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U2: All That You Can’t Leave Behind
I’ve been a U2 fan since I was a teenager and bought my first album in 1985, Unforgettable Fire. I’ve bought many of their subsequent albums over the years. So how to explain why it’s this album from 2000 that I’m including?
I know the obvious album for most of us is The Joshua Tree and I really love that album. The Unforgettable Fire is probably my second choice, being my first U2 album. Both have some amazing songs on them and I have listened to them both repeatedly over the years. In fact, I revisited both while making decisions on which album to list here. In the end, I decided it was as much about my attachments to the music as to the influence. Anyway, you can still be shaped by the same artist at any time and on any work. All That You Can’t Leave Behind was where my mind went almost every time I considered it and so here I am.
I will say again I’ve been a fan since my teenage years, most specifically high school (again!). The album War was out and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Years Day” particularly were part of the background of my senior year of high school. The Unforgettable Fire became that bridging album from them bursting into the mainstream arena to becoming superstars as they did with The Joshua Tree. They were one of the biggest bands in the world and Bono’s head was swollen to a great size by then. :D The next couple of albums came and went and then there was Pop. I applaud them for shaking things up but that album didn’t work for me even though there are one or two songs I like on it. They’d already made a lot of albums so I thought maybe this was the beginning of the end.
But along comes the year 2000 and U2 were back with a new album and a return to rock. It wasn’t quite the same as earlier U2 but instead was a modern take on the band of old. Near the end of the year, they released the first single off the album, “Beautiful Day” and for me it was a like a renewal of my love of the band. The song is about finding joy in the life, even when everything seems to be against you. It’s one of those positive songs that just makes you feel good when you hear it and here in Australia was hugely popular.
Fast forward to the middle of 2001 and our family found ourselves flying across the world to live in Canada for six months. We arrived in early July to a very foggy Dartmouth, Nova Scotia (across the harbour from Halifax) and we couldn’t see much of anything until the following day when the clouds cleared away. There were a few snafus along the way but we were soon settled in for the long haul, which turned out to be nearly a year instead of the six months. It was here that I finally got a copy of the album for myself.
The next song of interest is “Elevation”. I can’t go into the specifics in public but this song is a sentimental favorite and the association I have with it will always come back to me when I hear it. The song itself comes off big and loud and strong but somehow it comes together to make an enjoyable song. It’s a song made for being played in arenas, at least as far as I’ve seen on dvds of concerts. Alas, I’ve yet to see this band play live so totally testing it out perhaps isn’t in the cards for me.
Dartmouth was where we were when the events of September 11, 2001 unfolded and it was a strange time indeed. Game Fanatic was in school that day and I was home snuggling with Lego Lover in bed when children’s programs on CBC were interrupted with the news of the New York attack. I remember planes disappearing from the skies almost immediately and how quiet it was. Stranded airline passengers were put up in the high school across the road from the elementary school. We had the news on all the time for days and weeks on end. It was a chaotic and horrific time.
This brings me to the song “Peace on Earth”, whose lyrics were inspired by the 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland. It’s a sad song and it’s an angry and fed up song and it took on more significance after the attacks that occurred in 2001. One of the best songs on the album, in my opinion.
“In a Little While” is a sweet little love song to Bono’s wife. His voice isn’t the best in it but it kind of works anyway.
“New York” is essentially an ode to the city and was another song from the album that took on more meaning after the events of September 11, 2001. Even though I’ve not been there, it does seem to capture some of the essence of the city as have understood it from afar.
I had a bit of a surprise when I listened again before writing this. Apparently here in Australia there was a bonus track called “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” that appears at the end of the album and I never heard it before now. It’s an interesting song and the lyrics were adapted from something in a Salman Rushdie book. But it feels a bit alien to hear when I’ve only listened to the version I had from Canada. I always thought the last song was “Grace”, another song that is really beautiful and moving. As an ending that song works well. I’m not too sure how I feel about this other song’s intrusion on my connections since it messes around with the order of things in my mind and it doesn’t quite fit for me.
