My Sister's Wedding and Other Odds and Ends

Last Friday night, my sister got married for the second time. She is now Mrs. Thomas Craig Rayhill. I like Craig, as he is known by. He is a bit of a redneck, which worries me some, but he has never been unkind or disrespectful to me. He wants me to teach him how to play the guitar. Of course, I can only teach him the chords and some of the riffs to songs I know that I figured out how to play on my own. Right now, I don't even have any picks. I've lost all of my picks through the big hole toward the bottom of the guitar. Once they're lost in there, I can never seem to get them out. Anyway, back to my sister's wedding and my new brother-in-law. They played all the typical songs that a dj would play at a wedding dance. I got out on the floor for 4 songs, at least 2 of them slow, and that's all I could muster. They played one country song that just emphasizes how redneck my new bro is. The lyrics are sung by a male country singer and it goes to the effect that she sees "Bambi" and he sees "antlers over the mantle." Apparently, he and his brothers go shootin' from time to time. I can't imagine, but anyhow, Michelle and Craig's first dance was to the song "When You Say Nothing At All," Alison Krauss's cover version. It was perfect for them.

Saturday morning, after the wedding, I woke up to a nightmare. My kitchen sink was overflowing with thick, black water. My dad came over and siphoned out both sides of the sink and tried to use a plunger on it, but that was just the beginning of the "fun." The maintenance man was called out on an emergency basis Saturday evening, and he used a 25-foot auger to snake through the pipes, and after four hours, he could get nowhere beyond like 21 feet. Then, he called the plumbers that are contracted through the complex's advisory board to come out that night and give it a try with a power unit. They had no success either and came back the next morning, sawed into the hallway wall where my pipes are, the access panel if you will, and ended up snaking their way into my neighbor's condominium across the hall where I still don't know if any damage was done by their power unit. I haven't heard from my neighbor. Anyway, they had to come back Monday morning, thinking they were going to have to tear up the flooring in the hallway to get to the blocked pipe. Luckily, they checked my sink after doing a bit of jackhammering in the hall to find out that the vibrations from the jackhammer unclogged the pipelines. Thank God! Really! Today, Tuesday, I'm just kicking back and doing nothing and it feels great. Of course, I still have quite a bit of clean-up work to do, but I've done enough that I can at least function in the kitchen. My dad also used this plumbing mess time to put up blinds for me in the front room and two air-conditioning units, one in the bedroom window and one in the front room window. I helped some, of course. They don't turn on the condominium central air until they absolutely have to, usually some time in April. It can easily reach 80 degrees F in March during a particularly warm spell, and it gets miserable inside. I got a note from my doctor stating that I had seasonal allergies, which got the approval of the board so I could have the window units installed. More later...

After the Big Snow...

Well, I think Friday's snowstorm was the fourth largest on record for Louisville at 14.4 inches. Now it's Sunday and in the 40s with the big melt-down well underway. Actually, I can't believe how fast that much snow is evaporating. I guess it's the higher sun angle of March... about the equivalent of the first of October. It sure doesn't feel very cold out there. I felt overdressed when I went to pick up a couple of prescriptions. At this rate, the snow should be gone by some time Tuesday when the high is expected to reach into the 50s. I guess I should say all the snow should be gone except those huge snow piles in the shopping center parking lots across town.

Also, there is a relatively new music artist that I'm now fond of that has to be gay. With his lyrics and his angst, it's pretty obvious, but he makes a big production of his music. He has strings. He has choirs. I'm talking about Rufus Wainwright. I'd hate to have that name, but anyway, the music has some of the characteristics of a lot of my favorite music artists and music groups. ELO, Queen, Elton John, and ABBA are some that come to mind, at least musically. None of those sing lyrics so overtly homosexual, with the exception of a few Queen songs I can think of. But, Rufus is very talented, and I hope he goes far. He says in his liner notes that his mother is his biggest fan and thinks he can do no wrong hardly. Oh well, if my mother felt that way, she'd go to PFLAG meetings and encourage me to mingle and meet that special someone. But, I've been alone for 3 years now and with my health, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Anyway, I feel music is the love of my life, and I'm not sure I'd want to change that fact. By the way, I think I have the best parents in the world. They just have to abide by their unbending biblical moral code and I understand that. I really do. Enough for now...