Autumn splendor

I just finished listening to the October episode of Live From Daryl's House with special guest Diane Birch. I had never heard her before and she's a wonderful singer. I thoroughly enjoyed her harmonies with Daryl Hall. She has a very engaging personality and is very sweet (and so young). I was totally inspired by her voice and by her songwriting. I understand she has a new debut album out. She reminds me of a young Carole King - she has that ability to write those songs that just grab you and the vocal chords to back it up.

This has to be one of the most beautiful autumn seasons in Pennsylvania I've ever seen. The colors on the trees have been magnificent and the leaves have lasted far longer than they usually do, thanks to little rain during this fall season. The oranges, yellows and reds have been so vibrant, and have now turned to several shades of brown. The palette of colors I have been witness to is a constant and varying array.

I took some pictures for a friend recently. She wanted to take advantage of the fall foliage to get a photo for her Christmas card with her dog, Cooper. I thought this picture was funny. The photo session was pretty wild. There were 2 additional dogs that a neighbor owned that are related to Cooper. Finally at the end of the trip when Cooper was in the car and ready to go home, I took this shot. It cracks me up every time I look at it.

All You need is Love, not a Blackberry

Based on the searches that led people to my blog yesterday and the Twitter messages expressing disgust over Blackberry using All you need is Love in their most recent commercial, let me explain just a little further why this upsets me specifically. Although I would hate the use of any Beatles song because I know how much they didn't want to be used commercially, this one is particularly offensive.

My kids tell me this is not their favorite Beatles song. I try to explain to them the significance of this song in a historical context. The Beatles wrote this song to represent Great Britain in the first ever World Wide Satellite hookup. What better message could they think of to send than All you need is Love. It may not be the most complex of their songs, but it's simple and to the point.

There are several reasons it irritates me personally. First I hate that Alan Klein was such a terrible manager that he let the Beatles catalog slip away from their control. Second, I hate that Michael Jackson was such a terrible friend that he stabbed Paul McCartney in the back after getting advice on where to invest in music, by buying the catalog out from under him. I hate that Sony owns a piece of it because Michael Jackson was too deep in debt and lost control of the catalog. I hate that every time one of these commercials air it pays money to Michael Jackson's estate.

But most of all, I hate that Beatles music, that somehow stands by itself in an iconic sense of time and place, is sullied in this commercial way. The Beatles would probably never have agreed to using their songs in an ad. Who knows? I just feel better knowing I'm not the only one who hates it.

What ever happened to jingles? Are people so lazy they can't hire someone to write a catchy tune? It would be a lot cheaper than using a Beatles tune.

All you need is .... a blackberry commercial??

I was watching TV and suddenly Beatles music strikes a familiar chord in my ear. I'm listening to All you need is Love in a Blackberry commercial, which made no sense by the way. I kept waiting for the tie in to the song, and there was none. There was the Hello Goodbye Target commercial. Then it was Come Together in a Macy's commercial. Is it a coincidence that since Michael Jackson died, I've heard more Beatles songs in commercials? I think not. The lawyers are doing everything they can to make money for his estate to cash in on the image he died with as opposed to the image he lived with. It actually makes me angry. Angry to know that Michael Jackson's estate and Sony are reaping the benefits of those endorsements. Angry because in my mind that's not what their songs are about. And angry because the artists have no say in it. I think if you write a song, you should be able to say whether you use it to sell a product. And before you say the commercial did its' job because I remembered who the commercial was for and that's the idea behind advertising, I would respond that I remembered so that I won't patronize those people.

My friends and I attended a quilt show last week that was fun. My friend entered one of her quilts that I had quilted on my Hinterberg. It was my first show for my machine quilting. I objectively (?) compared it to others and felt that it was just OK. I have a lot of room for improvement. I bought some pretty teal fabric with daisies. I love daisies. They have a fabric called gradations that includes 4 different shades of a color in the same yard of fabric. I had never seen that before. Of course I had to buy my favorite color - fuchsia.
My sewing room has two skylights and I also use the room to do stretching exercises. As I was laying on my mat the other day, I was staring up at the blue sky and the puffy clouds through the skylight. I started remembering the days as a kid when you laid on the ground trying to make shapes out of clouds. As I lay there, watching the clouds move across the sky, I realized that if I weren't stuck on the floor, I no longer have the patience it takes to find a shape and besides I can't see them right unless I'm looking over the top of my bifocals and how did I spend so much time doing this as a child?

Last week, I was trying to make rice for dinner. I had parts of 3 bags I was going to use and found some of those little rice bugs in the first and second bags, so I threw it in the sink and rinsed it down the drain. I made dinner with the good stuff from the 3rd bag. You know where I'm going with this, right? After dinner I couldn't figure out why the garbage disposal wouldn't work. My husband had to take the drain apart to fix it, and we discovered that rice expands even if you don't cook it. The entire drain and elbow was packed tight with rice. Even more amazing than the fact that it never occurred to me that it would happen, since I've thrown cooked rice down the drain multiple times, was the fact that in almost 32 years of marriage, it's not happened to me before. So, watch out for that rice!

