Our drive to the interview wasn't too bad until we came back -- what had been a 3.5 hour trip turned into 8 hours and was bumper to bumper in snow. Well, at least it was pretty. Snow and mountains...how can you possibly go wrong?

And now we wait until someone sends a letter either offering Mike a job or letting him know he "doesn't meet their needs." We, of course, are waiting for the former, but he's got other interviews if the latter is the case, which means we're sitting on some pins and needles until things work out one way or the other.

For some reason, the phrase, "pins and needles" reminds me of "horse and carriage" from that old song, "Love and Marriage" -- the theme to "Married with Children," more recently. Of course, I learned to pick out this song on the piano from my mom's accordion book.

You say,"Your mom plays the accordion?" I say, somewhat embarrassed, "Why yes, she does." Mind you, she plays it badly, but being that it's an accordion it would be hard to play well. On the other hand, she was much more practical about what musical instruments my brother and I should play. My brother chose the flute and I chose the trumpet. I learned to read music by playing trumpet and the torture and joy that only comes from music lessons when you're 8. I learned to play the piano by ear about the same time because my parents bought an upright piano somewhere and had it tuned from its previously hideous offkey state. I used to sound out songs. I could figure out which key to hit...I don't know how I do that, but I rarely missed the note. My mother nearly cried that I would be so talented in the face of her torture via accordion lessons.

Trumpet music simply doesn't work well on the piano, but amazingly enough, once you learn a few chords, you can play accordion music. I tried for a couple of months to teach myself the chords on the accordion, but discovered that I can only learn two musical instruments at a time. Oh, wait, I learned to play my brother's flute, too, a little, so actually, I think it was just that I hit my 3 instrument limit.

Weird, huh?

Mind you, I have a good ear. I can hear myself singing offkey. It's a fine torture I can perform against myself. I can hear myself singing offkey, and I can't do a darned thing about it. I'm only off the slightest amount, but I'm off. I like singing to very loud music because I drown myself out.

I do like singing, though. I think the funniest thing about singing is that I have been thinking about a phrase I've been hearing lately. "You can only sing the blues if you've suffered for at least 20 years."

I have suffered a lot. There was the granddaughter of an alcoholic thing -- my mother was abused, so she was abusive thing. There was the abuse as a young adult that came from years of watching my mother have no self esteem and modeling that same thing. I ended up in some doozy relationships.

And then there was the series of Aquarian males that burned me bad.

So lately, I've been wondering, if I am qualified to sing the blues -- if the blues, in fact, would care if I am the tiniest bit offkey. I wondered if I could belt out the blues.

So today, I was driving home wondering that and I started singing,"I'd do anything that you want me to do..." and I was thinking to myself,"Hey, I'm a little offkey, and I'm not bad..." and then, "I wish I were black."

An added postscript to this entry:

My husband said, "You're going to offend someone, you know." I laughed and said,"Yeah, I might, but I just wish I was black. There's a timbre to Etta James' voice that Bonnie Raitt will never have." The only white guy I've ever heard that can approach decent blues is Rick Estrin of Little Charlie and the Nightcats because he actually played with guys like Muddy Waters. Everyone says something about Eric Clapton, but he plays good guitar and sings one-dimensional flat whiteboy blues, in my opinion.

I've seen Rick Estrin in concert and he plays that harp so well you want to get up there and thrust body parts at him. I like Jump Blues like that anyhow. It's almost Buddy Holly gone to the blues, but it kicks butt.

So here I am...a white girl with a blues past I can sing about wondering if I should sing about it.