I'm intrigued

I was looking up a historical figure (James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, a Scottish general who was hanged, beheaded, and quartered for supporting Charles I during the War of the Three Kingdoms in 1650)--Battlefield Band has a song called 'Montrose'. Going down that rabbit hole, I found a book by John Buchan [novelist and former Governor General of Canada] called Witch Wood, which sounded promising and put it in as an interlibrary loan request with the Lexington public library. Montrose only makes a small appearance in it, but the story sounded compelling, the story of a clergyman who discovers Scottish witchcraft/paganism being practised and suffers from ensuing politics in the 17th century. It'll probably come from the University of Kentucky, as their library has it. I have a UK library card, but for residents of Kentucky, they expire after a year, and mine is likely expired. The thing I'm most interested in is that in the over 300-page story, a lot of the dialogue is in Scots, which I am interested in, having a lot of Scottish ancestry.

I'm not sure

that I've ever gone this long without blogging, except maybe when I first started this blog. I'm sorry. I've mostly been working. The other night I was at the emergency room for hours with a friend (who is okay, but it was important to go), and I tried to write there since I had my computer with me and they supposedly had free WiFi, but it wouldn't save my post, let me listen to Pandora, or was in any way helpful in helping me pass the time, and my phone was dying, and neither using their charging station nor plugging directly into a wall outlet using the stock charger seemed to work, as at the most it would go up 1% after several minutes. It was rather frustrating. The next day I was a little late to work, but my boss understood, as she'd been in the ER with her father the other day and had come in late herself. Despite being very tired I worked very hard and maintained a level of perkiness suitable for dealing with the public, although it was hard, and then went and got my friend some groceries. I was so tired that I could barely drive, and came home and went straight to bed. Yesterday was slower at work, and I was still pretty tired, but I managed to get through it, go home, and I went to bed early again, sleeping till almost eleven this morning. I got up, got a shower, and went to the library to work on the game notes for about three hours, then went and got my hair cut (it really needed it; I hadn't had it cut since the end of March), and then came home and relaxed for a bit before returning to the notes for another three hours or so. But they're finished. We are, as far as I know, playing tomorrow, now that we've recovered (mostly--coughing is still bad for both of us) from the plague, so I wanted to get those done. I did want to work on the house some, as well, especially the books, but it's 9 pm now. It's taken so long because there was a lot of investigation. Anyway, that's ready for tomorrow. I need to desperately do my laundry tomorrow over there as well, as I didn't do so last weekend, and I'm down to almost nothing (or at least comfy underwear, which I consider essential). I'm looking forward to playing, though. We are currently playing an adventure that is set in Glasgow, Scotland, so I'm learning a lot about its history, including that of Saint Mungo, the patron saint (whose Celtic name was Kentigern). I know a little bit about Kentigern, or at least the name, from The Battlefield Band's song 'The Dear Green Place'



Mungo is known for four miracles which are portrayed on the city of Glasgow's heraldic shield. From Wikipedia:

• The Bird — Mungo restored life to a robin, that had been killed by some of his classmates.
• The Tree — Mungo had been left in charge of a fire in Saint Serf's monastery. He fell asleep and the fire went out. Taking a hazel branch, he restarted the fire.
• The Bell — the bell is thought to have been brought by Mungo from Rome. It was said to have been used in services and to mourn the deceased. The original bell no longer exists, and a replacement, created in the 1640s, is now on display in Glasgow.
• The Fish — refers to the story about Queen Languoreth of Strathclyde who was suspected of infidelity by her husband. King Riderch demanded to see her ring, which he claimed she had given to her lover. In reality, the King had thrown it into the River Clyde. Faced with execution she appealed for help to Mungo, who ordered a messenger to catch a fish in the river. On opening the fish, the ring was miraculously found inside, which allowed the Queen to clear her name. (This story may be confused with an almost identical one concerning King Maelgwn of Gwynedd and Saint Asaph.)

