Tennessee

Okay, I promised my niece the next thing I wrote would be funny so it's time to talk about our trip to Tennessee. Not sure if it will be super hilarious, but at least it shouldn't make her cry so that's a good thing!

A few weeks ago Brent and I took a weekend trip to Kingsport, Tennessee. Why on Earth would we do that you are wondering right about now...well...it's simple. It's time to move. When Brent and I first got married he was in the Navy and we moved 4 times in 8 years. Then he went to work for Intel and we moved another 4 times in the next 7 years. When we settled in Oregon the last time I said that was it until C was out of school. He went to 6 different schools from kindergarten to 7th grade. So it was time to make sure we stayed put until he was done with high school. Moving is a pain in the butt for adults, but for kids it's a social nightmare. You are constantly the new kid and trying to adjust and fit in. So we stayed.

But here is the other thing about moving. It's sort of addictive. If you do it a lot you start to see the benefits in it. You never end up accumulating too much junk (as you all know I have issues with too much stuff), you get to redecorate, you get to explore new places, you get to try new foods. It's really kind of exciting. Even when the move is a bad one (Hello, Colorado Springs!) there are good parts about it (Mrs. Worner, I'm talking to you) and parts that you really enjoyed. So when C's Junior year hit we started thinking about the "what next" part for Brent and I. He actually interviewed with a company in Pittsburgh but they wanted him to move right then and there was no way we were uprooting C his Senior year, and also no real way to support two households for a year. So Brent kept looking, nothing really serious but if there was something interesting out there he would apply.

Then the weather hit. We had two horrible wet, cold, dark winters back to back with a poor excuse for a summer in between. It just seemed like two solid years of rain. I reached my limit on internal sunshine and decided I didn't really care where we went but we needed to get out! So the search started a little more in earnest. This is where Kingsport came in. There is a big chemical plant there that was interested in Brent for their finance department. At first I was all for it, lets just go! The visitors site online looks beautiful! We've lived in small towns before and this one has 500,000 in the TriCities area so it's not even close to the smallest we've ever seen. But Brent being the grownup in our family arranged for me to actually visit the town while he had his interview to see for myself. It's good to have a grownup in the family.

I fully believe that the universe gives you hints on what you should do. Now, you can ignore them (the house isn't selling? oh well, move to Colorado anyway, what's the worst that could happen?) or you can decide to pay attention and look a little closer at what you should be doing. The first hurdle we had to cross was convincing the people in Kingsport that it was important that I see the town in the first round of interviews not the last. To actually have a chance to get a feel for the place. The second thing that happened is I got a line on an interesting job possibility for me. The only catch being I would have to be on the West Coast for it to happen. Could be pretty much anywhere on the West Coast, but it had to be the West Coast.

Keeping the job for me in the back of my mind we decided to head out as planned. And almost got stuck in the airport in Atlanta. The earlier flight into the TriCities area had been cancelled so they sold all of those people tickets on our flight and oversold the flight. Since we had purchased our tickets so close to the fly date we didn't have assigned seats. So we waited...the good news is there was a guy waiting for our flight who brought out his guitar and started playing. You can't keep a good head of mad or even overly worried up when this guy is playing the blues softly next to you.

So it ends up we get on the flight all's well! Landing in the TriCities airport we got our first moments of, "hmmm....500,000 people you say?" This is the baggage claim area for the airport that serves three cities and half a million people.

Nope, you aren't missing part of it. That's it. Smaller than the Burlington Airport and that is saying a lot! Now you know how sometimes you over hear a conversation and it just sticks with you for some reason? Maybe later it comes back to you at an appropriate time and you think..."well isn't that interesting" I had one of those moments (this is the foreshadowing part) A woman walked up to her friend who was sitting in the baggage claim area, also the car rental area, and told him that her flight was grounded. They were doing maintenance on the plane and it would be delayed an hour and half. Because of this she was going to miss her connection in Atlanta so she was staying in Bristol (one of the TriCities) another night. She was not a happy camper and I felt badly for her.

So on with our adventure! We got our rental and headed out to find Kingsport and our hotel. It was warm and a little humid but not nearly as bad as we had feared it would be. And since it was only going to reach the upper 50s in Portland that day we figured we were owed those 90s anyway! And since you all know how I hate a long blog and love a multiparter that is where I will end for today. This is the view from our hotel parking lot, we thought it was going to rain, but it didn't...not Saturday anyway!

How are you?

