Poem for Monday, Great Falls Ice, Grammy Awards

Jazz Fan Looks Back
By Jayne Cortez   

I crisscrossed with Monk
Wailed with Bud
Counted every star with Stitt
Sang "Don't Blame Me" with Sarah
Wore a flower like Billie
Screamed in the range of Dinah
& scatted "How High the Moon" with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
                    Jazz at the Philharmonic
                   
I cut my hair into a permanent tam
Made my feet rebellious metronomes
Embedded record needles in paint on paper
Talked bopology talk
Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases
Became keeper of every Bird riff
every Lester lick
as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues
& Blakey drummed militant messages in
soul of my applauding teeth
& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones
I moved in triple time with Max
Grooved high with Diz
Perdidoed with Pettiford
Flew home with Hamp
Shuffled in Dexter's Deck
Squatty-rooed with Peterson
Dreamed a "52nd Street Theme" with Fats
& scatted "Lady Be Good" with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
                    Jazz at the Philharmonic

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I'm watching the Grammys and I have to get up early because Adam is receiving a photography award tomorrow morning (my parents and in-laws are coming), so will keep this brief. It was practically balmy on Sunday, in the high 20s, so when we retrieved Adam after Hebrew school, we went to Great Falls, Virginia to see if we could spot ice discs in the river. There weren't as many as we've seen some other years, but we did see a few where the river gets caught in eddies and swirls, plus we saw lots of icy rocks, a creek frozen enough to skate on, a few birds pecking in what spots of grass they could find, and even some freshly falling snow:


We went to try to see ice circles...


...but mostly we just saw ice floating and attached to the rocks.


There were some very slippery spots on the trail.


And it snowed briefly, these little icy pellets that landed on top of the packed snow from last week.

My evening involved the red carpet pre-show, the red carpet arrivals, and nearly four hours of Grammy Awards, which was mostly worth it -- I couldn't care about the awards (I mean, I think Lorde is somewhat overrated but far better her getting a trophy than "Blurred Lines") and there were many lovely moments -- Sara Bareilles and Carole King performing together; the group performance on "Get Lucky"; Kendrick Lamar making a case for why he should have won best new artist; Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert, Madonna and Queen Latifah making me cry; and what's left of the Beatles in a bittersweet celebration...plus Mike Ditka doing Miley Cyrus in the Pepsi ad.