City Lights- Lee Morgan (Jazz)

 From June 1958. Nothing I loved too much on this album, but definitely re-listenable.

Matt's Peaceful Moods- Version One

A Thousand Years
Pharaohs
Ink
Yeha-Noha
Lovely Intermission
Groovin'
Rosie
Under The Skin
This Must Be Love
Shenandoah Valley
Lord, That's A Long Way
Square One
Rewrite
Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows

Tilt-A-Whirl (v1-rough- no resolution

Yesterday I watched a video

Of my eight-year-old son as a baby

Thirty seconds of his eyes trying to stay open

Fighting the coming sleep

With each new version of our children

I forget the ones before

Their eyes lighting up as they squawk

Their three or four words thrilling us

As they learned to talk

As parents we feel grief and joy at once

It's like a Tilt-A-Whirl

The thrill of growth rides

With the loss of what once was

My son is now eight

Sometimes makes his own smoothies

I smile at the independence

But realize someday he won't need us

I'm at my best when I live in acceptance

Yesterday is gone, tomorrow to come

I can re-live or pre-stress

But my children are laughing, so I'll do that later.

Summer 10 Sessions #1

 The "Summer 10" sessions

10 songs or more

Kickoff

5.22.25

My Mathematical Mind
Ancient Light (1)
In Bloom
Breakfast in America
Petrichor (2)
Let Me Out Of This Town
Change
Mr. Bellows
Lies
Pharaohs
Assassin

1- I'm With Her
2- Artemis

So for summer (until Labor Day), I'm going to do more frequent but shorter playlists. Thoughts on this one- Petrichor never needs to be on a playlist again. I think it's a bit of an odd mix, but got some more obscure stuff in here.

Drivetime Playlists- 5.1.25 DMB

JTR

Warehouse

Crazy-Easy

Recently*

(Water Into Wine)

You Might Die Trying

*truncated

A Walk In The Park- Kevin Fedarko

 

I saw Brad Church reading this last summer when we were both at M14 basketball in New Berlin. It disappeared from my mind for a while. When I went to get it, I discovered that it was very popular, so it took several weeks to finally arrive. 

This is a book to linger on and also is a very quick read. Fedarko intersperses history lessons with the story of his and Pete McBride's journey, a journey that went very badly at first and then much better with some expert help. 

Near the end, Fedarko wonders about the future of Grand Canyon National Park, and now that future is in more doubt with the Trump Regime in charge and slashing funding for everything that caring people value. I feel very happy to have traveled to both Smoky Mountain National Park and Yellowstone in the past few years.

Life (Concerts)

Fridays are when my emotions tend to hit me.

I don't know if it's because Summit Place is so empty, but memories swirl in my head. I feel as though the children are growing up faster than ever. Seven to eight for Levi has been the sweeping away of the little boy, even as the little boy will not go quietly. He's still quick to tears when angry, but his adult teeth growing in in front makes him look older. 

Also, things are getting easier in some respects. Yesterday, there was no big scene as he got dressed for his concert. No crying, no tantrums. He just got dressed and went back to playing his Nintendo Switch. We went to the concert and the kids sang and we laughed. Afterwards, Naomi begged to go to Dairy Queen, and at first Sarah and I resisted. Long night, we said. Time to get ready for bed. 

Neither kid was hearing it, and I thought to myself, let's go. Let's go to Dairy Queen. You've earned it. You worked on these songs with your music teacher, you've listened to direction, you've dressed up and sang. And we can't take you to Dairy Queen? Nonsense.

So we went to DQ and it was mobbed because a lot of people had the same idea. It took us 20 minutes to get our ice cream cones, but so what? For once, it felt like Franklin had a gathering place. Kids happily goofed around or wolfed down ice cream. Naomi played with her bestie Nora. It felt wonderful, like community. I talked to several parents, and realized that we have so many people that we can do things with, and to have a spot to gather is great.

I put the kids to bed, and both listed the concert and DQ as their favorite part of the day. Hard to argue. Might have been my favorite of the year so far.