How many times a day do you ask someone that question? How often do you really listen to the answer? When I was in high school a friend of mine when asked, "How are you?" would answer, "You don't really want to know, you are just asking to be polite." And he was right. It's really become more of an automatic thing we say than a real curiosity. If you answer anything other than fine, good, well and you? People don't know what to do with themselves.

I thought of that a lot last week when I would see people and they would ask, "How are you?" I got to the point where I would just tilt my head and give them a half smile. Then they got it. "Oh yeah...maybe not the best question." But I also know that a lot of times when people asked what they were really asking if I was holding up all right. How are you doing right now? Are you okay? Can I get you anything? Those questions were asked as well. Sometimes it was just a change in the inflection. "How are you?" "How are you?" Something that let you know they were really checking in on you right then.

And I don't blame people. When I got off of the plane I went directly to the funeral home to meet my mother and my siblings. Plane landed at noon, the appointment was at one. Just enough time to grab a large iced tea through a drive through and head over. As we sat in the conference room I looked at my two brothers and my sister and I thought, you all look like hell. The skin around my oldest brother's eyes was about the shade of an apple. My sister looked like she might have slept an hour the night before. My middle brother who shares my skin coloring (just this side of glow in the dark pale) looked almost translucent. Just the many faces of grief. I also realized that if they all looked like hell I must also. So you can't blame people for asking, "how are you?" when they see that. And because my mother raised me to not be rude I couldn't really answer, "Really really shitty, and you?" or at least I couldn't in her hearing distance. So I went with the head tilt half smile.

"Nice to meet you." That's another one that I heard a lot. Living out of town I hadn't met my sister's oldest son's wife and her two children yet. I hadn't met the minister that was going to perform my father's service, I hadn't met numerous friends of my parents. So each time we would meet I got the "nice to meet you." And of course I did the same. As I was leaving a group or they were leaving, "Nice to meet you." But it wasn't really. Every time I would meet someone I knew the only reason I was meeting them right then it was because Dad was dead. So it wasn't nice. But you still say it. Habits.

"Nice to see you again." There was that one as well. Growing up in Albuquerque and growing up in the church where Dad's service was held I saw a lot of people that I hadn't seen in years. Over twenty for most of them. And often it was, "Nice to see you again." Though most of the people that I knew, and that knew Dad would say, "Nice to see you again, I just wish it was under better circumstances." Me too...me too.

But back to How are you? I will let you all know.

Better. Last week was horrible. This week is better. I had foolishly convinced myself through the years that it wouldn't be as horrible as this when Mom or Dad died. After all I left home at 18 and have only lived in Albuquerque for 2 1/2 years since then. Most of my life I have lived away from home. I only visit every few years. When they were in better health they would visit once a year, but even that has tapered off recently. So you sort of tell yourself that yes, you know you will miss them, but it won't be that bad. Trust me, it's that bad.

On the plane from Salt Lake to Albuquerque it hit me that Dad wasn't going to be there when I went to my folk's house. That from now on it was my Mom's house. That was it. No hug from Dad. No Ayup...no Oh goody...no catching him turning off his hearing aids at family dinners. No more Dad. And I lost it. I realized that though I didn't see my dad daily or even yearly, I still took great comfort in the fact that he was there. He and my mom were still there. Now it's just my mom. And I feel her loneliness like an ache (58 years married) and I feel my siblings loss as well as my own. It's horrible. But it's better than last week. And it will keep getting better, except for the days where it's worse.

I am sleeping. Which is odd for a chronic insomniac. However I don't drift off to sleep. I slam into it like a wall. One minute I am awake the next asleep. Last night for instance I remember turning off my bedside light while Brent was finishing getting ready for bed and the next thing I remember I startled myself awake (don't you hate when you do that?) and it was dark, Brent was asleep and I have no idea how long I had been out. I am tired at odd times during the day. But that is better than last week as well when it seemed like staying awake at all was a chore.

I have stopped holding myself together. I was literally holding myself together last week. Arms wrapped around myself so tightly my forearms actually got sore. My chiropractor and my massage therapist both had their work cut out for them at the end of last week trying to unwind that mess. But now I go for long stretches where my arms are in my lap, or at my sides. Not always, I still catch myself holding on every once in awhile, but it's better.

I can say the words, "My father died recently" without bursting into the ugly cry. I couldn't do that last week. Now I just mist up a bit and then can reign it back in.

