Nice Nuthin' Kinda Day

If you're looking for a post with a topic or some sort of cohesive theme, uhm, this won't be that post. This is a free flowing stream of consciousness sort of post which is really a lot like my life in general. One thing leads to another leads to another and on occasion, if I'm lucky, I accidentally loop back to a previous idea and make it sound like it's actually a planned train of thought and I'm being incredibly wise.

Today was a particularly rambling sort of day. Just to get it over with, no, I did NOT get any more packing done on those swap boxes. I did not clean anything. Didn't do anything that was actually on my to-do list for today. But still, it was a rather nice day.

My wacky schedule is even more out of whack than usual as hubby's schedule has been switched to accommodate a training week at work. William is coming home a bit earlier from school and football practice as they're having a bye week this Friday. (thank you!) I'm trying to adapt to everyone else's switches and I'm still swept away in my own odd flipped reverse (from most of the world) schedule. Today's went something like this.

Went to bed at 4 am this morning. Hubby's alarm woke me up 5 am. He kissed me goodbye as he went out the door at 5:30 am. I went back to sleep for a half hour. Woke to the phone ringing at 6 am, which scared the crap out of me. No one calls our house at 6 am. Maybe 2 am, but not 6 am! But it was Joe, calling from half way around the world. (You can guess where he is, I'm not sure exactly where, but I'll give you a hint. The country he is in starts with a vowel. I haven't wanted to talk about it. He left last week. It simultaneously seems like he's been gone a long time already and it seems unreal that he's really left.) It was so nice to hear his voice. There's a few second delay in the transmission, which is sort of surreal. William and I got to talk to him for about five minutes. William went back to sleep but I was so jazzed that I couldn't and I stayed up until 7 am when I felt like I could close my eyes again. At 7:30 am William woke me up using my bathroom shower and bumping around going to school, he left at 8 am. I fell back asleep at some point after that and woke up just after 11 am. (Anyone figure out how much sleep that translates into? I think too little for me to have the mental sharpness to figure it out.) I puttered around semi-uselessly, showering, drinking coffee, checking e-mail, herding cats, until 2 pm when hubby came home and we went off to lunch. Lunch led to chatting with people about town and errands and picking up Taco Bell for William and we made it back home 5 pm-ish when I thought it might be nice to get "started" on my day. Somehow that didn't happen and then I was sitting on the couch with hubby and son talking and watching news shows all night. William went to bed around 10 pm and hubby should have gone to bed too but instead stayed up to watch Some Like it Hot with me. It was really fun to see it again since I've actually been to the Hotel Del Coronado since I'd seen it last.

Nice. But not particularly productive unless we want to play the "quality time with family" card. Which, true. But still not gonna make me feel like I got anything done today.

Speaking of watching the news AND speaking of stream of consciousness, I've had this cluster of songs stuck in my head recently because of the news coverage of all the economic chaos going on.

The first song is called Move to the Country by Gaia Consort. I was just dancing to the song at Faerieworlds last month, coincidentally. It's a sort of silly, over the top, poke fun at us ol' hippy types song and the fantasy many of us have/had about a simpler, easier life based on the values of the "counterculture". It's not a mean song, but I've always thought it was meant to be taken somewhat tongue in cheek. One verse goes like this:

"Everybody on the planet will make peace with their past
Every man, woman child - one at last
And we'll set fire to the mortgages
When the major banks collapse!"

I remember a lot of us, dancing to the song last month were singing along, and we sang these words with a lot of dramatic enthusiasm. As if that's really gonna happen. The major banks collapse. Ha ha. Like, too funny, as if anyone would believe.... hahahaaa..... uhm..... yeah...... wow. Is it time to be scared yet?

No. I think I'll just take it day to day. It worked for Scarlett. Watch the news but focus on the smaller view - clean my kitchen, pack my swap boxes, pick my peaches. Which segues nicely to the next song in the mental connection chain.

Peaches by The Presidents of the USA



Sort of silly video. Not sure what ninjas have to do with peaches or "moving to the country", which is the connection to the first song. Maybe it's supposed to be symbolic for modern life attacking us? Or maybe, let's face it, it's just for fun. The song reminds me of Joshua, who used to play the album this song was on over and over again. And when he was tired of it, Sam picked it up and played it some more. For years we had the most lovely peach tree in the side yard and this time of year I was literally covered in peach juice for weeks trying to eat and put up all that bounty. The kids were young enough to think it was fun to help with all that sweet, sticky harvest task and they'd often join me in the kitchen, serenading loudly "Millions of peaches, peaches for me! Millions of peaches, peaches for free!"

That peach tree, so old that it was here in the yard before it was even a yard, before our house was built, which was some time in the 1950's or early 60's I believe, is now dead and gone, but we now have this new peach tree growing just outside the front door and the seasonal peach abundance has started all over again. I mentioned a few posts back that I thought I might have as many as three dozen peaches on the tree this year. Now that they're ripe and I can see them better, I started counting yesterday and in fact we've got something over 70 peaches!!!

Which leads to another song with both "move to the country" and "peaches" in it. It's an old John Prine tune but I first heard it as a John Denver song on one of my many, many (huge fan in the day) John Denver LP's. Yes. Vinyl. Records. Scratched and old, just like me.



Takes me right back to the days when only us odd back-to-the-landers were tossing around ideas like ecology, organic, natural, and herbs. I don't know if they were the good ol' days. They were those days, and then there were other days, and now we're in these days, where all those words have come grown to be embraced by the popular culture and sell thousands of products every second of every day although I'm not sure most folks are much closer to truly embracing the concepts than they were back in the 1970's. Whether those days were good, bad, or a bit of both, I think it's always best to work with where one is now, make each present day count. Still, it might be nice to drag out some of my old music (yes, I still have the those old records AND a record player to play them on) and indulge in a bit of memory lane strolling.

Or, did you catch Jackson Browne on The Colbert Report tonight? He's got a new album out titled Time the Conqueror. He explained that it is meant in the sense that time ultimately conquers us all. I sure get that one. Man, Jackson Browne is getting old. I'm getting old, we're all getting old! Okay, now I'm channeling Magenta - "You're lucky. He's lucky. I'm lucky! WE'RE ALL LUCKY! [laughs.]"

I told you, it's all stream of consciousness at the moment.

So, on the To Do List for tomorrow:

Find a ladder, pick the rest of the peaches.
Drag in some chicken wire. (don't ask, it involves cats)
Dig out old John Denver and Jackson Browne albums and listen to them.
Finish wrapping up swap boxes.
Find my Halloween and Samhain CD's. Maybe RHPS Soundtrack as well.
Do some laundry.
Maybe download new Jackson Browne album from itunes.
Clean off dining room table.
Put some of the clean clothes in the bedroom INTO drawers so I can find transitional wardrobe items. (It's becoming cold enough to want jeans in the morning an evenings, too hot for them still in the middle of the day)
Plan dinner, maybe even make dinner.
Watch more news.
Remember to take my antibiotics (dentist prescribed).
Eat yogurt and peaches.

I challenge you all to post your own stream of consciousness posts. And then, let me know so I can come float along through them. It'll be Farrrrr Out, Man!