Overrun by Minions

My husband comes from a very talented family. For our reunion this summer they are asking every family to prepare a musical number, from an actual musical. And though Frozen is BANNED (for reasons of saturation, not for reasons addressed in my last post), I think there will still be plenty of little girl love to go around.

In my house? Not so much.

So last night we all made one of these:

We used felt and markers. And glue, because, you know, not a lot of sewing going on around here. And yes, they are just as easy as they look, and with tee-shirts 3/$9 at JoAnn's this week, cheap too. 

We are going to sing the Minion version of YMCA. One of the kids will sing the lead (does anybody know where I can pick up a kid's sized headdress??) and the rest of us will do back up. With actions. The chorus we will all pitch in singing "BA-NAN-NAN-NA" for YMCA. Before the whole thing gets too annoying (so, yeah, like a minute), the youngest (aka Minion Dave) will shoot said lead singer (Minion Carl) with a dart gun. The whole number will dissolve into a minion fight and we will all live happily ever after.

Fiddler on the Roof, it ain't.

The Greatest Love of All

If you were in middle or high school in the late 1980's like I was, this album might look familiar to you. We didn't have very many tapes that were the sole province of the children in my family, but this was one. My sister and I used to plug our old boom box into an outdoor outlet on our deck. We would turn the volume all the way up, stand on the opposite side of the yard on an A-frame swingset and play "rock concert." We would fight over who stood on the platform singing, and who had to watch. We weren't very good, and our repertoire wasn't very large, but Ms. Houston was a staple. There is nothing that unleashes your inner diva like singing at the top of your lungs with Whitney Houston (Somewhere, Out There was another favorite!) Perhaps like you, this remarkable and tragic woman has been on my mind somewhat this week. Though, it is probably true that she has been less on my mind than a track from this album. A song titled, "The Greatest Love of All."

Here is the other thing about growing up in the 1980s: the concept of "self-esteem" became an essential part of the post-baby-boom Generation X. It is a thing that has not always served us well as adults, this constant validation as children for simply breathing. Whitney's song teaches us that "learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all." Hearing that angel-voice through the radio telling me that children were the future and admonishing my parents to teach me well, and let me lead the way, did a lot for my budding self-esteem.

It is too bad that Ms. Houston maybe never understood her own advice, that her addictions kept her from the self-actualization she tried to bring a generation of children. My generation.

For all that I love that song and that voice and could probably still sing it word for word if I heard it on the radio, I don't actually agree with her. I don't think that self-love is the greatest love. And while it is important, I believe it cannot really be obtained unless we focus on other kinds of love. God-love. Family-love. Other-love. *gulp* Enemy-love. Then, you can, as Whitney Houston reminds us, "find your strength in love."

Stars Are People Too. Sort Of.

Last Friday Night, Plantboy and I watched the Hope For Haiti Telethon. The DVR has kept awards shows from being nearly as much fun as they used to be, as now we skip the awful performances instead of watching purely for mock value. Still, now and then we can't resist and we tuned in real-time to see who turned up at George Clooney's request (Oh! Pick me!), and if the iTunes $7.99 album price was really going to be worth another avenue for donating to organizations who are helping in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake.

Of course you understand that any snark that follows here is not meant in any way to make light of the horrors still being experienced daily in Port Au Prince and surrounding areas. And I actually think that this kind of benefit concert-thing is one of the best uses of star power/influence/world domination/money. Still, it doesn't change the fact that when famous people get together, their self-importance borders on the ridiculous. Scratch that. It doesn't BORDER on ridiculous. It sets up camp right in the middle of Ridiculous. Or maybe permanent settlements.

If you missed the show, even better. You will come with no pre-conceived opinions and only listen to mine. (And so my own plan for world domination gains traction.)


