Elizabeth Gonzalez Is Back!

Some of you may remember blogger Elizabeth Gonzalez (also AKA Layla), who used to have the site called The Hill Chronicles.

After an extended absence from the blogosphere, her "mojo back" (her words to me in a text), Elizabeth has returned to the blogosphere! You will find her at Politics Rewritten.

2020 Christmas Letter

(Light blogging alert! Comment moderation will be intermittently enabled. And for politics, please scroll down) 

Dear Blogosphere Friends, 

2020 – the Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. I never thought I’d see the day that Americans were running around in masks! Some are even masked while driving alone in their cars – pure hysteria, in my view. Taking precautions is one thing, hysteria another. One of our precautions has been to postpone our planned moved to Indiana. Both Mr. AOW and I are quite high-risk for this virus. So, here we still sit in Northern Virginia and paying these outrageous real-estate taxes. Thanks, China. **heavy sarcasm** 

 This has been a sorrowful year for us. Our dear friend Patricia (aka blogger “The Merry Widow”), who helped us so much when I had kidney and other health troubles in 2016-2017 and who was also helping us with The Big Clean Out for our anticipated move to Indiana, died suddenly in Florida on March 29. What a terrible loss! Each of us an only child, Patricia and I considered ourselves sisters. She was planning to move with us to Indiana, too. We miss Patricia so much and on so many levels. 

This year, Mr. AOW and I have been having some health troubles – not a surprise for our age group (71 and 68, respectively). As of this writing, he is in Stage 4 Kidney Failure, and the doctors believe that the cause is long-standing diabetes and hypertension. My kidneys have been “acting up,” too; the treatment plan, if any, has not yet been determined. We’re doing our best to slog on. What other choice is do we have? Not much! 

Our other big personal news of 2020 is that we got a dog on September 3! Callie is an unruly three-year-old hound and Lab (and whatever else) mutt with poor training on nearly every imaginable scale – and nearly-total deafness, which her owner didn’t recognize before this mutt came to live with us. Her bloodlines and issues aside, Callie is adorable and has brought a lot of joy into our shut-in lives! I’m sure that our kitties Amber and Minxy don’t feel the same, though; they have had to cede to this canine brat quite a bit of in-house territory. 

The happiest time for us in 2020, annus horribilis, Governor Northam’s COVID measures permitting, will be another visit from our dear friend and this blog's webmaster Warren. He plans to spend the holidays with us. A wonderful time it will be – even if doing the tourist thing is well nigh impossible with regard to the usual Washington attractions: the Smithsonian and other D.C. and Virginia tourist sites are either closed or have impossibly limited hours during this pandermic. Nevertheless, the Winter Walk of Lights at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia, is still, as of this writing, offering their usual dazzling displays; Warren and I hope to take in that beautiful sight. CHECK OUT THESE PHOTOS!  GLORIOUS! During the rest of Warren’s visit, all of us will be enjoying each other’s company. A wonderful gift in and of itself, especially during this time of lockdowns and isolated existence! 

Celebrating this Blessed Season and Merry Christmas to all who stop by here, 

Always On Watch 

Please enjoy my favorite choral Christmas song (composed by Richard Wayne Dirksen, 1921-2003, organist and choirmaster at Washington National Cathedral, and an important force in choral music here in the Washington, D.C. area):

The words for the above:

Welcome all wonders in one sight! 

Eternity shut in a span. 

Summer in winter, day in night, heaven in earth, and God in man, 

That He, the old Eternal Word, should be a Child and weep. 

Each of us his lamb will bring, each his pair of silver doves, 

Till burnt at last in fire of thy fair eyes, ourselves become our own best sacrifice. 

Welcome all wonders in one sight!

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down) 

Enjoy Frédéric Chopin's Waltz in C# Minor, performed by blogger and pianist extraordinaire FreeThinke/Franco Aragosta (April 11, 1941-October 7, 2020).  All the more amazing because Roger had to memorize every note, which he could barely read on paper: he was almost completely blind by the age of 77.