This album is so intrinsically intertwined with this period of my life that I imagine that none of the other U2 albums will ever quite compete. That’s saying a lot considering The Joshua Tree came out the year I finished college and embarked on my journey into the real world for the first time. And in times like we are in now, I think songs like “Beautiful Day” are really needed to help us find our way through.
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The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Although I think I’d been hearing the occasional Beatles song all my life, I didn’t focus much on them when I was younger. I do remember that Ob-la-di, ob-la-da” was the first song I remember hearing and “Hello, Goodbye” not far behind it. I’m sure these were songs getting regular play back in the early ’70s so I would hear them a lot on the radio. My parents had the album Meet the Beatles, which in my memory was just the vinyl record because “somebody” had destroyed the album cover. I’m not admitting to anything but I’m pretty sure there are some fingers pointing my way from the parents. If there is any guilt on my part, it’s long before my recollections began. I do remember listening to the record sometimes while growing up so I did kind of know those songs.
I don’t know exactly what got me started into Beatles fandom but my interest was piqued in 1977 when Capitol Records put out The Beatles: Love Songs compilation. It was packaged with a brown pseudo-leather cover embossed with a gold image of the band and it comprised of two discs. There was a large-sized booklet inside included with the lyrics to the songs printed on “parchment paper” using calligraphy. It was very pretty stuff and I think I still have it in that box filled with vinyl records hidden at the back of the closet. I remember it being said at the time that all Beatles songs were love songs which surely must have been part of the marketing of that album since it wasn’t true. I bought this album and I listened to it often and this was what got me interested in the band. But I could never use that compilation as my influential album. It would just be so wrong.
So instead I look to an album that I found in a roundabout way, thanks to the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, who starred in that great classic movie “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. :D It’s embarrassing now but I saw that movie and really liked it. I think I was interested because of the Bee Gees and also partly due to my beginning interest in the Beatles. I even went on to buy the soundtrack album. I haven’t seen the film in decades but I daresay I would cringe to watch it today. But to early teenaged me, it was good fun.
So there I was listening to the Bee Gees sing their versions of Beatles songs and enjoying them for what they were. But somewhere along the way I felt compelled to find out about the original and this led me to buying my first real Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I’m a Beatles fan and I love this album although I wouldn’t call it my favorite. That honor varies according to mood, day, weather, etc. :D But again I do love this album a lot and as I grew older I grew to appreciate this a lot more. Even today as I listened again, I discovered new things. It didn’t take terribly long once I listened to this to relegate that pale imitation to distant memory.
So how to choose just a few songs to highlight? I think it’s possible I could write about just about every song but I will try to narrow it down.
The title song includes about ten seconds of the combined sounds of an orchestra warming up along with the crowd anticipating the start of a concert. The song is a combination of modern day rock band with electric instrumentation and a horn section reminiscent of the old brass bands playing outdoor shows, all creating the iconic opening. It ends with McCartney as emcee announcing the singer, Billy Shears, before segueing into our next track.
“With a Little Help from my Friends” is sung by Ringo Starr, something of a rarity on their records. It works for this song due to the sincerity and earnestness of his voice. The song lends itself to sing-alongs while listening to it on the radio, particularly with the question and answer dialogue occurring through the song. I know the Joe Cocker version became much bigger than this album track but there’s a simplicity to the way this is sung that really appeals to me. Really, both versions have their merits but I know this one is very much overshadowed by the Cocker version.
I heard the version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by Elton John long before I heard this version. It was released in 1974 and Lennon even plays on that version under a pseudonym. I liked that version but it doesn’t compare to the original with Lennon’s vocals. This song is a trip through psychedelia and includes Lewis Carroll Wonderland-type imagery. That said, the idea this is a song about lsd has been refuted many times and Lennon said the title was inspired by his four-year old son’s drawing.
“She’s Leaving Home” is a beautiful, lush piece about a daughter leaving home, reaching her way to freedom from the tyranny of her parents. It’s a very touching piece and you can feel for parents and daughter both. The music features a nonet of stringed instruments and a harp and no guitar or drums.
