Facebook knows…

I had to take my Prius in today for an oil change.  There was a software update they wanted to do at the same time so I was stuck at the dealership for two hours.  I had just started reading The Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø so I wasn’t upset about having to sit around for a couple hours.  But at one point, I took a break to look at Facebook and decided to update my status to tell the world where I was...as if the world cares.  But this is how the rest of the conversation went:

From my aunt:  Did you get a recall notice?

Me:  Yes.  They are updating the software.  Otherwise, it’s the usual countenance.  Gives me a good chance to dead.

Me:  I mean maintenance.  I don’t know where countenance came from.

Me:  AND I meant READ.  Dead…what’s up width that??

Friend from Canada:  fb is in your puter correcting your spelling for you…LOL!

Me:  They took a lot of leeway with width.

Me:  Or maybe that’s the Olde English-speaking.

Me:  Wow!  This thing is out of control today.

Friend from Ohio:  This is hilarious!  At least it didn’t change Prius to Reince Priebus.

Me:  What?  Lol.

Friend from Canada:  Prius?  Wait for it…Pretence…fb is testing your patience and listening to you wine…er…whine.

From my aunt:  I have an appointment Wednesday to get my software updated.  I’m going to leave the car for the day because it’s almost time for my 25,000-mile checkup.

Me:  I’ve got almost 60,000 on mine and it’s still ticking beautifully.

Me:  I wine…er…whine a lot, Friend from Canada.  lol.

Friend from Canada:  fb knows.

I did get a couple of odd glances from other people in the waiting room when I chuckled audibly.  I imagine that Facebook knew that, too.  But I sure hope that Reince Priebus isn’t keeping track of me.

  That would just be too weird.

No, I haven't lost my marbles.  As you can see, they are safely contained in a little glass bowl.

Random Happy Thoughts…

1)  We went to Worcester, Massachusetts this afternoon and wandered around with our son Evan looking at possibilities for apartments for him.  He recently got a “promotion” at work and is now a Learning Specialist at Quinsigamond Community College.  While it is STILL not full time, it is regular and steady hours and he will be making quite a bit more money than he was.  We are proud of him.  I have mixed feelings about him moving out because he is a quiet, helpful and nice person to have around.  But I know he wants to start moving his life forward and I fully support that.

This photo has nothing to do with anything.

2)  You all probably know that yesterday was the International Day of Happiness.  I didn’t realize it until a friend of mine who works at Clark University in Worcester posted a video on Facebook that showed people on Clark’s campus dancing along to Pharrell Williams song Happy.  A few clicks of the mouse and I was onto this website that shows people dancing to the song all over the world and for 24 hours.  I have to admit that it is kind of addictive.  I hope you all are having a happy day today.

This face makes me happy.

3)  One of the things I really like about watching those videos of people dancing is that they are just regular people – some can dance and others are rather awkward.  I am of the awkward camp and have never been comfortable dancing but I sure admire people who dance like there’s nobody watching even when they don’t seem to have a rhythmical bone in their bodies.  I think that is way cool!  But you probably won’t catch me doing it…ever.

4)  Something that has made my husband happy is that they are now selling Yuengling Beer in Massachusetts.  They started selling it on March 3^rd.  People were pretty excited at first, but I think the initial excitement has worn off a bit.  But I believe firmly that life is too short to drink bad beer so I will probably have a Yuengling or two before it's all over.

5)  I am happy for my friend, Karen Keough-Huff, who recently published a book with Sarah Craig called Sarah’s Hope.  Here’s a description:  “Sarah's Hope chronicles the challenges of an individual born with disabilities. From birth to the present day, Sarah Craig shares her life experiences through her writings, interviews, and journal entries. This book provides a rare glimpse into the thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams of a wonderful woman who has traveled a much more difficult path through life than most of us. Sarah's strength, perseverance, resilience, and faith should be an inspiration to all who read this book.”  I haven’t read the book yet, but I look forward to reading it.  Here’s a link to how to get a hold of it if you are interested.

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Coloring the Birds of St. John…

It may be St. Patrick ’s Day today, but on my morning walk I didn’t spy anything green.  The little creek that runs down the hill in our neighborhood still has a skim coat of ice on it but I could see movement below the ice.  Here in New England, we are entering what some people call Mud Season and I agree that that’s an apt name for the transition time between winter and spring here when the main colors that greet the eye are the dirty white of the leftover snow and the brown of the ground peeping out from under it.  It’s not my favorite time of the year.  I love color.  Whether it is the blue, whites and greys of winter or the brights of summer, I long for color.  And that dirty brown just doesn't cut it.

So today I am going back down to St. John in the US Virgin Islands to show you a few birds we saw while we were down there.

My favorite bird on St. John is the Bananaquit.  These frenetic little yellow fellows are all over the island and people feed them by leaving out bowls of sugar.  Their love of sugar makes them a bit like a hummingbird, but they can’t hover and must be perched to eat.  They are pretty tame and don’t mind if you get somewhat close to them to take their photo.  Here is a couple I took:

That little, photo-bombing dude in the right-hand corner looks like he's sticking his tongue out at his brother.