 

YouTube blurb for the above: 

The first section of the C#-Minor Waltz, casts a spell tinged with Chopin’s characteristic aristocratic elegance, but at the same time world-weary, and nostalgic. The haunting, more animated second section has about it a beguiling aura of nocturnal mystery and enchantment. It beckons us, but where it wants to lead us remains shrouded in mystery as the music keeps dancing gracefully but dissolves into the mist. With each of three repetitions we are left ever more curious, - and a bit fearful -, wondering what might be found if we dared to move beyond the edge of the perfumed garden to parts unknown. 

ROGER TREFETHEN began his piano studies with Joseph Erwin of the Juilliard Preparatory School. He also worked briefly with Ada Brant of Aurora, Illinois. At the Eastman School of Music he studied under Cecile Staub Gerhart, Postgraduate studies with Claude Frank at the Mannes College of Music, Adele Marcus and Albert Fuller at the Juilliard, and finally acclaimed interpreter of Beethoven, Bruce Hungerford, rounded out his music education.

RIP, Franco Aragosta/FreeThinke

(For politics, please scroll down) 

Franco Aragosta (aka FreeThinke), one of the friends of this blog as well as my personal friend since 2012, passed away suddenly very early on the morning of October 7.  He would have turned 80 years old on his next birthday, in April.

This talented man was an accomplished pianist, an astute music critic, and a writer of poetry (both serious and light-hearted).  In fact, for years, he composed acrostic sonnets as a daily mind-sharpening exercise.  A Renaisssance Man in several ways!

I will miss him.

FreeThinke/Franco was quite fond of English composers and their works, particularly their lesser-known compositions.  Consequently, I am posting "In Moonlight," composed by English composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), in honor of Franco/FreeThinke:

 

YouTube blurb:

Extracted by Elgar from his concert overture "In the South (Alassio)", "In Moonlight (Canto popolare)" is played here by the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Paul Goodwin. The paintings are by the English artist John Atkinson Grimshaw.

"Medical Solitary Confinement"

 

 

This is unacceptable!  See Cruel to be Kind: Nursing Home Lockdowns by Tammy Swofford, John's sister.  Excerpt (emphases mine):

...[John] is paying for the crime of needing to be kept “safe”. We are keeping Americans “safe”! And in the process, destroying what it means to be human.

John has gone from almost five months with no family contact, no holistic hugs and encompassing love, to the added burden of weeks of what is, for all practical purposes, a variation of solitary confinement. He has a roommate. But he doesn’t have… us. He is in a file cabinet… filed away as a numeric that reflects he is “safe”....

Read the entire essay HERE.

America needs to do better than impose sentences of "medical solitary confinement."  Why haven't we done better thus far, all these months since March?

R.I.P., My Dear Friend Patricia (May 6, 1954-March 29, 2020). Hymn Added.

(For politics, please scroll down.  Active thread one post down)

Patricia here on our wheelchair ramp in 2010.

My dear friend Patricia (former blogger The Merry Widow) went Home to the Lord suddenly on March 29, of an apparent heart attack in the emergency room.

Warren's words when he heard the sad news: "If anybody was right with God, it was Patricia."

Her last three posts on Facebook, the second two from the ER:

Where I've Been — And Still Am

Ongoing cleaning out and sorting in my home office — since former blogger The Merry Widow arrived November 21.  Believe it or not, the photos below represent a week of progress and attaining organized chaos!

Everything from two walls has been shoved over so as to make room for the desk and vanity arriving on Thursday. This picture represents only one portion of what has been shoved over:

Treasures were found! Not pictured here....My father's wallet! He died in 1998, and his wallet had fallen behind the bookcase pictured below and inaccessible for two decades.  The amount of money in the wallet was sufficient enough for me to exclaim, "Merry Christmas from Dad!"

The rectangular box contained 78 rpms, bound volumes of In Britain (1960s), and two volumes of a set of the KJV Bible, dated 1792 and printed in London — all found in a closet which hasn't been opened in over two decades.  We found a home for the 78 rpms, as well as 33 and 1/3 rpms from the 1960s and 1970s; we donated the magazines to the public library.  What to do with the Bible?  We need to find an antiquarian-books dealer.

And miles to go before we sleep....