Dichotomy of Life

I lost a friend yesterday. My friend was a librarian. She loved reading, taking walks, and being with people. She had a zest for life and loved to spend time with her children and her new grandchildren. I've never met anyone who was loved by so many. When she retired last November, she was looking forward to spending the next years enjoying her family. I'm so sad that her time was so short. And yet, as we often do, I put that away into a compartment for a few hours so I could celebrate the birthday of my cousin, surrounded by family, and carry on with the rest of the day. Later, when all was quiet, the door to that compartment opened and I had to examine the enormous feelings about the loss of my friend. As the tears slid down my cheeks, I tried to figure out how to fill the hole in your heart where a loved one has entered. The quote I've seen on a card came to mind: "Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same---."

How true.

Google Youself

If you ever want to see what kind of a presence you have on the Internet, try googling yourself. What an eyeopener! I was surprised to find that my web presence has increased from a few references on page 1 (which used to be related to my Quilt Circle and my Library Board service) to mentions of me all the way to page 5 of my search. It's not that I've increased my presence so much, despite the website and the blog, but that others (like the newspapers) have posted their information on the web.

The references included things I said at a school board meeting that were reported in the newspaper, to my inquires about genealogy at forum websites. Every forum I've posted on is included, meaning every related name. Places I've donated to that list their donors on the web include my name. Comments that I've made on other websites are flagged and of course there's a reference to my Facebook page. The Library's newsletter is now online, so anything I contributed to that publication is online now. My blog and website took up most of page 1 and page 2, and there was even a reference to the death notice of my mother last year (another newspaper article).

I'm not complaining, mind you. Anyone with a website and a blog can't be totally unhappy to find their profile increasing on the Internet. I just find it interesting that everything you put out there is so .... trackable. In Catholic school, the nuns used to tell us that your permanent record will follow you forever...well, so does the Internet.

After googling myself, I then googled the rest of my family. My sons are extremely good at staying hidden on the Internet. I applaud their efforts at staying 'under the radar' in this information age.

What on earth are we talking about?

Did you read the story a couple days ago about a father who forgot his son in his stroller on a corner somewhere? Everything turned out OK, and the father returned 20 minutes later, profusely apologizing, saying he just forgot about his son. There were no explanations as to why. I bet he was on his cell phone. Yesterday, I saw a man at a construction site talking on his phone, and wondered what on earth he was talking about. There was a woman in a shoe store, talking while buying her shoes. Then the man talking on the phone in the grocery store, asking for guidance on the correct thing to buy. There are the folks who are checking out at the bookstore, or grocery store, while talking on the phone. The worst offender is the parent out for their morning walk with their baby, talking, talking, talking. And the absolute worst of the worst, was a father, taking a walk with his son on vacation, holding his hand, talking on the phone.

What on earth are all these people talking about? And can't it wait? Why is the need to talk so immediate? Can't the woman buy shoes and show respect to the shoe salesperson by NOT talking in their face to someone else? Can't the husband make a decision about what to buy in the grocery store, as if he's an adult and not call his wife on the phone? Can't a parent enjoy the outdoors and being with their baby without polluting the air with talking, talking, and more talking? Oh, it's just one of those things that frustrates me to no end.

I'm going through bags of clothes that I had saved to make T-shirt quilts. It turns out I have about 10 bags of clothes and no real direction as to who to make a quilt for. All the high school shirts I bought and/or saved to make t-shirt or sweatshirt quilts for my sons have turned into a mammoth sorting project. My middle son, Eric, suggested I look at them and ask myself who am I making this quilt for and ask if they would want it. After polling all three kids, none of them really desire to have a t-shirt quilt made out of their high school soccer camp tees. None of them are interested in preserving their high school memories or sleeping under them. As my youngest son, Zack, keeps telling me, "think of the kid who might love to wear that t-shirt and give it away." So after watching yet another episode of "Hoarders" on TV, and vowing never to get that bad cause it's gross and disgusting, I'm trying to break the emotional attachment to these clothes (for it's obvious I'm the only one attached to them) and give them all to Goodwill. I needed the pep talk from the kids, as I sometimes get bogged down in the details. Besides the bags are taking up space in my sewing room and I need to get in there and sew!!

QVC tonight

Just a quick reminder that Hall and Oates are going to be on QVC tonight - Sept 21 at 6:00 p.m. They will be performing 8 songs during the one hour they are on. The purpose is to celebrate the new boxed set coming out in the beginning of October. If you click on the widget you can hear songs and see photos. I think there's even a bonus disc included if you preorder on QVC - you'll have to watch and see.