Inside visitors, lentil stew and missing him

- Our temperature lows are in the 20s this week (fahrenheit) in north Georgia, so the outside plants had to come in again.  They'll be in all week.  I kind of like seeing them there, even though they are in the way.  :)

- The cold descended upon us over the weekend, so I was inspired to make the ingredients for this "soup" (which seems more like a stew to me.)  It's a recipe I've been making for a few years now, found on the Smitten Kitchen website (she adapted it from a recipe from Gina DePalma - see note below). Delicious!  It's called Lentil soup with sausage, chard and garlic.  This time I actually bought chard to put in it (usually opting for whatever leftover greens I have.)

Note:  I was reading Adam Robert's "essay" post from January 6, in which he pays loving tribute to the originator of this recipe, Gina DePalma (referred to above), who has passed away.  He made this soup with her a few years ago and described it as being "hugged with soup."  It does feel like that and what a gift that recipe has been!

 

from Google images 

- I felt my heart wrench a little when I heard that David Bowie passed away on Sunday.  I heard this song that he wrote on the radio this morning, "The Man who Sold the World" - covered by Nirvana.  It's a favorite song and I had no idea David Bowie wrote it.  Another reason to miss him.

How I spent my weekend, free entertainment and the young

-Here's how I spent my weekend - at the 43rd Stone Mountain Highland Games, at which we celebrate our Scottish heritage.  Pipers and drummers are standing at attention here during the opening ceremonies.  It was a bright, cool, sunny weekend - I wish we could have bottled that weather.

- The table at my Clan's tent with our Christmasy looking tartan (which goes rather well with the Walkers Shortbread package.)  :)  Someone made the cookies in the baggie, using Scottie dog cookie cutters.

- Our Clan tent looks out at a performance stage, in which various singers and musicians perform Celtic tunes all day.  It's a treat to have background music.  Our favorite is the man pictured:  Colin Grant-Adams - here singing "Loch Lomand."  Click on the red link if you'd like to give it a listen.  I sang that song to niece Amanda in 1997, when when we visited Scotland.  She and I walked around the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomand, while her mother and sister went on a tour of it in a boat.  I remember that as a young teenager she was probably a little mortified at her aunt singing out loud, but she graciously acted as if she wasn't.  I think of that every time I hear that song.

- This photo doesn't entirely capture the exuberance of this young piper, spontaneously performing on one of the walkways.  (His family was nearby.)  I loved that he was tapping his toe the whole time he played.  I'm always so glad to see young people involved.

Basking in the sun, sofa time and another June

- Look at this fellow (seen on commute) - basking in the sun and enjoying some truck time!  And this was sitting still in traffic - just imagine how he likes to feel as if he is flying when that truck is moving.  :)

- Feeling overwhelmed at everything I had to do before an event I'm attending this evening, when we suddenly found out no outside food or drinks are allowed at the venue.  Everyone else (seen on texts) seem bummed.  For me - life suddenly felt easier.

- Attending a concert tonight for a band that I haven't seen in person in 20+ years.  This will be quite a different crowd from back then and a more beautiful venue, but I am excited to be somewhat replicating an event from another June a long time ago.  I'll write more about it Monday.

I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend and that something good happens to you.  Look for it.  

Sweet violas, moving and long, lost friends

- The pansies and violas I planted in November are still doing well.  The little viola faces make me happy every time I look at them.

- Moving to a new space at work and finding it unexpectedly refreshing in that I can put classical music on while I work.  Bonus - "An American in Paris" by George Gershwin comes on and I find it energizing when I need it most.  It was one of my late father's favorites.

- Two women in the grocery store, browsing the canned vegetables, look up and the delight in their eyes when they spot each other is delightful.  They exclaim, hug and begin catching up.

Christmas part II, fav ornament and horse in striped pajamas

- I had a ridiculous amount of fun mixing my ornaments and treasured family ornaments into this new tree, which arrived right on schedule.  The stuffed "Richie" bear was free with a purchase at the now defunct Rich's department store.  (How I miss you so.)  Until I can get some gifts wrapped, he looks cute sitting there.

