Dear Friends,
I was born in February which makes me an aquarian, the water bearer. How true it is, especially the night I heard a roaring sound in the kitchen and realized steam was filling my little apartment! It was after 11 pm and I was relaxing watching youtube videos, planning to go to bed afterwards. Instead I ran around my place in a panic and threw open the cabinet doors under the sink. Torrential boiling water spewed out at me! I plunged my hand in the hot water trying to find the faucet to shut off. It would not budge. I ran downstairs to my neighbor, breathless and crazy. Her dog went nuts but Susan calmly called the fire dept, the police, and then our apartment manager.
Two police people strolled in after about 20 minutes. I watched their bodies moving in slow motion. I jumped up and down yelling at them, "Can't you go any faster than that? My apartment is filling up with boiling water!" Geez. They didn't react to me or the situation, they just looked at the kitchen and then walked out! Next came the fire department. A big, bulky dude in full gear brushed past me and with one swift gesture shut off the valve. He then walked out without a comment, leaving me staring at the flooded kitchen and part of the living room. Two hours later of bailing out the water and tossing all the towels I owned into the water, the needed help came from our managers.
I called John, who was a few doors away, deeply sleeping. I ended up at his place while huge fans (not the kind we hope to join the newsletter! ) took over my little abode. I had to wait a good three weeks before a crew came to tear out the damage and dry out the walls and floor. As I write this, I'm in week 2 of waiting for my place to be ready for my return, typing this newsletter on my computer that they let me keep in our community building. I just heard that my apartment won't be ready for 2-3 more weeks! So far, John and I are having fun together as usual, and we are surprised that neither of us has snapped yet.
Our show must go on!
Meanwhile outside the window our apartment complex is now a construction project everywhere you look. A new three story building is going up and all our apartments will be "renovated". Nothing fancy, just upgraded. It's a bit unnerving for everyone. Just about the time my place will be ready for me to move in, it will be time for me to move out into a temporary place while my building gets the make-over. So I may be late in getting my newsletter out in June I don't know.
This month John finished his latest song and we just made the music video below. Colosseum is a metaphor that sums up the violence of our current society. He wants this song to wake people up to create a different world. A hard driving Rock genre was most appropriate.
We also updated King Of The World, the song John wrote last year when Alexei Navalny was imprisoned by Putin. When we heard of his death in an Arctic prison last week, we updated the video and put it on youtube. Well, we tried to put it there. Youtube took it down and we don't know exactly why. Without a particular reason the video and the google ad to push it out there just vanished!
Meanwhile, our biz team grad students are developing materials, ideas, social media and a business plan for us. They have been teaching me how to make "shorts" videos as well for our new instagram and tictok sites. Yet another learning curve, but that's ok. I'll be showing you some of them and giving you the new links when I get them. It's a different animal than making music videos!
So more stories than pix and videos for ya this month, but I hope you had fun reading this. Please check out the Colosseum video and tell us what you think on youtube. John is currently working on another new song, possibly going in a more quiet and reflective direction. He never knows where the Muse will take him.
Take care! Let the music play! Spring is almost here.
Judy and John