My in-laws are fans of clock chimes. I know this because they have a grandfather clock and two other clocks that are set up to go off in succession and not at the same time on the hour (or the half hour, or the quarter hour). The clock in the kitchen chimes in song, and there are multiple choices including Bread’s “If” (I’m certain about this one) and Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” (I’m not certain about this one but I thought of it at the top of most hours when I was around to hear the extended version of “ding dong*”). I had a lot of time on my…
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- Childhood Memories, Confessions, Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?, I'm Apparently Old., Music
You Don’t Have To Be On A Boat To Enjoy Yacht Rock.
The scene: My car on a recent sunny afternoon. The players: My twenty-four-year-old son and me. The music: Yacht Rock. Dylan: “What the heck IS this?” Me: “It’s the theme from ‘Cannonball Run’.” Dylan: “Starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise*????” Me: “Yes! It’s on the Yacht Rock station. I’ve been on a seventies kick lately. I think it’s because it takes me back to my childhood. It’s comforting. Anyway (continuing in the voice of Thurston Howell III), don’t you feel like you could be sailing on a boat on a gorgeous day with not a cloud in the sky, listening to this music?” Dylan, rolling eyes: “Oh God.” Fade out.…
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So Long, 2015!
Another year is gone (I think I have whiplash!) and Jim and I will be spending another New Year’s Eve like boring older people. In fact, last night as we were discussing our exciting plans (basically watching movies on Netflix), our older son, who is headed to Wisconsin to do a bar crawl with friends, was sitting there thinking, “That is such a LAME New Year’s Eve.” No, I’m not a mind reader but his eye roll and head shake told me all I needed to know to make a good guess regarding his thoughts. Good thing he won’t be around, I guess. I mean, Netflixing IS a really good…
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Jell-O Times Two.
Until the last six months or so since my mom started trying to minimize, we have always known that if we’re looking for something from our growing-up years, she’s likely got it. It’s for that reason that when we come for a visit, we usually find long-forgotten things either by accident or, if mom finds something she wants us to take home, left on the dresser of the room in which we sleep. I was tickled on this visit to find a short stack of old report cards, a program from an elementary school play, and a collaborative recipe book made by my kindergarten class on that dresser. The recipe…
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Back In Time, If Only For a Moment
I was loading up the conveyor belt with my purchases at Target earlier today when I noticed that there seemed to be a hold up with the customer ahead of me. Once I could find no more space on the belt, which hadn’t moved in a couple of minutes, I looked up to see what was going on and my heart melted. A little boy of no more than five years old was standing next to his young father, struggling to open his own adorable wallet and pull some paper bills out. I looked at the cashier in time to see her bagging a mid-sized Star Wars LEGO kit and…