tiring day.

[derien]

It's a long drive to Belfast, and an even longer one on a foggy, rainy night down Rt. 1. I don't know what the hell I was thinking taking Rt. 1. I should have come home the way I went - Rt. 3 to I95. Maybe if I'd gone inland the fog wouldn't have been so bad. I knew I'd made the wrong choice when I found myself wondering if I should tape a white cane on the front of the car. At one point I found myself leaning forward over the steering wheel trying desperately to see the lines on the road. As I went by where littleredhead and groundctrl live I considered stopping and asking for a cup of tea and an asprin, but I just wanted to get home so badly that I wasn't willing to even stop. I waved, but only in my mind since my hands were welded to the wheel. :) When I finally got on the highway at Brunswick that I literally burst into song - "The Fox Went Out On A Windy Night."

The visit went well, though odd. I never can tell how it will go with Dad, it's a toss up whether things will be great or not, or maybe get weird. Quite often I can get upset and annoyed talking with him, but today... today I became aware how much he's losing it. He asked me if I graduated from Belfast high school. He remembers having hepatitis but doesn't remember that my mother had it, too. (In fact I thought he caught it from her, and she got it working at the hospital in Camden, though I may misremember.) I was surprised, though, that he said he cut the burdocks out of my hair that time when I was a kid, and I had thought I remembered my mother doing it.

I'm not sure if the digital picture frame was a really good gift. I thought it would be, because it's been so long since he's had photos from anyone as we all went digital and he has no computer (his wife had one, but it was killed by water) but this frame goes to quickly for him - he can't focus on a picture and understand what it's about before it's gone on to another one, even though I have it set as slow as it will go. I spent quite a while trying to find a way to get the thing to pause, hoping he could just pause it on one he wanted to look at for longer, but the damned thing is frustrating even for me - the remote doesn't seem to want to pause on the picture you want, it flips to the next one or even three further on and pauses there - and if it's frustrating for me it'll be impossible for him.

I do wish my step mother would be nicer to him. Every time she speaks to him she has this edge to her voice as though she's completely fed up with him.

Oh, and apparently he approves of my new look even though he didn't want me to get my breasts reduced before I did it. He said, "You look so good you don't even look like Wendy* anymore!" Sounds like kind of a backhanded compliment, but I know he means it well.

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*as he calls me.

Comments

[lacrimaeveneris.livejournal.com]

Oh, weird! I had to google a couple places until I found the right one, but I did (eventually).

[derien.livejournal.com]

Aha! After turning up a few obviously wrong versions I've found what's probably the correct words (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2000/12/25) - it's always a little bit of a bummer to me when there's actually a known author of what I think of as a folk song. Of course it becomes a folk song when people forget the words and make up new ones, I guess. So here are the words as I learned it:

Oh A capital ship
for an ocean trip
was the Whalloping Window Blind
No wind that blew
dismayed her crew
or troubled the captain's mind.
Oh the man at the wheel
was made to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow
and it often appeared
when the gale had cleared
that he'd been in his bunk below

(Chorus = )
So blow your winds high-ho,
a rovin' I will go
I'll stay no more on England's shore
so let the music play
I'm off on the morning train,
I'll cross the raging maine
I'm off to my love with a boxing glove
ten thousand miles away.

Oh the Captain sat
on the Commodore's hat
and dined in a royal way
off roasted pigs
and pickles and figs
and gunnery bread each day
Oh the Cook was Dutch
and behaved as such
for the diet he gave the crew
was a number of tons
of hot cross buns
served up with sugar and glue

(Chorus)

Oh the Bosun's mate
was very sedate
yet fond of amusement too
he played hopscotch
on the starboard watch
while the captain tickled the crew
Oh the gunner we had
was apparently mad
for he sat on the after rail
and fired salutes
with the captains boots
in the teeth of a booming gale

(Chorus)

Our nautical pride
we laid aside
and we ran the vessel ashore
on the Gullabee Isles
Where the poo-poo smiles
and the ruppeldeeupdugs roar
so we sat at the edge
of a sandy ledge
and shot at the whistling bee
and the cinnamon bats
wore waterproof hats
as they dipped in the briney sea

(Chorus)

On rugbug bark
from morn til dark
we dined til we all had grown
uncommonly shrunk
when a Chinese junk
came up from the Torribly Zone
She was chubby and square
but we didn't much care
and we cheerily put out to sea
and we left all the crew
of the junk to chew
on the bark of the rugbug tree.

(Chorus)

[lacrimaeveneris.livejournal.com]

What fun!