Adele!

I'm usually not much for popular music these days, but one new singer is making waves in both the pop arena, and some even say she is finding a fit with her music within the jazz realm and I find her voice something fresh in a world of duplicates these days.

Who's the special singer that is hitting all the high notes both in the UK and here in the States?  Another one name wonder - Adele.

If you haven't heard her yet you should check her out!  I heard her first in a recent NPR interview that was really something else.  She's a regular Brit, with an edgy sound that really grabs whether it's with a pounding beat, or a ballad that holds you close.  I personally love the grit in her voice that is so gorgeous while being so real too.  She's not the rail skinny star, and at the same time goes way beyond what we consider totally beautiful musically.

The NPR interview is a great place to get a taste of her music - check it out! http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/133687905/adele-tiny-desk-concert

A Gorse is a Gorse, of Course, of Course!

Gorse weed, Gorse (Ulex europea) is native to Ireland.  According to our Guide on the tour, Joe it’s a noxious weed of deadly beauty. It resists attempts to eliminate it. This thorny plant is not only difficult to handle, but, at certain times of the year, generates within its tissues a natural flammable oil. In 1936, this characteristic all but doomed the tiny town of Bandon, County Cork, Ireland. It is not certain how the fire started, but the Gorse burned furiously and within hours the inferno had consumed 484 of the 500 buildings that made up this small town as well. Much of this weed has finally been controlled by the commercial development that has happened here.  It has deprived even this hearty weed of a habitat.  Note the small picture taken in the county prior to the fire.  The same spot today is covered with pavement, homes and a whole neighborhood, which leaves no room for the weed!

This is a picture I took along the road in Ireland and   as you can see the Gorse still has a hold here along the roads and within the  hedgerows in many counties.

The funniest thing comes from how my granddaughter and I came to remember the name of the weed which of course gives us the title of this article.  I am a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to the old television show theme songs and remember many of them all too well.  The lyric I used came from a very old show called "Mr. Ed" (Who was of course a talking horse!), hence my very strange title. 

Soccer Grandmoms

We've all heard of the soccer moms that are the driving force today amongst the young and upwardly mobile with children these days.  Hey, they were the moving force in the last two presidential elections, right?  Well I am a soccer grandmom and I love it!  There is no need to be crazy I can just cheer and knit when I want, or get up and follow the action on the field too if I want too.

The best part of being a soccer grnadmom is I can go crazy with the wins and no one cares!  This job sure has it's perks!

No Thank You For a Great W. Michigan Journalist

If you ever doubted that there is age discrimination that ALL the politicians turn a blind eye to look no further than journalistic TV news and your local newspapers.  Watch the young perky faces that grace your screen as anchors and reporters and if you haven't seen yet watch the older journalists slowly disappear, most unwilling to go.

Granted, some should because they aren't or often have never been journalists and only readers of what the networks throw at them.  But the great news people those who doggedly went after the real news are being dropped like a hot potato everywhere.  Our culture of youth has lost any kind of respect for those who have gifts as true journalists, and if I'm honest so many other professions as well.

Today our paper painted the headline the front page with pictures of one of those loses.  What bothers me the most is the hue and cry that has gone out for loyalty from companies across the country, but that has to go both ways and this is the age of the employer and the worker is a petty difficult - at best.

The worker is on the decent not only in pay and in jobs, but in importance as the cog in the wheel that makes the product for our country and the world.  Why?  Because we demanded too much.  Sad, since most of us simply want make a living and be able to survive in today's economy.

Snow, Snow...

Winter has returned to my little part of the world...I hate snow in the spring.  My daffodils are covered with two inches of wet snow and it is so yucky when I am so ready for that spring weather!  It certainly was not the surprise that I expected when I got up this morning.

I really got a wonderful taste of spring with my recent trip to Ireland and London a week ago.  It was lovely, trees leafing out all over and so many spring flowers, but to revert back to winter when I returned was not exactly what I was looking for when I returned and it is a bit disconcerting.

The old nursery rhyme rant will do here I think, with a bit of a change of course:

Snow, snow, go away,
Blanket us some winter day -
Next Year!!

Only a Little Rant...

I've learned many things during this year I turned 60.  Many important things.   I must admit that I try to learn something new often, which can be a challenge that sometimes frustrates me.  I keep struggling with the ever changing world of computers - we upgraded to a Mac recently.  I had to change how I do things and it was hard at first, but I am so glad to have this internet machine because I am no longer haunted by breakdowns!

I also learned from a belligerent blogger that no one can convince you to their way of believing simply by arguing their point with you.  A person recently tried and got very belligerent when they didn't succeed.  We all should be respected for our beliefs and not belittled until we give in to another's way of thinking - one convinced against their will remains the same opinion still.

Don't expect people, even friends to echo your own strongly held convictions.  We are not clones. We claim to want personal freedoms but only surround ourselves with comfortable people who don't challenge us.

End of rant.   :-)

The Indians in the Closet

My Grandmother Mattson and her big house on little Twin Lake held many memories for our family.  The front porch and the beach were two places that I remember as a place for reading, swimming, and of course imagining.  But there was one small space in her big house that held history, and stories beyond the imagination of most children.  That was where the buckskins and other Native American regalia were hung and there my cousin Gail, or one of my sisters and I would hide away on those rainy days when we were little.

The closet was more a narrow room with long oak wood boards that were smoothed by the many feet that wandered up and down the long rod that held a multitude of clothes, searching for what to wear.  It was a long room with a window at the end so it certainly wasn't dark, and there were so many places to hide with a book if I wanted to escape when my own family was there. (When you have many sisters you needed some time alone!)  

But my best memories were made with the soft smooth buckskin dresses and leggings that draped gently over the wire and cardboard hangers that lined the way back in this closet.  There were many days three or four of us would sit on the floor dressed in deerskin and leggings whispering and stroking the soft subtle folds of those clothes with their tiny colored beads lining the neck and sleeves of many of these garments.  The fringe was always too long and often tickled our arms and legs if we stood and paraded back and forth down the center of the long closet like models on a runway.  With heads high we'd walk proudly like we thought those tribeswomen might have and the images we created with the stories we imagined as we sauntered up and down as if on some forest path were alive with created lore and magic for us.  

If the light streamed through the small north window, as it often did in the summer we felt our skin get moist under the skin gowns and sometimes the fringe dripping with sweat would make us itch and scratch as we grew hotter. The window never could open, so it often got hot there but it never really bothered us because our imaginations were walking through our warms woods in summer, or riding horses with buckskin clad friends in long ago times.

The winters were the very best time because then we climbed the many old hat boxes to stretch carefully up to the long shelves above where the handmade blankets of red and yellow were kept, and with them we were transplanted into teepees where smoke rose high from the fires that warmed those rooms of buffalo hide, or long houses of wood and bark.  We each knew just enough native lore from grandma's stories to create our own that often could last all afternoon on those weekend days at Grandma's house.

As we grew older, we even got to wear those fragile gowns on Halloween evenings as we went door to door to get candy, and money for UNICEF.  I can still smell those velvety deer leather clothes that were so soft from the sweat of many years with my Great Grandfather's circus.  The smells and feel of those old memories filled what we wore and cemented like the sap of the pines that surrounded my grandmother's home the dreams we created so many years ago.  It gave us visions of what it might have felt like walking the Michigan forest paths with the Potawatomi, Ojibay, or Ottawa as we set our feet on paths toward our own adult lives.  It truly gave us dreams to live and revel in as we grew.