I'll give you resurrection and the spontaneous creation of fire, and the fish, of course, but we're still trying to figure out how bringing a bell from Rome constitutes a miracle. There must be more to the story, surely. Anyone with information, feel free to comment with that.

Okay, I think I'll get up and stretch a bit, as I've been typing at the computer for far too long. I will try to blog more. In the meantime, if I don't write again tonight, have a good evening, and a great weekend.

I use a music application on my phone called

Equalizer+, and one of the quirks of it is that if you play a new song, it tends to follow that song with the last playlist, album, or artist played before it. So I've been stuck for awhile on four songs, or more accurately, two versions of each of two different songs, and if I play one, it plays all. The songs are 'The Ballad of Accounting' (both the version by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, and the one by Battlefield Band, and 'Paint it, Black', the original by the Rolling Stones and and the cover by Ciara). They're two very different songs, but they both touch my emotions very strongly. The lyrics to the first are:

The Ballad of Accounting [Words and Music by Ewan MacColl]

In the morning we built the city
In the afternoon walked through its streets
Evening saw us leaving
We wandered through our days as if they would never end
All of us imagined we had endless time to spend
We hardly saw the crossroads
And small attention gave
To landmarks on the journey from the cradle to the grave,
cradle to the grave, cradle to the grave

Did you learn to dream in the morning?
Abandon dreams in the afternoon?
Wait without hope in the evening?
Did you stand there in the traces and let them feed you lies?
Did you trail along behind them wearing blinkers on your eyes?
Did you kiss the foot that kicked you?
Did you thank them for their scorn?
Did you ask for their forgiveness for the act of being born,
act of being born, act of being born?

Did you alter the face of the city?
Did you make any change in the world you found?
Or did you observe all the warnings?
Did you read the trespass notices, did you keep off the grass?
Did you shuffle off the pavement just to let your betters pass?
Did you learn to keep your mouth shut,
Were you seen and never heard?
Did you learn to be obedient and jump to at a word,
jump to at a word, jump to at a word?

Did you ever demand any answers?
The who, the what or the reason why?
Did you ever question the setup?
Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best?
Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest?
Did you settle for the shoddy?
Did you think it right
To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight,
never make a fight, never make a fight?

What did you learn in the morning?
How much did you know in the afternoon?
Were you content in the evening?
Did they teach you how to question when you were at the school?
Did the factory help you grow, were you the maker or the tool?
Did the place where you were living
Enrich your life and then
Did you reach some understanding of all your fellow men,
all your fellow men, all your fellow men?

Everyone knows 'Paint It, Black', right? The Rolling Stones made it famous, and there's a great video on YouTube where they've got footage from the VietNam War, and I've always associated that song with the era. But Ciara made an interesting version, and her cover appeared on the soundtrack of The Last Witch Hunter, the Vin Diesel movie we watched yesterday. I had gotten the song through the library some time ago, when I was looking for the Rolling Stones' version (I wound up buying a collection of their songs, as it wasn't available through Freegal. (If you're not familiar with Freegal, check and see if your library subscribes. With a valid library card, you can download three songs a week, for free, to keep)). Anyway, I'll include it here, as you may not have heard it:

Paint It, Black [originally done by The Rolling Stones]

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby, it just happens every day

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door I must have it painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Hmm, hmm, hmm, ...

I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black

Yeah!

I think they're both powerful songs. The first really makes you question how you're living your life, whether you're living enough to be something other than a sheep. The second touches on depression, darkness, loss--very powerful emotions. And for whatever reason, every time I play anything else on my phone, it always seems to spit these out, too, so apparently I should be paying attention. :) [One other odd quirk to the program is that since my phone updated to Android Marshmallow, all the pictures suddenly got switched about. The individual songs are correctly paired with their covers, but not in the listing of playlists, albums, or artists. Weird. Hopefully that will sort out eventually.]

