Are you awake now?
If you are an NFL football fan, didya possibly hear that song and see the commercial a few times yesterday, especially during the Seahawks game where we all rejoiced at the return of "Beast Mode," but sighed when the Seahawks lost?
I started hearing the Google phone commercial a while back and immediately thought it was downright catchy and cool with its upbeat song and dramatic splashes of color.
Then, just recently, I learned that the voice behind the song comes from Bonners Ferry, ID, AND that I taught the singer's mom who graduated with my sister Laurie.
Yup, as Bill says, there's always a Sandpoint connection.
In this case, amazingly talented Shari Short grew up in Bonners Ferry. She took that God-given talent out into the world, and we've all seen the results off and on over the past several years.
Google her.
You'll see, and you'll find a number of sites showing all her phenomenal achievements.
As noted before, Shari's mom Donna was one of my English students back in the late 1970s. I also taught some of her aunts and cousins on her dad's side of the family.
All enjoyable too!
After learning about Shari's involvement with the Google phone ad---which I already loved, did I say that?---I contacted her mom via text.
We did a little catching up on family. BTW: I've known Shari's grandma Lasean since I was a little girl.
In fact, if memory serves me correctly (one has to say that when one is in the 70s) it seems like I was attending Sister School at St. Joseph's Catholic Church when Lasean married Gene. I remember them coming down the church steps after their wedding.
Lasean spent a career teaching elementary students, and, since then, has devoted so much of her time to the church. In fact, she drove through rain, snow, sleet, etc. to come to my mother's house during her final years to administer Communion.
Mother and Lasean were great friends.
During Donna's and my texting conversation, I also learned that Shari has a sister Sandy in Seattle who is equally talented.
Check out Seattle's Littlest Performers, which Sandy owns and manages.
"I am really proud of them," Donna wrote, "especially staying totally drug-free in the music world."
There's so much more to tell about these family members, but Donna and I promised each other we'd get together for coffee one of these days.
So, I'll save it this morning, except to tell Donna's brother Pat hello and thanks for sticking with the blog all these years.
While we're talking members of the St. Joseph's Church family, I'm excited this morning to note that yesterday "our Cindy Wooden" celebrated 30 years of working in Rome as a Catholic News Service reporter and subsequently Vatican Bureau Chief.
This former student and family friend, who graduated with my sister Barbara, has traveled the world covering Popes and their travels.
Her eyes have seen Presidents and other world leaders as well as famous religious figures, including Mother Theresa.
She has written books, dealing with Pope Francis and with the current Cardinal of the Philippines, Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle.
Check her out on amazon.com.
And, the best part?
When Cindy comes home to Sandpoint, she's good ol',fun Cindy whom we've always loved.
Still, it's kinda fun for us locals to pick her brain.
Congratulations, Cindy, on all your achievements and, as always, your humanity and friendship.
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| Cindy is the one wearing the gray sweater and red scarf. |
So, I promised to "Penultimate" in this post.
It's really not a verb, but when you're an old English teacher and writer, you can give yourself permission to fool around with the language a bit.
Readers may have noticed that I like to do just that, not even with penultimating.
Hard to believe that today is the penultimate day of the year AND the decade.
Yup, tomorrow, we talk "ultimate" or "last" day of the year and decade.
But today we have a day to think about the finality of it all.
So, I guess we can all contemplate on Penultimate Monday.
Lots to reflect up on with this year and, of course, the last ten.
So maybe I'll just leave that discussion for tomorrow when another "family-related decade" begins.
Lots of Catholic-related stuff today, so, of course, we cannot forget our beloved ZAGS who play Detroit Mercy in Spokane at 6 p.m. tonight.
GO, ZAGS!!!
Let's hope we don't have to use "penultimate" for some time when referring to how many weeks and days our team is the No. 1 NCAA men's team in the nation.
Happy Monday.
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