Midnight Oil (Early)

Tonight is one of the nights we meet with Bennie Goode. He's a prince of a fellow. Real nice. Which is fortuitous because he is also the guy who reaches over and increases either the speed or the incline on the treadmill. And he's the guy who tells us, "If the weights make any noise when they come down, that one didn't count. You've got to do it again."
 
A certain amount of discretion is in order here. Bennie is continually placing highly in area body-building expositions. I've borrowed a phrase I use often at home ("Yes, dear.") and adapted it to the gym when working with Bennie ("Yes, Sir.") It seems to work. I always get my way, as long as it agrees with his.
 
After our workout, I celebrated my survival by returning to my work-in. I came back to format documents. Don't pity me. Well, just a little. (Okay. That's enough.) I opened an e-mail and found that my misery was replete with company. A counterpart in the customer organization was putting in some extra hours as well. We exchanged e-mails and finally even spoke on the phone. You'll be pleased to know that the woes of the world are solved. Hypothetically. Actually, that's only true if the world can be encapsulated within the project we're working on. There, we really are making some headway.
 
One thing we both agreed upon in our call. It is time to go home.  

Happy Days

This evening I took Katie to riding, went into Columbia to play some music with friends, came home and had very good intentions of going to the gym, instead got a phone call from my cousin who may be moving up from Florida, hit the treadmill in lieu of driving to the gym, and am now typing this note with Peggy Lee cooing in my left ear. I need to work on that whole stereo separation thing. Now it's Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer singing of seduction from a time when people still had imaginations. In the past hour it has been David Arkenstone then Bob Dylan with the Grateful Dead taking their turns in rotation.

I feel as if I've hit the mother lode. Over the next few days, Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, Boney James, Delerium, Yo Yo Ma doing Baroque, Tango and the Appalachian Waltz, Fourplay, Enigma, Spyro Gyra, Rush, Yes (Yessongs...I've wanted this on CD for years but was too frugal), Montgomery Gentry (all that smooth jazz necessitated a redneck chaser), Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tony Bennett & k.d. lang, latin jazz, Thelonius Monk, the Suzanne Vega retrospective, and -- for Mr. Dugan -- both Verve remix discs are being added to the iTunes library. Peggy, Johnny, et al are part of "The Definitive American Songbook: A-I." The rest, J-Z, is en route.

Now if I could just find a way to retain a salary while staying home and listening to all this new (to me) music. I'd ask Sarah Vaughan, but right now she says she can't give me anything but love. Baby. Thank you to Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields for that gem.

Dinah Shore is singing to me now. I haven't had this much attention since ... you know, I've never had this much attention. I love the oldies BEFORE classic rock (and even the rock before that).