02022020

Palindromes fascinate me, even palindromic dates.

Here’s a video about what made yesterday (missed it by that much!) not only unusual, but unique in the Gregorian dating system.

Music! Laughs! Bad Hair!

And, more fun perhaps, here’s Weird Al’s take on one of the best music videos ever created, Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues. You’ll see why it’s in today’s post.

Al

Bob

Here’s some 02022020 art I made.

A Month into Winter

Not that the Phoenix valley has much of a winter, but this year was more wintery than the past two; December’s highest temp was 73ยบ but the previous two years it was in the low 80s.

For the first time in 15 years, I’m not knee-deep in songwriting. I’ve participated in February Album-Writing Month since 2006, some years writing as many as 32 songs in a single month. I want to write at least one to celebrate my 15th FAWM, but I’m having a hard time dredging up the feeling.

I’m also 6 months or so behind on delivering the third Jake Calcutta story. And don’t get me started on the third Irish Adventure; poor Web Martin ended his second adventure on a low note and I’ve been meaning for years to lift his spirits with another chapter in his life.

The family band used to practice music 5 days a week. We’ve been up in the music room twice in five months. I’ve barely strummed my brand new 3/4-size Orangewood guitar. It’s beautiful, easy to play, great-sounding, and parked beside my desk. But, parked. In the same stand as my Blueridge tenor, the most wonderful musical instrument I’ve ever owned.

Moving my mother into assisted living absolutely trashed me physically and emotionally. Getting herself evicted in under 90 days because she’s so uncooperative was a gut-kick to Best Beloved and I after all the time, energy, and money we spent making it happen.

I usually ignore my age; I don’t celebrate birthdays, and the only reason I know my age most of the time is that it ends with the same number as the year. I haven’t been conscious of anything special about turning 60 the end of last month, but I have been feeling old, slow, a bit bleak.

2020

me, on a boat, on a lake, in Wisconsin, in the fall [smiling at Best Beloved as she takes my picture]
I am so old that I remember how odd it was to write 1970 on my school papers instead of 1969.

Half a century ago.

The previous summer I had watched, live, as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.

Even earlier: one of my earliest memories was everyone crying about something on the radio. It was November 22, 1963.

When I was born, Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower was President of the United States. There have been 11 more since then.

My maternal grandfather was born in a tiny village outside (then) Berlin (the village itself was absorbed by the city long ago.) That was in 1880, 140 years ago.

In 1630 or thereabouts, three brothers named Canfield were well-known businessmen in New Haven Connecticut.

In 1066 a chap with the last name Campfield (he was Belgian so I don’t know where that spelling came from) crossed over from Europe with William the (Soon to Be) Conqueror.

This history lesson (?) brought to you by the numbers “2” and “0” and the letters j, d, and c.


I promise not to make an issue of it, but the new decade doesn’t start until 2021. Decades start with 1, end with 10, rather than starting with 0, ending with 9.