Freddie Friday

BECOMING: In the never-ending effort to get the kids off screens and outside, today I handed Annabelle a book and told her to find a sunny spot to read the preface and the first chapter.

She didn't protest at all, and I found her out on the swing, reading Michelle Obama's "Becoming." So, yay for that.

We took the dogs for a loop around the neighborhood around lunch time. The Jerusalem Sage at the bottom of our driveway are starting to blossom. Such strange plants!

WATERCOLORS: This morning, Annabelle had yet another Art2Go session compliments of Gage Academy of Art. The theme was watercolor leaves, and the instructor was Willow Heath.

I thought these leaves were pretty lovely! (The photo doesn't do them justice!)

EMPTY NESTERS: Two days ago, CJ and I were on the back patio, dragging a hose around to water some of our started-from-seed vegetable plants that now live outside. During this, a cute little brown bird was watching us carefully, at close distance. I predicted to CJ that the bird was either hurt and couldn't fly, or that it had a nest nearby, and it wanted us gone.

The next day, Christian and I were on the patio, and I saw that same little bird. With straw in its mouth. It landed on a railing next to me, then flew up under the eaves, and to the nest it was building on ... on top of our folded-up ping pong table. Silly bird. 

We decided we could forgo ping pong for a couple months (or however long the birds would be around), but the other major drag is that the spigot for our hose is behind the table, and turning that on and off without jostling the nest would be dicey.

I've been watching for the birdie all day (including when I was working with the hose), and it seems to have flown the coop, so to speak. Maybe it realized that a nest perched on a ping pong table wasn't its best bet. 

Meanwhile, downstairs, the plant start situation is kind of out of control. We keep separating and transplanting starts as their size requires. It's like they're multiplying, though. I finally had CJ count them today. Are you sitting down? ...

We have 93. Yes, you read that right. Oops. Hope the neighbors and our friends are up for some. Only a portion of the plants are pictured here.

THEY WILL ROCK YOU: Midday, the kids and I sat in front of the TV. That's not something we do very often during a 'normal' school day. However, this was a special occasion. On the band Queen's official YouTube page, they were streaming "The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness" as a fundraiser to help anti-COVID efforts.
At first, it felt pretty self indulgent sitting there watching a Queen concert when there was schooling and work to be done. However, after just a few minutes, I realized that it had turned into a history lesson for the kids, as I was continuing to offer factoids about who and what they were seeing.

They saw a parade of rock legends, from Roger Daltry to Robert Plant. I pointed out people not familiar to them, but who were pivotal in the rock music world, like Ian Hunter and Mick Rock, to name two.

I told CJ that the historic concert took place on his birthday, April 20, but in 1992, long before he was around. The kids were wowed by the size of the crowd. A sold-out Wembley Stadium had 72,000 in attendance, but over a billion people watched the concert as it aired live around the world. That was a record for a live television broadcast event at the time. (And it was back before shows could be live-streamed on the Internet.)
I told them that the tribute to Queen's Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS on 24 November 1991, raised over $38 million dollars, and the funds were used to launch The Mercury Phoenix Trust. To this day, the trust is a core part of Queen and Freddie’s legacy and, over the years, the nonprofit has helped support over 1,000 projects in 57 countries in the ongoing fight against AIDS worldwide.
I told them that none of us knew it at the time, but that concert would be the last one Queen's John Deacon would play with his band mates. (Drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May are still touring to sold out arenas. We've been fortunate to see them three times!)

It struck me watching the show how many of the people on that stage are now gone. David Bowie and George Michael, to name two. Bowie's performance of "Under Pressure" with Annie Lennox was exquisite.


And George Michael? That concert was perhaps the zenith of his performing career. His performance of "Somebody to Love" was shockingly good. It brought the house down. (Michael's own body of work was so fully of cotton-candy songs, who knew he could actually SING like THAT?!)


One thing I did not understand in 1992 when the concert first aired, and I still don't understand 28 years later, is why Robert Plant wore his mother's blouse and scarf for the show (ha ha).


Another thing I pointed out to the kids was how terrified Axl Rose of Guns 'n Roses looked when he took the stage alongside Elton John. I told them the back story to that, which involved Axl's homophobic comments on more than one occasion. But rather than reject him, Elton reached out to Rose, educated him, and helped Rose shed at least some of his ignorance. But how would Freddie fans react to Rose on stage? They graciously accepted his presence, likely mostly because he was alongside Elton John, a champion for those suffering from AIDS, from the very beginning. 

As I sit here typing this, there is an ad on TV right now for treating HIV, the cause of AIDS, so effectively that it's not detectable in one's system. We've come a long way, but sadly it wasn't here soon enough to save Freddie.