Friday, August 27, 2010

Full Moon Week Friday Random Ten

I'm not a big believer in the whole thing about craziness during full moon-- statistics have shown that there are no more births, arrests, etc. on the average when there's a full moon than other weeks. However, I've been tempted to attribute the general craziness of this week to the full moon.

As I've mention, we lost two young family members this week, my son's cousin Jason and my wife's cousin Peyton. Today, I got an email from my mother that one of her beloved Tibetan terriers, Sophie, died after a two month fight with thyroid cancer.

On top of this, we're waiting for news of my wife's Uncle Paulie, who is a delightful guy. His body has stopped producing blood cells and the doctors have run out of tricks. And I'm waiting to hear from my friend Julie, whose husband has inoperable cancer in his salivary glands, tongue and throat; though he quit smoking over twenty years ago, it's apparently caught up to him. Julie was the person who got me my interview for my teaching job in Cicero back in 2002, and might possibly be the nicest person I've ever known.

The icing on the crazy cake was on Wednesday, when a regular who's always been pretty odd, erupted screaming at me when he felt his meal had taken too long. After he called me "the worst waiter ever," "an awful person" and "despicable" (as his wife cringed, mortified), my boss finally had to throw him out.

I guess the amusing thing about it all is that I started my nursing clinicals yesterday-- at one of the biggest long-term mental health care facilities in the state of Illinois.

Tonight, we're having our good friend Robin, and looking forward to the end of this week.


1. Sweet Seasons- Carole King
2. Victim of Love- The Eagles
3. Sweet Thing- Van Morrison
4. I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You- Alan Parsons Project
5. Dancing Machine- The Jackson 5
6. Pretty Ballerina- The Left Banke
7. John, I'm Only Dancing- David Bowie
8. Morning Girl - Neon Philharmonic
9. Don't All The Girls Get Prettier At Closing Time- Mickey Gilley
10. Don't Fence Me In- Willie Nelson and Leon Russell


Notes:
1. Thought to d/l this old favorite while reading "Girls Like Us," which was about Ms. King, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell.
2. Hotel California was one of the first albums I ever bought.
3. From the great "Astral Weeks" album. The Waterboys did a nice cover of this one on "Fisherman's Blues."
4. Alan Parsons was a recording engineer who recorded some great albums, including Pink Floyd's masterpiece "Dark Side of the Moon." Most of his hits were in the eighties; this was from the late seventies.
5. Hard to remember in all the craziness of Michael Jackson's life that he was an immensely talented musician.
6. The Left Banke were one-hit-wonders with their love "Walk Away Renee," but this was a beauty too.
7. Bowie shares a birthday with Elvis Presley
8. A psychedelic one-hit-wonder from 1969
9. A country hit from the late seventies.
10. Cole Porter, as interpreted by Willie and Leon

6 comments:

SkylersDad said...

Sorry life has been handing you a lot of crap lately! And #1 has to be one of the most recognizable covers ever.

Johnny Yen said...

SD-
I take the bad with the good. I'm glad that I'm in nursing school and doing well in it, I'm happy for my family, and appreciate the great friends I have-- present company included!

Erik Donald France said...

Man, sorry to hear about your losses. Good luck! The dude who went off sounds like an Alzheimer meets Tourette's hybrid. Sorry you had to experience the harangue.

Johnny Yen said...

Thanks Erik. It was probably bipolar disorder. Recognizing that-- and wanting to keep my job-- kept me from decking the guy.

Churlita said...

I'm sorry things have been so rough for you guys. I hope that means next month will be that much better.

Johnny Yen said...

Churlita-
Thanks-- we actually just got news that Uncle Paulie passed away, though it was news we expected.

I think that if anything, it's made us count our blessings. We've got two healthy, wonderful kids, we've both got jobs, we've got a roof over our heads and I'm less than a year away from finishing nursing school.