I can tell inappropriate jokes about it now. Trust me, this is a big healing step for me. If I didn't have dark humor I wouldn't have much humor at all. The first time I could use, "You have to be nice to me, my dad just died" in a darkly comic way I knew I was going to be okay. Judge me if you must...but it is how I am. You asked after all...

And I am writing about it. And tomorrow or the next day I will write about something else. And that will be a good thing. I have stories to tell about our trip to Tennessee and they were very funny when they were in my head before. I am hoping to dredge them back out. I have pictures to post. I have things to deal with. I have chores, I have errands, I have a life to lead.

So I guess that's how I am. I am moving forward. I am better. I am healing. Thanks for asking. How are you?

My father's voice

As most of you know my Dad died last week. I'll be writing about it here and there for awhile I am sure. Let's just call this Part One of who knows how many.

My dad was not a big talker. He just didn't have a lot to say. Not that he couldn't hold up a pretty decent conversation, he just didn't want to. He didn't have a lot of use for small talk. Though he could tell a story like nobody I know. He would suck you in to his story, lead you right down the primrose path then BOOM hit you with the punch line. And you never knew it was coming. Ever. I would always swear I wasn't going to fall for it again, but then he would start talking and reel me right back in.

So last week as we all started the long process of adjusting to the fact that Dad was gone we shared stories about him. Mom even had us write down a few remembrances and then had everyone at the service who cared to, to do the same. There were themes. My father was a kind man, he was a quiet man, he was a dignified man, he was a funny man, he loved his wife and his children and their children and their children. But the thing that struck me was how often I would hear my father's voice through those stories. Almost as though he had told them first and people were just repeating them.

It's not unusual for me to hear my dad. He was very frugal. A depression era kid he never threw anything away and he could make just about anything you ever thought you needed and a lot of things you didn't know you needed until he made them. Looking through a Sky Mall catalog I can always find one or two things my dad made years ago out of spare parts that they are now selling. My mother on the other hand loves to shop and loves a good sale. She would buy something and tell my dad how much she had saved and he would tell her she would have saved even more if she hadn't bought it. I made the mistake of sharing that story with Brent early on in our marriage and so every once in awhile I hear my father's voice come out of my husband's mouth! Though truth be told I am a shopper like my dad. I just don't need to do it and I cringe at spending money on things like clothes. Shoes are something else entirely...

Because of this aversion to just shopping (just shopping as opposed to shopping with a purpose) I didn't have a dress to wear to the funeral. I owned three dresses. Two casual summer things and one dressy dress. I didn't want to wear the good dress to the funeral. It was the dress I wore to C's graduation and though it would have been perfectly appropriate I knew that after that point it would always be "the dress I wore to my dad's funeral" I made that mistake with the dress I wore to Jack's funeral. I had worn it to a wedding the weekend he died and wore it again to the funeral. When the pictures from the wedding came back and I saw myself in the dress...well...it wasn't happy. So a new dress would be needed.

I found three black dresses to try on. The first one I tried showed a lot of cleavage and I heard my dad's voice in my head, "Are you planning on wearing a sweater with that?" I always joked that my father was much more modest than I was. So that one was out. No way was I wearing a sweater the end of June in Albuquerque. The next two were pretty close to each other. I took a picture of each and sent them to Brent to look at to help me choose. He felt the same way, 6 of one, half dozen of the other (another saying of my dad's). So I looked at the price. One was on a bigger sale than the other I figured my dad would approve. Look how much I will save...(look how much you would save if you didn't buy either).

My eldest nephew has an incredible singing voice and my mother decided she wanted him to sing at the service. After much debate we got her to narrow it down to one song and we all decided "The Old Rugged Cross" would be a good choice. It's a fairly well known song, it's not too complicated, it was one of my dad's favorites. I am not sure how my nephew held it together to sing but he did a wonderful job. Up until that point in the service I was doing pretty well, but in the chorus there is the normal line and then a low part. My father always sang the low part. So as Brian sang..."I will cling to the Old Rugged Cross" I heard my dad come in on rugged with "the Old Rugged Cross" and I lost it. Completely fell apart, ugly cry sobs. But still heard him every time Brian got to that part. It was a horrible and beautiful moment.

When we wrote down our stories my youngest nephew wrote that when Dad would tell him to "fly his flag straight" after he messed up it would mean more to him than anything else anyone else could tell him. When I read that I remembered the times my sister and I would be fighting in our room and my mother would tell us to stop and we would get quiet for about as long as it took her to walk back down the hallway. But if my dad came down the hallway and told us to knock it off, we were done. Not another peep. When you don't say a lot, what you do say carries much more weight.