Moving to side two, we begin with “Within You, Without You” a lush piece written by George Harrison. It’s composition is inspired by Hindustani classical music and it was recorded using Indian musicians rather than the band. This is yet another walk in the realm of psychedelia, albeit a totally different sound to Lucy in the Sky.
Just before the final song we get a reprise of the title song. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise” is a shorter and more rocking version that loses the horn section altogether and leads into the monumental finale.
“A Day in the Life” is the finale to this album and what a smash it is. It’s primarily a Lennon composition but McCartney wrote the upbeat middle section. It starts off with the mundanity of reading the newspaper and then moves into a session of psychedelia that leads into an almost surreal pop section by McCartney which shifts into a dream before crashing down on the final chord, which reverberates at length before moving to the end bit with a fair bit of background sounds from the studio and some gibberish words being repeated. It’s a fantastic piece of music as a whole and possibly the best song on the album, at least in my opinion.
One last thought on this album is the iconic cover. I tend to picture the cover when I hear songs from the record, particularly the title track. I remember when I bought this album it was neat to look at the cover and see how many people I recognized. There were quite a few I knew but just as many I didn’t at the time. I haven’t examined it so closely in recent years so I wonder how many would be familiar now? Also cool was the fact they printed the lyrics on the back cover, which apparently was the first time it had been done on a rock album before.
So that is my entry into fandom of the Beatles. If I hadn’t gotten there the way I did, I presume it might have happened another way. So it’s worth having gone through some dross to get to the treasure in the end.
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Zero cases
I thought I would post that there have been no new cases of Covid-19 in Western Australia today. Yesterday there was only one. Three states in Australia record none over the weekend. Talk about flattening the curve. I just don’t want people to become complacent and start increasing interaction too early. There haven’t been any lifting of bans as yet and I suspect there won’t be any changes for a few weeks still.
Also good news is I went to the shops today and discovered toilet paper on the shelf, much like it was before the crisis. This was in both supermarkets in the shopping center so I don’t think it’s a fluke. I think people the rush to buy has finally passed and now people are back to buying as needed. Well, at least I hope this is the case.
In our family we’ve started watching new seasons of two reality series. The first was Masterchef which started last week and featured Gordon Ramsay all week. He seemed to love being there and was really a good mentor for the contestants. In this season all of them are former contestants who didn’t win from about eleven seasons, I think. The judges have changed for the first time and it seems to be working fine so far. It’s got to be one of the better reality shows out there. Even if they seem to bring contestants to tears on a regular basis. The other show is Lego Masters and that started last night and was excellent and it seems they are all quite likeable. I like this show for the Lego content but also because they seem to like to skewer reality shows on a regular basis.
I’ve been hard at work trying to do my album commentaries and have now finished four. The Scientist did his own version on Facebook and just finished yesterday. He wants me to share my posts there so I will start posting tonight with a few edits along the way. I’m still not sure what all the albums will be but I have settled on all but two of the artists now and the albums are mostly whittled down to a couple. I’m kind of going with the theme that these were albums associated with periods of time or events in my life so it’s not exactly favorites and it’s not exactly just influences. Anyway, I will have to write an introduction to my version and post the first album tonight. I think the good thing about posting here first is I can read them over a few extra times to make sure they make sense.
My exercise has been a bit more sporadic the past few days. I did do a long bike ride a few days ago that went pretty well. I normally ride to a further point but decided to stop after forty-five minutes and that seemed to work well. I’m glad I did because the last few kilometers tend to have a lot of hills to climb on the way back and I find I am done in by the time I get to the turn around point for my shorter rides. Yesterday I did an 8 kilometer walk in Whiteman Park near us and was fine until the last few steps to reach my car. That’s when I twisted my knee and bit and slightly injured some muscle or tendon or something. It’s nothing serious but I found it kind of funny that I lasted all those kms and was taking it easy those last steps and that’s when something happens. Today I didn’t go out as there were sporadic showers and I didn’t feel like getting stuck in it. I plan to use the spin bike at home and do at least 45 minutes and possibly up to an hour later on. I’m hoping to go out tomorrow and do a proper ride again.
