Detlef Cordes

The Cat in the Bath on YouTube

Music and Lyrics © Detlef Cordes 2011

Baby baby, baby, baby: where did our week go? 
Baby baby, baby, baby: and all the promises and things to be done? 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday, Friday:
I hope it has been fun.

We keep moving, moving in circles
old mother time drags us along.

Faster, faster, faster, faster:
her arm is strong

Keep influencing me in your influential way
'cause and influencer's influence is so important.
Keep influencing me in your influential way
'cause and influencer's influence is influential.

;)

This dream keeps hovering over my mind. Strange how some dreams do.

I’m standing at the bus stop with a co-worker. We are heading for work, we are late, the bus is late, too. I don’t know where we are and I have no clear plan how we get to work. The bus is just a vague idea. It will take us SOMEwhere - and relatively fast. If you want to get SOMEwhere to take the bus seems like a good idea. My co-worker isn’t trustworthy in this. He knows even less than I do.

Finally the bus arrives. I take my grandfather’s pocket watch out of my breast pocket. I have it on a golden watch chain. I know it’s late, I don’t want to check the time, the gesture is my way to show my disapproval to the bus driver.

We enter the bus, I go first and notice that from inside the bus has no windows, not even a windshield - just solid walls with white wallpaper. I look at the driver and say: “Oh, that’s difficult driving, isn’t it?” He answers: “I was late and this was the only bus left at the depot. It’s difficult to drive this way and I drag behind schedule more and more. What kind of ticket may I give you?” - I don’t know. I have no idea where my workplace is - I just hope to find it as the bus passes familiar territory. As I can’t name a destination I opt for the cheapest ticket but pay with a big banknote. Handing me my change the driver asks: “Your pal gets 2,40, too?” I say “I didn’t want 2,40 - I wanted 1,30!” I’m getting angry and excited. He says “It’s ok, it’s ok. I gave you a 2,40 ticket for 1,30.” I check my change and find he gave me back much more than I gave him. But all in old German Mark coins. Suddenly the silver coins look very valuable. I like this bus driver.

He says: “Your pal seems a bit disorientated. Please help him with the money.” I turn to my co-worker. He is just standing there, purse in his hand and understands nothing. I open that purse and try to find the change - but there are only colored triangles in there. Like pieces of a pie chart.

The bus driver gets very excited and says these are not colorful pieces of a pie chart - but windows. He says all his windows had turned to powder because he had not cared for them properly - so he wants to buy the pie chart windows from my co-worker’s purse. They start to bargain over the price while the bus still stands at the stop and it’s getting later and later.

I turn away and find a table with an old tablecloth and a vase of flowers on it. There is a couch so I sit down. Will we ever find our workplace?

Yesterday I was talking about things expressed between the lines of speech. Only a moderate volume of speech today ;)

“You are lucky”, says the technician. “I am giving you a new electric meter.” And he screws a brand new black electric meter into the wall. I somehow disapprove of this gesture. The fake generosity. Hey, I’m paying for this, don’t I?

But I remember this electric meter has been here all my life. All electric power in my house went through this. Will there be a change now? A new smooth freshness?

Which makes me think of the photos of my grandparents I carry with me everywhere and all the time. My personal electric meter? The center where all my energy passes through? What if I loose energy there? What if my relationship with the past is an energy glutton interfering with my ability to have a relationship with the present?

Which important set of beliefs do I have to let go? Which hypothesis on life do I have to turn my back on to walk into the presence of now?

If this only would be as easy as changing a meter!

I decide to put my grandparents’ pictures out of my wallet. I didn’t even look at them for years now. It’s just a presence. Like a sound that is always there so that it feels like a disturbance when it suddenly isn’t there any more.

Am I ready for the silence?

Would a ceremony be appropriate to break from this decade old habit? Should I burn the crumpled images, watch the smoke dissolve into the openness of the sky and see them unite with the clouds?

Should I release them into the waters of a river and watch them disappear gently hopping up and down on the cheerful river waves - on their way into the vast range of the sea?

How can I make that part of me understand that never picked up language but listens to sounds and the emotions vibrating in them?

That part of me that understands a picture within a second even if the message contains volumes of meaning.

Am I ready for the silence?

By Detlef

Vacation time, vacation time,
it’ finally vacation time!
Sweet vacation yours and mine,
thank God it is vacation time.

Vacation time, vacation time,
best time of year: vacation time.
No work, no stress we all do pine
for the sweet vacation time.

Vacation time: best time of year.
Vacation time: it’s finally here.

And off we go into the sun
no phones we’re out of reach.
All things else are said and done
bye, bye we’re on the beach!

It’s vacation time - vacation time.

Vacation time, vacation time,
it’s finally vacation time.
Everybody is feeling fine
have a great vacation time!

Vacation time, vacation time,
It’ finally vacation time!
Sweet vacation yours and mine,
thank God it is vacation time.

Vacation time: best time of year.
Vacation time: it’s finally here.

Enjoying life a different way,
nature, hills or sea.
Vacation time is here to stay
that’s the way to be.

It’s vacation time - vacation time.

Vacation time, vacation time,
It’ finally vacation time!
Sweet vacation yours and mine,
thank God it is vacation time.

Vacation time, vacation time,
best time of year: vacation time.
everybody read the sign:
vacation time! Vacation time!.

Vacation time: best time of year.
Vacation time: it’s finally here.

yy

Hella found a bag of milk in river Wümme. The things people throw away carelessly ...

Hunting for water rats on the shore of beautiful lake Bullensee.

Hella carefully inspecting the shore. Mice? Rats? Frogs?