THE CHAINS THAT YOU REFUSE

I’m surfing through the channels last night, nuthin’s on. On Channel 13 they are having their Beg-A-Thon, trying to raise money, and they always use the “Celtic Woman” program. I guess it a big draw. But I’ve been watching Celtic Woman for 20 years now, ever since the Riverdance craze. I’m about done with gorgeous Irish lasses singing beautiful weeping Irish ballads.

But while swinging through from channel to channel, here we have the lasses doing a new song.
"Bonny Portmore".
"Bonny Portmore" is an Irish traditional folk song which laments the demise of Ireland's old oak forests, specifically the Great Oak of Portmore. It’s a beautiful song, it really is, especially the Lorrena McKinnett version, so I listen and move on.

Still nothing on anywhere, and passing by Celtic Woman again and what’s this?
They are doing “Beeswing” by Richard Thompson, a very beautiful love song about a little slip of a gal that cannot be tamed.
So you know I have to listen to it. Its about time they updated their playlist. The four lasses are doing OK with it, and there is a guy playing the pipes. The chorus:

"She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child
She was running wild, she said
As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

But here is the thing.
They didn’t do the last verse!
What the hell?
How can you not do the last verse?
They stopped at “like a fool I let her run with a ramblin' itch”.
No Gypsy caravan, no wolfhound, no hip pocket, no faded flower, no chains refused.
Is that horrible or what?

The missing lyrics:

"Last I hear she's sleeping out
Back on Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket
And a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once
A man named Romany Brown
But even a Gypsy caravan
Was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now
Hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay
For the chains you refuse"

ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE

Last night I turned the TV on and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was on. The old Claymation one with Burl Ives. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen this show starting when I was 6 years old I could buy the North Pole. It was the part where Rudolph meets the adorable pretty-eyed doe with the little red polka dot bow, who flutters her huge eyelashes and tells Rudolph she thinks he's cute, that got me all blubbery, and I cried and cried.


It was just so sweet, and even a funny looking red-nosed bashful reindeer with a nasally sinus voice like Rudolph deserves to have someone with huge eyelashes that thinks they are cute to flirt and prance and caper about with them.
Then Rudolph tries to join in the reindeer games, and his fake nose he tried to use to hide his own spectacular schnozola falls off, exposing the big glowing red one, and all the other little boy reindeer started to tease him about his nose, and I cried some more. Then the coach of the reindeer games, in a very Trump-like fashion, starts to bully Rudolph too, and declares Rudolph unfit to play in the reindeer games, and I cried and cried and cried. I was a sopping wet mess.
So I figured what the hell, we may as well get this over with and put on "Its A Wonderful Life" and cried pretty much from start to finish.
Because Hey, its Gosh Darn Christmas.
Mercury is in Retrograde.
Let it bleed.


Melville says everything flows to the sea.
I that is so, then everything flows FROM "Its A Wonderful Life ".
Its got everything. Hockey, High School hijinks, real estate, Uncle Billy, car crashes, bar fights, skinny dipping, foxy librarians, bank crashes, bells, wheelchairs, spiders, ice cream, drugs, war hero's, singing cops, cab drivers, Italian Americans, malfeasance, crows, angels, angel wings, and Fully Clothed Women.
And Zuzu's petals.

JUST KILL ME NOW

Phone rings. “Hello?”
“Mr Bulletholes, this is (garbled ) from Texas (garbled) and we have the results from your sleep study in. Can we schedule your follow up appointment?”
“Yes, please”
“Would you like morning or afternoon?”
“Either one. The sooner the better”
Long silence.
“How about 2:30 on January 21st?”
Long silence while Mr Bulletholes calculates that this is five weeks away, and does his best to keep from blowing his top.
Then, in his sweetest voice “Miss (garbled) do you know I started this process all the way back in July? I was really hoping in July to have this done before the end of the year.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Bulletholes.”
“Is there nothing you can do for me? I'm so tired of being tired”
“Well, let me see….” Long silence. “Did you say morning or afternoon, Mr Bulletholes?”
“Either one”
Long silence.
“How about this Friday at 11:00 am?”
“You are a miracle worker. Thank you.”