The Scientist made an origami heart with an arrow through it a few days ago and it was lovely. Unfortunately I’d left it on our coffee table and for some reason one of our dogs got hold of it and chewed it up. Not sure what caused the dog to do that as they don’t tend to remove that sort of thing from the table. The Scientist did a new one for me this afternoon in purple and I’m keeping that in a much safer place.
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The Police: Synchronicity
I first heard the band as a teenager. I’m not sure which songs were the first on local radio playlists but I know the first album I bought by them was Ghost in the Machine mostly because I really liked “Everything She Does is Magic” when it came out. I think I probably bought that from Grapevine records and tapes in Charlotte where I bought most of my music during my teenage years. I wasn’t a die-hard fan but I really liked the band. I think I eventually owned four of their five albums. For some reason I never bought the first one, which included Roxanne, one of the best songs. One of the albums disappeared “mysteriously” at one point so I only had three in the end. Actually these days I don’t think I have any of them as they were all vinyl and I got rid of most of those when I came to Australia. It’s on my to-buy list to replace some of those with cd versions.
I graduated high school on June 3rd, 1983. A few days later I boarded a plane for Europe for my high school graduation present. I spent about five weeks there, visiting pen pals in France, Germany and the UK. It was in the middle of this trip that Synchronicity was released but I will admit that it doesn’t form a part of my European memories. It was after I returned home in July and during those weeks before I started college that I mostly remember it becoming a part of my summer. But mostly I remember this from my early days as a college student.
There are a few songs that often remind me of those hot August days when I moved into the dorm. I remember having to clean the blinds and standing on the window sill to reach the top. They were pretty tall windows so there was a lot to clean. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler was on the radio along with “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by the Eurythmics and “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. This was the era of watching Friday Night Videos on the dorm television. I remember the black and white video of the band playing this song with Sting playing an upright bass.
“Every Breath You Take” is essentially a ballad and I love the song but it’s not exactly the comforting love song it sounds like at first. I mean, really, it’s rather dark and sinister when you think about it. Even Sting admits it’s not a gentle love song but thoughts of an obsessed person on the one “loved”.
“Wrapped Around Your Finger” is another classic ballad that wasn’t quite the love song it sounds like at first. The mythological references of this song are the highlights for me.
“Synchronicity II” (yes, there is a Synchronicity I to start the album) is a pop-new wave song that speaks of some of the domesticities of life as they become too much. The music does well to reflect the impending crisis one reaches, building and building till ready to burst.
“King of Pain” is a somewhat reflective song for Sting, about his feelings after separating from his first wife. Like so many of his songs, it’s filled with metaphor and the music is a sort of slow and reflective song.
“Walking in Your Footsteps” is a strongly percussive ode to the dinosaur while “Miss Gradenko” is a catchy tune about forbidden love in a military regime written by Stewart Copeland. Then there’s “Murder by Numbers”, a jazzy number about the evil deeds of politicians. There are a lot of good songs on this album and it’s great to sit back and listen with earphones.
This brings me back again to early 1984 and going to see the band on the tour for this album in February. I went with a friend and her boyfriend at the time and it was a great show. In hindsight, I think I was lucky to have been able to go as the flu had rapidly spread through the dorm and I was one of the few who hadn’t got it at that time. Alas, I did finally succumb to the illness after this show. It was my first time having the flu so I guess I had a good run before then.
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Duran Duran: Rio
I’ll be honest and admit I don’t remember when I first heard Duran Duran’s music. I’m guessing it was near the end of high school but at the time it didn’t make a solid impression in the way it later did. I do recall that I first heard the Culture Club song “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” on BBC’s World Service radio, probably my junior or senior year of high school. I thought it was a woman singing at the time I heard it first. Boy was I in for a surprise when I finally saw the video months or maybe even a year or so later. :D
Duran Duran was part of the movement referred to as new romantics, a sort of off-shoot of new wave and featured mostly pop songs, many lending themselves towards dance mixes. Kind of funny since I was not much of a dance person and felt pretty self-conscious dancing in public, something that hasn’t changed much.
