Category: blogging

SoCS: What?

What might I be doing later today?

Attending a singalong of the Vivaldi Gloria with the Binghamton Madrigal Choir.

I have sung it before, although it has been many years. Fortunately, perfection will not be expected, as some people will be sightreading. Fortunately, the Madrigal Choir will lead and their director, Bruce Borton, who is also the longtime director of the Binghamton University Chorus, with whom I have sung for decades, will be conducting.

The best part is that my younger daughter T is still at home on break from her master’s program and she will be able to come and sing with me. I love the opportunity to sing with my daughters whenever it presents itself. T currently sings with the Hendricks Chapel Choir of Syracuse University, even though she is a student of SUNY-ESF. It’s been a great benefit to her that the two campuses share classes and activities, so that she has a great place to sing. I think it’s neat that she made one of the auditioned choirs, which are mostly filled with music majors from Syracuse.

It would be fun if my older daughter E and her husband L were still here because they also love to sing and are also people who have formal training and multiple degrees in the music field. But Honolulu is a bit too far away to come join us!

Here is a link to Vivaldi Gloria.  Enjoy!

You’re welcome.
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. This week’s prompt is to begin with the word “what.” Join us! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-jan-1616/

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It is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January.  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/16/just-jot-it-january-16th-what-socs/

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.

Jotting at an obscure hour

My body is not co-operating with the whole sleep thing tonight, so I am awake when Linda’s post appears on schedule at 2 AM. Of course, my brain is not capable of creative thought at the moment, but it isn’t likely to be later in the day either, given that I won’t get much sleep.

Hence, this much more jot-ty than usual post.

I generally tend to the pontificating end of the scale…
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! Start be visiting here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/15/just-jot-it-january-15th-leadership/

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.

The State of the Union

This evening will be President Obama’s last State of the Union address.

The media has been full of summations, speculation, and punditry about the last seven years and the one remaining in the Obama presidency.

There have been major economic improvements. The unemployment rate is about half what it was. The US auto industry is doing well after almost going under in the financial crisis. The budget deficit is much lower than it was under the Bush administration.

Many more people have access to affordable health care insurance. The country is generating less pollution and more renewable energy.

There have been gains for diplomacy, such as the Iran nuclear deal and the recent international climate agreement in Paris.

These and other achievements will be remembered and studied by future students of history.

The tragedy is that so much more could have been accomplished if Congressional Republicans had decided to cooperate in governing rather than obstruct it.

There could have been needed tax reform, immigration reform, and criminal justice/sentencing reform.

There could have been mandated background checks for all gun purchases to help keep guns out of the hands of criminals, traffickers, and people intent on harming themselves or others, a measure that has overwhelming public support.

If the Congress would vote on the president’s nominations, there would have been a surgeon general in place during the ebola scare, a full complement of judges in the federal courts to deal with the backlog of cases, an ambassador to Russia during the Ukraine crisis, and a current ambassador to Mexico to work on the extradition of El Chapo to stand trial in the US.

The military prison at Guantanamo would have been closed.

There would have been greater progress on updating our crumbling infrastructure.

So much lost opportunity.

I hope that, as the United States progresses through this election year, we pledge to vote for elected officials who are dedicated to serve the common good, to “promote the general welfare”as it is termed in our Constitution.
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! Start out by visiting here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/12/just-jot-it-january-12th-skulls/

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.

What I didn’t want to spend time on today

We use Time Warner Cable for our TV, phone, and internet and just got a new modem of our own to replace the leased one.

My task today was to give them the identifying numbers from the new modem so that we could complete the installation.

The TV is working fine. Yay!

The internet is working fine. Well, mostly. My inbox for my email is not working well with my Chromebook, which is super annoying, but other than that the internet is working as usual.

The phone is dead.

After multiple online chats, modem restarts, checking of connections, etc., we need to have a technician come tomorrow morning.

It’s a bit awkward because I need to call all the elders so they know to call the cell phone instead of the landline. Anyone else is out of luck, as our cell phone numbers are not in wide circulation.

The silver lining is that one of the people helping me through online chat gave me an idea of how to fix the access problem I’ve been having using webmail on my Chromebook.

A lot of what I planned to accomplish today is just not going to happen.

Maybe tomorrow.

Or Wednesday.
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! You can start by checking out this link: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/11/just-jot-it-january-11th-effortless/

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.

Ending Christmas

Much of the energy expended this weekend has been spent taking down Christmas decorations.

Yesterday, we concentrated on helping Grandma, which is a huge task as she likes to decorate every room.

Today, we packed things here at our house. I’m happy to report that everything is safely stowed in the basement, waiting for December 2016 to roll around. Well, not everything. The tree is out on the curb, waiting for the special collection that will turn the trees into mulch for the parks.

With Christmas things put away, there are few clues as to it being winter. We have had a major rainstorm with temperatures in the 40s F. (mid-single digits C.) We are expecting some seasonably cold temperatures tomorrow. At least we will know it is mid-January without referring to the calendar.
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! You can start by visiting this post: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/10/just-jot-it-january-10th-sane/

JJJ 2016

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SoCS: The Sound of Music

One of the first movies I can remember seeing in a theater was The Sound of Music. I was probably four or five at the time. The movie had an overture and an intermission. The intermission happened right after the wedding scene and my Dad thought the movie was over. Fortunately, there was music for the intermission and we did stay for the rest of the movie.