But I also thought how interesting it was that I had never heard that particular expression from my dad. Which made me think of being 14 and playing cards at my oldest brother's house. People were getting things to drink and I went into the kitchen and made myself a rum and coke. At 14. With my parents there. Yeah, my brother couldn't believe it either. He announced that the people raising me were not the same people who raised him. And in a way it was true. He is 14 years older than I am and we have three siblings between us. By the time they got to me they were pretty much done. I had a small handful of rules and was left pretty much to my own devices by the time I was a teenager. I wasn't driving (at 14? don't be silly it was illegal), I wasn't going to get drunk, I was in a safe place so yeah, I could have a drink.

So it wasn't that unusual that the father who raised me was different than the grandfather who helped raise my sister's sons. What dad would tell us was "we better straighten up and fly right" this was the warning shot before punishment was handed out. I guess for a cowboy my dad had flying on the mind a lot of the time. Or at least when the kids were screwing up. Maybe he was thinking how nice it would be to throw us?

I figure for the rest of my life I will hear my father's voice. And I am glad. For a man who didn't say much he said a lot that stuck.

I love you Dad. (my father's response...Oh goody!)

Do you remember the 21st night of September....

So for some of you of a certain age you are now humming along to a song that has been tucked away in your memory banks just waiting to bust out. For the rest of you it's a song lyric Youtube it.

There is a soundtrack that runs through your life and sometimes you are really aware of it and sometimes you aren't. Songs and memory for me are odd things. There are songs that remind me of a specific place and time, maybe the first place I heard the song, maybe a time when the song lyrics FINALLY made sense. Or maybe it's a song that I always heard in one place so now hearing it takes me right back there.

The opening Ooga Chugas from "Hooked on a Feeling" make me crave pizza. There was this little Italian restaurant near our church when I was maybe 6 or 7 (later it became a German restaurant, I am sure there is a joke in there somewhere) and we would go there for pizza and spaghetti after church and my sister and brother would load up the juke box. "Hooked on a Feeling" was one and "Seasons in the Sun" was another that were sure to get airplay. Now at 6 I loved the Ooga Chugas but HATED "Seasons in the Sun". I have been on a rediscovery tour lately of things that I have automatically disliked just because my sister liked them, the color pink for instance, so when "Seasons in the Sun" came on the 70s channel the other day I made myself listen to the whole thing. I just want to report that it had nothing to do with my sister. That song is still horrible. :-)

P!nk's song "Who Knew?" came out around the time Jack died. There are times when I will be singing along to it and all of the emotion from that time comes back and hits me again full force. Blue October has a song that I love and Brent and Christopher are not fans of and couldn't figure out why I liked it. It's a bit whiny for my usual taste. But the lyrics touch me. It's a love song, or a break up song, but the metaphor they used was drowning. Since I did almost drown the lines, "Not knowing how to think I scream aloud, begin to sink My legs and arms are broken down With envy for the solid ground" gave me chills the first time I heard them. And sometimes that's all it takes. Some touch point in the song that resonates with you and all of a sudden it's part of your story.

"Dog and Butterfly" by Heart is one that takes me back to my brother John and sister Ann's house. They would let me listen to their records. This was a big deal. I was pretty young and could have easily scratched them up and ruined them, but they trusted me. And they were so cool. They had Heart and Fleetwood Mac and tons of things that Mom wouldn't have approved of. And I got to listen to it all. The pictures that a 10 year old can conjure up to the lyrics of "Dog and Butterfly" would rival any acid dropping hippy for sure. I heard this song again yesterday and I still love it. Vocally it holds up even if the lyrics are a little wonky.

As you all know from past blogs I didn't have the most normal of teenage experiences. I was too busy creating a persona to ever really just kick back and enjoy the ride. I also totally blame John Hughes for putting unreasonable expectations on my generation as to what being a teenager meant. Though I attended a few parties that might rival the one in Sixteen Candles, including one at a good friend's house that SHE didn't even make it to. (Sorry, Sues...still feel a little bad about that) and I did have an attendance record to rival Ferris Bueller's I was more likely to be found sitting in Winchell's eating an apple fritter, smoking and ironically enough, doing homework while I ditched instead of commandeering a float and singing Danke Shoen. But there is one moment that I honestly felt like a "normal" teenager and it has stuck with me for more years now than I care to think about.