Rio isn’t the first album released by Duran Duran but I think it was the first to get much traction in the US and the one that came to my notice first. I suspect this may have had as much to do with their video releases as the music at the time. I think this was near the beginning of video as an art form and this band took advantage. The band did a video version of the album although I don’t remember ever seeing it. I’m going to include links to the videos on this one since they form an essential part of my fandom.
The first song that caught my interest was “Hungry Like the Wolf” and the video almost always comes to mind when I hear the song. I later came to know the video was filmed in Sri Lanka, birthplace of the Scientist. I didn’t know him then but I was able to make that association with the video later on. The video is done in a sort of Indiana Jones theme and features members of the band searching for Simon LeBon (lead singer) while Simon LeBon was hunting an exotic, tiger-like woman through the jungle. It’s very much a dance song and I recall there were quite a few different mixes available for purchase back in the day.
Rio was the second song I remember and I also associate this to some extent with its video. There’s a yacht with the band members dressed in suits and there are lots of beautiful women, some painted in bright colors, presumably referencing carnivale? The song is about Rio, a beautiful woman with a smile too difficult to resist.
Save a Prayer was Duran Duran’s first ballad of sorts. It features a strong electronic presence and the persuasive voice of Simon LeBon. I think even this song had some alternate mixes, I guess for the extended slow dance? The video is another I saw quite a lot back in the day. It was also filmed in Sri Lanka and is very much worth a look for the beautiful scenery of the country as much as the “story” of the song.
The Chauffeur is the last song on the album and it’s a song I could listen to repeatedly, given the right mood. Apparently the lyrics to this song were written by Simon LeBon as a poem many years before he joined the band and supposedly were a key to him being hired as the singer. It’s a slow number that feels a bit dark and haunted at times. I’m not sure if there’s a definite meaning to the song but I’ve found some amusement reading various interpretations online while looking up information. I should advise the video for this has a bit of nudity near the end but it’s kind of an artsy sort of video. Nothing at all like the band’s famous Girls on Film video from their first album which has a totally different feel.
Writing about this really takes me back to my first year at college when I started buying a lot more music, thanks to the Record Exchange on Tate St. Back when vinyl was still mostly king if you wanted to seriously listen to music. Early in 1984, I found myself camping out for concert tickets on a bitterly cold night. I was with two friends and another girl who I only knew briefly due to that experience. It was the only time I’ve ever camped out for tickets and it’s a fond memory. It can be fond now when I am sitting in my warm house but it really was cold that night. Our tickets weren’t too shabby and one of my friends even caught a bunny rabbit that had been thrown on stage, picked up by a band member and then thrown back out into the audience. He gave that to me and I still have it all these years later. I only saw them once but I still enjoy their music and this is an album I revisit every once in a while. The Scientist even gave me a dvd of one of their concerts, which was a big thing seeing that he is definitely NOT a fan. :D
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Billy Joel: Glass Houses
I was going to start by saying it was another vacation in Pennsylvania but I might be wrong on that, seeing this was released in March 1980. It happens that we were in Pennsylvania a bit early that year as my grandfather had died and we’d gone for the funeral. It was early June and my brothers and I missed out on the last few days of school for the year.
Some time during that visit I had a sleepover with my cousin, who was three years older than me. The next day, we went with my aunt to “town” which was Clarion and we stopped at Jamesway, the only discount department store in the town. Well, as far as I know it was since I didn’t live there and didn’t know all the places very well.
Anyway, for some reason, we were there so I could choose a belated birthday gift. I’m not really sure what this was innate of because my aunt and uncle (who were my godparents) weren’t in the habit of doing birthday gifts for me before or after that year. I guess it counts as a notable gift in that way.
So there we were in the music department and I made the choice of Glass Houses by Billy Joel. I don’t know if there were any other contenders for my choice but I think I was pretty keen on this record due to the radio play it was getting at the time.
