Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Birth and Death

I welcome Kaihan, born March 31, and a sweet little (my god, 9 lbs 5 oz) guy belonging to a coworker of mine.

I mourn the mysterious death of Debbie’s brother; I can’t provide any more details than that, but I really feel for the parents; losing a child is very, very hard.

I was sick yesterday.

Lulu becomes something else

Lulu is a traditional African American tune.  lulu

So now I’m gonna do what white folks do best and STEAL IT.  To write about a different minority (your mileage may vary) member.

I’ll sing of Chang Apana / who inspired Charlie Chan

He once took out his old bullwhip/and arrested 40 men x 2

He had a wife in China / in Honolulu too

But he supported both of them / as the honest thing to do x 2

(alternate verse –

Young wife in Honolulu / China wife was old

But he supported both of them / cause that was how he rolled x 2)

He never learned to read or write / but he was a mighty gent

And the only thing that could take him down / was an auto accident x 2

Houseboy and a cowboy / and a policeman too

I’m telling you there wasn’t much / Apana couldn’t do x 2

His loyalty a legend / and when he came to die

A woman that he once had served / was sitting by his side x 2

Hard and fierce and upright / he feared not work or pain

You know that we will never, ever/see his like again x 2

weekend’s over

Keith left at 1:45 after gaming, waking me up, and I didn’t get back to sleep until 5, which is not particularly helpful on a work night.  I will have to have a talk to him about that.

I have lots and lots of other things to talk about that are making me wildly crabby, but I won’t, because that’s the role of middle aged people in this culture.  We’re supposed to suck it up, carry on, and keep everything running smoothly for everyone else.

Hey hey my my Ai Wei Wei

One of the most brilliant and humane artists of this or any century is Ai Wei Wei.  I recently saw a documentary segment on Frontline about him and both Jeff and I were blown away at how amazing he is.  He’s being set up for a long jail sentence.

The church spring potluck was last night.  It went very well and in the end, as always, there was enuff fud.  I contributed two entrées, set up, clean up, butter, a starch dish and the Tapioca Song and I was exhausted when I got home.  Paul turned up for as much as he could stay for and contributed his best ever quinoa salad and home made bread.

somewhat better

The sleep fairy let me go until 4:55 which was decent of her.

Now I am transcribing African American folk tunes into Songwriter.  One of them doesn’t seem to work at all, and the other is a very sad song about a woman crying for her dead little girl.  I’m also learning about accent notes in music.

 

yarg

I had another horrible night of sleep, or lack of it.  I feel kinda gummy and weird, which is just my annual allergies talking.

I has a sad face.  I overtrimmed one of Eddie’s claws yesterday and gave him a bobo.  He was very gracious about it.

We watched The Messenger yesterday.  I loved it, it’s a practically perfect movie, and Woody Harrelson is awesome as always.

Let the good times roll

Blackberry emailed me today to thank me for buying their phone. I responded in a fashion that can only be described as vitriolic.  I also cc’d Robof9 and whined about how I should have taken his advice and gotten an iPhone.

I don’t know why I’m choked, I got the biggest bonus in my personal history for the last year of work.  Makes me feel motivated, let me tell you!