TubaOrNotTuba

The ability to create a playlist of songs from a very early part of your life reflects on our ability to find music from a long time ago. I do not care about your age whether you were 10 or 50 what you think of as a long time ago is exactly that. From a far distant past. So here’s the test. When you choose a selection of songs from whatever the year do they still bring you pleasure? Not just the beat. Not just the lyrics. When you hear a given tune are you brought back to a different time. Perhaps when life was simpler. Think about it. You can now relive the best times of being a teenager or being deep into your studies in college or playing with a new family. The music does that for you in a way that a book will not. I happened upon an album from when I was still in high school. No need to name the artist. Just take it from me. The songs still work. The musician knew what was going on. And I realized I can come back to this playlist years from now and I will probably find a similar reaction on my part. Music is timeless. There are many things that we can no longer do. A factor of age and location. But the tunes? They hold the same level of importance. So, if you find yourself skipping along take that as the ultimate round of applause for the musician their effort is still working for you. I suppose a great artistic masterpiece can have similar qualities but the tunes are the simplest way to start up your own time machine and head back to earlier. Try not to sing too loudly. Remember that others have their own personal soundtracks and you were probably not part of it then or now. Just a hint.

This is the time of the year, locally when Community Schools look for clientele. They offer up a list of courses that are supposed to attract the local population into spending an hour or two each week in a church basement. And I have to point out that there’s a supply and demand involved here. You need people who understand a particular craft to teach it to others. So many things that were given in the time of my grandparents are no longer considered as possibilities. I would love to learn how to hitch up the team take the cards to town. Or make a batch of moonshine out in the back building. Or even cut down a number of trees and drag them out of the woods. Instead we get crafts like making a blanket using yarn. I wonder if anyone has thought of showing people like me how to make a proper batch of gingerbread cookies. My grandmother knew such things. Possibly my mother. One or two of my siblings maybe. But me I have never learned to make a proper gingerbread cookie. Think how much better the world would be. Or, how to go and get a bag of oats and turn that into oatmeal. There must be instructions somewheres. I can see spending weeks taking my oats and turning them into whatever it is you use to make oatmeal. You see. I have so much left to learn. And as for those trees, I do know how to cut down a tree but getting it out of the woods would be very tricky do dragon fully pointy end or the square end? I’m sure I could come up with other questions that would make any instructor laugh, for the rest of the season. But I will be smarter when all is said and done.

I’m going to start with a disclaimer. A spoiler alert in some ways. I have never been to jail, other than a visit to historical site how was dinner gallery. Hardly counts. Here, in Canada we have a certain number of prisons that are famous. For all the wrong reasons. And we shadow, rather are overshadowed, by our neighbours to the South. They have some really big names. Ones that have had whole movies. Alcatraz, Leavenworth, sing sing. Dots on a very large map. Turns out most of what we know about these prisons has been coloured by Hollywood. I’m left to wonder whether it is worth my time to try and learn more. I mean, give him my intention to avoid ever going there either as a visitor or an inmate. What I really want to have is a basic knowledge of what made these places so infamous. Probably I do not want to know. Can I have the cartoon version, please. Or maybe go on a drive on the highway going by and look across and say to myself oh so that’s where that place is. Do any of them have passenger rail service? That could be a fun way to tour. Probably not, so I will go back to watching video. They give me all the wrong information. Maybe I would like a cartoon version. A name like sing sing invites a song, does it not? Better than I put my time into studying local history. We turned our most famous jail into a pizza joint. We had good food and good people.

