A Nod

On my blog list you'll see Debby's Life's Funny Like That. I love her writing and her ability to relate the richness of everyday moments, as well as those not-so-everyday moments. I also enjoy her "dependability." She's probably the most frequent poster on my list.

She recently added a music feature to her blog that plays a personal playlist when her blog is loaded. I really enjoyed the selections she chose, so I added Playlist to my blog. I hope other folks on my blog list will add the feature, since I'm pretty danged nosy, and I want to see what music you put up.

Thanks for the idea, Debby.

A Eulogy from BawBaw

First of all, I've just stumped myself with a grammar question. We use "an" instead of "a" when it precedes a word starting with a vowel, right? So, I'd write, "Hal had to make an effort to answer that grammar question," or "Hal had to ask an uncle to answer that grammar question." But to my mind's ear, that doesn't sound right in the case of the word "eulogy." A eulogy sounds right; an eulogy sounds wrong. Is there anyone out there who's aware of some rule that covers this pairing of words, or is it just one of those maddening exceptions to English grammar rules? Or, have I just not had enough caffeine this morning?

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I've belonged to a website called PearlSoup since 2001. For me and a bunch of other folks, it was sort of a predecessor to a blog. This morning, I read a eulogy posted by a member who calls herself BawBaw. The eulogy was written for one of her best friends, a woman BawBaw calls a "Warrior Goddess."

You should really read the post here, but I wanted to share a line that really struck me, because I thought it was one of the best encapsulations of a person's character I've ever read, touching and funny at once: No one but Ellen could utter the word "bitch" and have it resonate as "I love you."

We should all be remembered so fondly.

A Nanci Griffith Performance

Back in the late eighties, I went to see John Prine in a solo performance at the Ventura Theater in southern California. A lady by the name of Nanci Griffith opened for him. I'd never heard of her at that point, and neither had my friends. She was utterly captivating, standing up there on the stage with only her guitar for accompaniment. And wow, what a songwriter. This video is from a BBC performance of her "Love at the Five and Dime."

Trout Fishing in America in Lima, Ohio

I wrote about the musical duo/group Trout Fishing in America here. They usually play their kids' concerts as a duo, but from time to time they'll put a band together. They're getting older, and they should probably quit wearing shorts on stage, but the guys still know how to put down the boogie.