And speaking of world domination, we should perhaps address Taylor Swift first. Nearly everybody wore black or gray or some variation on being appropriately somber. Ms. Swift wore white. I think she was adorable, and white can also be a color of mourning as well as hope. I liked it. She did a cool cover of a song by an alternative band, which is very interesting. Nothing to make fun of here, though Plantboy did say, "Do you think she ever actually eats?"



All right, all right, perhaps I should have saved the best for last, but I just couldn't help it. Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow and Keith Urban's cover of "Lean on Me" was just so amazing. Besides the fact that each of these singers has a fantastic voice, the harmony was sublime. Loved it. Worth the cost of the whole album, this, though each song is available on its own, too. And yet, as wonderful as it was, I wish the men had taken cue from Ms. Crow and buttoned their shirts up (even your snazzy, snappy, leather shirt Keith. That tatoo on your chest should be for Nicole's eyes only, if you know what I mean.) And who else thinks that Kid Rock might be bald?


While some stars are hairless, others are plainly suffering from a surfeit of hair. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Brad showed. I really expected he and the Angester to be down at the epicenter trying to adopt Haitian quintuplets. Maybe they wouldn't let him into the country on account of the creatures that he might be transporting in his face. Is this for a movie? Or is he making kind of a statement? And if it is a movie, I sat through three hours of him as an old man last year, I really don't think I could sit through one where he sports this disgusting mass this year. Maybe he grew the beard to distract the audience from that hat. Isn't he supposed to be cute? Honestly, what good IS Brad Pitt if he isn't cute?


I think this picture isn't actually from the performance as Mr. Timberlake sat at the piano the whole time. The song he sang, "Halleluja" has actually gotten the most downloads off iTunes. I think it is because this song has never before been released singly on iTunes--you can only buy it as part of an album or it is not available (except as an American Idol snippet from a few years ago), and let's face it, the song is awesome. Even if, I'm sorry to say, Justin, your fedora is not.

In an unrelated note, Justin T. looks a lot like my little brother, who I think is becoming a doctor, but maybe he has been tricking us all these years.



Ms. Roberts, you are just so cute, and though your hair is expertly colored, I really miss your red locks. (You too, Nicole. Why exactly DO women want to be blond?) I halfway wanted to call the telethon so that I could talk with Julia, but then I thought, "What are the odds?" When she gave her speech, she gave the horsey smile a rest and buttoned up that innocent looking coat only to reveal that the line of buttons was totally crooked. Not a pea coat, per se, but the coat definitely looked like something that might have come out of my 9th grade sewing class. Her hair was so disheveled it looked like she'd spent the afternoon in a wind tunnel. Plantboy said, "Oooo, boy, I don't think she went to wardrobe OR the wigmaster before getting on camera."

"Hello, hello. No we don't want your donation. You're Jewish. Isn't this somehow your fault?" Was that over the top? I'm sorry. I used to really like Mel Gibson, but in the last few years I've decided that he is just crazy as a loon. Again, isn't Mel supposed to be good looking? One day you wake up and realize that all of this once-hunky movie stars are older than your parents and it makes you weep.

Do you remember that really annoying shampoo commercial from some years ago wherein the sexy hair model said, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful?" And you were thinking, "I don't hate you because you are beautiful; I hate you because you are stupid." Okay, I have to own it. I hate these women because they are beautiful. *Grrrrr* All women are NOT created equal.

Sing it Coldplay. But give Brad his hat back when you are finished. His beard is lonely.

Yeah, she was awesome doing this song, even if my feeling toward her as a performer has never been anything but lukewarm. We knew a guy in Texas who went to high school with her in Pennsylvania. Every story he told about her contradicted the life story image her publicists have carefully constructed. Oh, and her hair was nearly black. And while nobody should be surprised to learn that shiny white is not an actual hair color, I'm just sayin' that Christina must have her roots done EVERY DAY.



I know that in real life these two are engaged, but it is just so weird to see Jim without Pam, and it is really hard for me to see laid-back midwestern guy with posh British girl. Still they look happy. I bet it lasts . . . . um . . . . four years. Practically an eternity in Hollywood terms.