- And I cracked myself up just now, trying to get a good shot of my favorite little ornament:  a baby angel sitting in half a walnut shell.  This was the best of the six shots.  I laughed because I need to leave for work in an hour and am just now taking photos for my blog.  I suffer for my art.  :)

- Three-month-old great nephew Monroe's favorite toy, Bo the Zebra.  My sister is part of the village taking care of Monroe during the day until official daycare starts in January.  She emailed yesterday: "This is Monroe's favorite thing to stare at, his zebra.  I'm racking my brain trying to remember the words to the song about the zebra looking like a horse in striped pajamas!"  Aunt Lynn to the rescue!  It's indeed call Horse in Striped Pajamas.  We used to hear it on Captain Kangaroo when we were kids.

look there daddy, do you see?

there's a horse in striped pajamas

no, that's not what it is at all

that's an animal people call a zebra

i see, but it still looks like a

horse in striped pajamas to me!

It goes on to honor penguins, seals, pandas and leopards.  There is a link to the Captain and Mr. Green Jeans on a visit to the zoo, singing the song on the record, above.  I sang it all day yesterday.  :)

I have worked for the weekend.  It's here!  I hope you all have a wonderful one!

Update - it's difficult to go about daily activities after the tragedy in Connecticut on Friday.  So sad...

Pretty salad, French tunes and a rainy night in Georgia

- Mediterranean couscous salad, before mixing.  So pretty with the flat leaf parsley and feta cheese on top.  I made this for a church luncheon last week and had enough ingredients to make it for myself yesterday morning.  Recipe is here. - I always want to blog about this salad.  :)

- Listening to the soundtrack to the film "French Kiss" while puttering around in the kitchen.  It makes me feel as if I'm at a French cafe.

- A steady, drippy rain, that lasts into the evening.  Perfect for a Sunday afternoon and evening.

Peace, quietly singing and humming to the baby

Click to enlarge

- Another view of the mountains / farm area of Clay County, North Carolina.  I got out of my car and walked back to this spot in the road at which you could see that little church in the background.  A moment of Labor Day peace.

- Hearing neighbor Travis quietly singing on his back porch during the 5am hour.

- Our newest family member has reportedly found his lungs.  His very stoic dad has found a good way to calm him is by humming while he holds him.

May there be beautiful music in your life this weekend, my friends.  I hope your weekend will be peaceful and good.

Midtown, quirky and Neil Diamond

- The lights of midtown Atlanta looked so beautiful as I was leaving volunteer work last night that I just had to get a "through the windshield" shot.

- Techwood Dr, referenced in the street sign above, leads to the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology (aka Georgia Tech.)  My GPS pronounces this street as "Tetchwood Doctor", which never ceases to make me laugh out loud.  It pronounces all streets ending in "Dr" as "Doctor", except in Florida, which I will never understand.

- The director of my volunteer organization has a newspaper ad for an upcoming Neil Diamond concert.  "Do you like him?" I ask.  She answers, "No, I don't like him.  I LOVE him!"  Me, too.  And we agree that "I am...I said" is our favorite Neil song.  We decide we were separated at birth after a discussion about how both our ex-husbands didn't like him at all.  :) 

Daddy don't sing!, gesture and wild honey

- I love the Avett Brothers and in this video, Scott Avett tries to sing "Just a Closer Walk (With Thee)" with charming results. So funny. :)

- They must be the nicest band in the world. There was a concert two weeks ago in Atlanta at a venue that was apparently over sold, disappointing a lot of fans who couldn't get in. So they have a letter on their website offering them free admission to an October concert in nearby Tennessee. Lovely.

- My friend Whitney posted the video above on facebook. She has a wonderful food blog now, Wild Honey, and I love her post about making a giant birthday cookie for her wee niece. You can check it out here.