Apparently

I process codeine cough syrup in about four and a half to five hours, tops, so I woke up coughing slightly at 3:45 am, worse by 4:20, and then by 4:45 I was out the door with a cough drop in my mouth on my way to Kroger for the daytime stuff so I wouldn't be coughing my brains out. Of course, it was thundering and lightning. It was sprinkling on the way to the store, a decent rain by the time I got there, and then all the heavens broke loose while I was inside (thankfully). I proceeded to stock up on vitamin B12 and D, since mine has disappeared, Kroger Mucinex and Delsym cough syrup, as directed by the nurse practitioner. I also got some bread, blueberries, and bananas, more Kleenexes for work--since I went through half a box yesterday, probably, and some trash bags and toothpaste since I was low. Everything fit in two bags. I did forget to get more Ricola drops, though, and I gave some to my cubicle neighbour, who was coughing pretty horribly yesterday, so I'm getting low.

Now I'm back home, and my strangling cough I had through the store has subsided while I'm drinking something. I'll take the Delsym in a few minutes. It's 12-hour, supposedly, so it can stay home. I'm already taking a small pharmacy and a nebuliser around in my backpack these days, anyway. It was funny, I was getting the Delsym and it asked for my ID at the U-Scan. They didn't even need my ID for the codeine the other day at CVS. :)

I did change back to my other masque for the CPAP, the one with the nasal area rather than the pillows going into the nose, as my nose is a little raw these days. But I went back to the sizing card and my nose length is just on the border between small and medium, so I went up to the medium nose piece instead and it fits better, snugger, without leakage. I slept much better as a result. When I slept, anyway. Oh well, I got about five hours total. That's better than one of my co-workers who has a six month old who gets fed every few hours or so throughout the night. So I won't complain.

Well, it's almost six. I was planning on getting up then, but I think I'll take some of this new cough syrup and try to sleep till 7 am, anyway. And right on cue, there is the dulcet tones of my Scottish music (Battlefield Band) which indicates my cell phone morning alarm is going off. Better snooze for 60 minutes....

I do love this song

'The Ballad of Accounting', which was written by Ewan MacColl. Here is his version, along with Peggy Seeger:



...and then this is the Scottish group The Battlefield Band, whose music I really like, with their version:



(although my favourite Battlefield Band song, one of their own, is 'The Dear Green Place', as story of Glasgow):



I know, I've posted these before. But they're still great. :)

Is it wrong to be listening to Scottish music on St Patrick's Day?

Although this first video's pictures are actually of Ireland, not Glasgow--the German who uploaded it didn't quite get the disconnect. But they are lovely:

Battlefield Band, 'Dear Green Place'


Silly Wizard, 'Donald McGillavry'

Whew!

I sat down at the computer and started finally compiling a list of all the books I have on the Kindle, or at least each file (several have books within a collection). It's taken a couple of hours to get the formatting and sorting right, but I'm finally finished. If you'd like to see, feel free to follow this link:

Eilir, the Rabid Librarian: My Kindle Books

The entire time I've been listening to the cable Celtic music channel, and I'm apparently pretty decent at recognising singers. For example, the Chieftains came on with 'The Lowlands of Holland', and even though Natalie Merchant was not listed on that, it was her singing, I realised, and I confirmed on the web. I also recognised a band I really like, Battlefield Band, playing their version of 'Ballad of Accounting' from their album Dookin'. I really like it:



It was written by Ewan MacColl in 1964, according to the website Ballad of Accounting. The lyrics may be found at the following page http://www.balladofaccounting.org/ballad.html. This is the version by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, which is excellent:

In a bit of a Scottish music mood

[If you don't understand Scots (and I seem to have a genetic understanding for some reason at times), the lyrics including translations are under 'more info' at the video's page.]



During the Potato famine, part of the Irish Diaspora found its way to Scotland, to the factories of its cities.

Two of my favourite Scottish songs

'The Dear Green Place' by Battlefield Band


(The 'Dear Green Place' is another name for Glasgow, by the way.)

'Donald McGillavry' by Silly Wizard