Joan on the Road...of Life

After reading daughter Renee's blog yesterday I started thinking about music in my life. In fact I dreamed about it! I couldn't have lived without music. I'll bet my kids and Grands feel the same :)

Music for me started as a baby with my Mom bouncing me on her knee singing "Pony Boy", a tradition carried on to baby Evan (my Great Grandson). My Mom and her sisters and brothers had great voices....and this in the time of country music. I grew up listening to Lefty Frizzel, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash on WJJD out of Chicago. But I was so lucky to have aunts and uncles who played guitar and sang. Many wonderful family circles of music in my life.

Music leads to dancing and my parents opened our home to my friends who came on Thursday evenings to sing, dance and gather around the old player piano. My friend Lynn and I still belt out those old music roll songs like "Artists' Life" and "Bimini Bay". My Dad had the idea to make the player piano more user friendly so he hooked up the vacuum cleaner to draw the air and we didn't have to peddle. It worked but of course we couldn't hear the music!

I took piano lessons for eight years and played the organ in church. People said I played pretty well but I really had to work at it. I owned a Yamaha piano, an electric organ and a Roland Keyboard. They are all gone now. Playing never came easy to me well...except for the time I learned to play "Twittering of the Birds" by watching the keys as the player piano played the song. (This was a favorite of the family,..8 pages of waltzing trills).

I loved to sing harmony, still do, but it sounds better in my head than coming out of my mouth. I've sung with friends and family at weddings, parties and showers. My girls and I were pretty good!

Somewhere along the line listening to music took over. Part of my falling in love with Jim was knowing that we shared a love of similar music. We can go back in time just by listening to our favorites as we do on DJ nights. Remember when..."Kansas City", "Lady in Red", "I Will Always Love You"....and on and on.

I must admit that I'm probably stuck in music of the 70's and 80's. Maybe I need to expand my listening habits for a new lease on life...or maybe not. As Jeff Bridges sings in "Crazy Heart"..."I've been high, I've been low, I've been people that I don't know".....and music has always been there with me.

Posted by Joan at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few weeks ago our Mr. Coffee Programmable Thermal coffee pot bit the dust…well actually the pour spout button stuck. It was probably gunked up after 6 years.

Jim’s first thought is Amazon…no tax, no shipping. After much research to find a 10 cup thermal pot we ordered a new Mr. Coffee. We excitedly opened the box only to find they’d sent the wrong/older model. Ooops! But, OK, we’ll try it out and maybe just request a discount for getting an older model.

After a couple of mornings we agreed that the pour spout on the new pot didn’t work right. We requested and received approval to return for exchange. We complained about the wrong model and the spout.

Three days later we excitedly opened the next box…damn! The same older model! By now we are a little Pod so we went to Bed, Bath, Beyond and with a 20% discount coupon we got a Cuisinart 10 cup thermal pot. Works like a charm and has no funky pour spout button to get screwed up. It has NO button…just pour. We’re happy….

Except now Amazon says no return, no exchange, no refund! Now what? The automatic return system said we’d gone too far, done too much, no recourse. This is when you get on Amazon chat with a live representative who actually resolves problems. We got return approval.

If you live in a sticks and bricks home you probably don’t have the size limitations that we do. When we buy most anything we have to consider how big it is, where will it fit, how will we store it. Lucky for us Cuisinart fit the bill. We are again happily enjoying our morning coffee.

Posted by Joan at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)