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Praetorium Honoris

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

The Well Has Run Dry ...

(Source)
Perhaps I've been to the well one too many times in the twelve years I've been doing this. Perhaps it's because I've been fighting the crud for two weeks now, though that situation is resolving itself. (The involvement of my right ear made the medicos think bacterial as opposed to viral, so they gave me some antibiotics - pill would choke a horse - and that seems to be doing the trick.) Slept very well over the weekend, thing is though ...

I really don't feel all that creative.

It's so bad, that I didn't even go dig out a rerun to inflict on you. That's how actively lazy and uncreative I am right now.

Sad, innit?

I'm also a bit bummed as LUSH won't be joining me to see the Foo Fighters in July up at Fenway. We had fun at the last one and she's the one who bought the tickets (a Christmas gift pour moi). But familial obligations require her to be elsewhere on the date in question.

The Missus Herself offered to accompany me, I pointed out that she doesn't really care for their music (when we're in the car I'm always being asked "Can you please turn that down?") and she wouldn't really be able to handle it for three+ hours, standing I might add. (Who sits at a rock concert anyway?)

However, The Nuke has expressed an interest in going. Now that would be fun, we've done the father-daughter thing before at big events (like Broncos - Redskins a few years back), and she does like that sort of music. Well, more so than The Missus Herself does at any rate.

So I've potentially got that going for me.

And as I've not much else to share today, here's a music video. Another Mark Knopfler tune, this one, Piper to the End, was written to the memory of his Uncle, killed in action in France, 1940. (Thanks for this Boat Guy! Who also tipped me off to Done With Bonaparte. So a tip o' the auld Balmoral bonnet to BG!)


Piper to the End
Mark Knopfler¹

When I leave this world behind me
To another I will go
And if there are no pipes in heaven
I'll be going down below

If friends in time be severed
Someday we will meet again
I'll return to leave you never
Be a piper to the end

This has been a day to die for
Now the day is almost done
Up above a quiet seabird
Turns to face the setting sun

Now the evening dove is calling
And all the hills are burning red
And before the night comes falling
Clouds are lined with golden thread

We watched the fires together
Shared our quarters for a while
Walked the dusty roads together
Came so many miles

This has been a day to die on
Now the day is almost done
Here the pipes will lay beside me
Silent will the battle drum

If friends in time be severed
Someday here we will meet again
I'll return to leave you never
Be a piper to the end



Ah, my Scot's soul is at peace ...
(Now let's see if I can't get the Muse back on track!)




¹ The lyrics are included for the Sassenachs among ye who dinnae ken Glaswegian.

26 comments:

  1. When you are sick, the Muse wanders off. After you get well, and are rested up, she will come back. After the loss of almost everything in the fire, my Muse left me. But I have bought Amanda a new costume, for a Mallard Lake Story, and I have bought the plans that will allow me to make a 1:6 scale Cat end loader, to replace the Bobcat that burned up.

    I have to repeat myself, and say again, that you were right about female cats. When she gave me P. Peaches Pussycat-Evenrude, I asked Brenda why she gave me a rescue cat, that had been abandoned by the family she had lived with for ten years, she said, " She needed you, and you needed her " Which turned out to be true. Having lost almost everything I owned in the fire messed me up, more than I had realised. Helping Peaches to realise that she had a forever home with me helped her, and made me feel a lot better about the world, and my place in it. I am happier now, than I have been in years.

    So, be of good faith, your Muse will come back.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Female cats are very different from their male counterparts, but once you get used to their ways (and they to yours) it's an awesome thing.

      But you know that.

      Delete
    2. From the description of "the crud" the Muse didn't just get up and leave, odds are that she ejected. When she gets untangled from the chute and figures out where she's at, she'll be back.

      Delete
    3. Scott is right, you know. You don’t have the best medicine yet. It’s been a year. You are needing a kitty pal.
      Proper dosage might be 2?

      Delete
    4. Jimc5499 - Can't say I blame her for reaching for the handle with the black and yellow colors.

      Delete
    5. Any Mouse @ 7:36 AM I I know that would help, but The Missus Herself is dead set against it. She says she can't handle that sort of emotional trauma again, I get that. Hard for me to take, but marriage is all about compromising on some things.

      Delete
  2. Scott might have the right of it Sarge, a long missing feline, thinking much about when to stop "official" work, fighting the crud.......all conspire against the Muse. Take your time, recuperate, rest........ :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're both right, the Muse has taken a beating in recent weeks.

      Delete
  3. I would love to send some filler material your way, but am on travel the rest of this month.
    Maybe I can dig something up suitable for desperate times when editorial standards slip.

    Dang Muses are not as reliable as they used to be.
    John Blackshoe

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  4. Crusty Old TV Tech here. Back from our Mesoamerican adventure. Many good things can fight the crud, some are even healthy. Elderberry jam (brought some Sauco back from Guate) is one. It's an old Southern folk remedy, elderberries, along with bourbon of course. Keep fighting it, here's hoping Musie returns.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The antibiotics are clearing the crud, now I just need to boost my morale somehow!

      Delete
    2. But would Lush be OK with her father smelling of elderberries?

      Delete
  5. I was there a couple of months ago, or maybe in the neighborhood. I'm pulling out of that, slowly. Didn't have a crud, just extreme fatigue. I needed more and better sleep than I was getting. Foam ear plugs so I barely hear Spice's tablet, and trying to get six to eight hours a night, instead of the four I got for decades, has made a huge difference. Creativity is up, ambition up, ....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With better sleep I notice a huge difference!

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  6. After 12 years a sabbatical isn't unreasonable.

    You need a dose of

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE3OBiFflHI

    Maybe several doses.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yet somehow you create a pretty decent post about not being very creative! You're pretty good at this blogging thing if I haven't said in the past.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes explaining how "I got nothing" can turn interesting. The act of simply writing seems to spur the creative juices. I wanted to continue the latest vignette a bit further, discovered that there's nothing in the tank. So that vignette is at an end. I do want to pick up my WWII tale AND my French and Indian War tale as well, but I need to go back and go over what I had written in order to go forward. (I haven't forgotten the Napoleonic story I had started either. Three irons in the fire, but i'm out of firewood!)

      Delete
    2. You're out of firewood but managed to get all this out anyway! It's not gone....hang in there.

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    3. Feels like I'm running on fumes these days.

      Delete
  8. Augh! ear infections are always a pain in the --- ear!
    sometimes they tend to affect the 8th - balance and hearing
    I've heard that a lot of muses don't like to be "off-balance"- noi from ear problems, anyhoo. alcohol - well, that's another story
    and hearing! sometimes I just can't hear what she's saying when the ear's all stuffed up
    and the antibiotics are the worst - she needs to be fed a good bialy with at least five cups of coffee every morning
    my gut just can't handle that with the meds

    ReplyDelete
  9. You're more than welcome, Sarge! T'is quite a compliment to be "Mentioned in Dispatches"!
    Fear not the drought, get well, we're here. If the standards do slip below the quite high JB bar; perhaps the rest of us might try as well.
    As for Mr. Knopfler; there's p!enty more where that came from! The man is prolific!
    Boat Guy

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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