Blog Break (Updated)

Comment moderation intermittently enabled.

Real life, this time, pleasurable real life, supersedes virtual life!

Warren is coming for a visit — his third visit to Washington, D.C.!

There's too much going on here to work on publishing blog posts.

Then, once Warren arrives, we'll be busy doing some sightseeing. First up: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.  After that, sightseeing plans have not yet been definitively made.

During this blog's hiatus, enjoy Classical Music for Reading - Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, Tchaikovsky...:


Index to the music on the above audio can be found by clicking "show more" HERE.

UPDATE

We have now toured both Thomas Jefferson's Monticello (on a brutally hot day) and James Madison's Montpelier (in cool weather).

Next up: National Museum of Health and Medicine.

Blog Break

Comment moderation intermittently enabled.

Real life, this time, pleasurable real life, supersedes virtual life!

Warren is coming for a visit — his second visit to Washington, D.C.!

There's too much going on here to work on publishing blog posts.

Then, once Warren arrives, he and Mr. AOW and I are off to the National Museum of American History, the National Gallery of Art, the Holocaust Museum, Mount Vernon, the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and whatever other attractions we can manage to squeeze into our schedule.  We're also having a shed sale here.  Tools, tools, tools!  A real Toolapalooza!

During this blog's hiatus, enjoy Impressionism: Ravel & Debussy...


About Impressionism in music:

Impressionism in music was a movement among various composers in Western classical music (mainly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) whose music focuses on suggestion and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone‐picture". "Impressionism" is a philosophical and aesthetic term borrowed from late 19th century French painting after Monet's Impression, Sunrise. Composers were labeled impressionists by analogy to the impressionist painters who use starkly contrasting colors, effect of light on an object, blurry foreground and background, flattening perspective, etc. to make the observer focus his attention on the overall impression.

The most prominent in musical impressionism is the use of "color", or in musical term, timbre, which can be achieved through orchestration, harmonic usage, texture, etc. Other elements of music impressionism also involve new chord combinations, ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motions, extra-musicality, and evocative titles.

Index to selections on the video:

What "Comrade In Distress" Looks Like

Because a stroke on September 15, 2009, deprived Mr. AOW of the ability to walk any more than a few steps, we have wheelchair ramps at our house: one from the street to the front door and one from the aforementioned ramp to the Little House (Mr. AOW's man cave since 1982).

Graphic by Stogie

We paid not a single dime for these two ramps because Mr. AOW's fellow veterans from the VFW and the American Legion built those ramps according to the guidelines of Comrade in Distress.

Recently, we needed another kind of ramp built so as to access The Red Shed, our big tool shed, which has always needed a ramp so that tool boxes and lawn equipment could be moved from therein. The original ramp, the one that Mr. AOW himself built in 1978, caved in years ago, so I had it replaced about eight years ago. The quality of wood used in that first replacement ramp was poor; as a result, it rotted out and became not only usable but also hazardous — a matter brought to my attention a few weeks ago when our realtor wanted to enter the Red Shed. His foot went right through that rickety ramp!

So, Mr. AOW called his Comrade in Arms Mike S., who came over as soon as the spring monsoons ended.  Mike is a Vietnam War Era veteran.  In other words, not a young man.

Blog Break

Comment moderation intermittently enabled.

Real life, this time, pleasurable real life, supersedes virtual life!

Warren is coming for a visit — his first visit to Washington, D.C.!

There's too much going on here to work on publishing blog posts. Former blogger TMW and I are readying the house, and Mr. AOW is tidying up his man cave.

Then, once Warren arrives, we're off to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, and whatever other attractions we can manage to squeeze into our schedule.

During this blog's hiatus, enjoy Preludes For Piano Book One by Claude Debussy (1862-1918):


List of preludes:

1) Danseuses de Delphes (Dancers of Delphi)
2) Voiles (Veils or Sails) 3:46
3) Le vent dans la plaine (The wind in the plain) 7:47
4) Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir (The sounds and fragrances swirl through the evening air) 9:48
5) Les collines d'Anacapri (The hills of Anacapri) 14:26
6) Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the snow) 17:44
7) Ce qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest (What the west wind has seen) 23:10
8) La fille aux cheveux de lin (The girl with the flaxen hair) 26:17
9) La sérénade interrompue (The interrupted serenade) 28:57
10) La Cathédrale engloutie (The engulfed cathedral) 31:23
11) La danse de Puck (Puck's dance) 37:39
12) Minstrels 40:36

For detailed information about Debussy and these preludes, go to Musical Musings.

