sharon's harmony hut

When I was a teenager, there was a mall record store called Harmony Hut.  I spent a lot of money there and other mall record stores such as Sam Goody, Alwilk, and others I can't remember the names of.  So lately I've been thinking about doing a series of music posts, and I wanted to start with harmonies... so I stole the name.  Sue me.

Welcome to Sharon's Harmony Hut.

I have a thing for harmonies.  I've always had an ear for harmonies, and I can harmonize with just about anything.  Call it an obsession.

So for today's first ever Sharon's Harmony Hut post, I chose some of the best harmonizers out there:  The Bee Gees.

Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, the Brothers Gibb, the BG's, have very distinctive vocals.  Robin's quavering vibrato makes his voice one of the most recognizable ever.  I saw them in person twice, and I've seen countless videos, and they are always pitch perfect.  The only other group I've ever seen as pitch perfect is the Osmonds, and believe me, they will be featured in Sharon's Harmony Hut.

The Bee Gees started performing quite young, in fact, I think Robin and Maurice weren't even teenagers yet when they began singing professionally.  Of course they became quite well known for 'Saturday Night Fever,' but they had been around long before that.  It's hard for me to choose a best song, but I narrowed down some of their best work.

Now, while 'Massachusetts' isn't exactly one of my most favorite songs of theirs, their harmonies in this clip from a television talk show are perfect.  In fact, you really need to appreciate that they are just sitting there singing with nothing other than guitars, and it sounds this good.

'Islands in the Stream' was never a favorite of mine, mostly because I just didn't like the Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton version.  (And I'm a Dolly Parton fan... go figure).  But when the Bee Gees sang this unplugged version in concert, it became a whole different song to me.  I never knew why they gave it away instead of making it a hit for themselves.  But whatever... it made them a ton of money anyway.

'Nights on Broadway' is definitely one of my favorite Bee Gees songs, in fact, it might be my favorite.  It also reminds me of the very funny Saturday Night Live sketch, "The Barry Gibb Talk Show," which you can find on You Tube. (I don't know why this video cuts off the end, but oh well).

And last but not least, I chose this charming little clip because it highlights not only their barbershop like harmonies but because it's just cute.  I read that both Robin and Maurice were the comics of the family, and you can see that is probably true.  Plus, if you listen closely, you can hear Robin's overbite when he sings, something that stayed with him his whole life. (And actually Barry’s too). Fun fact, if you listen closely to the Andrews Sisters, you can hear Patty sing through her overbite.

My favorite Bee Gee was Maurice.  When he died suddenly, I was heartbroken, but it wasn't until I looked him up for this post that I realized he was only 53 when he died.  It's sad that now both Robin and Maurice (along with youngest brother Andy) are all gone and Barry is the sole survivor.  That must be hard.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Sharon's Harmony Hut.  More to come.

mystery solved

So if you remember from this post, we still had one part of the ancestry mystery to solve.  Where did Tom Durant fit in?

To recap:

1.  I took a DNA test.

2.  I was contacted by Bob Eaton, who said we matched as first cousins.  I said, "whaaaaaaat?" (or something very similar to that).

3.  I was contacted by Tom Durant, who said we matched as first or second cousins.  I said, "WHAAAAAT?" (or something very similar to that).

4.  Bob Eaton and Tom Durant came up as matches to each other but had no idea who each other was.

5.  Super DNA sleuth Ann figured out that my paternal grandfather had a child with someone other than my grandmother, and that child had Bob Eaton.  Hence, Bob was right.  We are first cousins.

6.  We still needed to figure out how Tom Durant fit in.

Tom, if you remember, was put up for adoption as an infant.

Well, super DNA sleuth Ann worked really, really hard and came up with the answer.  Or at least the possible answer.  There really is no other explanation.

My grandfather had TWO children with this woman other than my grandmother.  The second child had a child, and THAT child had Tom Durant.  That second child would be my first cousin, which makes Tom Durant my first cousin once removed.

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

I haven't communicated with either Bob or Tom since this revelation.  I figure I'd let them think about it for awhile.  Meanwhile, my sister and some cousins and I are still like, wow.

This is my paternal grandfather.  I believe this was taken during WWI, probably not long before he married my grandmother and started having a boatload of children with everyone.

I never knew him.  He died in 1960, five years before I was born.  The things I've heard about him have not been too kind.  Apparently he liked to drink and fight.  Apparently that's not all he liked to do though.

So there it is.  Mystery solved... or at least figured out as much as it could possibly be figured out.

i get up early

This is what most of my mornings look like.

Getting ready to read some of my favorite blogs

As I mentioned here, I have very little recollection of my last dog as a puppy.  I do remember that when I first brought her home, I set an alarm and took her outside in the middle of the night, but I don't remember how old she was when I stopped doing that.  I also don't remember when I stopped crating her and let her sleep overnight out in the house.  What I do remember though is that she slept until I came downstairs in the morning, and if that meant I didn't wake up until 9:00, she didn't wake up until 9:00.

Not so with Miss Ivy.

From day one, she's been waking up between 5-5:30 am.  I thought by now she'd stretch it until at least 6:30, but no.  She seems to love that 5:00 hour.