That was the first Billy Joel album I owned so it holds a special place in my heart even if it’s not anywhere near the best of his albums. It’s kind of weird to think the album is now forty years old. How did that happen? It doesn’t seem so long ago and yet, it was another lifetime ago.
I think the opening song, “You May Be Right”, is the one that I most identify with this record. That breaking of glass at the beginning of the song always alerts me to the memory of getting the album and the great, catchy song that would follow.
I adore the lovely, Latin sound of “Don’t Ask Me Why”. Without paying too much attention to lyrics, it’s rather a soothing listen late at night when you’re nearly asleep. That is, unless the excitement of hearing it wakes you up.
“Still Rock and Roll” is maybe the best known of the songs on this album and it still stands up well forty years later. It’s a catchy look at a rock and roller’s fame in decline due to the changing attitude of the public.
There were quite a few songs I’d forgotten from this album since I hadn’t listened in quite a long time. The most notable is “C’etait Toi (You Were the One)” another smooth ballad with some verses in French. Maybe it spoke to the French student in me but I really loved this then and it still works for me now. I would add the final song, “Through the Long Night” which is another almost lullaby for me. Good stuff!
Again, this is definitely not my favorite Billy Joel album but it fills a place in my memories and has much nostalgia for those days when I was a teenager in junior high school. In fact, it was on the cusp of my high school experience so very much a period of transition and growing up just a bit more.
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Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
It was the summer of 1978 and our family was on our usual vacation to Pennsylvania, travelling from North Carolina where we lived. My mom’s younger sister had just graduated high school and she was getting married to her high school sweetheart. The reception was where my knowing of this album started.
The album was actually released over a year earlier but it was so popular that the radio was still playing a lot of music from this album over a year later. It was enough that by the time I was at that reception and hearing it yet again, I was kind of sick of it. I don’t know if songs were played more than once at the reception but it sure felt that way to me and that’s one of my strongest memories of that particular event.
My feelings toward this album mellowed just a bit over the next several years. I’m not really sure at what point I changed my mind but I know by the mid-80s I had begun to really enjoy this album. It was a few more years before I saw the band in concert the first time. This wasn’t with the classic line-up since Lindsey Buckingham had left the band by this time and Rick Vito and Billy Burnett had taken his place. I will be honest and say their parts in that performance haven’t really stayed with me over the years and didn’t come anywhere near a Lindsey Buckingham performance. Even so, I really did enjoy the concert and from that point I got into Fleetwood Mac in a much bigger way, buying their albums and also becoming a big Stevie Nicks fan too.
But this is really the album to start it all and these days I can appreciate it much more than the preteen I was in the summer of 1978. It was a tumultuous time for the band with two members divorcing each other, two breaking up a relationship and the other having his own relationship woes. As awful as it must have been for them, this work of art emerged and is for me what represents the band despite the fact the band has evolved again and again over the years.
The album includes some absolutely brilliant songs but one part of the record that appeals to me most is the harmonies of Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham. The song “The Chain” seems to be the best example of this and in some ways is the standout song for me. It’s an angry song that draws you in from the first notes and makes you a part of it. It became the first of many sing-alongs when we saw the band play last year.
“Songbird” is a song that didn’t really appeal to me when I was younger but I now hear it and I’m in awe of the beautiful way Christine plays and sings it. I also really like the hopefulness of “Don’t Stop” in amongst the anger and angst of many of the other songs. This one’s another one with great harmonies too.
“Dreams” is a song that is great to hear with the headphones on. It’s got a magical and mystical feel to it that I liked from early on, well before I paid any attention to the lyrics. Stevie’s voice on this is fragile and delicate and takes you to another place while you are listening.
Lastly I want to mention “Gold Dust Woman”, which is another Stevie classic I adore. Not so much the fragile voice here but a firm narrative of someone going through a rough time in life and using “gold dust” to deal with things. The performance of this song was an absolute highlight of the concert we saw last year. It was dark and scary and full of that mysticism that goes well with so many Stevie Nicks songs.
