By John Lennon
Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
When our time has come
We will be as one
God bless our love
God bless our love
Grow old along with me
Two branches of one tree
Face the setting sun
When the day is done
God bless our love
God bless our love
Spending our lives together
Man and wife together
World without end
World without end
Grow old along with me
Whatever fate decrees
We will see it through
For our love is true
God bless our love
God bless our love
--------
Lyrics above because we've spent the entire evening watching BBC America's John Lennon retrospectives. Though I was younger at the time than my younger son is now, I remember his death vividly. Not so much my reaction on the night he died, when I was sad, as I had only truly discovered the Beatles the summer before while staying with a friend in California who was a huge fan -- I don't remember a time before I'd heard a Beatles song, but I knew the pop hits, "Help" and "Eight Days a Week" and of course "Michelle," rather than the experimental songs from later, until that week in L.A. The morning after John died, when I arrived at junior high school, boys who normally wouldn't have been caught crying in public for anything were in tears in front of their lockers. I had asked for various Beatles albums for Chanukah and had received the White Album that very night (and it's a good thing too, because they sold out and disappeared from record stores for the next several weeks). I learned only after his death about John Lennon's life; before he was murdered, I knew him through his music. And although he came to epitomize the '60s and the peace movement for me in the weeks after his death, it's the music for which I am nostalgic tonight -- the songs he wrote and the songs he never had the chance to write.
Otherwise, I had a lovely day. Vertigo took me out to lunch for my birthday -- we shared hummus and I had Thai peanut noodles at CPK, and she brought me presents -- then we wandered around in Charming Charlie for a bit. Then I stopped at CVS to pick up my holiday photo cards and a prescription. When I got home, I discovered that the academic-discount Adobe Photoshop CS5 and After Effects for Adam had arrived in time for the end of Chanukah, so he was ecstatic and after he finished his homework he attempted to teach me layer masking (I am going to need many more lessons, probably from the YouTube tutorials from which he learned). Our neighbor Rose, the one who took care of the baby bird Adam found over the summer, came over with boxes of chocolate for us and treats for the cats for Chanukah, and Paul made latkes and salisbury steak for dinner, plus he got me The Lost Symbol: Special Illustrated Edition (I have Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code illustrated editions and like seeing the art and historical sites that Dan Brown describes). Here are some more of the geckos at the National Geographic exhibit downtown:
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