AND, SOMETHING I WISH TO CLEAR UP

How relieved I was to see Kelly feeling a touch better first thing this morning. Her stomach was still extended but she said her weight had gone down a bit meaning the water pills were working. Her voice is still scratchy but we think it might be from both the Endoscopy and Endoscropy tubes down her throat last week. I asked her this morning what was bothering her the most and she said, weakness. Her hemoglobin numbers might be low again and she spent part of the afternoon sleeping.  A blood pressure check early this afternoon was 115/70.

 The first thing Kelly did this morning was to contact her liver transplant liaison lady, Amy at University Hospital. Amy said unless Kelly's state worsens she has made an appointment for her to see a Dr. Hudson this coming Wednesday afternoon on the liver transplant floor. Kelly has seen this doctor before and likes him. So, that's where we are today. 

 A RARE PEAR TREE ON BAYFIELD RIVER ROAD

And, there is something I wish to clear up here because I didn't make it clear in last Friday's post. Kelly didn't just walk out of University Hospital last week, she was officially discharged. As soon as she had her discharge papers in hand she didn't want to wait around until a porter was found to bring her down in a wheelchair. She was anxious to go home so she walked out under her own steam. And the reason she came out with hospital scrubs on was because she didn't have any clothes to wear. The clothes she was wearing when taken by ambulance to the Clinton hospital last Monday afternoon were ruined and she told the staff to just throw them away.  I could have taken clothes to her but she didn't want any visitors while in the hospital.

I called Aunt Jean late this afternoon and she is holding her own.  She still has no appetite and says her biggest problem is tiredness and feeling weak.  Jean's new and larger room at Sunnyside is now ready for her and she awaits notification to move in.  It could be as early as this week.     

Not straying far from home this morning in case Kelly needed me, Pheebs and I slipped out to our country road walking spot for a quick walk.  It was shortly after 9 a.m. with the heat and humidity for the day already building. Surprisingly, Pheebs popped out of the car and led the way up the road and back.  Nice to see her happy energy walking out front of me instead of her older tiredness walking behind me.