Sting. Oh, Sting. How I love the Police. Which haven't been around since the 80's. And oh, Sting. How you keep coming back. If You Love Someone Set Them Free was good. Oh! And Fields of Gold takes me back to many spring time afternoons during my senior year of high school. Then there was that song they put on a car commercial a few years ago. Then there was the fiasco that was Friday night. We tried and tried to listen. You are STING after all, and it was a Police song. After about two very confusing and discordant minutes Plantboy said, "You know, his lyrics are really repetitive." Moments pass and then, "REALLY repetitive." We waited and waited while you did your version of wailing on your guitar and then one of us said (it is hard to remember; it may have been simultaneous), "This just really sucks."


When I put in a google image search for "Hope for Haiti Telethon" half of the first ten million hits (roughly) came back with the tortured and brooding vampire boy. Before your heart stops beating, no, Pattycakes refrained from singing. Thank whatever deity pleases you most here. He did, however talk. No, mumble. As if he wasn't hard enough to understand before (even in his native British), he has now grown a beard the size of a small hedgehog, the hair from his back finally winning the war for his face. The jury is still out if the beard is just giving up on shaving every day (this is probably 2-3 days' stubble for Sir Robert), or if his cameo role in New Moon made him realize that most girls prefer werewolves.

And is it ironic that in the books Edward is always referred to as marble smooth and Jacob is the big, hairy werewolf, when in person, these two characters are exactly the opposite? Taylor Lautner couldn't grow hair on his face if Bella's life depended on it.



Though she didn't during her speech on Friday night, apparently Nicole Kidman really CAN smile. But honestly, look who she is sitting with, what's not to smile about? Did I mention that Keith Urban performed? In a black, leather, snappy shirt? I wonder if he and Taylor Lautner see the same pluckist. (That is like a stylist for hair removal.)


And another. How did this one sneak in? I think this is from when he stole the show at last year's Idol finale.

"Want a beer, Keith?"
"No thanks Kid, I'm a recovering alcoholic."
"Cool. I'm just the regular kind of alcoholic."

Madonna only comes out at night. She is terrified of what the sun will do to her face. As Plantboy says, "She DOES take good care of herself."

And as Science Teacher Mommy says, "How much botox can one woman have before permanently paralyzing her face?" Or, "How much plastic surgery do you get before they just automatically enroll you in the witness protection program?"


Is that a stogie? Nice job Leo. What are you like, 60? He looks less like a Hollywood actor and more like someone on Saturday Night Live playing a Hollywood actor.

There is that tatoo. Okay, maybe it isn't so bad.

Another one? It is like somebody took over my computer and just started clipping and posting pictures of Keith Urban. Darn it.




Bono, dude, I love you man, but could you please offer some sort of explanation for why you suddenly cropped up ten years ago with sunglasses glued to your face? Everywhere?


I like me some bangs. So much, in fact, that I cut some into my own hair about a year ago. It was a great move and I have no regrets. I'm really liking Beyonce's bangs. But I wonder if she is? She kept her eyes closed during her entire song and I think it was because her bangs were in her eyes. She also sang one of those songs that clearly had the word Haiti inserted into older lyrics in order to create a last minute, "unique" song, that she wouldn't have to learn. It sounded like it was written in the limo on the way to the studio. Still, she sounded great and I'm really glad she didn't opt for the red lingerie in public look. Which she has been known to do.

Help! They are attacking me!

What is the deal with Anderson Cooper? Is he cute or just creepy looking? Is he old or young? Is he buff or geeky? Is he human or a robot? Liberal or factual?


This signature performance of the night was pretty good. I thought they didn't have Bono's mic turned up nearly high enough, though the sound of this song, with The Edge on guitar, was clearly very U2. Rihanna sang very well, considering how embarrassed she must have been to have forgotten her pants. I don't think she understood that just because you wear black doesn't mean you have actually toned down your look. When Bono held her hand at the end of their song, he started getting really into it and raised her arm slightly. I was convinced there was going to be a major wardrobe malfunction.