They don't mind sharing.

Here’s a video that gives a whole new meaning to the term the birds and the bees.  I took this at one of our favorite places to eat in Coral Bay, The Tourist Trap.  Larry, the owner, dumps a half a pound of sugar in this bowl at a time.  Can you say sugar high?

Our friend Bob was charged with feeding these birds the first year we stayed at the villa Reef Madness and it seems like around the same time in the afternoon, the little ones would begin perching in the trees around the feeder waiting for Bob to get that sugar out.  One afternoon, after the initial influx of birds died down, I looked over at the feeder and saw an unusual tail sticking out.  A lizard invited himself to the feast.  Apparently, lizards can get hooked on sugar too.  He looked a little dazed when he finally poked his head out of the feeder.

Another bird we see a lot there is the Pearly-eyed Thrasher.  This bird is only found on some islands in the Caribbean and seems pretty common on St. John.  One day while we were sitting on the beach, I looked behind my chair and saw a couple of them feasting away on a piece of fruit sitting on the ground.  They were more interested in the fruit than they were in me so I managed to get some decent shots of them.  I wasn’t able to determine exactly why they are different colors.  The lighter one may be a juvenile.

One afternoon after we were out of the pool, I managed to catch this Thrasher admiring himself in the reflections of the pool.  The Wiki on the Pearly-eyed Thrasher calls him "an aggressive, opportunistic omnivore.”  Apparently, he’s a little narcissistic as well.  I know some people like that.

One thing we find interesting down there are the lack of seagulls.  I am not sure why they don’t frequent the area, but there are pelicans, whose beaks can hold more than their bellies can.  Yes, I think of this little limerick by Dixon Lanier Merritt every time I see one of those birds:

A funny old bird is a pelican.

His beak can hold more than his bellican.

Food for a week

He can hold in his beak,

But I don't know how the hellican.

This isn’t a bird, but I think it is always interesting to see someone walking their pig down the beach.  I mean, I can’t remember the last time I saw that before we were on St. John.

Random Thoughts…

1)  Because it is 3.14, today is National Pi Day, as I’m sure you know if you hang out on Facebook at all.  Me, I would prefer it to be National Pie Day.  But nobody asked me.  Actually, a friend on Facebook informed me that there is a National Pie Day and it was on January 23.  Personally, I think that pie is good enough to have two celebratory days in a year.  If today was pie day instead of pi day, what kind of pie would you go for?  Me…I like my donuts plain, my coffee black and I go for that old standard, the American Apple Pie.  In honor of the day, we are having vegetarian pot pie for dinner.

I took this picture of pi in 2007 on a visit to the San Juan Islands in Washington state.  It's cool, but you can't eat it.

2)  We got more snow here in Massachusetts yesterday.  Wasn’t much, but it did neaten things up around the edges temporarily.

A little snow never stops the intrepid Chickadee for long.

4)  If you live in a cold climate, you’ve probably heard a lot of complaining about the weather this winter.  To me, it seems like a big waste of energy to complain about things over which you have no power to change.  I think that the people who celebrate winter deserve big kudos…like our neighbors who have an actual igloo in their front yard.  I think that is just cool!  Absolutely no pun intended.

5)  I’m on Day 263 of my Flickr 365 that I started on my birthday.  I haven’t missed a day so far.  Today’s entry was one of a series of “self-portraits” that I am doing using the ABCs.  I am on the letter K.  It wasn’t easy coming up with something for K but I did it.  K is for key and here it is, the key to my Toyota Prius.  I love that darn car.

5)  I will leave you with a random poem from one of my favorite poets of all time, Shel Silverstein.  It seems like it’s been a Shel Silverstein kind of week.

THE VOICE

There is a voice inside of you

That whispers all day long,

“I feel that this is right for me,

I know that this is wrong.”

No teacher, preacher, parent, friend

Or wise man can decide

What’s right for you – just listen to

The voice that speaks inside.

Here's a raggedy Welcome to the weekend.  Have a good one, you all!

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Home!

We returned from St. John, USVI on Monday night.  It seems like we were away for a long time, although in reality it was only eight days.  Now I am trying to catch up with this and that, including checking out what my blogging friends have been up to.

  I have been working on gathering my thoughts about the trip, but so far they are still far flung, maybe they are back on the beach watching the waves wash in.  I guess that’s what happens when you have a truly relaxing vacation.

  So what I have decided to do today is just put out a few photos from our trip.  I’m hoping that later this week, I might have something bright to say about the whole thing…or something to say about something else maybe.  Who knows?  But right now, I’m just trying to come in for a landing.

This is a sunset view from Reef Madness, the villa we stayed in.  Somehow, this view never gets old.

Fifty Shades of Blue...much preferable to Fifty Shades of Grey.

My faithful hat kept my nose from turning red.  Thanks, hat!

Greg daydreams in the pool.