We have been warned. Too much time and we will start looking for ways to do things. Without due reflection. I have fallen back down into that tunnel of rabbit holes that leads people to search for who they are. What used to be a simple exercise of asking others and going through old parish records now has a new friend. Science. Where you pay a small fee and spit in a tube in a couple of weeks you learn who your cousins are. Or maybe not. Now I have spent the better part of my life trying to figure out my tree. I have done a decent job and I realize just how much our privacy depends upon other people not digging too deeply around that tree. And so now I’m caught with a conundrum. I do not figure that I would learn anything of great value by having my test done. But I am one part of a larger puzzle at anytime you make yourself visible you give up the privacy of others. I know, we are all told that we are unique. So be it. But I have a bunch of siblings and a larger group of cousins an even larger group of relatives. Anytime I give up my identity I also compromise there’s. And I am too lazy to go and contact each one that I know of and ask for their accordance. So I hesitate. What is the price of increased knowledge? You see, when you get into this game you give away clues to your identity. And what you make public might be what someone else has been trying to keep hidden from the greater world. I think I will sit and ponder and then I will ask a few friends. And relatives. Just to test the prevailing wind. Do they care if the world knows who their grandparents and great grandparents are. I have the receipts. I have done my research with diligence. And if I tell my first cousin that his or her great grandparents are so and so I do so with a fair degree of confidence but they may not want that information to be so easily available in some ways I am the keeper of the keys to a great chest of knowledge. Each detail in and of itself is very minor but when you consolidate the data you end up with something larger. Monolithic.

If you have ever gone and even more than you should at the buffet in a restaurant, it may mean that you are as old as me. Or that you’ve gone to Vegas. Or both. When you do the math, your buffet meal is probably still running as a profit for the restaurant. We get confused by prices on the menu. Thinking that they reflect the reality of the cost involved. They do not. No restaurant is going to open itself up to the risks of bankruptcy by giving someone all the chicken wings they can eat. I learned that from a video. Moving right along. Oh, wait. If I had an all you can eat buffet nearby I would probably put down my dollars the same way. That big basket of wings. Or unlimited bacon slices. Please, do not pretend that this is good nutrition. For that we have other chain restaurants. I did learn that the McDonald’s filet of fish is not as bad as all that. A managed portion of carefully sourced protein. If we still had Friday diet laws in place this would be somewheres where you get your fish on Friday done without any pain. I have been watching a series of videos about the hidden side of the food industry. I tend to favor coffee beans that I grind myself but for those of you who buy a bag of ground coffee it was superstore beware. There are a lot of filler items they will make that pound of coffee go further. Probably not ground acorns all that was used in the past. Look up the term ersatz for other information

There’s so much I still need to learn. I have been eating food for all of my life and I have my own vocabulary for what I know, but I cannot begin to describe what is around me. I’ve learned that everything I ever knew about Curry is probably wrong. Not the taste. Not the colour. Rather the complexity. You see when I was younger I found it quite mysterious the spices made the world go round. Like most homes we have a small rack of glass jars with labels that told me absolutely nothing about what was inside. My person go to with salt. It was only after I had a family that I tried making my own Curry dish. Based entirely upon commercial jars that mimic the real complexity of the spice mix. I knew that it came in different colours but beyond that nothing. Today watching a video which is how I get most of my information now I learned that Curry is a name that covers something as broad as colour. There are many Currys and each one comes with its own set of flavours. I guess I’m going back to learning. Back to making small batches of Stew with different spice mixes to see if I can unlock a little what others around the world do. Will I know if I get it right? No. I will pass on what I learn to those in my family who might be interested and then I will go back to stiring and tasting in the hopes of trying to understand a subject as broad as the world is large. Salt, my old friend, you will have to join the others in the spice rack and you are going to lose your predominance. As I say I still have a lifetime to catch up. I think that my meals might be better as a result. And if I happen into a restaurant that sells a Curry dish I will use that as a learning opportunity. Time for me to move beyond red and green as flavour descriptions

Some impulses are best ignored. Right now, we have no companion animal. Perhaps that is a good thing because you can really choose poorly. I watched a video about life with a tiny donkey. So pretty. Like something from a movie. Actually, it is best to just watch the movie over and over again. A donkey as an example can live for four decades. And it does not become more intelligent with age. Just more stubborn. I am already stubborn enough. I do not need to go head to head with a furry monster every day. Some of them can become very loud. And their habits at home are terrible. I say this because there are people in this area who have a tiny donkey and I am afraid that we would get there bad idea living with us. So far we are safe. For me, even another dog seems like a large challenge. From what I’ve read very few dogs hang around for four decades with an attitude. I think we’re fortunate that we can watch movies and then get the results of other people’s experiences. The Internet is probably saving many families from a lifetime of argument. With a creature that does not speak your language only pretends to understand. And of course, you have to cut their hooves. I think you see what I’m getting too. I appreciate that a companion is a good thing but not at any price. If I need to see a donkey I can go over to that house nearby and get my fill without giving up my own autonomy and place on the couch

