Lived & Loved Completely

Jason Scott Siegal December 19th, 1972 - January 17th, 2010 A more loving or generous son-in-law you will not find anywhere. Jason, we miss you.

Sisters Rock

Yesterday, my sister had the the day off from nursing, and she drove from Astoria for a visit. We spent some time at Barnes & Noble where I bought Mennonite in a Little Black Dress - a laugh-out-loud funny book in a darkly humorous sort of way. For the rest of the afternoon, we played duets on the wii with Rock Band The Beatles. I played the guitar and she sang, and then she played the drums with my guitar. We surprised ourselves with how well we did and it was great fun. My life is nearly all virtual. The real food I eat gets logged into FitDay.com; I exercise with My Fitness Coach, a wii program; my books are digital in a variety of modes - Adobe and Kindle and other; I listen to digital music on my iPod or on iTunes on my desktop; I'm learning to play chess with ChessMaster - Grandmaster edition on my computer; my ancestors are collected in Legacy, a computer genealogy program. And to think, when I born, computers were more or less the stuff of fantasy and science fiction.

Happy 2010

Happy New Year and may it be filled with all your dreams come true. I have made only one New Year's Resolution for 2010: To Be Fully Present in the Now. I have spent the first day of the New Year just doing what is most important to me at each moment - a day filled with little and mundane things but very satisfying - no coulds, shoulds, oughts, in short - no worries mate!

My son and daughter gave me Guitar Hero the complete band set plus Rock Band the Beatles last month. The very best presents ever that I have received. That is what is up for the next moment: I'm going to go rock with the Beatles. (Decisions, decisions: should I choose the guitar, the drum set, or sing along with the mic? Right, all three then - guitar first.) Yes, my son said it was the biggest shock of his life to come home for lunch the other day and find his mother singing About a Girl with Kurt Cobain.

I'm not very tuneful so I like singing Cobain songs as his style is less demanding. But the Beatles were my generation, and I could sing most of their songs in my sleep, plus the presentation is easy on the eyes and ears. Both Wii programs rate the difficulty of the songs and instruments but I find Rock Band the Beatles interface to be friendlier. Of course. They're the Beatles, after all. What a wonderful New Year.

A Sensual Orgy of mind and ear

I went to the Friends of the Library semi-annual book sale today, hoping to pick up some good hard cover editions of Gabaldon's Outlander series, but came home instead with a book on bird song. Call it inspiration for Nano. Listening to Maire Brennan sing Ilathair De (In God's Presence) while reading Why Birds Sing by David Rothenberg created a nearly mystical apex of delight in my brain today. (A mini-rant: disregard the low Amazon star rating for his book. Never trust a rating that is composed of many five and four star ratings and a few one-star spoilers with nothing in between - clearly the amalgam is not representative of most opinions.) Visit his website to hear recordings of birds, and of duets between birds and people.

Aye, There Be Dragons

Aye, There Be Dragons, and they are circling and roaring around our house these two days past. Hear the dragons roaring! What be those dragon riders thinking, anyway? I can hardly get anything done, what with them roaring loud enough to shake the crockery when they fly over the house so low and so fast. Oh, they are beautiful enough that I must drop everything and go stand on my balcony to watch them as they swoop and dive, flying their dragon maneuvers singly and in groups. Surely the old stories about dragons and their riders and the way they bespell mortal folk who look upon them are true. For didn't I marry a dragon rider myself so long ago?

Weeping, We Resolve

Weeping as I join through live-streaming in Ted Kennedy's funeral Mass, I resolve to follow his example and never quit. The forces of hate and bigotry are not as strong as the forces of love and forgiveness. His death renews my determination to support with all my strength the unfinished battles of his life, beginning with health care for all, not just the privileged few. To know the man, and not the caricature painted by his political opposition, see these eulogies from his funeral Mass: his son Ted Kennedy, Jr. his son Patrick Kennedy We will honor him not with flowers but with contributions to carry on the fight.