Apple: Fine Purveyor of First World Problems…

On Tuesday, I was happily sitting at my computer working on editing some photos and listening to The Cuckoo’s Calling on my iPod when I glanced at the clock.  It was time for me to go downstairs to start dinner.  So I shut down my computer and went to turn off my iPod.  The computer shut down, but my iPod stubbornly refused to do so.  “Eek!” I thought, “What’s wrong with this thing??”  Panic set in.  In normal circumstances, I would just try to fix it, but we are going to be getting on a plane on Sunday to go to St. John, USVI, with good friends and I can’t imagine myself on a plane these days without the distraction my iPod gives me.

After quite a few minutes searching on the interweb for clues and fixes, I had to just give up.  My iPod was irrevocably broken, the on/off toggle was caput and there was nothing I could do about it.  Then the panic really did set in.  What was I going to do on a plane for four hours without the comfort of Bach’s cello concertos streaming into my skull?

Greg, who is much calmer about such things, said that we should go out to eat that night and we would go to Best Buy on Wednesday and pick up a new iPod.  And that’s what we did, even though I wasn’t too happy about it.

Well, my first two iPods were green so I decided that if I went with a blue one this time, maybe my luck would change.  I got the new blue one home, sat down at my computer to put my stuff on it and my computer wouldn’t recognize it.  I picked it up and looked at it.  The screen was stuck on the Apple logo screen and wouldn’t budge.  “I can’t frickin’ believe this,” I thought.  “What is it with me and Apple??”

Just about then, our son Evan got home from work and informed us that his iPhone wasn’t charging.  So we repeated the steps of looking to the interweb for clues and fixes.  Long story short, his iPhone seemed to be irrevocably broken.  Now, I could actually live without my iPod if I had to, but Evan really does need his phone.  So he decided the best thing to do was to let the Geniuses take a look at it.

So off we went.  I retraced the 20 miles back to the Best Buy and Evan went off to the nearest Apple Store 40 miles in the opposite direction.

The nice young Geek at Best Buy thought it would be an easy fix, but after about twenty minutes, he admitted defeat and called someone over to get me a new iPod.  I stuck with the blue.  Geek said, with a sly grin on his face, that maybe now I should consider getting the extended warranty.  I told him that the other iPods lasted me four and three years respectively.  Again with the grin, he said, “Yeah, but this one only lasted you two hours.”  Well, I didn’t bite, but maybe I should have.  My times with my iPods keep getting narrower and narrower.

Evan got home a couple of hours later with the bad news that there was no way to resuscitate his iPhone.  The Geniuses were stumped.  Will wonders never cease?  He does have a “spare” with a broken screen that actually works so he may be able to limp along until we can figure out how to get him one that won’t break the bank.

Well, by then, it was pretty late, so we went out to dinner yet again and I had a little whine with mine.

It’s funny these days that we have become so dependent on these little electronic devices.  Heck, as much as I complained about my last iPod – it was too small, too hard to control, etc.—I took good care of it because I didn’t want to be without it.  I used it often.  I love the fact that I can listen to my books and to music anywhere and everywhere.  It’s a good thing….really.  But, you know, when I decided to write this today, I wanted to take some pictures of the three devices together, green iPod 1, green iPod 2, and blue iPod No. 2 in two hours, which I’m hoping will be my last for many years.  But, after an exhaustive search, green iPod2 had taken a powder and I can’t find it.  It’s on the lam.  So, it was a bad Apple after all.

All kinds of music…

When I was a kid, it seems like every house I went into had a piano in the living room.  We certainly did.  Ours was an old upright of indeterminable pedigree.  At some point in my teens or early twenties, that big upright got replaced by a nice compact spinet that still sits in the living room of my mother’s house. I took lessons on that old, big upright, but they never took on me.  I just don’t have a feel for the workings of musical notes.

I love this photo of my sister Susan playing the piano in 1960.

My Aunt Judy (right) with my sister Judy (left), her namesake.  Aunt Judy gave us piano lessons when we were young.

My mother’s family is very musical.  Of the eight of the siblings, almost all have had a relationship with music in some form or other.  But that music thing didn’t get handed down to me.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like music, but I really prefer the written and spoken word.

This great old photo of my grandfather Oscar, center, and his twin brothers is one of my very favorites.  A copy of it sits on our piano.

We have a piano in our living room now.  It’s a spinet that was Greg’s mother’s piano so we are emotionally attached to it and it does make a nice focal point in the room, but there really isn’t any reason for it to be there otherwise.  It never gets touched except when I feel like dusting it.  But looking at it sometimes takes me back to my youth and a time when it seems like everyone had a piano in their living room.

I’m not really sure what made me think of this today.  Could be that a neighbor of ours recently posted on Facebook that they want to get rid of their piano together with the fact that I’m reading a really fantastic book right now, A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin and listening to Robert Galbraith’s (aka J.K. Rowling) The Cuckoo’s Calling and the way those two can put words together is simply music to my ears.