Opening of the Mermaid Lounge 2018

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Opened up the mermaid lounge on the porch for the first time this season. I can't believe we were in the middle of a blizzard a week ago! As you can see in the picture above there is still some snow on the ground but we've lost a lot of it with the warmer weather. I think it got up to about 57 degrees today.

Dale had wine and I made myself a martini. 

We were joined by Ryan and Brad.

At the end of the evening they needed to dry out.

It's so nice to be out on the porch again. It's been a long winter.

Shag Tiki Pendant

Friday, March 2, 2018

I recently ordered a Shag tiki pendant and it came in the mail today. I couldn't be more pleased. It looked good with the martini I made tonight. Brad and Josh were intrigued. 

Dale and I ate blue corn chips and greasy pizza tonight while we watched Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and Grace and Frankie.

November's Been Hell

This has been a hard month for a number of reasons. The tikis are watching over me and my medicinal vodka martini. A little Gene Rains helps too.

Martinis In the Mermaid Lounge

Wasn't in the mood for rum last night so I went ahead and drank a couple martinis in the Mermaid Lounge. I know gin isn't the most tropical sounding libation but I think the drink at least photographed well with the tiki mugs and mermaids. 

I listened to Arthur Lyman while sipping away. After doing a google search on him I learned a number of facts:

1) He was born in the then U.S. territory of Hawaii on the island of Oahu in 1932.

2) He was born to a Hawaiian mother and a father of mixed Hawaiian, European, and Chinese descent.

3) His father was very strict and locked him in a closet every day after school with the task of playing along to Benny Goodman 78 rpm records to learn good music and become a better musician.

4) He was known as the king of lounge music.

5) In the 1950s and 1960s his group was instrumental in mainstreaming the pseudo-Polynesian style of music that would later come to be known as exotica.

6) He played the vibes and marimba.

I've had a few of his recordings that I've listened to frequently over the past 10 years and am particularly fond of The Very Best of Arthur Lyman - The Sensual Sounds of Exotica. One of my most favorite tracks is Yellow Bird which was one of the selections of a music series I taught back in the day at a public school. I remember the kids liking it quite a bit as well. When I discovered exotica music and specifically Arthur Lyman, Yellow Bird felt like a familiar friend in a style of music I was unfamiliar with. Yellow Bird was actually Lyman's highest charting single. The song originally came from Haiti and it reached the #4 position on the Billboard music charts in July of 1961.