marriage issues

Rodgers and Hammerstein Make Song Lyric Thursday


When I was very little I discovered my mother’s collection of soundtracks. They were mainly Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals: Oklahoma, Carousel, The Sound of Music but she had Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man too, which is one of my all time favorites.

I would play them on the stereo in the living room. Dance around. Sing. Act out the parts – once I was old enough to understand that they were telling stories. I can’t remember when I reached an age where I was too self-conscious to perform “publicly”, but eventually the stereo was dismissed to the basement where my “productions” continued well into my early teens.*

Since then I have had a life long love of musicals, but not so much as something to watch. My affair is music and lyric based, and of course, all about the story-telling.**

Cinderella was one of my favorites growing up. I remember watching it on television yearly for a long time. I don’t remember the girl who played Cinderella but the Prince was portrayed by a soap actor on one of my favorite soaps, General Hospital.

The following clip is from the 1997 Whitney Houston/Brandy version. I used to show it to my students when we were studying folk/fairy tales. The multi-ethnic casting never seemed to bother them, a testament to the power of the story, I think.

The song is Ten Minutes Ago and it reminds me of both my husbands.

*I always wanted to get up on stage and sing, dance and act, but I was too shy and too aware of my size. The only time I tried out for a play in high school I was rejected because of my weight.

**The only musical I have ever seen live was Les Miserables, and yes, I know it is overwrought, but the songs are wonderful and story is compelling.

T-Shirt Friday: Rob


When Rob and I were first corresponding via email, I didn’t know what he looked like or he me. It wasn’t important. We were friends although looking back we both realize that the intent changed sooner than either of us realized until much later.

Rob had taken a long road trip through the U.S. just before he and I “met” courtesy of my rather flip/flirty reply to a post of his on the widow board. At the time I was just being cute. One of the social aspects of the board allowed for kidding that bordered (or completely crossed the line at times) on that kind of adult banter.

On his journey, he had sent periodic updates of his progress to the board and posted pictures of the places he’d stopped along the way. Many of the pictures featured him and he acquired quite the widda fan club. Women emailed/pm’d him with invitations to lunch or for coffee or dinner if he should happen to be “in their neighborhood”.

I hadn’t been paying attention and didn’t read about his travels or see the photos until after we’d started to write/IM.

He never knew what I looked like until after he told me that he had feelings for me.

Today’s tee is one that Rob was wearing in one of the first photos I saw of him that were not from the widow board collection. It was one that MidKid took of the two of them in the kitchen here in our home. She had it posted on her MySpace and Rob directed me to it.

Yes, I saw both MidKid and ElderD’s MySpace pages. Rob shared them with me because he is proud of them and wanted me to know them.

I still love this particular photo. It is one of my favorites Rob looks good in tight tee’s.

Updates and T-shirts are Friday’s Offerings


Sadly, my short story lost the Dazzle contest. I didn’t bother to go and check for the winner yesterday because I knew I was out of the running after TenMile entered and the gushing began so I lost interest. However he did not win either. A late entry took the prize.

I am used to losing contests, but I still find it a bit annoying. I am still polishing up my own story and hope to send it off to Apex although it needs to be a shade darker. The last story I read in Apex was about a refugee scrounger on a displaced persons ship in the overcrowded future where the hopeless sell themselves to the ultra wealthy who get their kicks stuffing them with chestnut dressing, cooking them alive and then eating them. When I said “dark” I meant “ever so”.

Grade one is going well.

Reno is proceeding. Rob’s new plan is to break down tasks into small components and do a bit of as many as he can between supper and dark (which is coming far too early now).

MidKid claims to be moving out this coming weekend. We’ll keep you posted.

And as for T-shirt Friday…..

Nurse Myra claims no ownership, so I think I will adopt it into my rotation stable along with the Monday Meme and the Thursday Song Lyric.

Remembering what Silverstar had to say on the subject, t-shirts must have histories. Not just stains either. Although stains can have histories.

Today’s t-shirt comes to us via the beginning of the LDR days that made up the bulk of my pre-marriage relationship with Rob. He developed a habit of bringing a t-shirt along with him to leave behind for me. He would wear it until it smelled just like him and after he left, I would wear it until it just stunk too much for me not to wash.

MidKid gave Rob the shirt. She worked in a liquor store and was always acquiring tee’s from different label promotions. Canadian is Molson’s flagship and most popular brand. It’s probably one of the better beers up here, but any Canadian will tell you that the worst Canadian beer is kilometers better than the best American one. Americans, in the opinion of most non-Americans, drink swill for beer.

Anyway, one day Rob inquired after the shirt and I told him I wore it to bed. Then I whipped open my little Macbook, took this photo and sent it to him. Since this is kind of like a love letter, I had Rob crop out the disheveled come hitherness.

So there is my t-shirt and its story. Feel free to join in. Link or track back if you do.

this is low res and tiny but it's the best I got