I can’t leave this without mention of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, the constants throughout the history of the band. They make a brilliant team and it’s their rhythm work that makes this album truly sparkle musically. With some great guitar work by Buckingham and keyboards by Christine McVie, it adds to an amazing team effort.
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Happy Easter
We had a low-key Easter this year. Well, most years are pretty low key. The night before, Lego Lover colored eggs. He is still staunchly loyal to this ritual. This year he was the only one who did the coloring but most years both the Scientist and I do one or two also. Then there is the egg hunt where Lego Lover searches the house for eggs. We used to do this outside before dogs but he refuses to do it outside now. I was terrible at hiding eggs this time and he found all six of mine easily. It took a bit longer to find those hidden by the Scientist.
The Scientist made this cake for us to eat after dinner. It was really yummy and was just finished off yesterday. All that was left were some of the chocolates from on top and nobody else wanted them. So I’d been eating a few at a time. Yesterday I just wanted it done so finished it and consequently ate too many chocolates. :)
Yummy! I had intended on going to Whiteman Park for exercise but the trails were all closed due to extreme heat so I opted to do my usual bike ride. We had record heat that day but it cooled right off on Monday and I did go to Whiteman Park that day.
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April-the start
I’ve managed to go ten days without posting anything, which was breaking up a good run of writing. Hopefully I can get going again.
At our house we are doing okay for the moment. The Scientist continues to work from home and is both lucky and unlucky that he and a coworker are still on full hours due to urgent need of their projects. My work has come to a bit of a halt. I am still supporting my client but we aren’t meeting face-to-face right now. I think we may start up some more minimal activity soon with one of us (support workers) meeting with him each week. I’m still getting paid but it’s not the ideal type of support right now. The boys are doing okay and life carries on fairly normally for them. Except that Lego Lover isn’t doing shopping with me at the moment.
Which leads me to the next thing, going out in public. I was really good over the past week and only went out once during the week to top up a couple of things. But Thursday I had to do the shopping and it was mentally and physically exhausting. Playing dodge-em in the shops was a crazy pursuit. I washed myself down well when I got home as I felt rather icky from being out in the world. I didn’t go to the pharmacy at all during the week, which was good. But I should have gone yesterday as Lego Lover needed a refill of one medication. Just I didn’t know it when I was out. Sigh…Today, the Scientist and I went to see about getting the refill but the pharmacy was closed. So tomorrow I will go back and get that taken care of. We also need eggs so that Lego Lover can do his traditional decorating and then we can do a egg hunt inside as normal. The regular stores were all out on Thursday and most stores were closed today. So tomorrow it will have to be done. Plus there’s a need to start hunting down toilet paper soon. We have about a week’s worth, I think, but in case of increased usage, I’d like to have a few rolls extra before then.
We’re coming into the middle of April and we’re having a heatwave right now. Three days of hot temperatures that are highly unusual for this time of year. Tomorrow is expected to exceed 37C where we are (100F) and then we go back to more normal temperatures. It’s weird because our summer was kind of mild after we had a particularly warm/hot spring. So when there were all the reports about Australia having record temperatures, it didn’t apply here most of that time. But we may well set an April temperature record tomorrow.
I’m keeping up my exercise for the most part. I’m alternating long and short bike rides with some combined bike rides/ walks at nearby Whiteman Park. It takes me close to 30 minutes to ride to a place where I can park my bike and then I walk for about an hour most of the time. There’s one trail that works well for that. My favorite walk goes quite a bit longer so I haven’t done that one much lately.
I’ve been adding to the challenge on my bike rides the past few times by trying to pedal while standing up while I go uphill. It does make for better riding but I need to keep at it a while to build up the muscle and slow down the racing heart a bit. Today I found it particularly tough at a couple points, but maybe that was related to the heat more than anything. I will point out that it was reasonably pleasant but quite dry outside so my main concern was hydration. I pushed through the first half of my trip without stopping and I had to stop for a few minutes to get my heart rate back to normal and to drink one of the bottles of water I’d taken. (I had three with me). I also have managed to start riding using the last set of gears and it’s working out pretty well. I am missing my swimming but that will just have to wait a while.
