Today's Photo Friday theme is youth. Here, Jeremy looks like he is a scheming monopolist, but that is my skyscaper-row!

We got TiVo for xmas, partly because everyone said "it will change your relationship with TV". I have had a number of relationships with television in the past, including a decade of not owning one at all. But in recent years I was annoyed at my channel-surfing habit (or necessity), resulting in never seeing anything of interest at all. Replacing that behavior is "trolling for content", or searching for good stuff to record.

But we have spent a couple of evenings enjoying stuff that we never even knew was on TV, and of course it never was broadcast at times when we might be watching. We saw the documentary "The Cockettes", which was a fabulous walk down memory lane, into the era of glam-costumed hippies and drag parties. Last night we watched a dog show. I wonder whether the judges even consider for a minute if the dogs that so "perfectly represent the breed" can do those things that they are bred for. I mean, can that bloodhound find anything? Can the beautiful border collie herd any sheep?

My only fear about TiVo is that having it will actually increase our time in front of the tube. But, at least we will be watching things that interest us, and NO commercials.

Finally found something that "resonated" with your site, following the neon theme, and thought I would contribute.



I took this picture one warm summer evening a few years back in the heart of Simsbury, Connecticut, a classy little town. I really don't know if it is an old sign, or a retro-modern creation, but it really catches your eye.

Because I am a singer, I am constantly running into the word "resonance". Voice teachers always want you to be more resonant. Most of the art of singing is mental imagery, and so in order to make a more resonant tone, I have many strange images that I can draw upon to widen the spaces in my head, causing the sound to expand.

I have been told to lift the soft palate, open the back hinges of the jaw, move the air faster, put the sound above me, in front of me, all around me, shoot it out in all directions. I have also been told that my resonance is in the "wrong" place, too frontal, too nasal, too "hooty", etc. There is chest resonance and head resonance. Apparently, understanding and producing resonance is the key to all expert singing.

Despite all this work on the subject, I am not positively certain that I can identify when my voice is resonant and when it is not. All human sound resonant, after all. Non-resonant sound would not be heard - it would be the tree falling in a forest with no ground to land upon.

Then, in desperation, I turned to the dictionary. It turns out that what I am thinking refers to a quality of my sound, is instead, a relationship of my sound with other sounds created at the same time:

A condition of "GOING WITH THE FLOW." When vibration is timed to be in synchronism and it is noted that less and less energy is required to then excite the system, resonance is said to occur. Pure resonance occurring in a system will allow a system when started vibrating to continue indefinitely.

But perhaps that definition is taken from the realm of science, not voice. Here is another one that seems important:

The tendency of an acoustic system to reinforce sounds of a certain frequency, the frequency determined by the shapes and sizes of the components of the system.

And here is a much more generic definition:

The quality imparted to voiced speech sounds by the action of the resonating chambers of the throat and mouth and nasal cavities

For now, I'm going to think of resonance as "going with the flow".

Photo Friday's theme today is SIGNS. I love these old, neon signs that make things appear to move. These flapjacks look so good!

Taken last spring in northern California.

This year, I made my mom's recipe of sugar cookies and some butter icing, and we had the kids over for a decorating extravaganza. The dyes they have available these days are much more fun than the standard red green yellow of my early days - I picked the neon colors for our project. Of course, I had on hand a bunch of various types of sprinkles. Did you know that they don't sell those silver beads anymore? Apparently they were bad for you. Oh well, I must have eaten a million of those before I turned 12. Next year, I'll buy more of those little tubes of decorating icing. They were the most fun to use, for detailed work on the cookies.

The cookie cutters I had were a for any occasion, not just the holidays. I made an initial cookie for everyone involved, which each person got to decorate (and EAT) themselves. We all had a fun time.

Sitting here with windows on all sides, on the first day of what's promised to be a five-day storm, is like staring out from under a waterfall in the round. The veil of rain that obscures the green hills blows back and forth, slowly, and closer in, the strings of beaded drops from the roof roll down thickly.

(I've been reading other blogs, my daily fix, and feeling inadequate as a blogger.. so I thought I'd start out today with a more eloquent and poetic paragraph.)

I've been looking through the old photos that my sister sent, to see what memories bubble up. I think I have written here before about how much I hated marching in Memorial Day parades as a kid. In this photo, I seem happy, but I'm guessing the smile is the "smile at the camera" type.



Note the very bad glasses and the nerdy skirt. Also - white gloves! and uncomfortable shoes. And those awful knee socks that look like they are about to fall down at any minute. Marching on my left is Nancy Baldwin, who lived a couple houses around the corner, and on my right is my best friend Roxane McCarty. Next to her is Susan Hodge. Susan was someone that everyone picked on in school. I liked her. Perhaps we got to know each other in Girl Scouts, I can't remember that. But in both parade pictures in this collection, she is marching near me.

She came from a poor family - I think her mom was single, I seem to remember she was sick, too, and they lived in a small house on the "bad" side of town. The first time she came over to my house to play, I remember how amazed she was at the size of our house, and how she thought we were rich.

We are marching down Main Street, LeRoy, New York. Shelby's Jewelery Shop is in the background. Mom would go in there to get her watch serviced, and I remember the old guy behind the counter in the back, who always had one of those eyepieces that jewelers use for looking at the tiny parts of a watch.

Best wishes for a successful 2005. I tried to take a break from the keyboard and monitor as we ended the year. Rains came, movies were seen, food consumed, presents opened, and joy was shared. One day, we forced the kids to take a nature hike with us. They love biking but have developed a dislike to hiking - can't imagine why. Then we all (except Jeremy) stayed up til midnight and banged pots and pans, popped Jiffy Pop popcorn and discharged poppers and toasted the new year.

For years I have had a recurring nightmare of a tsunami at the beach. Now I have a clearer picture of just how awful a nightmare that can be. Why do I read the accounts and watch the videos? It is the same sad procedure that we went through after 9/11 - trying to wrap our minds around a disaster that we had never before imagined.

On a happier note, our family has been sharing memories sparked by my sister's wonderful gift of a cd-full of digitized family slides. Here is a shot of an adolescent me at age 12.