Now onto how I spent the rest of the weekend.

Saturday night I put together a meal that will knock your socks off and into the dryer. The preparation is relatively easy, but the result surpasses anything you could buy in a restaurant, if you could even find a meal like this anywhere. Bookmark this page and when you grocery shop before Valentine's Day, just keep in mind this sweet spread. No honey for Valentine's Day? No problem. Just gather your girlfriends close and indulge in this goodness together. You'll be too happy to care. But if the last scenario is the case, I highly recommend the chocolate dessert.

I may have posted one or two of these recipes before. My apologies.

Your preparation for the Meal of the Month needs to start the night before. Yes, I know it sound ludicrous, but it will be worth it, trust me. The preparations here are for four people.

Lemon-Rosemary Artisan Bread

Before going to bed the night before you will do the actual cooking for this dinner, combine three cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp. of active, dry yeast, tsp of sugar, 1 3/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary and 2 tsp chopped lemon zest in a bowl. Stir in 1 3/4 cup warm water until the dough is shaggy and sticky. Let it raise in a lightly greased bowl, covered with plastic wrap for 18 hours. That is NOT a typo. We'll get back to the bread later.


Rosemary Chicken

Also before going to bed, place 4 raw chicken breasts in a pan that can be covered. Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, juice from two lemons, garlic powder, chopped fresh rosemary and black pepper. Do you want specific amounts? Sorry. I also can't tell you to do it "to taste" because I am certainly not going to advocate eating raw chicken. Trust me, this is hard to mess up. If you balsamic vinegar is young, don't use as much because it tastes vinegar-y. If it is older, it will be sweeter and had more tangy richness and you can be a little bit more generous. (Note: Marinades with acid in them, like lime, lemon or vinegar can do a great job of tenderizing your meat if they are given ample time to sit on them.)

With about two hours to go before you are going to eat, turn your bread dough out on to a surface that is lightly floured and dusted with cornmeal. Do NOT knead, just shape it. I like to cook mine on a baking stone, though many similar recipes tell you to use a Dutch oven of some kind. I also like to divide my loaf in half and shape them long and skinny--somewhere between a baguette and a loaf. This makes them cook faster and easier to limit ourselves to just eating half the recipe in a single sitting. Place loaves (or loaf) on the the cooking surface, Cover with the plastic for another 90 minutes

Now you are going to make your first side dish--Cindy's Perfect Pasta Salad. This a shout out to my friend who gave me the recipe. She said this serves eight, but who is she kidding?

Boil 2 cups small pasta until tender. Drain and run with cold water. Combine 2 chopped large ripe tomatoes (or a pint of grape tomatoes), 1 diced red pepper, 1 small, slivered purple onion (or 4 green onions), 3/4 cup fresh cilantro (the ingredient that makes this dish unusual and wonderful), 1 large cucumber chunked up, and 1 can of black olives in a large bowl. In a small bowl combine 4 ounces of feta with 2 cloves crushed garlic, 1 1/2 Tbsp dried oregano and 2 Tbs fresh lemon juice. Whisk in a tbsp of olive oil until just blended. You still want much of the feta to be chunky. Pour over the salad and stir in the cooked pasta. Refrigerate.

This picture isn't exactly right, but it is close. We ate ours too fast for me to remember to photograph it. Imagine pasta where the tofu is.


Still with me? Heat up your oven to 400 degrees and turn on the grill. Bake two loaves for about 27 minutes--I like mine a little less dark and crusty than the picture below. A large loaf will take closer to 40 minutes.


While your bread is cooking, throw the chicken on the grill and steam some asparagus. (Stir-fried green beans and carrots would work too if your man resists asparagus the way mine does.) Pull the chicken off the grill and tent some foil over it if you don't quite have your table set yet.