I’ve been playing my Animal Crossing game every day since it was released so far. This is the fourth incarnation I’ve played and it’s looking to be the best of the lot. I’m finding it amusing to see so many people are getting hooked on this game as though it’s a new thing when it’s been around in other forms for quite a long time. I’m still hoping there will eventually be a restock of the Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch. Thanks to the shortage, there are a lot of scalpers about, getting 3-4 times the true value of the machine. This is the only special edition console that has ever interested me and it figures it would be released at this particular time.
I finally got a message from the airline about a refund on my tickets. It seems they have put through refunds of the seat fees but it might be a while for the regular fare. So long as I know it’s coming, I’m okay with it. It’s weird to think next Tuesday is the day I was supposed to be travelling but now it’s going to be an ordinary day.
Which reminds me that our tai chi class is proceeding for the moment using the Zoom platform. It has some limitations but it’s been really good to handle our group so far. We should be able to catch up a couple classes that didn’t happen during the usual break time.
For me, the isolation isn’t too terrible at the moment. I’m still able to go out on my bike and to walk near home so I am not stuck inside all the time. But that suits my personality a bit more. I am mostly affected by limitations on going out to take care of usual stuff and having to think through ways of consolidating on trips. It’s not so easy for some though, like the Scientist, who has a much higher need for human contact than the rest in the this family. I do wonder how I will feel in a month when we start getting cooler weather and more rain that keeps me indoors a lot more.
Here in Western Australia, the numbers have been dropping recently so I think we are “flattening the curve” pretty well. Most of the recent cases seem to be related to cruise ship activity here, which is a frustrating situation which doesn’t seem to get improving a lot. I heard talk of a couple more ships coming here soon. I honestly don’t understand how so many ships carried on after this pandemic was declared. It’s been weeks now, and it hasn’t improved. I remember it was early March when the Queen Mary 2 was here and they cancelled all itineraries while here. The cruise ships aside, I guess the fact we are so isolated in the country really helps a lot.
Anyway, our weekend ahead is going to be a stay at home thing. Well I might go out to exercise tomorrow but otherwise will be home. Hopefully we can engage the family in some games of some sort over the next day or two. Or maybe some other activities.
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Some days
Today was one of those days where things didn’t go quite right. Actually it started yesterday when I went to the pharmacy to get a couple of prescriptions filled. Lego Lover alerted me to two he needed so I took them in to fill. As I was giving that to the pharmacist I suddenly thought I needed to get one of mine done too but then decided I still had one tray of tablets left (they are dispensed in punch out trays here).
Last night I found out that one of the prescriptions was the wrong one as it was for a lower dose of the medication. And I was wrong about my own one and it was totally finished.
So I went back today to try again and to sort out Lego Lover’s medications. It seems that the one that was the wrong dose wasn’t finished after all and he’d made a mistake because his last refill was only a couple of weeks ago. The it turned out they didn’t have my prescription on file. Well they had lots of others but not the one I needed. So it was essentially a wasted trip. I came home and tore apart all the places I could think where I might have left that prescription and couldn’t find it. But a while later it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my purse and that was exactly where it was. Along with Lego Lover’s new prescription at the higher dose.
I had driven there the first time but decided to get my exercise by riding my bike there which sort of worked out. It was kind of chilly by the time I got going and I was concerned I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. But by the time I got there I was feeling a bit warmer and the return trip wasn’t as bad since the wind was at my back.
I noticed there were a lot more people on the pathway today than yesterday. I think timing might have something to do with it as it was late afternoon when I went out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people out there. Well, the number of cyclists was fairly normal but there were lots of people walking so I had to do a bit of maneuvering around and avoiding oncoming traffic too. A bit too congested for me. Tomorrow I’m hoping to ride to Whiteman Park and walk on one of the trails for a change of pace. I’ve been out on my bike the past three days and Saturday was a long ride (2 hours). Besides I need my kangaroo fix. :)