Between sophomore and junior year in high school I spent a good chunk of my summer up at our church camp helping a friend cook. While you were up at camp you were cut off from TV, movies, new music pretty much everything but camp. I can remember one girl going through the serving line singing "I wear my sunglasses at night so I can, so I can..." over and over and over. Now none of us knew why she would wear her sunglasses at night and she never finished the lyric so we started making things up to sing back to her. It was hilarious. At least for us. But that's not the story I want to tell here...back on track!

So it was the end of a camp week and an on again off again boyfriend of mine made the drive up to camp to see about making our relationship on again. I wasn't interested at the time but he had a car. And a car meant we could head down into Las Vegas. No, not THE Las Vegas. Las Vegas, New Mexico, the home of at least one movie theater and the insane asylum. So Amy, my friend and the head cook, her boyfriend Jeff, another girl whose name I can't remember, but I do remember she was extremely sweet, very pretty and completely confused as to why I INSISTED she sit in front with Charlie when it was obvious that was not what he wanted, and I headed down the hill to town. When I say hill I mean mountain. Hair pin turns, and drops in elevation from 7500 ft. at the base of the camp (Hermit's Peak is over 10,000 for those that have been there) to 6400 ft in just 16 miles. And because we were teenagers and Charlie was a little ticked off we were going much much too fast while we were doing it. Jeff, Amy and I were in the back seat and every time we would go around a corner we would scream "Wheeee!!!" as we slid into each other.

Charlie had wanted me to hear the soundtrack from Streets of Fire and so he had been playing it loudly on the way down the mountain. Two things about this trip will stick with me for ever. The lyric, "there's nothing wrong with going nowhere baby, but we should be going nowhere fast" playing as you are careening down a mountain so fast that the tires are squealing around every turn for me just crystallized a perfect teenage moment. The second is that looking back at it years later, I cannot believe we were that reckless...which made me smile. Teenagers. But now whenever I hear "Nowhere Fast" I am back on that mountain, then back in the parking lot of the insane asylum while Jeff and Charlie screamed, "Mom! Mom are you there?" , back in the Safeway racing carts down the aisles one person standing on the front long before Leonardo DiCaprio was ever "King of the World" and then eating burgers and laughing so hard our faces hurt. Just being stupid kids. And remembering that night as we turned out the lights Amy telling me, "I don't think I have ever felt more like a teenager than I do right now," and having to agree. It was stupid, it was hilarious to us, it was a completely dorky night and it was all done sober which for me was an oddity. It was my perfect teenage memory.

There are the songs that were on the radio when Brent and I were dating, the songs that we danced to at Club Rio or The Big Apple. I can remember dancing to Prince's "1999" and we were all talking about the party we would throw when it was 1999 and how great it would be. That came back to me New Year's Eve 1999 as the clock neared midnight and I remembered the giant party I was going to throw and I looked at my queen size bed with my husband napping on one side of me and my 7 year old sleeping away on the other, "But wake me up, Mom, I don't want to miss it!" and realizing that this party was much better than any I had ever imagined as a teenager.

Songs that played when we lived in Florida, Idaho, California and how they bring back the memories of those time periods. Hearing "Nothing Compares 2 U" for the first time and being so grateful that Brent was on his way home from a cruise instead of just heading out to sea. I am not sure that 6 months of "it's been so lonely without you here" would have been bearable. "The Boys are Back in Town" on the radio in San Diego meant that a battle group was on it's way in to port. You would smile, turn up the radio and sing loudly if it was your sailor coming home. If it wasn't you smiled, teared up and changed the station. Loving the song "Right Here Waiting" with the lyric "Oceans apart day after day" could it be more fitting for a Navy wife? Then hating the song when you found out that the prostitutes in the port towns were signing it to the boys as well? Ah yes...memories!

There are many more. Some are just fleeting memories. The first time I heard "Bawitaba" by Kid Rock and I did some old fashioned head banging. It made Christopher laugh so hard I thought he was going to fall down. He had never seen me whip my hair like that! Dancing to "Fight for Your Right (to Party)" with Christopher. I have mentioned this one before, probably not my most conventional parenting choice, but so much fun. Sitting in a hotel room in Toronto singing Indigo Girls with friends you have known for years but just met the day before. I could go on and on and on with different songs and different memories, but I think you get the point.

Music moves us. It adds to what we are doing. Directors know this. Would Darth Vader have been as intimidating without the Imperial March? Can you picture a witch on a bicycle without hearing the music from the Wizard of Oz? And can you imagine riding in a car with me without hearing an off tune but enthusiastic version of whatever is playing on the radio?

