gunsmoke blues (1971) & not cool, not cula

this is the coolest thing i've seen in a while. can't believe i never knew about it til now!! wow...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ATwmyuhmeY
earlier we drove down to denny's at the grapevine & ate. it was not as exciting as i'd thought it would be after months out of restaurants: clean & quiet. somber, even, the few diners spaced generously. the waitstaff wasn't quite as good as i'd thought they'd be with so few ppl to serve. but heck, most ppl still are weirded out, including servers, likely, so i left a good tip, regardless. i just learned a work colleague friend's family member died last week of covid19. :( it's sure not hit our county like the eastern cities or (to much lesser extent) LA, but ppl are dying. it's not over. i will cautiously respect "reopening efforts," but also will continue to be careful & respectful of others' space, & if they don't respect mine, i can't give them a piledriver like james maybe would, but i can wear my mask & turn away.
so we came home & ended up watching a short interview w/"the last beegee," barry gibb, which isn't something i'd think i'd watch, but i was caught off-guard. james & i are of the age when the beegees were the biggest thing, & that's embarrassed me in past, but we watched it, moved to see that barry gibb is gentle, sincere, & kind. all of his brothers have died. my god. his grief is real, touchingly expressed. it made me remember a few summers back on vacation w/family, driving w/sis & bro-in-law in a gigantic rentavan & james & i singing aloud to beegee songs with soaring hearts (& falsettos).
we didn't have elvis & little richard, like mom & dad had (my god! what THEY had!!! unprecedented, never to be equaled!), but this was our youth. childhood pleasures are innocent, & i was happy with family in van to share sappy music from a time before i knew what i was supposed to like & dislike... i don't have to be "so cool, i'm cula," to paraphrase the movie american me.
a lamb across the road yells often, such a sad, insistent bleat. he is going off right now, poor little guy or gal. and being home, i have seen more beautiful birds these past months than ever. they likely are migrating during day when in normal routine i would be in the classroom. these birds, so vibrantly white, blue, red, yellow, & more, always cheer us. the lizards, too: seen more of those than ever before, some looking over 6 inches long (james has named two of them leroy & larry), & lots of grasshoppers/maybe locusts... sitting on the couch after the barry gibb show, listening to the birds, we took some photos w/our newish tablet, james recovering from an eye injury, me from badly cut bangs.
 boy, we sure are lucky. still not pushing up daisies, enjoying this nice weather, nature, some time for music & contemplation. no complaints here, not ever, i hope.

the pain! the pain!

on a familiar trail nearby, we found an unfamiliar stream :D

have you ever cooked something so tasty, you couldn´t stop eating, even though it burned the roof of your mouth with each painful bite?
i am doing that now. and really enjoying it!!
picked up a neat cookbook from the dollar store -- all recipes use tinned fish. so the other night i cooked a tuna pasta recipe & it was a hit, in jamesś opinion. today i took the leftover sauce, rubbed it on halved french bread, added cheese, garlic, parsley, popped it in the oven on our new cast iron skillet on a film of olive oil. i thought it came out delicious!! james, not so much. i had described it as pizza, and his taste buds expected that.
more for me!
anyways, heś not suffering any. that guy could live on iced tea, chicken and ice cream.
i keep telling him that be a great song title, something in the louis jordan vein. i think iĺl write it right now!!

what are you reading? i am so excited: got in the mail running with sherman (chris mcdougall) & why we run (bernd heinrich). run run run! teach online school, run run run, online math class, play music, hang out with james, visit family, enjoy nature, enjoy pets, play my dumb little tablet game, clean, scavenge for & build stuff out of junk, too many zooms, but whoś complaining... that´d be insane!
this is life for now... may you be healthy!

grizzled & grateful: let's make some music :D

since "this" all started, we've seen a big increase in ppls hiking up the hill beside our house, other side of the arroyo. right now as i type, what's different is the guy heading up seems to be talking to himself, wearing too-tight jeans, yammering at somebody unseen.
so i conclude even crazy ppl are outdoors now. was he driven crazy by sheltering in place? maybe always crazy? don't know.
people are social distancing, but going outside more. and spring is here. glorious spring! i read today that generation Z, even, is going to get burned out on the screens by this. and maybe once this time of virus passes, ppl will stay in the great outdoors... even the soft-bellied young ones, who once they see the light of day, might revel in it, realizing how greater is the joy of stretching limbs in the presence of mother earth compared to tapping away at an uncaring mobile device.
as for us, we is happy. grizzled & grateful, as you can see here. unshaven, gray haired, kinda grubby from yardwork & being homebodies, but what a great time lately has been! mom & dad traveled here today to see the wildflowers, so we headed out 138 toward the mohave. james knows every turn in the road now, w/his frequent travels to that area these days. there was some kinda super bloom in session, wide carpets of gold blossoms exploding for miles, and yellows & purples, too, less dramatic, just as  lovely. then we headed down 3 pts road, exclaiming over and over and over, how beautiful! how pretty! wow! how nice! nature everyplace. nature doesn't care a toenail about shelter in place. we got out many times to look at vistas, flowers, rocks, streams (we spied one the other day, too, a surprise shushing down a canyon we have hiked, wiping out part of the trail, but what a delight to find!) then it was back home to give puppy girl her eye meds (she is so good & compliant about it all) & eat cookies & taco bell & strawberries; what a nice time.
yesterday here at the house we played music for long hours, such a welcome. haven't done that for a long time. then he tells me a friend of his for decades (of course! james has more friends than i can count!) said some time back he wanted to record a james & jenny CD. whoopee! why not? teaching school remotely is extra-busy business, but music? life without music is no life, to paraphrase vonnegut. let's make a record!