Memories of Peter

Last May, our community lost a wonderful friend and musician, Peter Browne. I wrote about here and here.

Now that September is here, we are missing him again. At Binghamton University, Harpur Chorale, which Peter had directed for many years, has begun the semester under the direction of a talented local music teacher who earned her master’s in choral conducting at Binghamton U. a few years ago.

Yesterday, I wound up having an extended conversation about bladder cancer, which what took Peter’s life so unexpectedly.

Today, I put on the car radio in time to hear the last movement of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony.  I immediately thought of Peter playing this piece with the Binghamton Philharmonic at the Broome County Forum.

All reminders of Peter and how much he is missed.

Reaching Out to the World Again

Jay Dee is still on the hunt for visitors from more countries around the world. This new post links back to his original post where he is keeping track. ( I have already re-blogged and shared that post a couple of times, so I decided to re-blog this new one today.) Please visit and share!
– JC

Jay Dee's avatarI Read Encyclopedias for Fun

I just checked out which countries my blog’s visitors have come from since country stats started to be recorded. Here’s the map.

world_visitorsThere are some interesting places that aren’t included. No Paraguay. A lot of Africa is absent. A bit of central Asia.

So, time to reach out to the world again! Please go to this post and follow the instructions. I want to know where you’re from. Let me know in the comments on that post, and I’ll add your country to the list. And please share that post so we can get word out to more people! Thank you.

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Score one for Indian pudding!

I’ve spent an inordinate amount to time over the last couple of days revising one of my poems about Indian pudding for submission to Silver Birch Press’s upcoming “My Sweet Word” series and compiling and formatting the rest of the materials needed – bio, author’s note, photo with caption.

As many of you know, I often wrestle with technical issues, especially when I have to format for MS Word from my non-Windows system and when I have to deal with images of any sort.

It literally took me hours to get everything assembled properly, but I was finally able to hit “send” this morning.

And – drum roll, please! – I am happy to report that I have already received an acceptance! I think my submission must have landed on the top of the inbox on the West Coast for the beginning of their work day.

So, at some point this month or next, I’ll be able to share the link with you, featuring an ever-so-artistic photo of my hands cradling a bowl of Indian pudding with melting vanilla ice cream. I made a batch in the heat of August, just so we could do the photo shoot.

Well, truth be told, not just for the photo shoot….

While we generally don’t make something that has to bake for two hours during the dog days of summer, Indian pudding is still a delicious treat and brings back memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with family and of B’s great-aunt Gert, whose recipe we use, although I must confess that I have been experimenting with proportions a bit.

It’s always a good time for Indian pudding!

SoCS: tempted by Stephen Colbert

I am tempted to stay up late so I can watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert when it actually airs, as opposed to recording it with a DVR and watching it the next evening. Even though this is the first week, there are clips of it on the morning news every morning.

I am so glad that the show is off to a great start. I loved Stephen on The Daily Show and watched the entire run of The Colbert Report (the T is silent!) with B, always on delay by DVR.

Despite the temptation to stay up late, 11:35 is way past my 10 PM bedtime, so Stephen will just have to wait inside our little black DVR box until the next evening when we get to see what everyone else was laughing about the night before.

It’s not all laughing, of course. While Stephen is a comedian, he is also a very philosophical and intellectual person. That can come out much more readily in his new show, where he gets to be (somewhat) more himself, as opposed to his former idiot-pundit persona on The Colbert Report. It must be a relief, especially when dealing with such sensitive topics as losing a son, as in the case of the interview with Joe Biden. Stephen lost his father and two brothers to a plane crash when he was ten, so he knows a lot about loss. It’s good that he can let that human side show, now that he doesn’t have to be in character all the time.

How about you all? Are you watching Stephen late at night, on delay, or not at all? Of course, this applies to US folks more than those in other countries, unless you can view it on the web.

For anyone who wishes to watch the Biden interview, CBS has it posted in two segments:  http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/Pc4LDUqN8wMyGkYP2ngp3WWQpNLfXpRz/vice-president-joe-biden-interview-part-1/
http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/E73677BA-3D99-0881-3FC2-BA98560FCC49/vice-president-joe-biden-interview-part-2/
*****
Linda’s prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “temp.”  Join us! Find out how here:   http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-1215/ 

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header

I just updated my header image, partly because Jay Dee of “I Read Encyclopedias for Fun” is doing a series where he writes about blogs of those who comment on his blog frequently. Which I do. And I’m trying to not be totally embarrassed when he has to say that my cover image is grainy and doesn’t appear to be anything recognizable.

Anyone who visits here knows that I am not good with images, despite my attempts to improve. I have trouble taking photos, enhancing, cropping, sending them to the right site, and more, but I was determined to at least get a new header image that was clearer, so I grab my iPad and went in search of a spot to take a close-up of the top of my head.  I chose an art quilt that hangs on my living room wall as a backdrop, and took several shots, not the easiest thing to do when you are purposely holding your device above eye level.

