Courtesy of Altrok Radio, Candie Payne’s All I Need To Hear has been playing in my head:

Last night.
Tata: Okay okay okay, just about the time I would usually close the family store I’m helping a lady at the half-price jewelry section, which is at the very back of the store. We’re looking at half-price necklaces without price tags when over her shoulder by the back door I see something move. Then I see it again. It’s a field mouse! I thought the top of my head would blow off.
Pete: Did you step on it?
Tata: Are you kidding? I had a customer! And the new goal of my entire being was to focus her attention away from the indoor wildlife. She made me a wacky offer for the jewelry and I plastered a springy smile on my face. I said something like, “Gwabbflep blibbity jooop,” which she understood to mean, “I’ll wrap that up for you.” In any case, she didn’t look for the exits, which could have been reasonably disastrous.
Pete: So what did you do?
Tata: She asked if we had Halloweeny stuff and I almost burst a blood vessel with happiness. “That’s up in the front of the store. I’ll show you everything.” I dragged her to the front, where she found more things for sale. She liked bags of wire spiders and found a crappy fairy doll thing I wouldn’t mop cobwebs with but it didn’t have a price tag either. I saw my chance, picked up her merch and ran for the back door. The mouse, however, took umbrage at the open door and ran the other way, eventually deciding the completely visible corner by the bathroom was where he’d sit and hyperventilate.
Pete: So…now did you step on him?
Tata: No way, Jose. I called the toy store, where my sister Corinne answered. I purred into the phone, “I need your help desperately.” A moment later, Corinne appeared at my side. We talked about the mop-like remaindered doll as the customer wandered over to another jewelry counter. I leaned in very close and whispered in Corinne’s ear, “There’s a mouse by the bathroom door.” Corinne didn’t move a muscle but whispered back, “Where?” I tossed my head as only a distressed Jersey chick with high hair history can in the direction of the pitiful thing. Corinne and I both smiled like we were radioactive as the customer came back to settle up. Then, Corinne was over by the bathroom door, doing something. Then she wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know what happened, because at this moment, the customer decided she wanted to chat.
Pete:Omigod, it’s Fawlty Towers over there! What’d Corinne do with Basil the Rat?
Tata: I don’t know! Corinne’s an animal lover. Anyway, she was gone and less than two chatty minutes later, my brother-in-law Dan popped in the back door and said, “Hey, did someone have a question?” I said, still smiling like my face was on springs, “Ask Corinne.”
Pete: Then what?
Tata: I closed the store and bought a bottle of wine I could drink through a straw.

I woke up this morning with I’ll Never Leave You in my head.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day reminded me of this, which is still a hoot. I’m just a little busy at the moment, but I’m thinking of you and you and you. You, however, are on your own!

Slade was one of Dad’s favorite bands, too.

Happy New Year!

Wikipedia:

It was written by Dee Dee Ramone, Jean Beauvoir, and Joey Ramone as a reaction to Ronald Reagan’s visit to a soldiers’ cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany in May 1985. The name Bonzo is not that of a person, but rather refers to the name of the chimpanzee title character to one of Reagan’s movies, Bedtime for Bonzo.

Reagan’s visit to the Bitburg cemetery had been criticised in Europe as well as in the United States because 49 members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organization that helped run the extermination camps during World War II, were buried there. Some of SS members buried at Bitburg came from units that committed atrocities, including the murder of American POWs. According to White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, in Reagan’s view the majority of the soldiers who were buried at the cemetery were “simply soldiers of the German army…. There were thousands of such soldiers for whom Nazism meant nothing but the brutal end of a short life”.

The lyrics are a departure from the Ramones’ usual style, with a more outwardly serious content. Joey and Dee Dee Ramone had written the song with producer and former Plasmatics bassist/keyboardist Jean Beauvoir. Joey, who was Jewish, has stated that he started on the song lyrics after being almost physically sickened by the Reagan visit, feeling that the President had disrespected the six million victims of the Holocaust by visiting Bitburg.

“Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” was originally meant to be the sole title of the song, but guitarist Johnny Ramone, a conservative Republican and a Reagan supporter, insisted that the refrain of “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down” be the title on American releases of the song and that the reference to Reagan (“Bonzo”) be in parentheses.

This song has been on my mind. No mystery there.

Thursdays are too long. Let’s have some diverting Elvis.

On Thursdays, I’m full of the festive exhaustion. It’s nothing and I’m not complaining; certainly, I may be the luckiest girl in Puppetland to be able to eke out a decent living while avoiding a colorful stint in the Booby Hatch. Yes, I am among the most fortunate human beings on the planet: almost nobody is attacking me with fresh fruit. Few people bother arguing with me anymore and those that do bring me plastic dinosaurs of apology. Yesterday’s yoga class turned into a two-hour extravaganza, which means tomorrow I’ll hop around, yelping. These apparent contradictions amuse me. Please accept this token of my esteem while I attempt the fandango of the financially solvent, merry in the sunny meadow of overemployment: the Rakes’ catchy little tune about attractive disaster called The World Was a Mess But His Hair Was Perfect.

Someday soon I’m gonna need new shoes, and at least two of them will be red.

Oh Blogosphere, my love for you is pure. It pains me to leave you even for an hour. Still, a wild woman’s gotta pay the bills, and baby, you know I always do. I’ll be working, but I’ll be thinking of no one but you. Well, maybe Peter Murphy, but don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. He means nothing to me, baby, nothing.

Don’t wait up.

There are about a thousand fascinating things to talk about – later. This morning, a gentle rain is falling, the air off the river hits the wide college lawns and picks up the sweetness of recently cut grass. Nothing hurts much and I have yoga class after work. I am nibbling grapes at my desk. For this moment: a reminder from the Guillemots to savor the little joys. I forget this sometimes.

Okay, that’s enough gravity. I can’t fight it without a sports bra.

This song has been on my mind, thanks to Altrok Radio.

Now it’s on yours.

In other news, Lupe loaned me the new Tori. I have not learned to love it yet. Tori finally made a Kate Bush album, which is okay with me. I like Kate Bush.