There is something wonderful in suddenly finding yourself listening to some music that has you totally taken in
and better yet if it is a piece you already know
and this is what happened the other night.
My Seattle radio station had some problems so I changed to Radio Denmark, mostly out of curiosity and that was when they started to play the full, uninterrupted recording of
Die Schöne Müllerin by Schubert.
I know the piece well, but I had never heard an interpretation so lush, so heartfelt as this. I sat glued to the computer for an hour and ten minutes, just listening to one wonderful song after another and I was sure I would remember the name the next day.
I did not, but after a lot of time and a lot of calculating the time difference, I found the information.
Here is my hat off to Matthias Goerne for such a great job.
Thank you.

I was contemplating writing a post about not having a drink of Cheap Red Wine for weeks and weeks and weeks.....well, at least for a couple of weeks, and then
things started to go a bit awry
and I had my fist glass of wine
and now
I am proud to tell y'all
I have almost finished a carton of very Cheap red Wine
so there
abstinence does not work
I am living proof of that.
Cheers.

The chirpy Gringo lady in the cafe where I buy my coffee said to the pony tailed owner in very broken Spanish
ME---of Oregon---live here
AH, said the owner and continued in Spanish, and what part of Oregon are you from ?
This proved to be too much Spanish for the chirpy lady who just smiled and nodded her head, a little bewildered.
So I translated the question for her and she went off on a rant about the places in Oregon ably supported by mine owner of the cafe who really did know his stuff.
When her bill was settled and she was ready to leave she turned to me, slightly quizzical, and said what she must have thought to be the safest thing to say not knowing if I was a Gringo too, or just a very well spoken local
Hasta Luego ?
Is this what it has come to ? Chirpy little old ladies are not totally sure about me and where I fit in.
Must do something about that accent.

I shall put this in the category of
"Wish I Had Said That".

The early bird may get the worm but
that second mouse gets the cheese.

Never pat a strange puppy.
A golden rule that I know and that I ignore and with consequences
like this morning with Priscilla away checking something in the jungle, giving me a chance to slip down the hill unfollowed by her to buy some eggs from the local tienda and, for ease, taking a shortcut passing close to one of the houses in the cluster down the hill where a couple of pups were frolicking.
And I committed the cardinal sin of patting them
so they followed me down to the big road and waited for me till I returned from the tienda
and one of them decided to walk with me to my house where the resident mutts took umbrage
and I had to rescue the wayward pup and carry it back to its house, from where it tried to follow me home again, braving the coterie of frenzied females.
It finally gave up and I told myself again
never pat a strange puppy

And so I turned off the telly and the lights and all the other stuff I do every night in preparation for going to bed
and one of the mutts, doing her thing, ambled into the bedroom waiting to jump on the bed the minute I drifted off to sleep
however, I noticed that she was looking at something under the bed
puzzled
and I have learned to take these signs seriously, living with easy access for snakes and scorpions and other unwelcome critters
so I grabbed my flashlight and looked under the bed and saw
a dead bird
and a sizable one at that
How, I wondered, did this bird come to be under my bed ?
Did someone, or something, drag it there ? or did it bump into one of the windows as they often do and then seek a place to expire ?
It will remain a mystery.
I picked it up and threw it out in the jungle, a little life extinguished.