Magic? Not so much

Did you miss me, dear reader?

Apologies for my uncustomary absence for the last couple of days. A "slight medical emergency" of the most annoying kind...

We were having a fun time at our friends Jim & Jude's home on Saturday night (they're lovely people, and perfect hosts), when it was time for the BBQ main course, steak with all the trimmings. Smelt delicious, looked delicious, I took my first bite, swallowed, and it got stuck. Fast. Not going up [I tried all that], and definitely not going down [nothing would pass it, no liquids - even saliva immediately came back up]. Dammit.

I spent the rest of the evening on their patio, spluttering and hoping it might eventually shift. It didn't. Nor did it shift overnight after we got home. Finally, yesterday morning at around 10.30am I decided - it's off to A&E after all...

Knowing those places are tantamount to one of Dante's Gates of Hell, I'm glad we didn't head there on a Saturday night. Sundays, it seems, are relatively quieter. Of course, even with a "fast-track" ticket, everything takes forever, and it wasn't until 4pm that we were transferred with great fanfare [literally: blue-light flashing, traffic parting, the lot! How exciting!] to another hospital further out that specialises in ear, nose and throat. It's at this point that we should all say "gawd bless the NHS" [it's all free], but FFS! Why different hospital trusts are completely incapable of corresponding with each other is a pain in the arse. Thus (apart from bloods), I had to go through a load of procedures (x-ray etc) I had already had done at the other place. Waiting around to get all that sorted wasted another few long hours [hospitals are not the sort of place anyone in their right mind wants to be longer than they need to], before I finally got to the point where an operation was possible - and went in for anaesthesia at 10pm! Ironically, the whole op only took the team half-an-hour to complete, before they bedded me down in the recovery room overnight and poor Madam Arcati - who had also not eaten all day - went home.

Suffice to say, now I'm finally out and back home again, I'm feeling a lot better. I shan't be eating steak ever again in my life..!

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MEANWHILE:

We need something to make us smile on this Tacky Music Monday - and really, only today's birthday girl Mrs Miller will do on an occasion like this!

Mrs Miller - It's Magic [from The Cool Ones, 1967]

An uncanny knack for landing squarely between the beat - read my post about her from back in 2017 for more [if you dare]!

Have a good week, dear reader.

An uncanny knack for landing squarely between the beat

"While Elva may not replace Elvis, her rocking-chair rock features a kind of slippin' and slidin' rhythm that is uniquely her own. Her tempos, to put it charitably, are free form; she has an uncanny knack for landing squarely between the beat, producing a new ricochet effect that, if nothing else, defies imitation. Beyond that, her billowy soprano embraces a song with a vibrato that won't quit..." - Time magazine

"As does the work of Plan 9 director Ed Wood Jr., Mrs. Miller gives us something in which there is so much human charm that we are disarmed by it. We laugh at first, because the ineptitude is so striking- but the enthusiasm, heart, and above all, frailty, touches the heart. Ed Wood and Elva Miller make us happy, and in ways that neither could ever have foreseen." - author Skip Heller

"Despite (or because of) her strange operatic singing style, her first record sold more than 250,000 copies in its first three weeks. Ironically called Mrs. Miller’s Greatest Hits, the LP reached #15 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart. In April 1966, two of her songs hit the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart: Downtown at #82 and A Lover’s Concerto at #95. Listeners loved the novelty of Mrs. Miller. She sang off key and out of sync with the band, but she was a good-natured, plump 59-year-old woman whose enthusiasm for performing and overconfidence in her singing ability seemed authentic." - Mental Floss

It's Mrs Miller time!

Mrs Miller - It's Magic [from The Cool Ones, 1967]

Mrs Miller - Monday, Monday

Mrs Miller - Downtown

There are no further words I can express...

Elva Ruby Miller (5th October 1907 – 5th July 1997)