Just before serving the asparagus, saute a couple of tablespoons of butter with a handful of pinenuts until golden brown. Pour them over your artfully arranged asparagus spears and squeeze the juice of a lemon over the top. Serve immediately.


For dessert, you should serve chocolate lava cake--which I gave the recipe for last year around Valentine's Day,



or you could make trifle. Kanaboke emailed me for my thoughts on trifle earlier this week and it got me thinking what a lovely contribution such a dessert would be to this meal. So here is Trifle: Science Teacher Mommy Style. (Yes, I know I lived in Australia for a year and a half, but don't kid yourself, this is the all-American version as they used Jell-O in Oz. I avoid Jell-O every chance I get.)

You need four ingredients for my trifle:

Pound Cake
Family Sized Vanilla Pudding Mix
Quart of heavy whipping cream
Mixed berries (Fresh if you have them. Frozen in you must.)

Cut your pound cake into cubes and set aside. Make your vanilla pudding with a mixer, using half milk and half cream. Put the milk in first until the pudding is all blended in and then add the cream slowly while you continue whipping. It will be super rich and fluffy. It doesn't soak into the cake as much this way and has more of a mousse-like texture. Actually, you should probably make two boxes worth, you want some left over for the trifle when you are done licking the spoons. Whip up a cup and a half of cream with just enough powdered sugar to barely sweeten. The pudding makes this plenty sweet, you want the cream to make it rich.

In a pretty glass bowl--a trifle bowl if you are awesome like that--layer cubed cake pieces on the bottom with pudding on top. Add a layer of berries then whipped cream. Repeat at least once (depending on the size of your dish and the number of people you are serving) and finish with the whipped cream layer. I like to smooth my creamy layers so that the end result is flat instead of lumpy and holds together a little bit better when you dish it out. Garnish with berries.

Die happy.

The Soundtrack of My Life

There is a free podcast on iTunes called "Celebrity Playlist." Famous people are asked about their musical influences and basically choose an album's worth of music. In between each selection, they explain what they like about the song and/or the artist and how it has been influential. Unfortunately, the free podcast only gives short clips from the songs and a portion of the interview. For the cost of an iTunes album, you can download the list with the songs and commentary in their entirety.

The latest installment features Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page tag-teaming a routine that makes Wayne and Garth look like rocket scientists. I only made it through half of their (mostly) forgettable list because I couldn't stand to hear Her Raspiness (Drew) use the word "awesome" one more time. And, I'm not making this up, Ellen used the word "massive" three times in her description of a single song. A few songs excepted, their celebrity playlist more resembled all the songs they've downloaded in the last few months, or bizzaro concerts they've attended.

This made me think about what songs I would pick. Yes, yes, I could just spout the last several songs downloaded or those getting the most playtime on my iPod, but I think the exercise calls for something more. So while I've been running around tossing papers the last several mornings I've thought through the playlist that best marks my life and how music has influenced me. The memories have been tender, and it has emphasized to me just how much music affects and enhances my memories of certain events. It also has helped me to realize just how influential music has been on my ideas and even, to a degree, my personality.

Because I don't think iTunes will be calling anytime soon, I present my playlist here.

It was all country music growing up at my house. In those days, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Alabama, Dan Seals and the Judds were all new. I'm still amazed when an old Conway Twitty or Eddie Rabbit song pops up on the radio and I know every word. Our eight tracks were of artists like Glen Campbell and Charlie Pride. Dad thought the "new" country was all right, but his tastes went to the classics--Don Williams, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash were the order of the day. But mostly, and always, there was Willie Nelson. We teased my poor father mercilessly that his love of Willie stemmed from the fact that they were both so off-key that it sounded good when my dad sang along. I was into my teens before I realized that this first pick was not about a road trip at all, but about a band. We sang it every time we hopped in the old station wagon.

