Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much Christmas fish, grateful for the little miracles of the year, of which there were a few, and will promise to be even more grateful if we can forego all the crap that has snuck in, in between the cracks. There have been times I’ve wanted to throttle a gazelle with my bare hands, but then you know at that exact moment my hands would lock up and there I’d be, in full throttle mode unable to accomplish the mission – in other words, mission impossible. Dear spell check, yes, crap is a word – leave me alone. But let’s talk about Christmas Day, shall we? I got eight hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, got dressed, puttered around the home environment, and then the Darling Daughter arrived at twelve-fifteen. We were both hungry and I’d already heated up some of the spaghetti sauce, so we had our spaghetti and tuna pasta salad. She thought the sauce was splendidly splendid and ate everything all up. She brought me the usual Christmas assortment of tasty goodies she makes herself, plus some scratchers. One of them was successful to the tune of fifteen dollars. I gave her the new book and some money – she likes the money so she can buy something fun – and I opened the two presents brought to the Do – the first, from our own Amy and Mark was an incredible gift card for the Capital Grill, plus a book about great classical recordings, and Robert Yacko gave me a gift card for the Smoke House – a real double whammy of gift cards. Happily, her drive down had been easy because the storm of the century turned out to be a nothing burger with nothing on it – most of the day, the sun was peeking out, and at one point we had another twenty seconds of rain. That was it. We opted to watch videos – she loves musical theater videos, so we watched several great Tommy Tune videos, mostly from My One and Only and Seesaw. I showed her a few Graham Norton clips, she loves Jack Benny, so we watched a couple of those, had chocolate donuts, yakked, and then I showed her two pit maneuver compilations, and she LOVED those and is now obsessed with them. She left around three-thirty to go visit her friend Skye, and I’m not sure if she stayed there or drove back to her mom’s, since it wasn’t raining. I forbid her to drive there if it was raining. So, that was a beautiful way to spend Christmas Day. Best of all, my hand didn’t lock up at all until much later in the evening, but even then, it was very brief – grateful for that, let me tell you. I had more tuna pasta salad and spaghetti around six, a slice of the peanut butter pie Amy and Mark brought, a small slice of the Darling Daughter’s cherry loaf (my favorite), took pill two, then watched more videos – mostly an hour of game show wackiness that made me laugh out loud at times. I started to watch a short documentary about a ballet dancer’s obsession with finding out about Fred Astaire, but it was just weird and ultimately off-putting, so I shut it off. I did save two things to watch today – the PBS Dick Van Dyke documentary and one other thing I can’t remember. I did rest my voice for the afternoon and evening, and while it’s not quite where I’d like it to be, I’m hoping that by tomorrow I can at least get through the song.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll rest my voice all day and evening, eat more tuna pasta salad and, if I feel like it, make some penne pasta with the sauce – just a tiny bit for variety. Marshall Harvey will drop by at one because he left his jacket here, but I’m just staying put and resting, and of course I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is the day we’ll finish finessing the mixes and I’ll finesse the vocals we recorded last week – they’re very close and I’ll probably only change a couple of lines or words or whatever per song. Then we’ll attempt to record the song I should have recorded back in 2001 and hopefully that will go well. And that will be a wrap on that album, save for the packaging and mastering and then releasing, although Concord will have to sign off on the copyright information and booklet credits, I’m sure. Then next week is all resting and enjoying the last of the year. Of course, we’ll have our Annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Bash and watch our various and sundried balls drop as we ring in the New Year, then I’ll start a new book, and then we’re back to rehearsing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, reast my voice, eat, have a brief visit with Marshall Harvey, stay put and rest, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray/streaming player? I’ll start – CD, Arthur Bax tone poems. Blu-ray, I may finally dig into this big Three Stooges box set. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after the lovely Christmas Day with the Darling Daughter.