Oh! How I loath where I live . . .

I have lived here, yes, in "Fiji", for 12 years and quite frankly, I still hate it. Oh, I like the towns just fine, and I love the people (my people, to be specific), and frankly I do live in one of the best towns in the state, but if God told me to move ANYWHERE, tomorrow, I would be gone by the end of the week. And not just because it is one of the most liberal states in the union. What makes it worse, is that I have lived in some of the best locals in the Nation.

The best twelve years of my life were spent in a double wide, on 40 acres of A'mon's in California. An hour and a half from the beach, from Pier 39, Monterrey, Big Sur, Carmel. An hour and half from the mountains. Camping ever summer. Skiing ever winter (multiple times).

And then I moved to Colorado for two years. God smiled when he made Colorado. Two feet of snow on Monday, 70 degrees on Saturday, and NO nasty, slimy mud.

And then I lived in Florida for 18 months. Ten minutes from the beach. Snorkeling in the spring. Surfing in the late summer. "Oh, but the summer heat" Ah, but the balmy coastal summer night breezes that refresh a languishing soul.

Then I came back here(sorry I don't have any dripping letters for that word). Where the summers are painfully hot and humid and when it rains, it just gets worse. I have come to loath summer rain storms. I no longer pray "Lord, let it rain" but rather, "Lord, let it rain . . .all week" because then maybe one or two of those days will be endurable. And the winters? Oh, why did you have to ask? The winter rains bring only one thing: muck. I don't say "mud" because that would be an insult to all mud everywhere. One step in our local slime and the mutant soil monster awakes. Inside of five feet you are covered from boot soles to hips in two inches of immobilising, living, devouring clay infused gunk. And later? When it finally decides to get cold enough to snow, like in late December? It doesn't have the decency to fall straight down like civilized snow does, say, out in Colorado, but rather it runs sideways, driven by the gale force winds, screaming in demonic glee with its icy cousins sleet and hail. And only once or twice in twelves years do you get more than an inch of snow. Then it's nice.

But what has set off this stenographical tirade? On Wednesday, the pipes froze. It was 2 degrees. Today? I raked leaves off of the lawn, and sweltered in my hoody.

Now, lest you get the wrong idea, I am not discontent living here. Ah, what a paradox. Home, is after all, where the heart is. And having married a good local girl, almost eight years ago, and at first having had a good job and currently owning a growing business, I have managed to come to a place of endurance of the unbearable local settings.

So. It's all good! Thanks for listening.

On How to Break Crystal . . .

As many of you may know, I absolutely love Opera. Soory, really really like, opera. But, and this caveat is honest, not all opera is created equal. There is a definite difference between romance language opera and guttural language opera. Like the difference between Puccini and Mozart. And not all singers are created equal. I personally can not stand screeching sopranos, and there are quite a few, or Tenors who try too hard. Now, this is not a dissertation on the differences between operatic composition or a study on who is the best, but rather an introduction for those of you who may not know what beauty lies at the pinnacle of classical music.


My favorite soprano: That's a tough one. The one that I like the most that anyone can hear is, Anna Netrebko. She's young (thirties), Russian, has this lower octave soprano that is incredible, and even though she is definitely not fat, after she sings, it's over. More on her to follow. Claudine Collart is awesome. But she did hardly anything. She was essentially a backup singer. How unfortunate. Mado Robin holds the claim to fame for being the highest, clearest soprano. EVER. I have some tracks, that when I figure out how to play them through the blog, I'll upload, for all to be blown away. Overall favorite: Mady Mesple. Her Lakme is unparalleled.

My favorite Tenor: is there any other than Pavarotti?

To illustrate, here is Anna Netrebko, whom I have linked to on the left (you figure it out):


And here is the definitive Pavarotti:


I am a pretty big Puccini fan. Turandot was his last opera and at the first performance, after "Liù, poesia!" the orchestra rested and the conductor turned to the audience and said: "Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto" ("Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died"). And the curtain lowered.

These are the standards that I hold opera to.

It's got to be good all the way around, as a whole, if it's going to be good at all.

Down Here

So I found this group, DownHere. Maybe you have heard of them? Canadian (Caw-Naw-Dee-En) Christian Rockers. Yeah, that's what I said. Some of their stuff would be "banned" in certain un-named places but I thought you all should check this vid. out. At first I said, "Are they mocking?" But then I realized that they were actually laying down a challenge:


And this one makes Belle cry



Tell me what you think

The Looking Glass Wars

So, Belle and I were at Borders one night. It was a rare, almost freak like date that we had. (She just asked me where the "freak" came from and I said it was because it was our second date in two years, yes, that's including our anniversary) When we first got together [courting, dating, interested in each other (you get the picture)] that was our Hot Date. We'd get a cheap dinner and then go to Target or someplace and then end up at the book store for an overpriced cookie and some Stuart's Orange and Cream.

I love books. I have always been envious of those libraries that you see in shows with thousands of leather bound volumes stacked to towering heights.

It was on that night when we were at Borders that this caught my attention

I guess you can see why.

Now of course, I was naturally suspicious. The whole "Fantasy Just Declared War on Reality" line will do that to you. So, I picked it up and read the back cover (it was the paper back edition) and my curiosity was further piqued, so I read the prologue, and then thumbed to about the middle and read a few pages and then thumbed toward the back and read a few more pages, and having done that, I decided that I wanted to read it. I checked the price: eight somethin'. No biggie. BUT, I have made a commitment that I will never buy another book without first knowing that it is not a waste of money. The last book I bought on a lark burned me. Did the whole skim through previewing and missed some junk. I don't even remember what it was much less what it was about. That's where those kind of books belong: forgotten.

So I did some digging and found it at one of the local libraries (we have three libraries within 12 miles) and of course I made a special trip and picked it up.

I was surprised. Not only did I like it, but it is actually really good.

It is written for about the 13 and up range. It's simple, without being juvenile, and engaging enough for me. Maybe I'm telling on myself too much. Hmm. It is in fact better written than many adult target books that I have recently read.

I know, I know, you're all demanding; "BUT, WHAT IS IT ABOUT?!"

It is about Alyss Heart. What really happened and how her true story came to be twisted and turned into a nonsensical thing called, Alice in Wonderland, by none other than Carrol Lewis (Yes, it's supposed to be like that).

I was expecting it to have witchcraft and magic, what with the word "Fantasy" printed on the front cover, but it didn't. Oh, what a relief. Imagination is the tool of preferred use and that only works in Wonderland, mostly. Oh, did I forget to mention that it takes place in both Wonderland and "our" world. It does. And I found it to be in keeping with Mr. Doug Phillips essay on fantastic writing. Black is black. White is white. And the author, Frank Beddor, makes some very good observations and statements. And from what I can remember of Alice in Wonderland (it's probably been fourteen years since I read it) it's better than the original. Just like the old saying: "The imitation of the original is better than the original, but the original is better than the imitation of the imitation." Of course, it is probably not that hard to write something better than an opiate trip induced hallucination.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the sequel (it's a trilogy), Seeing Redd. And it ended like a stand alone. I hate books that end right in the middle of major action and say: "Buy the next one to find out what happens, and we're going to make you buy another to really find out what happens."

So if it sounds interesting, read it, and we can Book Club it.