Healing, Cleansing and Hope

- Part five of Rene Clausen's "Memorial," subtitled "Petitions." Performed by the Pinellas County Center for the Arts Symphonic Chorus and Orchestra; Logan Brown, piano; Derek Edward Weston, conductor.*

Photo by ALM

- My niece took this photo, on the property of the plantation in which she works in north Florida, of a double rainbow. The Urban Dictionary says that a "double rainbow" is an expression that can be used as "a term expressing something of pure, unrivaled awesome. Used commonly when awesome or spectacular are simply insufficient." I think a double rainbow counts as being pretty awesome.


- This is the flag that was draped over the side of the Pentagon on September 11, 2011, it hangs inside the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

*René Clausen's Kyrie (Lord Have Mercy) is part of a composition entitled Memorial, created to commemorate the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Memorial comprises four subsections - September Morning, The Attack, Prayers, and Petitions - and offers as its primary themes healing, cleansing and hope. It was first performed in February 2003 by The Concordia Choir and The Concordia College Orchestra at the Riverside Church in New York City.

Listen to the Kyrie if you have time this weekend - it is incredibly peaceful music. And I hope you have a lovely and peaceful weekend, my friends!

Funnel of Love, not so much and grasshopper

- This was the "B" side to a record recorded by a woman named Wanda Jackson in 1961. She's known as the "Queen of Rockabilly" - I adore this twangy song and even more that, that she is opening for the singer Adele in concert right now. Someone in Houston, Texas blogged about her here.

- A client has her baby in the car and asks me to bring something she was picking up out to her. I ask if I can see baby Emery and she warns, "She's being fussy, but OK." She rolls the window down and Emery flashes me a huge smile.

- A grasshopper, a lovely shade of green, crawls to the top of the stone rabbit's head in my "garden" and surveys and then is gone in a flash.

Kids songs, embarrassing the kids and cicadas

- Nancy Cassidy's Kid Songs - I love these CDs. I first gave them to oldest niece Carla when she was wee one and they ended up making their way around to all the kids. So I got them for a coworker who is a mother-to-be and another coworker who is a grandmother-to-be. I told them of my favorite two songs on it, "Shake Your Sillies Out" and "Sandwiches."

- I was having lunch with niece Abby and two of her friends (all adults now) recently and when our sandwiches came out, her friend looked at Abby and said, "Too bad your mom isn't here to sing the sandwich song for us." Not to worry - I sang the first few lines for them:

Sandwiches are beautiful, sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time;
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch;
If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once!

- I read about this in May, when USA Today reported, "An enormous brood of cicadas that covers parts of 16 states is beginning to wake from its 13-year slumber underground." And I just saw my first bewildered cicada this morning as I was out watering plants at 5am. It landed on my back, I shrieked, no neighbors came running - so much for that neighborhood watch thing. :) (The neighbors are sleeping at that time, as they should be.) Anyway - it was funny in retrospect and I wish I could have gotten a picture of the cicada.

Have a lovely weekend, my friends!

Warhol print, how he did it and upcoming tour

- It's Random Photo Thursday, which I kind of like, because it gives me an opportunity to scroll through so many photos - a little trip down memory lane. This photo of a screenprint collage of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol was taken at the Warhol exhibition at the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center when I was there for a work visit last year.

- In 1975, Warhol produced a portfolio of ten screenprints of Jagger. In conjunction with this, Warhol produced a series of drawings and collages based on photographic images. It is said that this work was almost certainly produced by projecting the original photograph on to a sheet of paper, then drawing around the outline in pencil. This version also included torn colored paper, creating shapes of color.

- I saw that the Stones are going to have a 50th anniversary concert tour in 2012 - probably their last one. Wish I could go to that! People seem to love them or hate them. I love them. :)

Taste, the bride and up early

- I love love love this video from 1966 and have an odd memory of it, especially the part in which Herb Alpert is running on the beach with his trumpet. It's a video of the song I was talking about last week that I heard at the lunch place.

- A bride's radiant smile as she waves to cheering crowds.

- Wondering how many other people are up early watching the wedding festivities of a couple thousands of miles away. I watched his parents' wedding, too, so wouldn't miss this one.

I hope you make some good memories this weekend, my friends - have a great one!

