Cashew? What cashew?

Cat down!

Well, actually, it just makes morbidly obese cats really tired. (Kidding! Don't call PETA. The treadmill was never on.)

Coincidence? I think not.
Last year when I moved to Connecticut the trainer at my gym told me, during a conversation about celebrities who live in the area, that his friends frequently see Dennis Leary shopping at the nearby Mall. Interesting, I thought, but I wasn't really sure if I'd know Dennis Leary if I tripped over him. It was shortly after that that his "Rescue Me" show started getting critical acclaim and I figured out who he was.

Anyhoo, I never really gave it another thought. Fast forward to the next summer - I am on Nantucket on vacation and who walks into the very restaurant I am eating in - Dennis Leary. Weird! Here we are living/shopping in the same Connecticut towns, and we end up in the same restaurant on a vacation.

Fast forward again to last week. As I am perusing the ovulation kits in the CVS in the town where I work, who strolls in (not to the ovulation kit shelf, mind you) - DENNIS LEARY. I'd like to point out that in both situations I was at the establishment first. If there is a stalking going on here, its all on him. I hope I don't have to take out a restraining order.

As an aside, Dennis was rolling one of those supermarket-sized shopping carts through CVS. Who does that? What was he going to purchase at CVS in such bulk? Did he get the circular and see that the 12-packs of paper towels were on sale and come running down? The mystery continues...

There. I said it. I don't have to suffer in silence any longer. I am horrible about titles, and subject lines in emails, too. I feel so much pressure to come up with something so perfect that sometimes I don't write anything at all.

So here it is: the first post.

This is what happens when my train of thought goes completely off the rails--

I was checking out one of my favorite blogs, (sm)all ages yesterday. I love them because they have great music, and because I happen to be a mom who doesn't like cutesy music for children. I don't want to listen to music that makes my ears bleed. There's plenty of kid-friendly music that happens to be enjoyable, too.

ANYWAY, they happen to be posting interesting Halloween music this week, and it reminded me of a song from the 80s that nobody else I know has ever heard.

Every once in a while I get a wild hair, and I start searching for some random song. I've looked for this a few times, but for some reason I haven't found it. Last night, I googled the title and WLIR and found the song!

Now, unfortunately, the song isn't even that wonderful. It's called Date With a Vampire, and it's by Screaming Tribesmen. But the reason I remembered the song at all is because I have some random radio mix I made, and it's on there, but at the very beginning there's this shreiking voice-over. That voice-over is from WLIR's Screamer of the Week. Apparently this song was the Screamer of the Week in September 1985. How would I possibly know that?

Some amazing, beautiful person has posted a list of ALL the Screamer/Shriek of the Week picks from 1980 to 1997.

God, I love the internet!

This list is not only a list of the best music of the 80s. I can say without any exaggeration that this is the soundtrack to some of my best memories. I remember listening carefully the morning after to find out which band won that week, and actually caring about which song was the best. I remember going to concerts at Jones Beach every summer. I remember sitting out on a freezing December morning outside the Massapequa Mall to get Depeche Mode tickets as soon as they went on sale. I remember sneaking off to Madison Square Garden to see R.E.M. I remember lying to my friend's mother, before going to the Violent Femmes concert: No, of course we weren't going to take the subway to the Beacon Theater! We would most definitely take a taxi! I remember riding in the car at night, with the windows down and the radio on, out on the parkway to the beach. The music they played really was the soundtrack for our lives.

I know it happens for everyone. The music will change, but people will always identify with music. I'm just saying, how cool is it that someone, somewhere, remembers a small, Long Island radio station that went off the air a few years ago?

Sometimes it's just so easy to be happy about the small things. Today was one of my days, I guess. :)

AB