The Mandelbear's Musings

So... on January 1st, 2017, N and I went out car shopping and came with a sliver Honda Odyssey, which we named Rosie after the character in my song "The Rambling Silver Rose" (which was, in turn, inspired by and titled after our (mine and C's, that is) first minivan, a silver Mercury Villager).

One day in June of 2018 she simply refused to start, after N had pulled off the road to read directions. The AAA driver determined that the problem wasn't the battery; possibly the starter. Since then, she's been sitting in N's driveway waiting for somebody to decide whether to fix her up, fix her up and sell her, or sell her as-is. Well, you know how good I am at putting off decisions.

Once something's been procrastinated long enough, one's mind just automatically shies away from thinking about it. It's like an invisibility spell. Anyway, a couple of days ago one of N's neighbors asked if we wanted to sell her, and today I drove down and N and I filled out the paperwork. She's gone. She's going to a good home; the guy who bought her is going to keep her name.

I was singing her song when I pulled onto I5 North.

By morning you might sell your soul To keep her past the dawn, But the wandering star is calling, And the Rambling Rose is gone.

NaBloPoMo stats:
  11541 words in 22 posts this month (average 524/post)
    266 words in 1 post today

After spending maybe a little too much time last night and this morning struggling with "Waltz", and reluctantly deciding that some of my favorite turns of phrase simply didn't fit the flow, I ended up spending my entire lunchtime walk re-casting Hackers' Heaven so that it could be done as a Tres Gique concert. It all fell out from my realization a day or two ago that I could easily rationalize Lady Melody (the AI guitar) having two voices, an alto and a soprano. It means rewriting huge chunks of the backstory, but that needed to be done anyway. And the song intros all turn into blog entries.

(Aside: Don't worry if you're not following this: I'm trying to write it down before I get back to work and forget it.)

I probably ought to get some work done, oughtn't I?

7:36 ... and realizing today that I could have "Silk and Steel" written by Lexy (the daughter) as a Mother's Day present, and sung by Melody, thus avoiding the need for an additional male voice.