Good Old Folk Music

Every now and then, I get a hankerin' for some good old folk music.  Today is one of those days. 

One of my favorites is John Prine's Souvenirs.  He co-wrote it with Steve Goodman.

Goodman also wrote City of New Orleans, another of my favorites.  He died several years ago, but I think his song will live forever.         

Creativity

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns

in order to look at things in a different way.

~Edward de Bono~

Fiction

Fiction, imaginative work that is,

is not dropped like a pebble upon the ground, as science may be;

fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps,

but still attached to life at all four corners.

~Virginia Woolf~ 

Latest Celebrity Gossip

Mother gave me a bunch of National Enquirers, so I'm catching up on the latest celebrity gossip:

Sandra Bullock is dipping snuff!  (Bet she picked up that disgusting habit from her silly ex-husband, Jesse James.)

Angelina Jolie is furious (waving her tattooed, stick-like, arms, no doubt).  Brad Pitt is smoking pot most afternoons  in a dirty Airstream trailer near the back of their estate.  He says it helps him relax after a hard day on the set.  "You are setting a bad example for the kids!" she screamed.  (She's a fine one to talk!)

Johnny Depp is up in arms over a tell-all book ex-girlfriend Kate Moss is writing.  He doesn't want his kids to know about his wild, drug-fueled days.  (Don't blame you one bit, Johnny!)

Leann Rhines is scary skinny these days.  Friends say the singer's weight has dropped to 99 lbs.  (Maybe she's worried about her career; she hasn't had a hit in ages.)   

At the other end of the the spectrum is James Brolin's youngest son.  He weighs 300 lbs. and is living in shelters, staying with friends, or sleeping in his beat-up '81 Toyota pickup on the streets of Ventura, California.  (Seems to me his father could talk step-mother Barbra Streisand into finding room for the poor boy on one of her estates!)   

Elizabeth Taylor's eldest son, Michael, is having a hissy fit about his mother's house.  He thinks her estate dumped the house for a quick payoff.  (They got eight million for it, and he and his three siblings will get a whopping one hundred million dollars apiece.  What more does he want?)

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber is shelling out around $15,000 a week on dinners and entertainment for his huge entourage of friends.  (His mother needs to get that boy under control!) 

Cher is afraid son Chaz is going to have a heart attack.  He has lost forty pounds and is doing three-hour workouts at the gym each day in preparation for his wedding in early 2012.  (Good luck, Chaz.  Looks like you're got a long way to go!)

Marie Osmond is having throat problems, so brother Donnie sang one of her signature hits dressed in drag as his sister.  (That's pretty strong stuff for a Mormon!)

Al Pacino, of The Godfather and Scarface fame, is all set to play record producer Phil Spector in an upcoming HBO biography.  He is already sporting Spector's wild, ratted-up hairdo.  (Can you imagine that?)

Kathy Griffin called Michelle Bachman a bigot.  (I wonder why? :)

Life's Lessons



Mother at her 90th birthday celebration, December, 2010
(Photo:  Gina Wilson Diesel)



Mother has always loved poetry, so I was exposed to it at a very young age.  I didn't much appreciate it then, but I certainly do now.  Yesterday, at our July literary meeting, she read one of her favorites.  I love it, and I think you will as well.

Life's Lessons

I learn, as the years roll onward
And leave the past behind,
That much I had counted sorrow
But proves that God is kind;
That many a flower I had longed for
Had hidden a thorn of pain,
And many a rugged bypath
Led to fields of ripened grain.

The clouds that cover the sunshine
They can not banish the sun;
And the earth shines out the brighter
When the weary rain is done.
We must stand in the deepest shadow
To see the clearest light;
And often through wrong's own darkness
Comes the very strength of light.

The sweetest rest is at even,
After a wearisome day,
When the heavy burden of labor
Has borne from our hearts away;
And those who have never known sorrow
Can not know the infinite peace
That falls on the troubled spirit
When it sees at last release.

We must live through the dreary winter
If we would value the spring;
And the woods must be cold and silent
Before the robins sing.
The flowers must be buried in darkness
Before they can bud and bloom,
And the sweetest, warmest sunshine
Comes after the storm and gloom.

~Anonymous~

Defining the Sixties



Nobody does it like Bob Dylan.



A Real Blessing

I have not posted in a while, and I apologize to my faithful readers.  Dudley suffered a broken leg, so we have been going back and forth to Lone Oak Animal Clinic.  Dr. Rogers tells us he will recover but will have to wear the splint for about a month.

In the meantime, we have been waiting on him hand and foot.  But the little fellow deserves it; he's a real blessing to us.