Track #1: "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson

When I was able to make a few musical decisions for myself, my choices were mostly trendy and pop-y. However, I remember quite distinctly the first two tapes I bought with my own money: Bruce Springsteen's, "Born in the USA" and Cindy Lauper's, "She's so Unusual." They were on sale for $5 apiece through my mom's tape club. (You remember these? Ten free albums and then you have to buy 1000 more at jacked up prices or they take your firstborn child.) Cindy Lauper hasn't weathered too well. She was really so, like, 80's, you know. The lead track was Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and I saw the movie by the same title about 80 times. Still it is to The Boss's album that I turn for my selection. I later replaced my tape with a CD and re-discover it every three years or so, only to find it just as fresh and timeless as it was then. It truly is the consummate made-in-the-USA album. I choose a rock ballad from this great album, that you probably haven't heard unless you own it. It was never released as a single. I love a song that tells a story: "Somewhere out there on the road somewhere/you'll hear a radio playing/and you'll hear me sing this song/and when you do/please know I'm thinking of you/and all the miles in between/Now I'm just callin' one last time/not to change your mind/just to say 'I miss you baby'/Good luck/Goodbye . . . . Bobby Jean."

Track #2: "Bobby Jean" by Bruce Springsteen

I mostly avoided that mid to late 80's trap of glam and boy bands. But I think in a nod to the era, I have to choose a song that always reminds me of junior high more than any other. Some months back, Taylor Swift appeared with Def Leopard on a show called "Crossroads" that pairs country artists with unexpected artists from totally different genres. The country stars do covers, and the result is very interesting. I will say, however, for all that the lyrics of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" don't entirely make sense, I always felt that they were, somehow, really sensual. This point was brought home to me again when I saw the young Ms. Swift crooning said song to the lead singer of Def Leopard who is probably old enough to be her grandfather. Do you take sugar? One lump or two? Uh, Geritol, thanks.

Track #3: "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leopard

When my older brother got to high school, he began listening to a radio station called KJQ. The alternative bands (or was that era called post-modern?) had names like Echo and the Bunnymen, Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Mighty Lemondrops, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cure, Oingo Boingo, The Dead Milkmen, Public Image Limited, Camper Van Beethoven . . . you get the idea. At first, I hated this station. The music was just so different and the mostly one-hit wonder singers were just bizarre. Then I heard a song called "Peek-a-boo" that I just couldn't get out of my head. I started listening to the station just to hear it again. And over a few weeks, I discovered that I actually LOVED this music. It was like a tiny act of rebellion for a girl that never did anything wrong. My brother and I plastered everything that would hold still with the station's cow stickers. We stayed up half the night in September of 1990 while he wrote his farewell talk. We called in the Eurythmics "Missionary Man" to the radio station and they played it for us at one o'clock in the morning. He and the music both changed in his two years away, and KJQ no longer existed when he came back. It was only when I downloaded the following song onto my iPod last year and began actually listening to the lyrics that I understood why my brother turned this one down every time Mom was in the room. Not appropriate. At. All.

Track #4: "Peek-a-boo" by Siouxsie and the Banshees

The bands I grew to love through high school weren't all one-hit wonders. I discovered U2 at this time, though it was mostly during their long break between Rattle and Hum/Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Choosing a U2 song for a playlist is like picking a favorite child. It just can't be done. The body of their work is so extensive and meaningful that their powerful presence will be felt throughout the music industry for generations to come. The Beatles of Generation X. During the spring of my senior year, my friends and I watched Rattle and Hum at least once a week and we all had a crush on some member of the band. (Being prone to crushes on muscled blond men, I was a Larry Mullin Jr. fan.) The old Hastings at five points in Ogden, now a dollar store, used to bring in a limited number of imports. It was there that I found the single CD, "All I Want Is You." There are two versions of the song on the CD as well as B-side covers of "Unchained Melody" and "Everlasting Love." It was remarkable to find an oasis of actual love songs in a genre too often about sex and lust and fleeting encounters. Bono croons, "Need you by my side/Come and be my bride/You'll never be denied everlasting love." Mr. Darcy, eat your heart out.