Happy New Year — And My Year In Review

What I Learned In 2016:

1.  When my body began sending out distress signals in March, I should not have assumed that the ever-increasing abdominal pain and the drastic loss of appetite were normal parts of aging.  Wrong!  Had I sought medical help earlier, I certainly would not have had so many months of grinding pain.  My usual method of powering through the day was a huge mistake that I won't make again!

2. Cats know things! When I'm in crisis (including grinding pain), Nurse Cameo hovers as she stands guard and sleeps all night with me. When I'm better, she goes back to sleeping by the radiator or in the recliner. Our other two cats, Mysti and Amber, go into hiding when I'm in poor health.

3.  When I had health crisis after health crisis in 2016, Mr. AOW and I found out who my true friends were.  Thank you, dear friends, for all your help and for your words of encouragement along the way.

4.  Oh!  I almost forgot politics!  Well, it turns out that America still holds surprises in politics — including the results of the 2016 National Election.  A year ago, not many would ever have thought that Donald J. Trump would be elected the 45th President of the United States and that the following would become one of the most-frequently watched videos of 2016:

Personal Update

(For politics, please scroll down)

On Monday, December 7, 2015, Tammy, Mr. AOW, and I ventured into D.C. to visit the National Museum of American History. The first exhibit we visited was The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem. Mr. AOW and I have visited that exhibit before, but Tammy had not. Interesting that there were no Muslimas in hijab at that museum!

Vote For Ed!

(Two posts today.  Please scroll down)

Ed Bonderenka explains HERE.

It takes only a moment to cast your ballot.

Tenth Blog Anniversary

Personal milestone: I've persevered for ten years!

After lurking and occasionally commenting for years at Jihad Watch, followed by a stint at Northern Virginistan, I established my own blog HERE at my original Always On Watch site, then moved HERE, and finally to the present location.

A special thanks to my dear friend Warren, who designed my avatar and the template for this blog and the previous one, and to my first cyber friend Mustang, who suggested that I add the Latin phrase Semper Vigilans to my blog header.

I also want to thank my friend Beakerkin, who introduced me (aka "the upstart") to "the whole gang" via the electronic bar.  Those were the days!

Thanks to all of my friends — and, yes, even to some of my adversaries — here in the blogosphere.  You deserve much of the credit for my having continued with this blogging endeavor.

Suggested as my theme song by more than one blogger:

  And "the bad moon" is ???

"A Christmas Visitor" by Warren

HERE.  Worth your time.

This Week On The Gathering Storm

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, hosted by WC and Always On Watch.

The show broadcasts live for 30 minutes every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is 646-915-9870. Callers welcome!

Our scheduled guest this week is my dear friend and web guru Warren.

Listen to the November 28, 2014 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by CLICKING HERE.

UPCOMING SHOWS:

With Gratitude

(Two posts today. Please scroll down)

A short time back, I posted about the rough patch that Mr. AOW and I have been going through.

I want to thank Stogie of Saberpoint and Curmudgeon of Political Clown Parade for rounding up "the troops" to donate to my PayPal account.  Thanks to all who chipped in, Mr. AOW and I have made a dent in the looming bills.

The blogosphere is filled with screeching and vilification.  Amid all the rancor, however, there really are people of fine character on the web.

For Father's Day

(Two posts today.  Please scroll down)

Please see Love Him To His Face by Rebecca Suder. Background information:

Busy, Busy, Busy

(If you must have politics, please scroll down)

Tammy Swofford has been visiting for a few days. She arrived the day after Christmas.

Good times!  We've been enjoying dining out every day and taking in a few local attractions — including a visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

We went to the Gallery specifically to see Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections:

Click on this link for more information and many photos.

No post-Christmas blues here in the AOW household!