There was a time in my life when I'd be rolling in the house at 4 or 5 am after a night of debauchery.  I'll admit that I'm glad those days are over.  I had what I lovingly refer to as my "two major benders" in my lifetime, one in my 20's and the other in my 40's.  I'm not sure which one was worse.  I did some crazy shit in both, and for the most part, I can laugh about it.  I'm actually laughing a little as I type this.  These days I rarely ever want a drink.  I guess I got it all out of my system.

But back to Ivy.  When I first got her, she was raring to go the minute I let her out of the crate.  I was not.  In fact, I was downright angry.  I bitched and moaned and complained about her waking up so freaking early.  Then I noticed one day that I was starting to get used to it.  Then I bitched and moaned and complained about how I was getting used to it.

I can be somewhat impossible.  Just ask my SO (that's short for Significant Other).

Ivy is almost six months old now, and she's not as raring to go as she was a few months back.  When I let her out of the crate, she goes outside first thing, but when she comes back in, she doesn't race around or grab her toys or get all up in my business anymore.  She curls up and falls back to sleep.  I make my coffee, give her the stink eye for falling back asleep while I'm wide awake, and open my computer to catch up on some reading.

And you know what?  I'm kind of liking the peacefulness and quiet.  I guess you could say that I'm liking getting used to it.

Now that's not to say that I wouldn't rather she sleep until about 7:00, but there's something kind of fun about listening to the world around you when it's super quiet in the house.

For instance, I can hear the train, and I've determined that whoever the conductor is, he's pissed off that he has to work so early in the morning because he lays on that horn for the entire time the train is passing through town.  He seems to want EVERYONE to be awake too.

I get it, dude. I totally get it.

I always wonder about the handful of people who drive down the street to the main road.  What are their jobs?  Where are they going so early?

I know exactly whose dogs are barking.  I've got the Hound of the Baskervilles behind me and the Bark Twins down the street.  Sometimes the Bark Twins set off another round of dogs a few more streets down, so it's obvious that I'm not the only one awake with the beasts.

In a few months, it will start getting lighter around 6:00 am.  I'm already looking forward to taking the dog out for early morning walks.  Maybe I'll take my camera.  But with my luck, that'll be when she starts sleeping in.

We'll see.

ancestry

So I took an Ancestry.com DNA test.

Sounds like the beginning of a joke.  Turns out it's the beginning of a mystery.

Within two weeks of getting my results, I was contacted by someone named Tom Durant.  In his message, Tom said that he was adopted as an infant and has been working to find his biological roots.  Every time someone new appears in his DNA matches, he reaches out to them to ask how they are related, and indeed, Ancestry put us at a pretty high match - cousin level.  He mentioned to me that he had most of his maternal side figured out but that his paternal side was more difficult.  He mentioned the surnames Lavery, Carey, and Eaton, none of which rang a bell with me or ever appeared in my family tree information.  I told him I'd ask around.

Two days later, I got a message from someone named Bob Eaton.  Bob basically said, "Hey, looks like we are cousins. How is that?  In my family there are the names Lavery, Carey, and Eaton."

Hmm.

So I told him I'd ask around.  

Soon after those messages, I got another one from someone named Ann.  She said she was a biological cousin of Tom's from his maternal side and was helping him with his research.  She told me that because of the high cM number (centimorgans...how they rate the closeness of DNA matches...I don't know much more than that), I am closely related to both Tom and Bob - most likely cousins.  I told her that I didn't know how that could be possible since I know who all my cousins are on my paternal side and that there are no Laverys, Careys, or Eatons in my family.  She told me she was working on some information and that there seemed to be a common ancestor:  my paternal grandfather.

She then wrote this...

"I think there is an NPE in the mix somewhere fairly recently - Grandparent level.

In genealogy, the acronym "NPE" stands for "non-paternity event" (a.k.a., non-paternal event, false paternal event, mis-attributed paternity, etc.) meaning an individual is not the child of the father shown in the family's "paper" genealogy."

Hmm.

After much back and forth, we finally came up with the following conclusion.  We think that my paternal grandfather had a child with a woman whose maiden name was Lavery and married name was Carey.  That child grew up and married someone with the surname Eaton, and they had a son named Bob.  Bob Eaton.  So Bob Eaton's mother would have been my father's half sibling, which then would make Bob and I cousins.  And that is exactly what Ancestry.com put us at.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

Both Bob Eaton and his wife JoAnn had done their DNA tests, and their results showed that they are related to EACH OTHER.  Do you want to know how?  JoAnn is the granddaughter of my paternal grandfather's sister.  That makes Bob and JoAnn second cousins.  Of course they had no idea since Bob had no reason to think he was ever descended from that family line.

See?  You fool around, and you fool around, and someone's going to wind up married to his second cousin.  This is what happens when you grow up in a small town.

What we can't figure out is how Tom Durant places in all of this.  We are still working on that.  We have some guesses.  My sister seems to think that one of our male paternal cousins is Tom's father.  Nobody will ever really know unless this cousin decides to do a DNA test.  Unfortunately, we haven't seen or spoken to him in years.  My sister does keep in touch with his daughter though, so I told my sister she should get our cousin's daughter to get her father to take a test.  We'll see if that ever happens.

