It's Sunday once again!
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
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Yes, I know this gets published just before 10 PM Pacific time on Saturdays, but that puts it at 1 AM Sundays Eastern time, and there are a LOT of nightowls in this group.
I have been having all kinds of things running through my head lately. The things I have woken up to over the years, among others. I keep my alarm set to the classical station and pretty much have ever since I first got the choice. I don't think I will ever forget the morning I and my first husband woke up to the strains of the Polka and Fugue from Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeifer. I also recall that when I told my oldest and dearest this, once he stopped laughing he said there was nothing like a polka to induce a fugue.
I did discover a fondness for Vivaldi when I started listening to classical music - I liked this one when I listened to it - but I've heard he taught at a girls' school for many years and I think it had an effect. Even the incorrigible optimist and unrepentant morning person that is me finds his music too relentlessly cheerful for 6:00 AM.
And then there was the time I was trying to brush up on my Spanish and was listening to a station that played a lot of conjunto. I do like that music. I never did get much better with my Spanish, though.
I also like classic rock. Moody Blues being my hands-down-favorite band. My absolute favorite of their songs is Are You Sitting Comfortably?. I also enjoy Lazy Day, and the first CD I ever owned was In Search of the Lost Chord (this link is iffy, but it is the whole album).
I am also seriously fond of Tom Lehrer. My family never missed "That Was the Week That Was" if my father could help it, and Tom Lehrer provided much of the music for that show (my favorite song from the show is Pollution, and sometimes I wonder what it says about me that my second favorite is Who's Next?). However, I didn't really realize who it was till I was in college and one of my to-this-day friends played her collection for us.
That particular friend lived up in Washington state for around 10 years when her daughter was growing up and went to visit my parents with me more than once. The particular time I'm thinking of was in 1999 for our birthday week. Our birthday week was in mid-April and my firstborn was included - my friend is exactly a week older than I am and my daughter's birthday falls between, and the kid turned 21 that year. One night of that visit, during dinner, the subject of Tom Lehrer came up and my stepfather went and put some of his records on (he has some of the recordings from when the man was still at Harvard!), and he and my friend and I started singing along. My mother very subtly started backing her chair away from the table as we got farther into the music - my daughter didn't start backing away till she realized that I knew all the words to I Hold Your Hand in Mine.
I once wrote a thank you note to Prof. Lehrer, when I learned that he was still alive and teaching at UC Santa Cruz. I still think the most felicitous bit of patter I have ever heard in a song was in In Old Mexico, where he refers to the bull in a bullfight as "half a ton of angry pot roast". That isn't my favorite of his songs, though. That is a toss-up. I've never been able to decide between The Vatican Rag or Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.
I sing The Grouch Song to my grandkids fairly often. My voice teacher had me use it as a vocalise for a couple of months (try going "nyah, nyah, nyah" to the tune and not cracking up).
And for many years, the way I have been able to tell when all is right with my world is that Comedy Tonight pops into my head and won't go away.