Miss Havisham's hamster wheel

Where it stops nobody knows.

I've got to knock down a dozen years or more of cobwebs. Baseboards, let me tell you, I've got enough dust on those babies to make fake mustaches for everyone in town.

Putting a home up for sale is a strenuous, stressful, weird, strange, almost surreal experience, except that people manage to do it every day. My first time being inside when a family was peering in the windows was freaky. Should I pose like a stylish store window mannequin? Could I present a cooking show episode (not gourmet)? Bon appetit or else mime a goldfish in a bowl? My home, my midden dig site, my personal hygiene and inadequate housekeeping are all being evaluated by a lot of little people even though the condo is not yet listed.

Pip pip, it's so nice "Cuties" oranges don't have seeds. I'm running on the exercise/anxiety wheel again with Havisham's hamster. Dickens did not mention the hamster in either Great Expectations or the Christmas Carol.

Driving to work it's E.L. Doctorow reading his short novel, Andrew's Brain. Andrew has great bushels full of issues, and vague boundaries between dream and memory in his sessions on the psychologist's couch. The author may not be the most exciting reader for an audiobook, but his slightly whiny, under-inflected narration seems appropriate for Andrew.

Before sleep I'll read a bit more of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches. Flavia rides around on her bike named Gladys solving murder cases. Then I'll leave on that midnight train with dream wheels, hamsters, and pips.

First I go through the board book version of Mr. Brown Can Moo searching for the fish kiss "pip". Alas, the "pip" has been deleted along with the thunder when Mr. Brown is a wonder. Now what was that Sherlock Holmes story about Gladys Knight and the Pips?

P.S. If you click enough links you will find the dancing bell-bottoms. No more clues, pip pip hooray.


© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

House of cords

WWWRD?

I need a teeny, tiny ropin' and wranglin' techno rodeo geek lariat nerd to tame the cords under my computer desk. So, yes, what would Will Rogers do?



© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Mind the music and the poodles

The big clean-out continues. Today's major find is a Czech-American songbook published in Omaha, Nebraska in 1909. It was aimed for the trash, but fell open to its Rosetta Stone.

Lordy, Poodles, it's the ivory-billed woodpecker! Not quite, but it's American and Bohemian versions of "John Brown's Body Lies A'Mouldering in the Grave"! Most of the songs are only in Czech. Until I spotted "John Brown" I thought it was all Czech, and was wondering why I've been carting it around for four decades. Click on images for a larger view.

Had such fun reading James McBride's The Good Lord Bird about John Brown. Do give it a peruse at your library!

Did you know "Yankee Doodle" has a verse about pancakes and onions?

Closing today with a little patriotic number.  Have a good one!

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder