Posted on by Reflections of an Untidy Mind

How Long Is Too Long?

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

My True Love (TL) has several standard responses and I am meant to remember what they are as I hear them on a semi-regular basis. I never do. They never make it to long term memory unless I have something interesting to stick them too.

Anyway, I asked my TL why we don’t have a favourite lovey dovey song like other couples, although I probably wouldn’t remember it even if we did. His response to this phenomenon, ie. a couple’s song, was to pretend to gag. Apologies to couples out there with a special song.

Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.com

Anyway, anyway, the next question I asked him was how long have we been married. Dates don’t stick in my memory either. Anyway, anyway, anyway, his response was “two” or maybe “too”. He gave me an expectant look, thinking I would finish his sentence. In this respect, we are not soul mates. Any guesses? It is really obvious. Not to me, of course.

The answer was “too long”. So what do you reckon? Yep, potential couple’s song popped straight into my head.

Let’s have a listen to it. It is Loving You Too Long, written by Jerry Butler and Otis Redding, and performed by Etta James. If you are partial to lounge room karaoke, I invite you to sing this song off key while your partner has a Zoom meeting. No, I didn’t do that, but I could ….

I think I may have stuck the “too long” response now. Not sure how long we’ve been married though.

In other news, I’ve password protected my posts on my latest mosaic project to protect my copyright. Regular readers that missed out on seeing it, can drop me a line and I will let you know the password. I want to make a T-shirt of the image for my niece. A chance chat with her led to the idea for the project. Back to the T-shirt. It turns out that making one from my own original artwork is more complicated than I anticipated. I have some learning to do.

One last thing, a couple of people pointed out to me that the plural of octopus is octopuses, not octopi, as I wrote in my last post. Fancy that! You can’t trust Google.

Take care, everyone, and thanks for your spelling help.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

Posted on by Reflections of an Untidy Mind

Surrender Is The Only Option

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

Happy new year to all who celebrate the Chinese New Year. It is the year of the Water Tiger. I feel inspired to write a short poem.

Surrender To The Forest

silence descends
deep are the shadows
birdsong marks its passing
the water laps the lake

Photo by Danne on Pexels.com

Continuing on this cultural journey, I think we should have a listen to Sun Quan, The Emperor, by Moyun. Enjoy.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

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The Big Event

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you. This week I am also joining in with the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Memorable Events.

I think some of the most memorable events in our personal history are those with which we have an emotional attachment, eg. having a baby, seeing your favourite band, winning a contest, producing something you love, etc. Bringing a new piece of art into the world is like giving birth. The arrival of every piece is a memorable event. The Lens Artists Memorable Event theme seemed a perfect time to reveal my latest work but I have a couple of days work left on it. She is going to be beautiful, that is, as beautiful as a piece of climate change protest art can be. Serious stuff. When I reveal it in a few days, I would like to know whether you would like its back story? Or would you rather I let the artwork do the talking? Let me know in the comments below.

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Healing Together

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

Australia Day is next week. The date is controversial, divisive. The date for Australia Day was chosen mid last century at a time when First Australians were not permitted to vote. This option was specifically granted to First Australians in 1962.

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All My Trials – A Mouse In The House

I have three dogs – Makea Fluffy Bear, Ama Mouse and Fynnie Puss. Makea is a Finnish Lapphund, Ama and Fynn are Finnish Spitz. The Finnish Lapphund was originally bred to herd reindeer and to guard the family, while the Finnish Spitz’s role was to hunt small game like grouse and squirrels. Each dog barks a lot but usually for different reasons, so between them they have all bases covered. Much of our evening is spent barking at the possums that walk the telecommunications cable or at rodents that may or may not be frequenting their domain.

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End Of The Story

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

Photo by Emre Can Acer on Pexels.com

I think we should have a song in tribute to acclaimed actor, Sidney Poitier, who died last week at the age of 94. To Sir With Love, written by Don Black and Mark London and performed by Lulu.

Take care, everyone.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

Posted on by Reflections of an Untidy Mind

Wrong. Not Right

In the good old days when I had a career, it mattered what people thought of me. Making a good impression was essential to getting more interesting (rewarding) work. Two of my biggest weaknesses were that I had a habit of not finishing my sentences and forgetting words and the second “weakness” was that I was (am) fat. So naturally, often people thought I was fat and dumb. Being fat and being dumb are seen as significant moral character flaws. One of these flaws on its own is not an insurmountable problem, but combined, the difficulty level for climbing the career ladder increases.

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Painting Not Writing

Let me tell you a story. You shall see.

I don’t write. I paint.
A little pat here, a little daub there.
Need more colour, need more tones,
need to tone it down.

Start from the centre and build,
a puzzle to be solved.
Is a painting, like a story, ever finished?
I don’t think so.

Don’t ask me to start with a structure,
summary or plan.
I write by feel. I write by doing,
and see what unfolds.