Three little birds, on my doorstep and visit

- This Bob Marley song is just about my favorite with its sweet lyrics. I find myself singing the refrain in my head when things don't seem to be going well: "Don't worry 'bout a thing, 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

- And I discovered the song after taking this photo in Greenwich Village last December.

- Learning that my preschool teacher niece is visiting the east coast this summer for the first time in five years. She started her own school called "Rising Song" - I'll bet she knows this song, too. :)

Earth Day, A Taste of Honey and heirlooms

Happy Earth Day!

- Stopping by Star Provisions for take-out lunch and perusing the organic produce on display out front at the farm stand. Heirloom tomatoes already! The proprietor says a farmer in Athens, Georgia grows them in a greenhouse.

- As the cool guy writes down my order, I remark that The Tijuana Brass song "A Taste of Honey" that's playing in the background makes me think of my father, who had all their albums. Cool guy: "Here comes the best part! Wait for it, wait for it....there!" He drums along with the bass drum beat with his palm.

- Having lunch in my cubicle and ordering a Tijuana Brass CD, with a purple tomato on my desk for decoration (and later eating.) A good lunch hour. :)

Have a wonderful weekend, my friends!

Midnight Train, best concert and most favorite

Midnight Train to Georgia featuring Emmylou Harris, Luscious Jackson, the Indigo Girls and Rebekah

- This is one of my favorite songs, sung originally by Gladys Knight and the Pips. Emmylou Harris does a fabulous job singing it here with Luscious Jackson (loved their music and that name), the Indigo Girls (local girls!) and Rebekah (not previously familiar with her, but love her voice). Posted originally on 365 Days of Emmylou Harris (a blog discovered by Fireblossom) - they post a video of Emmylou singing most days. The words don't sync up with the video exactly right, but still good.

- I've seen Emmylou Harris in concert twice, the most memorable time was at the "Down from the Mountain" tour in Manassas, Virgina - an all day concert featuring artists who contributed music to the film, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. She sang with Alison Krause - another favorite artist. Bluegrass music all day - can't beat it. :)

- My absolute favorite concert of all time was about 10 years ago at Chastain Park in Atlanta - Crosby, Stills and Nash. An absolute perfect evening and I won the tickets in a drawing at work (which made it all the better.) I'll never forget when they sang another favorite song "Teach your Children" and stopped singing to just let the audience sing this part:

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

Oh - I cried during that. :)

I hope you will share your favorite concerts here! And that there will be music, love and laughter in your weekend (and all the time.)

It's Finally Friday, Happy Birthday Felix and yum

- Just an image here today, but a GREAT Friday song. My favorite song about Friday. I like country music, but only if it is extremely twangy. Right? Shouldn't country music be twangy? I'm just sayin'. Happy Friday!

- On the flip side, for some distinctly untwangy music: yesterday was Felix Mendelssohn's birthday and it was lovely to hear his music played all day long on the NPR station in Atlanta.

- Meeting a client for a late lunch of grilled mahi mahi and sliced avocado tacos, with a side of black beans and some lovely roasted tomato salsa. Yum.

I hope you have a lovely weekend friends!

Monday Monday, outdoor time and big batch

- I woke this morning thinking of this song and so, here it is. According to the "Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits" - it was the 198th number one song on the Billboard charts and "For years, John (Phillips) maintained he had no idea what the song meant." I think it is just the best Monday song I know.

- My shedding fern's delight that it got to go outside for two days of 65 degree weather this weekend.

- Waking up to the lingering scent of vegetable soup simmering. It was time for more "Big Batch Vegetable Soup" yesterday and kind of fun to have a freezer clearing batch of soup. It turned out to be more vegetables than broth and sure was tasty.

The answer, what's next and mitsitam

- The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind... That's what this couple was singing on Sunday and it was impossible not to sing along.

- Using the last of the blueberries from the freezer on my morning oatmeal and pondering what will be the next morning fruit. The answer might just be at the farmers' market this afternoon.

- The Smithsonian catalog contains a page with Native American jewelry and such that you can order. The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook caught my eye - I like the sound of that word Mitsitam. Turns out it means "let's eat."