marius

The Devil and the Farmer's wife is much better heard than read. So, this version works, but not saying it's the best rendition. : )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q8h3bRmS24

Baldur

OK, here is Amazing Grace, sung in French, Louisiana style

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56LNciQaabw

Baldur

Well that was a real tearjerker, What an odd program on Radio Baldur this evening.
It almost requires a cameo appearance by matthew.

'All Baldur, All the Time'

Dragon

Hate to break up the musical interlude, but reading through Robin and marius's comments on touch made me think about myself too. I totally understand that it can indescribable how we can panic at even the thought of some kinds of touch (even if they aren't particularily intimate)
I've never been overly touchy but I don't have a problem with my huggy friends either, I've had some who were very huggy and my boyfriend very much loves to hug and I love to reciprocate with him. However I've always had this aversion to having anything touch my neck. Even the thought of wearing a turtleneck makes me cringe and my throat feel tight. Even as a child I always stretched out the necks of all my sweaters so they wouldn't touch. For the most part this isn't a big deal, I wear V-neck shirts and don't wear choker necklaces. But my honey would really like to kiss my neck every now and again and I had to bring him into the loop on how much I can't stand that. It's not a trust issue. it's completely physical and though he no longer kisses me there I'm not sure he truly inderstands why I can't stand it. I'm not sure I understand it, I just know when I sense he's going for it I tense up and suddenly feel panicked rather than sexy. It makes me wonder if I was hung or something in my last life.

polenta

Dragon, you could have choked even slightly as a baby or toddler and you don't remember it. My computer technician, who is a grown-up man is afraid of spaghetti, even its sight, because he choked being a child while eating.

Dragon

In keeping with the musical nature on Baldur Radio tonight I'd like to submit Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. John Lennon wrote it after his son Julian came home from school with a crayon drawing of the girl he was smitten with, when asked what it was he replied to his father 'Well that's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.' Julian got back into touch with this classmate after many years when he heard she had Lupus and they formed a close friendship again. She recently died of her Lupus so here it is to commemerate her passing:

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies,
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high.
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you're gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle,
The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

Dragon

Interesting thought polenta. I do know I once got food poisoning from some scallops once as a child and to this day I cannot stand them. It's not the taste, I actually rather like the taste but I just can't get past that mental 'Food Poisoning' block.

marius

Baldur - loved that version of Amazing Grace. Beautiful! And, did not notice Baldur Radio being more odd than normal. (tee hee) : ) But, yes, where is Matthew?

marius

Dragon, you're not the only one with neck issues. Have known quite a few with that. They say you'll never find turtleneck sweaters in their closets!

Polenta's post about the man afraid of spaghetti because of childhood incident - it happens. Know a man who is afraid of butter because he ate a whole stick of it when he was a kid and it made him sick. Regarding self - had an incident, age six, involving brussels sprout and later peas. Both are "gag" foods for me. To this day, neither are allowed in my house. Am fine if I see them at the grocery store but, generally will not look at them. And our lovely friends accommodate this - know I won't come to dinner if either of those items are to be served. : )

marius

Oh - and Dragon - love the song you posted and the story that goes with it. Was told Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds was code for LSD so thought it was a song about LSD experiences. The real story makes the song so much better!!! Thanks for telling us.

Baldur

I can also understand being afraid of spaghetti..

It's Baldur story time.

Long long ago when the world was still locked in the embrace of the cold war Baldur was battling a horrible childhood.
Unlikely as it seems, my surroundings were not a blissful utopian dream.
The oldest of my 2 sisters was getting to be old enough and self determined enough to be a royal pain. There was never a time that we saw eye to eye on anything or could even successfully pretend to like each other.
My mother was a determined yet fairly dangerous cook. I believe that one of the reasons that Baldur became a vegetarian was because of her pot roast. But that was years down the road.
We were also all rather isolated from the world which didn't help matters.
My social literacy IQ was nil until the late 1970s.
My parents did not like pop music so we did not ever hear it on the radio. They also weren't big on fiction, especially science fiction so television was extremely dull for a child trying to learn about the world in the 1960s.
Baldur would hear about music in school, my classmates would be talking about new songs, new singers and none of it was anything I could relate too.
The oddest part of this whole scenario was that our home was off limits to our friends.
Certainly my my parents had nothing to hide but they did not want to deal with other people's children, ever.
Any friends we had were not allowed 'in'. Since the evil sibling and I (and eventually the pleasant sibling became old enough to join us) went to parochial school we had no day to day relationship with the other neighborhood children. They were all in public school.
We played after school and on weekends but our status was not the same as with their other friends.
Also because of our parent's isolationist habits we never saw our classmates outside of the classroom.
It was fairly miserable.

marius

Marius has been chatty all day long ... not now ... please continue....

Baldur

too -o =to

Back to the food.
Of my mother's dinner repertoire the things Baldur enjoyed was Shepherd's pie, spaghetti & meatballs and scalloped potatoes.
She was very big into the fish on Friday routine, but fish was my most loathed food. The pot roast was pure evil and the beef stew was really just pot roast in smaller pieces. There were other menu items of course and perhaps my failure to remember them is a good thing.
The desserts weren't bad, in all fairness she could prepare those.

Baldur

Mother hated her tomato sauce, she didn't mind tomato sauce in general but she thought her's was the worst.
Hence she rarely made it.

Here is odd Baldur spaghetti story #1
Next door to us lived an odd and brash family.
The father was pleasant but somewhat alcoholic.
The mother was truly crazy, she had wild black hair like a stereotypical witch. She also could not speak without screaming.

Baldur

Of the children one son was much older and already somewhat on his own.
He did however spend long stretches back at home.
Son #2 was perhaps 5 years older than me and liked to 'rough-house' with Baldur. He would have termed it 'joshing around', I would have termed it 'beating me up'.
Then there was the youngest, a daughter. She was only slightly older than me.
She however had no interest in me in the slightest. At best I was an obstacle on the sidewalk.
For whatever reason one afternoon the crazy mother invited me to supper.

Baldur

Baldur had never been invited to anyone's house for supper.
I'd dined with relatives, and we had made the odd foray to a restaurant, but never had this social situation come up.
Even stranger my mother assented.
AND the dinner was spaghetti and meatballs.

Baldur

Dinner was in their very cramped kitchen. The father, the crazy mother, both sons, the daughter and I were crammed around a table that could have comfortably had room for 2, it would have been cramped with 4, but we were 6.
Then crazy mother took the meatballs out of the oven. This was already going amiss.
My mother browned the meatballs in a skillet and then cooked them in the tomato sauce. Our meatballs were at most 2" in diameter, and relatively soft.
Crazy mother took a cookie sheet out of the oven that held 12 HUGE meatballs. They were each easily 5" in diameter and baked dry. They were also well adhered to the pan.
It took a bit of a struggle with a sturdy spatula to sever meatball from metal surface.

Baldur

Now Baldur has a problem on his plate.
The spaghetti and the sauce seem fine but there is no way that my fork is ever going to successfully break the hard shell surrounding the meatball.
I tried stabbing it with both the fork and the knife and then using both simultaneously. It might as well have been carved from granite.

Baldur

Eventually crazy mother took my plate and cut the meatball into smaller pieces. The interior was still not reasonably soft but it was possible to eat it. Whenever I got a piece of the shell in my mouth it required quite a lot of chewing.
They never invited Baldur again, though I suspect it was because my parents never reciprocated.

Baldur

Baldur must save spaghetti story #2 for another time.
This last story was much longer than I imagined it would be.