Then, the fun of customizing began. I like my theme and don’t want to change it, but the header image is recommended to be 1600×220, which is difficult for me to get to from an image that is 640×480. (I can hear all you photographers out there chuckling.) After several attempts, I did manage to get a new header image saved. It’s…okay. I wish my tagline showed up better, but at least the image itself is clearer – and perhaps even recognizable as the top of my silver-haired head.

At the very least, I know I didn’t violate anyone’s copyright by sharing their image when I shouldn’t have.

Please comment with any opinions,advice , or encouragement you want to share.

– JC with the silver hair

Update:  I managed to finally put a header image on the Top of JC’s Mind Facebook page. It is similar to the one here, but not the same shot. Check it out (and consider liking my page if you haven’t already)!

Pain awareness

So many people live with chronic pain. September is Chronic Pain Awareness Month and this brief post gives everyone a lot of think about.

Heidi Jones's avatarLiving to thrive

5ef47e97f8a44252a03398e79fadf68dwhat-is-pain-awareness-month

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Sleep (or lack thereof)

One of the features of wearing a Fitbit is that you get a weekly report. Mine arrived in my inbox this morning and reported that I had averaged 3 hours and 50 minutes of sleep in the last seven nights.

This is not good, although, to be fair, the last week was worse than typical. While I do often have trouble sleeping, I usually have more good nights’ sleep thrown into the mix.

I actually do go to bed at a reasonable hour and spend eight to nine hours attempting to sleep. I’m not fighting off sleep on purpose. I also follow a lot of the advice on sleep hygiene, but its helpfulness is limited.

Last week was busy and also featured flares of some chronic health issues, one of which I will write about later this month as September is its “awareness month.”

I promise not to be too graphic…

A big thank you!

I’m grateful to everyone who has been visiting Top of JC’s Mind over these past couple of weeks. Since I did my 500(ish) followers and SoCS posts, I have received many encouraging compliments, likes, and follows.

It is so heart-warming and affirming that I have been trying to get a post or reblog out every day, even if it is short, as this one will be. It’s a busy week, as we try to fit in appointments, family visits, shopping, packing, and move-in for T in the one week between the end of her summer internship and the start of the semester.

It’s finally starting to sink in that this is the last year of grad school for both E and T. The end of the journey of having one or both daughters in formal schooling which began in 1991.

Wow! That looks like such a long time when it is written down.

Maybe I should take a rest…

Small Gestures

I’m thankful for this reminder that the small actions we take are important in ways that we often cannot see.

Karen Lang's avatarLIVING IN THIS MOMENT

“It is a serious thing, just to be alive on this fresh morning, in this broken world.” ~ Mary Oliver

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SoCS: Top of JC’s Mind

…because, seriously, when the prompt is “mind”, how could I not?

I started Top of JC’s Mind almost two years ago because several people told me that I should start a blog. I had originally planned to call it Top of My Mind, but that was already taken, so I put my initials in the title instead.

I know that I couldn’t contain myself to a single topic, so I set out to write about whatever is on the top of my mind, but that isn’t quite true.

You see, the top of my mind is a pretty crowded space. If I wrote about everything that was on the top of my mind in any given day, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.

So, I write only a bit of what is at the top of my mind – and those bits have been distributed differently than I originally envisioned.

I had thought that I would write a lot about fracking – or anti-fracking, really – because I spent many moons writing commentary on it as part of the anti-fracking grassroots in New York State. And there is some writing in that vein, along with climate change and other environmental themes, but, with the (mostly) ban in place, that has slowed down, perhaps much to the relief of readers, as well as fracktivists.

I also thought that I would post more poetry than I do. The reason is that I am trying to publish in literary journals, nearly all of whom will only consider work that is not previously published. And, for the most part, that means that if they can google it, they won’t accept it, even if it is only out on my little blog with a dozen views. Consequently, I don’t put too many of my poems here unless they have appeared elsewhere first. Generally, the rights revert back to me after publication.

I have written more about family and personal experiences than I intended, largely due to circumstances. A year ago, our elders, Nana, Paco, and Grandma, all ran into health challenges and the top, middle, and bottom of my mind were all pretty much filled up with care-taking and concern. Then, there are the more fun family things to post, like spending five weeks in Hawai’i with my daughter E.

I do want to get back to posting more about topics, such as feminism, politics, and religion/ethics. The life of the mind is important to me. I just wish there was a more direct and faster way to get my thoughts onto the (computer) page.

Although that would be overwhelming.

No one needs that much Top of JC’s Mind.

Except for me, of course, for whom there is no escape…
*****
This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday.  This week’s prompt is “mind.” Join us!  Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/08/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-2215/

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