Irony and the Sound of Music

I had to blab on yesterday's post about what I thought would comprise a perfect day. Of course what happened in response was that the next 24 hours from the posting of that post turned out to be far from a perfect day - in fact, it just hasn't been a good 24 hours. Immediately after I posted last night, I did a last check blog run of my links before heading to bed, and I came across my brother-in-law's new post regarding their doctor's appointment that morning with the triplets. He and my sister-in-law received some pretty disappointing news, and I went to bed last night with a heavy heart. Then I had to rise at 5:25 to do triathlon training, had quite a frustrating Wal-Mart trip that involved me being in a hurry to make an open house on time for work and getting stuck in the only open lane that wasn't self serve, and my reliable car I bragged about on my overindulgence post started making a horrendous noise on my way back to the office. I coasted into General Tire per Jason's orders, he met me and took me home to get the Jeep, our third vehicle that is paid for and pretty much sits in the barn until we have a dirty job to do or one of our regular cars is getting worked on. Jason headed back to work; I headed inside to do a few things before going back to the office. After doing a few chores, I hopped in the jeep, turned the ignition, and...it was dead. So I called Jason, he had to come back and get me, I dropped him off at work, and I took his car to my work. But since nothing too awful has happened since then, I decided to make my post topic about something other than the happenings of the day.

Ever so often I will hear a song on the radio that will remind me of a specific incident or situation from my past. I'm not talking about songs that remind me of major milestone events; obviously any time I here "All I Ask of You," I am going to remember our wedding. I'm talking about situations where if it weren't for the song, I would not have recollection of the memory. For example, while I was standing in line at Wal-Mart today for 20 minutes, I was listening to the music that was playing overhead, and on came the song "I Need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler. I was an avid Days of Our Lives viewer growing up. In fact, we would tape the daily episode since none of us were home during the day, and as a bribe to get me to practice piano, my mom would let me watch the day's episode after practicing for 30 minutes. There was a love story going on between Bo Brady and Hope I don't remember her last name (it's driving me crazy, someone help me out. Her dad was Doug, he was married to Julie, her mom Addie had died when she was a child.) As soap operas go, Bo and Hope broke it off, and Hope was set to marry Larry Welch, whom she did not love. On their wedding day, Hope is going down the aisle, and Bo is racing on his motorcycle towards the church to stop the wedding. This song "I Need a Hero" is playing in the background as Bo races into the church, Hope runs out, they chase through the woods, he tackles her to the ground, they wrestle for a bit, and then they fall into a passionate kiss. Of course as soap operas go, Bo and Hope end up getting married, splitting up, characters are written off the show, and I think at the present time the original actors are playing the roles once again, and they are split up.

"On My Own" by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald is another example. I was 11 years old, and the Marion Giants boys basketball team had just captured their third straight state title in 1987. My dad and brother must have headed to the gym for the after game pep rally, and my mom and I were in my parents' bed listening to the post game show on WBAT. The announcers signed off on the game, and the regular programming of seventies and eighties music returned. This song was playing as we lay in bed that night waiting for my dad and brother to get home. I think of that night every time I hear that song.

In seventh grade, I was "going with" a boy named Scott Pattison. The problem: I was not allowed to "go with" anyone in seventh grade. I didn't know how to tell my parents I had a boyfriend. I'm not really sure why I felt the need to tell them because we weren't actually going anywhere. I was sitting in my bedroom on the floor playing with a nerf ball when "I Had the Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing came on the radio. I can still feel the unsettleness and guilt I felt that night whenever I hear that song.

In eighth grade I stayed all night with my friend at her grandmother's house in Bluffton, and we went to the annual street fair. MTV was just becoming popular, and since it was not on at my house, I was pretty naive to music videos. However, MTV was on at my friend's grandmother's house (lots of teens were there) and I remember two videos distinctly: "Carrie" by Europe and "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna. I really liked "Papa Don't Preach" but felt pretty guilty about it because of the subject matter.

When I hear the song "American Pie" by Don MacLean, I think of riding early morning in the back seat during drivers ed. Mr. Jacob, my drivers ed teacher, loved Magic 95.1, and this song was guaranteed to play daily.

My senior year of high school I took Carin Vardamin to school each day. One morning, the song "Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox came on the radio, and she said, "Oh, I love that song," and she started singing along. I hated that song, actually I still do, but since she loved it so much, I endured the agony (not of her singing, she has a great voice, but of the song.) I bet she doesn't even remotely remember that instance.

The summer between my sophomore and junior year of college was pivotal for me - most significantly Jason and I started dating during that summer, and even before we started dating, we were a part of a group that stayed on campus during May term. Our group had some really fun times - none of us were dating and probably all of us wanted to be (not necessarily each other.) One of our favorite past times was to sit around and watch VH-1 - this is when VH-1 predominately played soft rock and love song videos. We were all feeling pretty down about our love lives anyway, why not enhance the mood with some sappy songs. Our personal favorites, and to this day when I hear these songs I think of that May term and that group - "Tell Me I Was Dreaming" by Travis Tritt (really depressing video) and "Not Enough" by Van Halen.

I can think of several other instances, but for post length sake, I will stop. What I think is interesting about these songs is that I don't particularly like or dislike any of them (except the Walking on Broken Glass one,) they just remind me of certain memories. Another post I may do someday will be about songs that day after day, year after year, if I hear them on the radio or on a cd, I love them just as much as the first time I heard them. Some songs I will hear once and really like; then I run it into the ground by buying the cd and listening to it incessantly. But there are a handful of songs that every time I hear them, I just belt out the lyrics and get that funny, corny, emotional feeling inside.

Triathlon Training Update: Today was a milestone day for me - I successfully wore a pair of goggles for the entire swim time (30 minutes.) I have never been able to find a pair of goggles that don't let the water in. Jason and I went snorkeling on vacation one time, and I had a miserable time because water kept getting in my mask. On these goggles, I had unsuccessfully tried them before, but Jason swapped out the nose piece and they work perfectly. We followed the swim with a 15 minute run - pretty uneventful day.