I didn't think so. Go out and enjoy your weekend. Put on your favorite tunes and dance. Make some new memories!

Music tastes like...

What do "Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode, "King of the Road" by Roger Miller, "Rapid Roy (the Stock Car Boy)" by Jim Croce, "Gonna Make You Sweat" by C+C Music Factory, "Jughead" by Prince and the New Power Generation and "Me Neither" by Brad Paisley all have in common? These were just a few of the songs that came up on my "Move Your Ass" playlist last Friday while I was cleaning house. What that brief list should tell you is that my taste in music is eclectic. I have hundreds of CDs in my collection and thousands of songs in iTunes. I always say if you can't find something to listen to that you like then you need to look again. The only musical form I don't have represented in some way is Opera. I just never grew to appreciate the form. But I would say I have at least one song from most other types of music in the collection.

Tomorrow (or Friday) the blog is going to be about music and memory but I wanted to start with this one. The tastes...the variety. Partly because you all know I love me some background blogging and partly because I wanted to talk about both things and couldn't figure out how to weave them together smoothly.

I group my music by playlists. The aforementioned "Move Your Ass" list. This is for working out or cleaning house or just generally any time I want to move. I have "Life is hard, but there is an Alternative" which has also been labeled, "Don't Talk to Me" and "Not fit for Humans" the stuff I listen to when I'm angry or frustrated or just want something with a little bite, it's my harder rock and alternative music (see what I did there?). There is "Waterfalls and Rainbows" which is the pan flute, whale songs type stuff you would expect to find in a massage studio as well as "Kid tested, Client approved" which is my mellow rock/pop collection I also play in the studio. "Rainy Days and Mondays" which is the "I'm having a bad day and want to wallow" sort of playlist. You know those songs that are actually kind of depressing but still really good? Those are on there. "Place in the Country" which is country music and "That's just classic" which is classical. I know, I am so clever right? And then there is "All pleasure no guilt" these are the songs that other people swear I should be ashamed to love but since I don't do guilt, it's all pleasure for me! Yes, I will belt out "Mambo No. 5" and not even bat an eye about it.

I always swore that I would keep current with newly released music. I wouldn't turn into one of those adults that only listened to stuff from when they were growing up. And I did a pretty good job of it, until the trend of autotuning the soul out of your voice started. I don't want perfection from my singers. In fact I sort of prefer if the lead sounds like they wake up with a shot of whiskey and a cigarette waiting for them. Men and women. I like a little gravel. But there are some current artists that I listen to. Lady Gaga is one. I didn't like her when she first came out. Just wasn't really anything there for me. Then I heard her sing without all of the processing. Just her voice and a piano and I was impressed. She's got the chops. So now that I've heard her actually sing I can enjoy her dance music a lot more.

My music taste is like jelly beans. I like a lot of flavors. And like jelly beans I don't like some flavors that every one else seems to love. Bruce Springsteen is one...I just don't get it. I like maybe two songs of his. It used to be three then I found out that my favorite Springsteen song is actually by Gregg Allman, Ooops! The Rolling Stones. Not a fan. I will listen to a bit here and there, but not often and not very many of their songs. I know, it's almost a crime to admit to not like those two, but it's true. They just aren't for me. There are others but that's the joy of music, we all have groups we love and groups we don't. What is your taste? Comedy and music, they come in flavors and some are for you and some just are not.

C recently did a 30 Day Challenge for Video Games, each day you had a What is your Favorite/Least Favorite/Most Challenging and so on. Then I saw two friends who started a similar challenge for music. At first I thought it would be fun but then I was out on day one. The question was "What is your favorite song?" Wow...I don't have ONE favorite song. I have a ton of favorites. Favorite dance song? Favorite song by a group? Favorite song by a solo artist? Favorite song on Mondays? There was no way for me to narrow it down to just one. Then I looked forward on the list and they wanted me to list a song I loved by a group I hated. Couldn't have done that one either. I have a song I love so much that it made me like the group. But no songs I love by groups I hate. Can't love one and hate the other. As soon as you release something I like then I will most likely find other things about you to like.

I am a sucker for a One Hit Wonder. I do love the music I grew up with, 70s and 80s, cheesy as it is. I'm a lyrics person as much as a melody person. The fact that I dig the words really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this. I will sing to anything I know the words to and some things that I don't. And just because I am singing to it doesn't mean I like it, it just means I know the words. And there are songs that take me right back to place and time and that is for tomorrow....