Al's Music Box:)) I'm Not In Love (a lot of time, effort and complicated production can go into a song and this one is a good example of that) I'm Not In Love is a song by British group 10cc, written by band members Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldan. It is known for its innovative and distinctive backing track, composed mostly of the band's multitracked vocals. Released in the UK in May 1975 as the second single from the band's third album, 'The Original Soundtrack', Stewart came up with the idea for the song after his wife, to whom he had been married for eight years at that point, asked him why he did not say "I love you" more often to her. Stewart said, "I had this crazy idea in my mind that repeating those words would somehow degrade the meaning, so I told her, 'Well, if I say every day "I love you, darling, I love you, blah, blah, blah", it's not gonna mean anything eventually'. That statement led me to try to figure out another way of saying it, and the result was that I chose to say 'I'm not in love with you', while subtly Having abandoned "I'm Not in Love", Stewart and Gouldman turned their attention to the track "Une Nuit A Paris", which Godley and Creme had been working on and which would later become the opening track on The Original Soundtrack album. However, Stewart noticed that members of staff in the band's Strawberry Studios were still singing the melody of "I'm Not in Love", and this convinced him to ask the other members of the group to consider reviving the song. Godley was still skeptical, but came up with a radical idea, telling Stewart, "I tell you what, the only way that song is gonna work is if we totally mess it up and we do it like nobody has ever recorded a thing before. Let's not use instruments. Let's try to do it all with voices." Although taken aback by the suggestion, Stewart and the others agreed to try Godley's idea and create "a wall of sound" of vocals that would form the focal point of the record giving all the reasons throughout the song why I could never let go of this relationship." Stewart wrote most of the melody and the lyrics on the guitar before taking it to the studio, where Gouldman offered to help him complete the song. Gouldman suggested some different chords for the melody and also came up with the intro and the bridge section of the song. Stewart said that the pair spent two or three days writing the song, which at that point had a bossa nova rhythm and used principally guitars, before playing it to Godley and Creme. Stewart recorded a version with the other three members playing the song in the studio on traditional instruments – Creme on guitar, Gouldman on bass, and Godley on drums – but Godley and Creme disliked the song, particularly Godley, as Stewart later recalled: "He said, 'It's crap', and I said, 'Oh right, OK, have you got anything constructive to add to that? Can you suggest anything?' He said, 'No. It's not working, man. It's just crap, right? Chuck it.' And we did. We threw it away and we even erased it, so there's no tape of that bossa nova version." Having abandoned "I'm Not in Love", Stewart and Gouldman turned their attention to the track "Une Nuit A Paris", which Godley and Creme had been working on and which would later become the opening track on The Original Soundtrack album. However, Stewart noticed that members of the staff in the band's Strawberry Studios were still singing the melody of "I'm Not in Love", and this convinced him to ask the other members of the group to consider reviving the song. Godley was still skeptical, but came up with a radical idea, telling Stewart, "I tell you what, the only way that song is gonna work is if we totally mess it up and we do it like nobody has ever recorded a thing before. Let's not use instruments. Let's try to do it all with voices." Although taken aback by the suggestion, Stewart and the others agreed to try Godley's idea and create "a wall of sound" of vocals that would form the focal point of the record. Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, building up a "choir" of 48 voices for each note of the scale. The main problem facing the band was how to keep the vocal notes going for an infinite length of time, but Creme suggested that they could get around this issue by using tape loops. Stewart created loops of about 12 feet in length by feeding the loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand, and tensioned the tape. By creating long loops the 'blip' caused by the splice in each tape loop could be drowned out by the rest of the backing track, providing that the splices in each loop did not coincide with each other. Having created twelve tape loops for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk. This effectively turned the mixing desk into a musical instrument complete with all the notes of the chromatic scale, which the four members together then "played", fading up three or four channels at a time to create "chords" for the song's melody. Stewart had put tape across the bottom of each channel so that it was impossible to completely fade down the tracks for each note, resulting in the constant background of vocals heard throughout the song. Composer and music theory professor Thomas MacFarlane considered the resulting "ethereal voices" with distorted synthesized effects to be a major influence on Billy Joel's hit ballad "Just the Way You Are", released two years later. A basic guide track was recorded first in order to help create the melody using the vocals, but the proper instrumentation was added after the vocals had been recorded. In keeping with Godley's idea to focus on the voices, only a few instruments were used: a Fender Rhodes electric piano played by Stewart, a Gibson 335 electric guitar played by Gouldman for the rhythm melody, and a bass drum sound played by Godley on a Moog Synthesizer which Creme had recently purchased and learned how to program. The drum sound that was created was very soft and more akin to a heartbeat, in order not to overpower the rest of the track. Creme played piano during the bridge and the middle eight, where it replicated the melody of lyrics that had been discarded. The middle eight is also the only part of the song that contains a bass guitar line, played by Gouldman. A toy music box was recorded and double-tracked out of phase for the middle eight and the outro. Once the musical backing had been completed Stewart recorded the lead vocal and Godley and Creme the backing vocals, but even though the song was finished Godley felt it was still lacking something. Stewart said, "Lol remembered he had said something into the grand piano mics when he was laying down the solos. He'd said 'Be quiet, big boys don't cry' — heaven knows why, but I soloed it and we all agreed that the idea sounded very interesting if we could just find the right voice to speak the words. Just at that point the door to the control room opened and our secretary Kathy Redfern looked in and whispered 'Eric, sorry to bother you. There's a telephone call for you.' Lol jumped up and said 'That's the voice, her voice is perfect!'." The group agreed that Redfern was the ideal person, but Redfern was unconvinced and had to be coaxed into recording her vocal contribution, using the same whispered voice that she had used when entering the control room. These whispered lyrics would later serve as the inspiration for the name of the 1980s band Boys Don't Cry.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A Texan was taking a taxi tour of London and was in a hurry. As they went by the Tower of London the cab driver explained what it was and that construction of it started in 1346 and was completed in 1412.  The Texan replied, "Shoot, a little ol' tower like that? In Houston, we'd have that thing up in two weeks!" Next, they passed the House of Parliament - started in 1544 and completed in 1618.  "Well boy, we put up a bigger one than that in Dallas and it only took a year!"  As they passed Westminster Abbey the cab driver was silent.  "Whoah! What's that over there?" asked the Texan.  The driver replied, "I don't know, it wasn't there yesterday."

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I just changed my Facebook name to 'No one', so when I see stupid posts I can click like and it will say 'No one likes this'.

- A local church built a new sanctuary. They moved their very fine old pipe organ from to the new sanctuary. It was an intricate task that was completed successfully.  The local news heralded . . . "St. Paul Completes Organ Transplant."

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This is a true story of the late Irish author Brendan Behan who one night collapsed in a diabetic coma in a Dublin street. It was at a time when he was at the height of his drunken notoriety and passers-by naturally thought he was dead drunk. They took him to the nearby surgery of one of Dublin's most fashionable and respected doctors. The doctor decided to take a cardiograph and, somewhat nervous of his patient, thought to humor him. He explained the workings of the cardiograph needle as it registered the faint heartbeats of the very sick and semiconscious Brendan.  "That needle there is writing down your pulses, Mr. Behan, and I suppose, in its own way, it is probably the most important thing you have ever written."  To which Behan replied: "Aye, and it's straight from me heart, too."

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