Like most I do like a variety of music.
I do have trouble with liking jazz though.  Having said that, I used to catch a bus from work to the train and sometimes sat with a guy that was into jazz.  Every Wednesday evening he would get together with mates and play.  As a player I imagine it is fun to ad lib but as a listener I was always looking for a beat, or an opportunity to tap along, and it did not seem to be there as often as I would like.
Having said that I imagine some would have trouble with me liking some rock and roll.  It is not an “always” thing but “sometimes” I like to listen to heavy music.  Head banging stuff.  Not everyone’s cup of tea for sure but as long as the words are ok I really can enjoy it.
Yesterday on my play list I was listening to a song that would fall into that category.  From the first bar I thought “this is roll and roll.”  I think I have written before about what it was saying but it got me again.  “She needs more than a hug on a holiday.”
I also have on my playlist the song by Phil Collins, “Another day in Paradise.”
For me compassion is desirable but difficult.  Often it means investing time and effort in another.  Sometimes that time and effort is seemingly a waste of time. (I laughed.  I thanked someone for reading an email of mine.  They said, “that’s 15 seconds of my life I will never get back.”)
Compassion is mostly more than 15 seconds.  But to me it is the right thing to do - sometimes despite the seemingly fruitless results.  I was reading yesterday about someone who came to the aid of another on several occasions but did not experience a reciprocation.
That to me says heaps.  I think the exercising of compassion has more to do with results in me than in the object of my compassion.  It is a bonus and the outward goal if someone else is helped.  But what happens on the inside of me I think can be gold if I let it.
I want to grow as a person.  Sometimes that means going down to go up.  Results in me I can control.  Results is others is their business.

There is no doubt in my mind, my world changed for me when I had the stroke.  I guess I take solace in the fact it was brought on by the cutting of an artery to get to a mass that had been found in my brain.
It seems weird to be thankful for something in those circumstances, but I often say if a person is to have a mass in the brain, that is the place to have it.  I say that because people often die from masses in the brain.  Mine was at the back and could be gotten to.
Poor Merril had been told I would never walk again, and I would be dead in six months.  I have a walker and wheelchair that fortunately sit idle.  Having said that, I do fight fears I never knew existed.  Things are a battle that were easy peasy and I never thought about.
One thing I know it has shown me though is how I take so much for granted that really is a gift.  In an instant, life changed and my world was turned upside down.
One thing I am glad of, is growing up knowing someone has my back, believing in the best in myself and promoting the best in others.  I am thankful that it is not a “woe is me” thing but a “get on with it” thing.  It would be so easy to bemoan what I have lost, and to miss what I still have.
For a start it could have been way worse than it is.  I often liken it to a guitar that now has four strings rather than six.  The thing to me is a beautiful melody can be produced on four strings.
I appreciate those with disabilities (or should I say other abilities) are being catered for right now.  I do think the days where it is are coming to an end.
Still my outlook is not built on what is promoted as acceptable in some quarters, but what is acceptable in what many regard as unacceptable.
To me hope is not solely the domain of the apparently altogether, but also the domain of the  down and out – the overlooked.  No matter how long suffering in a lifetime is, a lifetime is but a blip in time and eternity.  My anchor lies there, and not in what will not last.

Yesterday was mostly a quiet day at home. 
The kitchen is awaiting the splash back, stone top and sink, so we have improvised using the tops from the previous kitchen (we have kept them for the granny flat (cabin).
I actually hung a picture doing measurements from the exposed beams in the cabin.  I wanted to drill in the right place and wonder of wonders it worked.
I also lifted some stuff into the house that had been removed from the kitchen while we got the new one.  Two boxes were severely wet and I needed to transfer stuff from them to other containers.  One box was obviously “that draw” that everyone seems to have, full of a mishmash of implements.  Merril made sense of them and put them away in a tidily fashion.  I’m impressed.
The place feels more liveable these days, but I know there is a ways to go.  Once all is competed there is stuff from the change to set up elsewhere.  I feel like I have my work cut out for me for a number of months.
We did need a few things so Merril and I went and got them.  Basically bread and butter, cordial and the like.
I think we will be having a couple of quiet days while we let what has been done to Merril’s artery settle.  Not that that is easy.  But I am not as excited as Merril about a new kitchen.  It’s nice and we are pleased, but we both know it is a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
What I am more excited about is the completion of the granny flat (cabin) when it happens.  Again it is a means to an end only, but it will be nice to have a set up for visitors.
In the meantime we are biding our time.  We do what we see we need to do, but the pace is slower than normal.