Bits & Pieces

As I'm getting ready for my mom's birthday weekend--she's 75 on Saturday the 5th--and preparing for my trip into the West, I'm rather scatterbrained. So, being unable to sustain anything coherent, I'm just passing on bits and pieces--what I've been doing, info I've come across, etc.--that are rolling around in my scattered brain.

• On Wednesday evening we went out to eat with good friends at Salsarita's, a new restaurant here in Johnson City. Good food, conversation and laughter--what could be better? I'd describe it as being like a Mexican Subway. You choose your tortilla and have the production line fill it with your choice of meats, cheeses, vegetables and so on. I had the pork, which was good. I still prefer Barberitos, and I'll be there for lunch today for my regular Friday fish burrito.
• On Thursday, I mowed the yard. Although we get a shower every now and then, the last few weeks have left a good bit of the yard somewhat brown. While I'm out West, L and R will have the opportunity to mow, something I've deprived them of almost the entire summer.
• I'm still reading Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly and should finish it today. I was supposed to have two 1000-word character sketches written for a publication on American literary characters, but I've been a terrible slacker about it. Maybe I'll get started on them this afternoon. Maybe not.
• From The Writer's Almanac for today: It's the birthday of Louis Armstrong, (books by this author) born in the birthplace of American jazz: New Orleans, Louisiana (1901), in a poor section of town known as "The Battlefield." AND It's the birthday of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, (books by this author) born in Sussex, England (1792). Although he died before the age of thirty, many of his poems are considered masterpieces, including "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," and "Prometheus Unbound."
• While mowing the yard yesterday, I was trying to think of summer songs that I'd written. I could only come up with a couple of titles without consulting my catalog. "Running Toward the Prize" was written somewhere between 1990 and 1993 and is one of the last songs I wrote. (I can hardly believe it's been that long since I defined myself as a songwriter.) Although not specifically about summer, it touches on the season on the way to being a little religiously philosophical. I'm not sure I know what I'm talking about here, so check out the lyrics and the solo acoustic version (mp3) at

http://faculty.etsu.edu/codym/song_running_toward_the_prize.htm

241.8 NWT