Based on my kitchen calendar, today marks the end of another year. And in keeping with traditions this is a moment to reflect upon what has changed in that time. I stayed pretty close to home. Some limited travel within this country involving the new RV. I met some new people from other places in my own kitchen. We had no major weather incidents which keeps the stress level lower. If I were to set the table there will be people missing from the circle. A normal part of life actually. This is also the year that our dog crossed that magical bridge to who knows where. Not something I reflect on often. I believe that the financial situation remains very stable in part because I no longer need to go to stores and spend money. I have replaced printed books with videos and audio feeds. Not always satisfactory but I am still learning. And as it comes down to accounting I have learned other things so the year has not been awash. In terms of health I am among the fortunate. In terms of wealth and wisdom I am content. The biggest change around the yard was the removal of our beds. Vegetable beds. And, I do not really miss them a lot. You can always get vegetables at the local market. The same daily tasks that I had in place one year ago continue. I study and I talk to the screen and I listen to music. Not always the same songs. Based on those few parameters life is good and I look forward to seeing what is waiting in 24. Beyond just getting older. If anything, I would welcome more visitors especially from my family so if you see them let them know. We have been doing supper snacks this evening. Comfort foods rather than a large meal. I think that comes with age. I will, of course, consult with others should the occasion arise.

I am less given to holiday music then I used to be but since we’re still within the octave for this season I decided to roll back the clock. At some point in the past there was a community concert held in a small church. On stage, the collective known as Jethro Tull in one of its versions. There have been many over the years. The concert was varied an untraditional as you could imagine. We have to recognize the silver better musicians are getting older and this group is no exception. With more than 1/2 century behind them they have been an easy fall back for those who want to find something new and at the same time curious. I recognize that I will never have the occasion to hear him live. From what I’ve read his own days of performance are few and far between. And so I go to the archives. If you have not taken the time to listen to some of our older musicians, you should. We have better access to material then at any other point in history. I enjoy flute music and strange poetry and this was a happy seasonal marriage of the two. What will they find tomorrow? No idea I try not to plan ahead. It makes every day into something akin to a box of chocolates. Some feedback has come in from our own group separate the other night. All of it positive. We also have been doing this kind of thing for 1/2 century. And the wonderful thing is that none of us qualify as old just yet. Hello, to be fair, we avoided any singing of Christmas carols around the table. Perhaps next year.

Please, do not believe what the ads tell you. For anyone that is purchased a smart TV, the TV is not smart. Rather you have a low level web browser pretending to do something useful. We have been trying for what seems like a very long time to get our TV to forget things that used to know. It is not going well. The Dirty word is cash. Not cash like the stuff you used to pay for it but rather cash like food hidden in the forest while you’re camping. The food never looked or tastes quite the same as before. Our TV knows that it is surrounded by networks and it seems to randomly choose which one it should listen to or attach to on any given day. So far so good. However, the smart TV has a well crafted web page as its sole. It lists wonderful sights and programs and other fun things to do with your smart TV and then as soon as you take your attention away it no longer can find its way from you to there. The good old days of one TV one channel are from a distant past. We now have a TV with the possibility of endless channels if only that browser can find its way there. I can accept that some things are not available at any given time but when the reference points to something, again, from before and then that little circle spins while it tries to find its way there you know that the model is broken not our human TV model the idea of a web browser as the way to navigate that endless supply of channels. At least there is usually YouTube which is serving as a blessing in otherwise dark time. We have subscriptions to a number of interesting alternate TV networks but our TV is not smart enough to go there twice in a row. Right now our TV is like a big bright tunnel and that seems so wrong. Why is it bright Why is there a tunnel? Why can’t we just get to I don’t know Disney or Brit Box when we want. We are nice people it is a TV that has twisted sense of spirit.