Families.  You never really know, do you.

i did a really stupid thing

Honestly, that could be the title my memoir.

I did this stupid thing on September 28, 2019.  I got a puppy.  I have no idea what I was thinking.

Well actually, I do know what I was thinking.  I was thinking how much I wanted another dog.

This was my Trixie.

Trixie in her prime

We had her for almost thirteen years.  She was the best dog you could ever have because she was the dumbest dog ever.  Seriously.  Dumb dogs make the best dogs.

She wasn't without fault.  When she was younger, she jumped on people and scratched them with her dew claw.  I'm surprised we never got sued.  She used to love to roll in fox poop.  She would bolt out of the house and run away from us.  I wasn't so much afraid of her getting hit by a car as I was afraid that she was too dumb to find her way home.

She got sprayed by skunks twice.

So when her time finally came, I knew I would get another dog at some point.  After a little over a year went by, I started looking on Petfinder, which is how I found Trixie.

However... it was not as easy this time around.  Local shelters had nothing but pit bulls, German shepherds, and lab mixes.  I have nothing against any of those, but the labs and the shepherds were too sheddy, and the pit bulls were going to be bigger than I wanted.  Trixie wound up being 60 lbs, and I needed a dog a good 20 lbs lighter this time around.  I applied to a bunch of rescue organizations, but I was denied by many of them.  I never got a reason why, but I think it's because I'm over 50.  So I began to look at breeders.

I'm all for rescuing, and I have nothing against going through a reputable breeder.  The only reason I didn't want to go through a breeder is because of this:

PUPPY

Sigh.  I'm sure you know what comes next.  

Ivy, 8 weeks old

She looks like a slug here.  I picked her up when she was 8 weeks old.  It took us all over a week to agree on a name.  And let me tell you, I was sorely unprepared for what was to come next.  

I had ZERO recollection of what having a puppy was like.  ZERO.  It was like I totally blocked out Trixie's puppyhood.  Trixie was about 3 months old when we got her, and that's makes a big difference from having an 8 week old, but I could not remember what day-to-day life with a puppy had been like.  I was pretty sure after the first week with Ivy that I had made one of the worst decisions of my life.  In fact, I posted this on my Facebook page:

So, a few observations as I close in on my first week with a puppy:

1. The last puppy I had was 14 years ago.
2. I am NOT 40 anymore.
3. This WILL probably kill me.
4. My knees will give out before this dog does.
5. Ditto for my back.
6. It has been even longer since I had toddlers because it took me over 15 minutes to figure out how to set up the baby gate.
7. I’m pretty sure Popes are elected in less time than it took to agree on a name for this dog.
8. Everything is cute when sleeping.

Well, Ivy is now five months old, and here are some current observations:

It hasn't killed me yet.
My knees have improved since that first week.
Ditto for my back.
I still have trouble with the baby gate.
She's still at her best when she's asleep.
She's too damn smart.  Smart dogs are nothing but trouble.

Ivy, 5 months old

2020

I can't believe it's 2020.  Really.  I remember when I was in 5th grade math class, we had to figure out how old we'd be in the year 2000.  When I calculated that I'd be 35, I couldn't imagine being that old.

Yet, here I am in 2020.

So I've been thinking about blogging for awhile now.  I've had blogs before.  The first blog I ever had was, oh... about 13 years ago.  That was a personal blog.  On that blog, I used to have a weekly post where I'd review a new beer I tried.  It got so popular that it morphed into its own blog.  That really took off, and not long after I started it, people and even some companies were sending me beers to review.  My entire basement fridge was loaded with beer.  My significant other didn't complain.

I ran that blog for a couple of years, but it started to get a little overwhelming and hard to keep up with, so I ended it.  After a short hiatus, I went back to personal blogging, but that was mainly a photo blog.  I had fun with that, but I started getting really busy with work, so that blog fell by the wayside.  My last blog was just a random blog, in fact, it was called "My Utterly Random Blog."  To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, it was a blog about nothing.  I really enjoyed that one, but it hit the skids after I hit the skids after the election of 2016.  Not only did I fall into a pretty deep depression, I found out through blogging that some of the people I'd become internet friends with had some pretty disturbing political views that conflicted severely with mine.  Honestly, that election made a person figure out who his friends were and were not.

So I ended the blog.  And unfortunately I had to end a few "friendships" in the process.

But I've missed blogging.  I missed connecting in the way only the interwebs can provide.  I kept up reading the blogs I enjoyed, but just commenting sometimes didn't feel like enough.  So after some hesitation, I figured I'd give it another whirl.  Like my previous blog, this one will probably be pretty much just random stuff.  I hope to post on a fairly regular basis.

I don't intend on getting political.  That's not to say I won't express my opinions if I feel like it, but really...there's enough crap going on out there to read about and talk about.  I'm not using this blog to hide from reality, but a good distraction is necessary.  It's distraction that has kept me mildly sane these past four years.

So I hope to gather some readers and some friends.  Let's see where 2020 takes us.

Thanks for reading.