Track #5 "Everlasting Love" by U2

But if I loved U2, I was obsessed with Midnight Oil. When I first heard this band from Down Under, I realized that music didn't just have to tell a story or be about breakups or falling in love. Music could teach, make you angry, and inspire you to act. It was through listening to Midnight Oil that I became conscious of the environment, indigenous cultures and causes worth taking a stand about. In the 9th grade, they released an album called Blue Sky Mining that is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. Every track is perfect. I cried my eyes out when my older brother told me I was too young to come with him and his (cute) friends to their 1990 concert. I cried more when he came home and gave me the play by play of their night up at Park City and their stop at The Pie pizzaria in Salt Lake City afterward. I later met the band when I saw them play at Saltair a few years later. Lead singer Peter Garrett told me that my name was short and sweet. I hunted bargain racks at record stores for years to collect their albums from the late 70's onward. My selection here is actually from the album "Red Sails in the Sunset" which came out in the mid-80's. The cover of this album shows what Sydney would look like after a nuclear holocaust. Midnight Oil's activist efforts helped encourage government leaders to keep Australia a nuclear-free country. Peter Garrett is now the environment minister in the current government. This choice is pure Oils: pounding, relentless, lyrics rooted firmly in the land and its people. My love of this band got me in more than one door on my mission.

Track #6: "Kosciuosko" by Midnight Oil

Modern Music wasn't the only influence I had during those years. I did a lot of theater at our high school and loved the big, noisy, classic American musicals. But it was when I did a theater tour in London and saw Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon that I saw the modern musical as something really meaningful, that the genre had moved beyond feel-good production numbers without ever quite adopting the self-importance of opera. I cried through the entire second act of Les Miserable, but my favorite piece was a mere 20 minutes into the show. In a song so heartrendingly beautiful as to be the climax in a lesser show, Fantine's solo teaches us about music's power to help us understand in a moment what tragedy is. "But the tigers come at night/with their voices soft as thunder/As they tear your hope apart/As they turn your dream to shame/And still I dream he'll come to me/That we will live the years together/But there are dreams that cannot be/And there are storms we cannot weather . . . "

Track #7 "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserable

After this, there was a terrible black hole in my ability to hear new music. I moved to Logan where there are two radio stations--the first is a country station that considers anything recorded after 1982 to be "new" country. The second is a "pop" station that is probably better described as a cross between adult contemporary and elevator. I had a roommate who had ten year's worth of EFY tapes as the funkiest in her collection of LDS music. As much as I loved her, I just could never love the music. Another roommate had a greatest hits album by Gordon Lightfoot. Really. But it was during these few years that I fell in love with Trisha Yearwood. Okay, her music, I've never met Trisha, though I'm sure she is quite lovely. I think she could probably sing the menu from McDonalds and make it sound like a tender and heartbreaking ballad. She continues to record new music, but it is only a really devoted group of fans that remains interested. For all her remarkable talent, she doesn't have the live and entertaining stage presence of other singers, and her newest stuff hardly gets any play time on the radio. Curse the establishment. Anyway, of all the songs I could have chosen from her, I picked one about a break-up. Shocker; it is country music after all. This particular song, however, tells the strange phenomenon of seeing your ex everywhere in the aftermath of a breakup. The singer travels to various parts of the country--St. Cloud, New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles--and yet she thinks she sees this person in each spot. "You chase me like a shadow/and you haunt me like a ghost/and I love you so/and I hate you so/but I miss you most." Who hasn't been there?

