Leading the Singing

Hello. My name is Frustrated and I am a Kiwanian.

I know that sounds like the opening to a 12 step program but I do enjoy this organization as we have some silly rituals that we go through every week but most of all, I just enjoy fellowshipping with other club members who work in about every conceivable sector of business within our community. The networking is great!

Back to those silly rituals… one is the singing portion of the meeting. We will sing a couple of songs with one being the song leader’s choice and the other being of a patriotic nature. I have only led singing twice before and that was over two years ago. Since they haven’t asked me to lead singing again I was pretty sure they realized my level of talent in that area is marginal and they were lucky to have survived the first two attempts.

Entering stage left is a new member who has the pleasure of recruiting song leaders who in a pinch asked me to lead singing today. I was at first panicked as I am pretty sure they hang bad song leaders or even worse, banish them to the Lions Club (who are notorious for bad singing). Searching frantically for a viable excuse on why I couldn’t lead singing I found myself, much to my horror, agreeing to his request. Really, I’ve got to stop doing ’shrooms before Kiwanis!

Now I sit here wondering what songs I should pick. Three Steps comes to mind but for some reason it isn’t one of the songs listed. I can’t find anything by the Stones, Styx, Kansas, Asia, Black Sabbath or even the Eagles listed so I will have to look for something a little more archaic.

Well, it is almost hunting season (rifle and pistol) so maybe I should find a suitable hunting song. Something from Bavaria or perhaps Scandinavia… Rats, they don’t have any such thing in the official song book. Hmm, maybe I should go for a song about technological advancements in computer design since that is what our speaker will be yakking about today. What? They don’t have any songs about that? What kind of songbook is this anyway? Surely they have a nice little ditty that will address our celebratory attitude about autumn. Nope, songs about summer is about all they have and I’m beginning to think I am in a heap of trouble.

It looks like I’m stuck with going with one of the standards such as Home on the Range or I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.

Sigh. Free Bird would’ve a been nice change.

Malibu Burning

There are times I am extremely happy I don’t live in California (I think in my last scientific calculation that worked out to be 99.67341% of the time) and last night as I sat watching the news special with Twyla about California burning, I think I upped my happiness level of not living in California to 99.89402%, give or take .0005% percentage points.

I hated to see Malibu burn because I have always wanted to visit there, mainly because of Pepperdine University, but just because it always seems so pretty on TV.  Now I am thinking I probably don’t have such a hankering to visit there and wonder if Glenn Fry might want to rewrite The Last Resort since it doesn’t seem to be such a wonderful piece of property now.  All of those million dollar homes gone… I wonder if insurance companies will be pulling out of California now like they did Texas after the black mold fiasco.

Watching Malibu burn holds a weird fascination for me because it reinforces the desire I have to ask Californians the following question;

“California is hit constantly by mudslides, wildfires, earthquakes, which are conveniently covered up by the smog…. so why in the world would you want to live there?  The standard of living is unbelievable, gas prices higher than anywhere else, real estate prices are totally outrageous which in essence is a commitment by you to live in a disaster area waiting to happen and willing to pay out the wah-zoo for that privilege.   Tell me again, why do you want to live there?“

My heart goes out to the folks who are suffering from the fires but really folks, you might want to consider moving north.  I hear the folks in Washington and Oregon would love to have you come live there.