We had the cast album – on 33 1/3 rpm vinyl, of course – and could sing all the songs. When I was a senior in high school, our school play was The Sound of Music and I was Sister Sophia, one of the “Big 4” nuns who sings “How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?” I only had a couple of spoken lines, but we got to wear habits borrowed from a convent, which apparently had kept some of the pre-Vatican II habits around. Because I was Catholic, I also got to coach some of the chorus of nuns on things like how to cross yourself and genuflect. It was also interesting because we used the original Broadway script and score, so some of the songs were new to me. For instance, “Something Good” was written for the movie; I actually prefer “An Ordinary Couple” which was the Broadway song for that scene.

The sound of music is also pertinent to my own life. I have been singing since I was young. I am in my 34th season singing with the Binghamton University Chorus, which I joined after singing my way through elementary, high school, and college. I can’t imagine giving it up.

I also played piano from the time I was seven, then studied organ so that I could play at my tiny Catholic parish. I subbed for three years and then took over as organist when our prior organist went to college. My last three years of high school were spent playing organ every weekend at church, along with holidays and often a couple of weeknight masses.

I played organ and sang throughout college and worked in the church music field before my children were born, continuing on a volunteer basis as they got older. Unfortunately, an orthopedic problem intervened so I no longer play on a regular basis, but I do still sing.

It is odd, though, that I don’t like to have music playing in the background. I find it too distracting. If there is the sound of music, I want to be either making it or listening attentively.
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Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays! The prompt this week was…ummm…complicated and involves using a movie title. You can read about it here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/08/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-jan-916/

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This is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January!  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/09/just-jot-it-january-9th-title-socs/

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.

Fitbit system upgrade

Last month, my Fitbit Flex got a software upgrade so that it automatically switches into sleep mode. This is handy because previously B and I had to tap our Fitbits in a certain way to get them to swap over to sleep mode at night and then do it again in the morning to get it back to normal mode. It was easy to forget, which defeated the purpose of tracking sleep and steps in the first place.

As things are getting back to some semblance of routine with B back at work after holiday vacation time, I am trying to be more diligent about getting my steps in. My best practice is to walk while I talk to my mom (nearly) every morning. Most days I get at least halfway to my goal before we hang up. If we are especially talkative, I may get to my goal of 5,000 steps! (Yes, I know 10,000 is recommended, but it is better for me to have a lower goal and overachieve than to set a high goal that I seldom reach.)

After T goes back to school, I may fire up our Wii Fit and try to add some other exercise to my day. I haven’t used it for a long time, so I’ll have to put up with a bit of Wii whining. Those of you who have used Wii Fit know what I mean…
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January and, for once, actually feels like it could be called jotting. (I do tend to run-on!) Join the fun! Visit here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/08/just-jot-it-january-8th-honorable/ to learn more.

JJJ 2016

 

One-Liner Wednesday: criticism

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.
— Richard Rohr

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/06/one-liner-wednesday-enough-said/

This post is also part of #JusJoJan. http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/06/just-jot-it-january-6th-cloud/  I know that the majority of JusJoJan participants this year are doing the daily prompts, but I have been opting to do my own thing, which is the general operating procedure at Top of JC’s Mind, so I decided to follow the original plan which was to count One-Liner Wednesday as my daily JusJoJan post.

JJJ 2016

 

on the radio

This morning, I heard the first part of President Obama’s speech on gun violence and action against it. Near the beginning, he listed the major mass shootings that had happened during his presidency so far.

One of the sad realities of living in the United States is that there is a long list of mass shootings, so many that only certain of them are synonymous with the place in which they occurred.  Aurora, Fort Hood, and Newtown are among these during the Obama presidency.

But this morning, the President listed all the high-toll mass shootings. (In 2015 alone, there were over 350 mass shootings in the United Sates, using the definition of mass shooting as one with four or more victims, so the president was listing only those with the highest number of victims.)

Although the list was not chronological, one of the first cities he mentioned was Binghamton. (Binghamton is in New York State, near the Pennsylvania border about halfway across the state. The town where I have lived for over twenty-five years borders Binghamton.)

While I am grateful that Binghamton hasn’t been reduced to being shorthand for mass murder, I am sad that the shooting at the American Civic Association and its aftermath have been largely forgotten, its lessons about mental illness and access to guns, about discrimination and social acceptance, about civic pride, education, altruism, and the ideals of America as a welcoming community unheeded.

On the fifth anniversary of the ACA shootings, I wrote about why I think that is so.

Early last month, I posted about my thoughts on gun regulations and the Second Amendment.

I am grateful that President Obama is taking further common-sense steps to ensure that more background checks take place. I call on Congress – again – to take action to change the laws to protect people from gun violence.

The United States loses over 30,000 people every year to gunshots. If we were losing 30,000 people to plane crashes, it would be considered a calamity of the highest order and there would be swift action to rectify the situation.

The people of the United Sates deserve action – now.
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This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/05/just-jot-it-january-5th-2016-my-bucket-list/
JJJ 2016