Track #8 "On a Bus to St. Cloud Minnesota" by Trisha Yearwood

The same roommate with the love of all things LDS-culture wanted a Grand Am. Do you remember the Pontiac Grand Ams that were everywhere in the mid-nineties? Bright blue and green with all kinds of a body details? Awful. Anyway, dear Pam thought her life would be complete with a Grand Am. So her parents bought one for her. The problem was that Pam's Grand Am was the circa 1985 model and was gold. GOLD. We named her Goldie; Pam treated her like an sweet and senile grandmother. Anyway . . . when I would go running (very occasionally), my roommates had a habit of finding me along my way, driving alongside me very slowly in Goldie, and blasting Journey's or Survivor's Greatest Hits out the window. Good times.

Track #9 "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor

Then I went on a mission. I still sometimes hear a song that I think is new and my husband informs me with a laugh that, no, it is from mid-nineties. This happens with movies occasionally too. I returned home and found that while most of the alternative music I had once loved had gone very grungy, there was a new rock sound. It was as though all the bands I had once loved had grown up--the sound was more mainstream but still edgy enough for my mother not to like it. The rock sound of the late 90's dropped the synthesizer and went back to its guitar and drum roots. Bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Blues Traveler, Third Eye Blind and the Counting Crows became popular. It was also during this time period that I went through a break-up that would become THE break-up; you know; the worst (and maybe best!) one you've ever had, but it is only later that you can see that. This next song got so much play time on the radio in the spring and summer of 1998 that it became a bit of a mantra. Women everywhere related to it for the pathos and symbolism in each lyric. Men loved it for the gorgeous Natalie Imbruglia (a former soap star from Down Under) reminding them over and over again that she was naked. Stupid boys.

Track #10 "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia

The other band I came to love at this time was Matchbox 20. My younger brother and some friends lip-synced and danced to some of the boy-band music from the late 90's. As entertaining as they were, the music made me crazy. Though he was seven year my junior, Matchbox 20 was the one band we could agree on. One of the most fun things I did that spring was go to a concert with my brother. Matchbox 20 came with Semisonic and the dreadlocked singer of "Runaway Train." (Hm . . . . super famous song, but what WAS the name of that band?) We had a blast; one of the only grown up fun things we ever did together--he was finally 18 and I wasn't yet married. Oh, and I thought Rob Thomas was (is) gorgeous. Again, another band that it is hard to pick a single song from, but I'll defer to one of the more obscure tracks on that very first album.

Track #11 "Hang" by Matchbox 20

Then marriage happened and a change to a new city. Once again, country music seemed to be our main choice, followed closely by hip-hop stations and Latin rock. Then one night, probably in early 2005, we happened to catch an episode of Austin City Limits, and watched a singer-songwriter by the name of Keith Urban bring down the house. I realized that I recognized a song or two--songs I actually had not been that crazy about from his first album--but that his stuff from his latest album (Golden Road) was really quite incredible. Plantboy really liked it, which is a major concession about any country artist by my dear, rock-loving husband. I bought the album within a few weeks, hoping to find another singer that gave us that rare, common ground when it came to musical taste. I love nearly all of this man's music, but the selection here is based on a memory. When Plantboy and I left HoustonTexas for the last time, heading straight west and then north, we listened to this music over and over again. "I got no money in my pocket/I've got a hole in my jeans/Had a job and I lost it/But it won't get to me/Cause I'm ridin with my baby/And its a brand new day/We're on the Wings of an angel flying away. . . And the sun is shinin/and this road's still windin' . . . . I'm alive and I'm free/Who wouldn't want to be me?" It is a song of such optimism and faith. The perfect background music as we headed toward a new life filled with possibility.

Track #12 "Who Wouldn't Want to Be Me?" by Keith Urban

I know this was lengthy, but it was a wonderful exercise. I think I'm off to create my playlist on iTunes. It is raining today and the house needs cleaned, what better time to blast my favorite songs throughout the house, subtly teaching my children about who else I am besides mother. I might need to leave off "Peek-A-Boo."

So what songs make your playlist/life soundtrack? Either leave comments here, or take this exercise as your own. I hope you find it as pleasantly nostalgic as I did.