do to end this madness?
I too like the weather link and here is another site I review from time to time
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
May 25, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Scary how many orange, yellow and tan squares lie on that map on any given day. The Rim, The Rim, The Rim is on FIRE!
Oy.
May 25, 2009 2:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Liz
I recently went to Mount St. Helens.
It is absolutely a beautiful area. To think back 20+ years ago, it was nothing but an inferno and so much destruction, powerful images of creation at work.
New life, Richer and more diverse.
Here Live, Mount St.Helens,
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/
Liz, if ever you go. The show at the observatory is worth staying and viewing.
With music to stir the soul, and when the curtain opens; life unfolding before your eyes.
If only we could live long enough, to see it all
Share with us your recent trip. I've never been there.
May 25, 2009 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks LisB, After seeing Tennessee, Virginia, Colorada and many other beautiful states, I always wondered why my peeps chose Texas.Where the weather can change in 2 minutes time and so you are forced to carry at all times shorts,jacket,swim trunks, gloves,sun blocker,bottled water, shades and an umbrella. That's why we have horses down here, to pack all our weather gear. Right now its nice outside, but that was two minutes ago.
May 25, 2009 1:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I make it a personal rule to always be by water. Lots and lots of water.
I've lived in NY, FL, CA and CT. I could handle the Great Lakes region, even.....I think.
May 25, 2009 2:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
AAK! I have to consult my architect. He will be able to translate the alarming math numbers relating to the Nimitz stuff. Thanks for the link. I remember that earthquake from watching news on TV, LisB. Did you know we had a highway collapse just a couple of years ago here in the East Bay's Mac Arthur Maze? Hardly batted any eyelashes. From stress, not the earth moving. Heck, we're shovel ready all over the place in California. You have no idea how lovely your highways are in the pot holed East in comparison. We have cement here, not macadam, to rattle our cars over. Rattle rattle.
Ah, the gentle rains of Spring. This chilly weekend in the clouds above Berkeley and Oakland it has been fogging again- not what you would call precip- but a noticeably horizontal flow of moisture like a cloud in your yard (or your face) which leaves the pavement soggy where it passes by, and obscures the view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Time to knit scarves and string cranberries and popcorn, as my neighbor says, for June fast approaches.
OH it is a beautiful country! Drive across it. The Grand Canyon alone is well worth the price of admission. And Niagara Falls is scary beautiful. A national treasure whose enormous potency you feel vibrating underfoot long before you are ever close enough to see it, at least from the Ontario side. Hard to wrap the brain around either. Yosemite! But there are also all the little places in between, which none of us can know in their entirety, we can only recognize our culture and our kind in the places we visit and the welcoming people we meet. Especially here in the Café.
Have a good Memorial Day LisB. And thanks for the song.
May 25, 2009 3:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you on the Grand Canyon.
For years I thought who wants to go look at a hole in the ground. I'd seen the Badlands of Dakota. Or any of the many canyons one has seen.
The Grand is the greatest. Spend the night for the full impact, sit around the camp fire in the Alpine climate. You see 7 climatic zones, from one view. The shadows giving a deeper appreciation for the depth. Changing by the hour.
So many visitors. Plan ahead.
May 25, 2009 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a beautiful comment. Thanks, Loosey, and you have a great day too!
May 25, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for sharing this, Lis. Having been in some of those places with you, I too am happiest when there is a real change of season - snow, light green look when spring arrives, darker hues in the summer with blue skies and puffy white clouds and the beauty of the marvelous colors of autumn - I feel blessed to be where I am.
May 25, 2009 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Growing up the the Northeast was the BEST. Then we moved to Florida. The highest elevation was a bridge over a canal. Large boats could sail beneath it and it felt like looking out over a monopoly board late in the game when everyone owned hotels. The evergreen trees shed their needles all year, so you still HAD to rake. There were snakes everywhere, including in the trees, as well as frogs in the trees. There was no dirt, just lots of sand. It was hot and sunny or hot and raining, wet or dry, it was hot. I hated it!
So I went to college in Upstate NY, then took a little trip to see mountains again and snow. ALASKA!!! After 7 years in Florida, it took 7 years in Alaska just to get back to normal, well normal for me anyway. There is no plae quite like the NE for honoring diversity of seasons. And yes, it is always better near the water.
May 25, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your description of Florida is spot on, Gregor! Oh, except you forgot the lizards and palmetto bugs. Crunch! Oy!
May 25, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just so. :-{)>
May 26, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
LisB,
Unfortunately, the typical NE arrogance seeped into your discussion of CA. NE tends to find SF better than LA, midwesterners tended to settle in LA.
Your link proves nothing. This is the Internet and you can always find someone protesting something, even if it's a total fringe effort. It's the same trick that FNC uses to be "fair and balanced" -- bring in one fringe guy and that balances out the standard view. (See their discussion of Global Warming for example.)
The people talking secession usually do it in a joking manner and talk about the liberal areas (SF and LA) seceding from the conservative ag-based central coast.
Finally, if you lived in SoCal, you'd know that LA and Orange counties, despite being lumped together by people from the East, couldn't be more different politically.
Despite the tired moniker of "land of fruits and nuts", one would do well to consider that the 2 presidents CA gave the country were Nixon and Reagan.
Facts are pesky things.
May 25, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
...they ain't the only ones.
May 25, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know, sweetie. The gadfly is never liked when it destroys cherished myths.
May 25, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or when it seeks to annoy.
May 25, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nicely written, Lis...
May 25, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, I was up really late and suddenly got all these songs in my head, and....
May 25, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lovely, LisB. I, too, have to be near, on or in the water... because sanity (after 2 hurricanes) and personal serenity do not necessarily dictate the same location answers.
CT -- just when we think you've come back, all better.... "sweetie"?
You are cordially invited to participate in my forthcoming post "Sweetart, SweetiePi and SweetPee." Ciao.
May 25, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you'd prefer if I referred to you as a "pesky thing".
Your sanctimonious choice about "proper insults" is hypocritical at best.
But I didn't realize I was being inspected for "rehabilitation" but the older women here.
Of course, the larger point that LisB completely mischaracterized CA is lost because you prefer to cling to some nice myths.
The most wonderful thing about the Internet is that unlike real life, when you feel you can spout any old opinion because the groupthink will agree, here, there is always someone willing to make a challenge and that causes serious cognitive dissonance. The one thing I've learned on TPM is that the left is just as sanctimonious as the right.
May 25, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a great blog, LisB!
My sentiments exactly. When my parents moved to Fla when I was in Jr. High, I hated the flat land, the absence of seasons. Yes, I loved the ocean. But honestly I missed the wild ocean with rocks jutting out like you can see in New England. I especially missed the hills.
When we moved from upstate NY to the midwest many years ago I cried the whole way. After about a month or two of being here I thought I was going to nuts with the flat land, the absence of hills. We had to go in search of some. The best place we found was the bluffs of the Mississippi. At that point. Later the west and north shores of Lake Superior.
Since then we've been all over the continent. And seen lots of huge mountains.
But there's nothing to beat the colors of New England in the fall. And the hills. To me the worn mountains are what I call hills.
Thanks for the memories. I'm waxing nostalgic today.
May 25, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink