I turned on my A/C this morning!!!

I am sweating here! Sitting in the full sun in my bedroom window yet in my nightie and I am hot! Perspiration, the polite word, is running from my face onto my neck and I am not complaining one bit. In a few minutes I will be downstairs in the pool cooling off but first wanted to send out a few lines. I have already freaked out the painters as they caught me off-guard this early morning, moving up and down the building on their scaffold. I was wearing my nightie. It is a quite respectable nightie but I made myself sit as tightly against my desk as I could so nothing was obvious except my smiling face as they stopped outside my window to paint the window sill. Move along, nothing to see here, just move along....I cannot type sitting that tightly against my desk!!!

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For sure I have to go down to swim and such because I am now out of cold diet soda in my fridge. I have a bottle of regular Coke and some Mountain Dew left from the recent parties, which will do in a pinch but I have two 12-packs yet in the back of my car. I know, I know, it can explode from the heat but that has only happened once and I got over it. The roll of the dice!

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Thursday night is our themed dinner here and so far I have only two replies in the affirmative. Well, the three of us will be eating good, that is for sure. If this continues, I may have to shake things up a bit. That's what happens being gone for the June dinner, our entire system is thrown off!

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Yesterday our aerobics leader had a pet emergency (I know, I don't get it either) but the group still got together and did our own pseudo-workout-social outing. My biggest fan, Randy, brought me four CDs of Cole Porter music, one with Sinatra singing Porter's greatest love songs. The photo shows Frank singing while holding a cigarette----my, we've come a long way, baby! That is so not politically correct unless one is a superstar of some type. Oh, wait, Frank IS a superstar! The titles, as Randy assured me they would, do look familiar but I have yet to give them a listen. Randy brought a biography of the Gershwins for Maggie O. to read, just sharing the love, that Randy!

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Music, Music, Music! My whole day, or rather, much of it, was about music. The conversations with Maggie and Randy were about show tunes and the best Broadway-type productions, as Maggie was a drama teacher from many years, most recently at Ed White HS. It was when one of the ladies at the pool tried to order lunch from The Club that it occurred to us that since The Club was closed this week for renewing or something, there would be NO HAPPY HOUR this Wednesday. Randy plays the piano sometimes for HH so he is glad to know not to bring all his song books with him. Being creatures of habit, this threw a wrench into the plans made for this week.

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Since Pastor's wife came home from the hospital last night, he wants to spend their wedding anniversary with her instead of us "Outreach people". Okay, I get that and appreciate it. Thursday she begins the chemo treatments and might not feel like going out on the weekend, so celebrate tonight! I made several calls and contacts via the Internet to try to reach folks to reschedule for Thursday, freeing up my Wednesday, except they will have to do it without me due to my dinner! Hey, I could have the Outreach meeting here around my table....nah, that would be way too many more phone calls to make!

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Back to the music: I hope no one grows weary of hearing/reading about music, because it plays a major role in my heart and life. Most often it is the music of the church but recently I have been inundated with music secular in nature. Joni Mitchell has a song called "Heart and Mind" that is rattling about in mine. I played a little "game" on facebook that was sent to me by another music lover and while I normally do not participate, this one caught my fancy. There were a series of blanks to fill in, using only the songs titles by an artist of my choosing, and I picked Joni. I sent it to a newly refound high school friend and he could not complete it without using the same singer, which was against the rules of the game. Nuts! It was fun to fill in the blanks, surprisingly many of the song titles fit so perfectly.

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Steve was a classmate through high school and we shared a love of music, he actually being and becoming a performing artist in his grown-ups years. I find myself only on the receiving end of the music, and singing in the car or the privacy of my rooms. Church singing is entirely different and I will do that at the slightest provocation. The torch singing is quite another matter. I sang karaoke publicly, other than with family, on board a cruise ship in 2000 with a rather small, appreciative group. The song I chose was "Unbreak My Heart" by Toni Braxton and although I lost my place and seemed to be off-key, my "group" thought it was great....

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Here I go about the 8-tracks again---the Saturday of Justin's party here, I had to open the cupboard to have access to a lamp's on/off switch and saw the tapes in there. Later when the guests were here, I passed some around as there are people alive now who never saw an 8-track before. Sure enough, in my stack of tapes was one sent to me by Steve, the fellow from my high school days! Yesterday I received an e-mail from him which included lyrics of songs he has published, some of which are in contention with a co-writer over ownership. He has an excellent though expensive entertainment attorney going into battle with him over the rights. One of the songs was written with me in mind, all these many years after high school!!!! To say I was touched and moved is inadequate. I hope Steve wins the battle, earning back the rights to his songs!

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Just when I am getting a big head to go with the rest of me, my friend, Ed from Victory, sent me another "game" to play on facebook. I only took a look at it out of curiosity and was sorry I did so. The game was a listing of the 100 most popular books and the game was to put a check mark behind any of the books we have read. Well, much to my embarrassment, there were very few listed where I could put my X, besides the Bible, and I have not read the entire book there either....

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Many are classics, such as Wuthering Heights (I saw the movie, does that count??) while others are more contemporary fiction. In my own defense, however, I did complete a book Sunday morning before church, "I Love You, Ronnie" which were the letters Ronald Reagan wrote to Nancy when they were courting and all through their married life until he could no longer write. It was a sweet memoir, heartwarming. I know that many of my readers are fans of fiction while my reading is mostly non-fiction. Judy R. says that makes us balanced! I will run with that! Besides, how many can say they have had songs written about them?